The man behind one of the county’s most in-demand music nights tells Jo Roberts how, as a Virgin Records boss in 1977, he was arrested for a controversial Sex Pistols window display.

He may not perform himself, but the lifelong music fan behind Whitstable Sessions Music Club has an A-grade rock ‘n’ roll moment of his own.

Former Virgin Records big cheese Johnny Fewings was overseeing the Park Lane store in London in 1977 when the Sex Pistols released the album Never Mind The Bollocks.

After receiving a warning from the police about the ‘offensive’ posters in his window display, and refusing to take them down, he was arrested.

“I was charged under the Indecent Advertisement section of the 1824 Vagrancy Act,” says Johnny, 61. “Another store manager was also arrested and came to court before me. He was found not guilty so they dropped the case against me.”

Johnny has worked in the entertainment industry for almost 40 years, first at Virgin Records where he was ultimately managing director and then with Polygram and Universal Pictures.

The same love of music that inspired Johnny’s stand against the law burns just as strong today and testament to it is the Whitstable Sessions Music Club, which hosts sell-out gigs each month with world-class roots and folk artists.

Recent guests have included the Orchestra That Fell To Earth, made up of original members of the groundbreaking Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Irish jazz and blues star Mary Coughlan and Maria Muldaur, original singer of Midnight at the Oasis.

Whitstable Sessions hosts its gigs at the Royal Native Oyster Stores building on the beach, which has a capacity fo 150 people. Despite the fact that tickets sell like hot cakes, Johnny wouldn’t consider a move to a larger venue. “No, the venue is half the show,” he says. “The stage is the white wooden bit of the Royal Native Oyster Stores which hangs out over the beach. When Mary Gauthier from Nashville visited us she just stopped and said, ‘We should all be looking out at this beautiful sunset!’”

The club has built up a loyal following over its four years and Johnny is also keen that newcomers hear about it and come along despite the jostle for tickets. He says: “People come from London because the music is global and it’s quite big acts within this genre of acoustic roots music, which includes folk, blues, country, Americana – we’ve even had a New Orleans street jazz singer, Meschiya Lake.”

Johnny’s personal highlight looking back was a less-known band called Furnace Mountain, from Virginia.

“They are not one that people will have necessarily heard of, but it was one of the top 10 gigs that I’ve ever been to, up there with Bob Dylan and Tom Waits,” he says.

Next up on Friday, May 9 is American singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson, daughter of writer Terry Gilkyson whose songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, the White Stripes and Dean Martin.

With artists of such calibre, Johnny – who runs the club with wife Anna and ‘a team of fantastic helpers’ – doesn’t find it hard to believe that the monthly night has become one of Kent’s most sought after. He says: “I moved to Whitstable in 1973 as a University of Kent student and there has always been a strong music scene and an artistic community here. Combined with the level of acts that we’re getting, it doesn’t surprise me that we are filling the venue.”

SUMMER SESSIONS

Politically minded, poetically gifted singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson appears at the Whitstable Sessions at the Royal Native Oyster Stores on Friday, May 9.

Martha Tilston and the Scientists, with special guest Nathan Ball, perform at the Whitstable Sessions on Friday, June 13.

Tarras Minor guest at the Whitstable Sessions on Friday, July 18.

The Mountain Firework Company visit the Whitstable Sessions on Friday, August 22.

All tickets cost £14. Book early or miss out. Visit www.whitstablesessions.co.uk