Manchester Must Dance - Mike Pickering & Kevin Cummins

From Manchester's backstreets to global dancefloors, hear from two pioneers in an in-conversation evening event at the John Rylands Library
About this Event

Mike Pickering has lived and worked through decades of rapid change in popular music. Firstly, as a musician in the bands Quando Quango and T-Coy, before moving on to be one of the UK’s most influential DJ’s introducing house music into the legendary Manchester club - The Haçienda. He signed Happy Mondays and James to Factory Records before working with Kasabian, Gossip and Calvin Harris at Sony. His Mercury Prize-winning, multi-million-selling group M People transformed the music industry's attitude to dance music. His remarkable story, as told in his new book Manchester Must Dance, introduces an array of friends and collaborators, many of whom would become important - and sometimes notorious - figures in music history.

In the pages of both the NME and The Face, Kevin Cummins helped establish the musical aesthetic of a generation. His work has graced many magazines, record sleeves and book jackets. Outside of music, he is in much demand as a portrait photographer and has worked extensively in British theatre, notably with The National Theatre, Manchester’s Royal Exchange, The Royal Opera House, The Royal Northern Ballet, The Liverpool Playhouse and The Oxford Playhouse. His photographs are held in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery.

Mike Pickering’s and Kevin Cummins personal archives are held at the University of Manchester as part of the British Pop Archive, based at the John Rylands Library.