Of all the swinging London hotspots of the fifties and sixties, few names compare to the celebrated Flamingo Club.

Opened in 1952 as a jazz venue by Jeffrey Kruger, the club became the heart of London’s blues, soul and R&B scene, a place to see and be seen, where the audience was often more star-studded than the stage.

A cramped dark basement in Wardour Street, affectionately known to its regulars as The Mingo, where house bands kept the packed crowds dancing into the early hours, while all-nighter sessions saw musicians emerge from the crowds to sit in and jam.

All that will be celebrated this Friday night at Fairfield Halls as the latest Maximum Rhythm & Blues tour recreate A Night at the Flamingo with the Alan Price Set, Zoot Money and Chris Farlowe.

So who's idea was it to take the Flamingo out to the people?

“That would be mine,” laughs Price.

"Because it figured so large in my life when I first came down to London with The Animals.

"It was the place to go, especially the all-nighters towards the weekend, if you were a musician working out of town and had just come back in, the Flamingo was still going strong at three or four in the morning.

"Of course, that was in the days when we all had the energy to keep going until that time.”

When I jokingly suggest that the Fairfield are unlikely to let us stay that late, Price laughs again.

“No, no, the whole idea is to recreate the feel, the ambience of the old Flamingo, with everybody out for a good time, which was essentially what happened," he says.

"The band room, which was just off the back of the stage, was always full of people.

"The club didn’t serve alcohol, but some people would take a coke bottle and just top it up with a little dash of scotch.”

Although Alan has since played Croydon many times, I wondered if he remembered an early appearance at The Star Hotel in Broad Green with The Animals.

“That was down to Giorgio Gomelsky, a svengali figure who originally had the Rolling Stones on a contract," he says.

"He came up to Newcastle to arrange a sort of cultural exchange for ourselves and The Yardbirds.

"They did our circuit in the north east and we came down to London to work theirs, which would have included the Star in Croydon.

"It worked well for us, it gave us our introduction in London and we got the residency at the Scene Club, sleeping on camp beds and living on a diet of All Bran and Newcastle brown ale. But at least we were regular!”

Maximum Rhythm 'n' Blues: A Night at the Flamingo featuring the Alan Price Set with Zoot Money and Bobby Tench, plus special guests Chris Farlowe and Maggie Bell, Fairfield Halls, October 9, 8pm, £17.50. Call 020 8688 9291 or visit fairfield.co.uk.