Home of Metal have been out and about this week interviewing three people, visiting the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Collection Centre and attending the Museums Association Conference in Manchester.

One of our interviewees was Kevin Duffy, author of “Mothers, the home of good sounds 1968-1971”. The book, the result of a local history project Kevin conducted as part of his work as a community librarian in Erdington, was published by Birmingham Museum and Library Service in 1997. It remains the definitive work on an otherwise undocumented club and is a well-regarded example of local history done to a high standard.

The book and club are eloquently described elsewhere – but for those who aren’t already aware Mothers, a club on Erdington High Street north of Birmingham city centre hosted a Led Zeppelin concert in March 1969 and number of Black Sabbath gigs in 1968/69.

During our meeting we got to see some of the material that Kevin collected whilst working on the project and picked up some exciting leads relevant to Home of Metal.

Kevin’s book drew heavily on several newspaper articles about Mothers and we have added photos of the original pieces to our archive.