Martyn Allam (1948 – 28 March 2008), known professionally as Tallulah, was a German-born, London-based, British DJ, recording artist, producer, and club promoter. Tallulah's music career spanned from 1972 until his death in 2008.
Tallulah was at the heart of London's club scene for more than 40 years, 35 years of those as a DJ, alternative performer, club and bar promoter, and personality.The Times, 8 April 2008 – Obituary DJ Tallulah (retrieved 28 November 2017) His lifestyle and career linked him to figures such as playwright Joe Orton and Orton's partner, actor Kenneth Williams and DJ Kenny Everett.’Pioneering gay scene DJ Tallulah ... partied alongside the likes of Joe Orton, Kenneth Williams and Leigh Bowery’: London’s DJ Tallulah Dies, obituary, hkclubbing, published March 29, 2008, (retrieved June 16, 2023). His career also included jobs as a restaurateur, and hotel manager.
Family
Allam was born in 1948 in Hamburg to English parents. His father worked in the catering and hotel industry and was stationed in Hamburg after World War II to help with the Reclamation. His father's job in Hamburg involved helping to re-establish a hotel. After living in Hamburg for three years, Allam travelled to the UK with his grandmother, where he remained living. When his parents returned to the UK to live permanently, Allam rejoined them. The family moved to nearby Barnehurst in north-west Kent. Just before Allam joined primary school the family relocated again, this time to Maidstone where he spent most of his childhood and early adolescence.
At the age of fifteen, Allam attended catering college (East Kent College) in Broadstairs. His early interest in music and fashion stemmed from this era: "It would be ’66. I was well into music by then. Those towns and London were very mod influenced. You know what it’s like being brought up in the suburbs: for you to make a statement, you put yourself up for criticism in the way you dress, especially during the ’60s."Tallulah interview conducted by Bill Brewster at DJhistory.com (July 2004) The first record Allam purchased was Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals (1963), which he bought from a record store in Maidstone. The first vinyl album he bought, I Put A Spell On You by Nina Simone (1965), was from HMV record store in Oxford Street, London.
The initial moment Allam came face to face with his sexuality was when his parents sent him to ballroom dance classes at the Palace Theatre in Maidstone: "Not the best thing to do with a son who’s slightly fey."
Allam became fashion conscious during his early days at college but, as his finances were limited by being a student, in order to look fashionable he resorted to making his own outfits. He would buy Simplicity Patterns and purchase material from a market stall and cut and stitch the clothes himself, but make them tighter than usual. By his late teens, Allam was tall, over 6 ft 2 in, skinny and admitted to being flamboyant. By this time he already knew he was gay, and immersed himself in London's underground homosexual scene and nightlife. As such he came into contact with many closeted gay famous personalities.
It was in Canterbury at the Queens Head pub that Allam first met the pirate radio DJ Tom Edwards. Edwards was a DJ on Radio City (a key pirate radio station). They became lifelong friends. It was Edwards that christened Allam 'Tallulah' on a Sunday night at a pub in Herne Bay. The name stuck.
After Allam's studies at college ended he took a job at the Cora Hotel in Upper Woburn Place in Bloomsbury, London, which he eventually managed.
It was at this hotel that he first met the actor Kenneth Williams who lived in an apartment opposite the hotel. Allam would visit Williams at his apartment for tea, and Williams would sometimes rope Allam in to read his scripts with him, with Williams occasionally asking Allam for his opinion of them. Around this period, Allam also socialized with such nonconformist figures as Hugh Paddick, Joe Orton, Kenneth Halliwell, and Victor Spinetti, although Allam confessed there was no glamour involved in these acquaintances. Most of them were experiencing financial hardship and meetings usually took place over a glass of wine around the kitchen table in one of their apartments.
Career
Early career Tallulah started his DJ career in 1972 in a small club in Pimlico called the Escort. In between spinning discs his job also entailed acting as the coat-check, collecting empty glasses and keeping the toilets clean. The cabaret act at the club was Hinge & Bracket who went on to achieve huge fame and became a fixture on British TV with their own TV shows and national tours. During the early 1970s, the music played in gay clubs changed considerably due to American imports being readily available in several Soho record stores. British entrepreneur Jerry Collins was so impressed by Studio One, a gay disco in Los Angeles, that he returned to London determined to give the capital the same thing.Cultures of Consumption by Frank Mort, publ. Routledge (1996), , page 168 ‘BANG was a deliberate attempt by its deejay and co-founder Jerry Collins to follow an American club model–specifically the Studio One club in Los Angeles. Multiple bars, an extensive dance-floor and effective sound systems were the hallmarks of this venture. As at BANG, the emphasis was on size and scale, symbolizing the increased visibility of gay culture.’
The gay disco BANGThe Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture (1955-1979) by Jon Savage, Faber & Faber, , publ. June 2024 - BANG (disco, London), p. 584-5, 601, 603, opened in 1976 at the Sundown (a former ballroom/dance hall) in the basement of the Astoria Theatre at 157 Charing Cross Road. During this embryonic period of London's gay club culture, Tallulah was still working full-time as a hotel manager as well as DJing most evenings. Tallulah became a resident DJ at BANG in 1976.The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture (1955-1979) by Jon Savage, Faber & Faber, , publ. June 2024 - Tallulah (Martyn Allam), p. 601DJ Magazine, 30 July 2015 - Special Feature: The Gay DNA of House Music (article) by Stewart Who: (retrieved 29 November 2017) It could be said that Tallullah was one of the originators of London's gay club scene as he was DJing at such seminal clubs as BANG and Scandals during the 1970s.
Tallulah recalled during an interview with Luke Howard in 2006 how the emergence of BANG in 1976 took London by storm, bringing night-clubbing to another level: "Everyone on the scene went to BANG, it appealed to all sorts of queens: leather queens, clones, twirlers and trolley dollies who'd come back from New York City and tell us what the hot tracks were over there. BANG was a major event on the scene. We had a phone in the DJ booth that linked to the lighting booth and we'd call up the engineer and tell him to do a black out at the next break, or when to use the strobe effects or do a balloon drop. There was also a huge cinema screen at the back, as the Sundown [Astoria] was a converted cinema, and we'd show Busby Berkeley dance routines from all the old Hollywood musicals." BANG was the UK's first mega gay club. It was founded by Jack Barrie (manager of the Marquee Club in Soho) and disc jockey Gary London (aka Gerry Collins) who worked as an engineer at the Marquee Recording Studios.The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture (1955-1979) by Jon Savage, Faber & Faber, , publ. June 2024 - Jack Barrie, p. 601 The club ran on Monday evenings.
The resident DJ's at BANG were Gary London, Tallulah and Norman Scott.Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, Publisher Headline (22 May 2006) , various pages. "The minute it came on the scene, it was a huge hit," recalled Tallulah. "The queues! It went right round past 100 Club." Its instant success prompted the founders to open a second night weekly on Thursdays. The club attracted the likes of Andy Warhol and his entourage, Rudolph Nureyev, Rock Hudson,The Way Out: (International Library of Twentieth Century History) by Sebastian Buckle, publisher: I.B.Tauris (30 June 2015), , page 147 – Bang attracted crowds of celebrities 'including Rod Stewart, Rock Hudson and David Bowie.' Elton John, actors, pop stars, film directors and London's fashionista. Its 1,000-plus capacity took for the first time gay clubbing in the UK into the mainstream. 1976 was also when the first commercially available 12 inch recordings became available, which were ideal for a club like BANG.
Relocation to New York In 1977, Tallulah visited New York where he remained for over a year. It was whilst he was living in New York that he worked at the renowned club Studio 54 behind the bar and operating the lights in the lighting rig (not as a DJ). He did, however, get his Cinderella moment one night and stood in for a DJ that did not turn up for work due to sickness. When asked later in life about dance music culture, Tallulah said: "The rave lifestyle of Ibiza in the late '80s was just a vanilla version of the New York gay lifestyle of the '70s."DJ Magazine, 30 July 2015 - Special Feature: The Gay DNA of House Music (article) by Stewart Who: (retrieved 29 November 2017)
When Tallulah first went to Studio 54 in New York, he literally fell at the feet of the owner of the club Steve Rubell. 'I'd moved to New York for 18 months, where I worked at Studio 54. The first time I went there I fell over the velvet rope and landed at Steve Rubell's feet and when I stood up I asked him for a job. He put me behind the bar for a while and I stayed for 3 months and probably DJ’ed there about nine times until I got a summer season DJ residency at The Sandpiper on Fire Island.
New York Shooting One night whilst Tallulah was living in New York he was on his way to the Anvil Club when he was shot and passed out. In hospital, nurses found in his arm a pellet dipped in horse tranquilliser. In later years Tallulah would boast, 'I was the first K tragedy.'
Return to London Upon his return to London, Allam found himself homeless and moved into the Notting Hill apartment of the pop musician Iain 'Rudi' Williams,Circus Circus Comes To Town ‘London has a new Sunday night club, Circus Circus, at Studio Valbonne, Kingly Street, W1. ... first nighters included Rudi Williams of the band Dance on a Telephone.’ Capital Gay, News, Nov. 18, 1983, page 7. who later became one-half of the pop duo Big Bang. Also living at the apartment was Williams's friend Granville King who also happened to be Allam's friend, hence the connection. It was Granville (unbeknown to Williams) that allowed Allam to stay temporarily at the apartment while Williams was away. When Williams returned to the UK after a visit abroad, Allam was still staying at Williams’ apartment. Allam remained as a guest at the apartment for over 10 years. Granville was a hairdresser and owned Tallulah Hairdressing Salon in Coram Street, Bloomsbury, (which was named after Tallulah) and was also an alternative cabaret/drag artiste named Gina King, who went on to win the Porchester Hall Drag Ball one year in the late-70s.Granville King (aka Gina King), winner of the Porchester Hall Drag Ball, late-1970s: Gina King in costume (pic. 1)Granville King (aka Gina King), winner of the Porchester Hall Drag Ball, late-1970s: Gina King in costume (pic. 2) Tallulah, Granville and Williams labeled themselves ‘The Colville Set,’ in a nod to the former artistic 'Bloomsbury Set' and after the bohemian district of Colville in Notting Hill in which they resided.DJ Tallulah aka Martyn Allam ‘Tallulah, Williams and King lived together in Williams's Notting Hill apartment during the 1970s/80s and called themselves The Colville Set, a nod to the artistic Bloomsbury Set.’