Brum Beat

Brum Beat is a pretty comprehensive site dedicated to Birmingham's music scene of the 1960s.

"Norrie Paramore apparently came up with "Brum Beat" as part of an advertising campaign to promote national interest in the bands he had signed up from Birmingham, but Brum Beat would later become known more for the geographical location that certain groups and performers came from, rather than for a single unifying "sound". That geographical location not only included Birmingham, but also the heavily populated area to the west as far as Wolverhampton and known locally as the "Black Country" because of its long history of coal mining and heavy industrial activity. The area includes towns such as Walsall, Dudley, and Stourbridge.

"The West Midlands did have its own thriving music scene prior to the Mersey Sound, but few of the local performers were well known outside of the Birmingham area. Until recently, most of the local bands of that time were ignored and forgotten unless they had hit records or were in some way connected to a famous group. Many of the more well-known bands and performers on this site have both official and un-official web sites devoted to them. The intent of the Brum Beat web site is to gain recognition for as many as possible of the West Midlands groups from the 1960s who helped to create a scene that allowed so much individual and collective musical talent to flourish."