Throwback Thursdays: Vintage Notting Hill Carnival Videos

Words by Jesse Serwer, Photos by Norman Craig—

Founded in 1965 (after an earlier indoors incarnation), Notting Hill Carnival has grown from a local community event meant to stave off racial tensions in a neighborhood that was then seeing a large influx of Caribbean immigrants, into Europe’s largest street festival. Held each year on England’s August bank holiday Monday and the preceding Sunday, today it attracts upwards of one million people to th,e now-gentrified Notting Hill and surrounding North London areas like Ladbroke Grove. While putting together our guide to this year’s festivities, we couldn’t help but notice there’s some really great footage of the Carnival in eras gone by, which collectively showcase how it has grown and changed. Click through below for an audio/visual history lesson on England’s biggest party.

A 1976 reggae documentary from U.K. channel ITV’s “Aquarius” series captured this incredible footage of singer Delroy Washington performing “Jah Wonderfull,” backed by a band including Angus “Drummie Zeb” Gaye, Tony Robinson and other future members of Aswad. You needn’t have been alive then or ever been to London for this footage to transport you right back to Notting Hill, 1976.

An unknown singer who may or may not be called Junior Wilson performs in this late ’70s clip, inrerspliced with footage of West Indians playing soccer and practicing karate. Delroy Washington was inaccurately ID’ed on YouTube as the singer but chimed in on the comments to say it’s not him. Anyone know who it is?

On the the last day of the Carnival in 1976, a riot broke out between mostly young, Caribbean revelers and the police force. This clip, soundtracked by Dominican calypsonian Lord Shorty, contains newsreel footage from that day.

This short documentary on Good Times sound system operator and legendary U.K. radio DJ Norman Jay tells the story of how he introduced soul music to the reggae-dominated Carnival mix, with some rare footage of vintage carnivals.

This extended clip drops you right in the middle of Saxon Studio’s Carnival set from 1994— the same year Saxon won World Clash—as England’s No. 1 all-time sound drops dubs from Bounty, Beenie, Spragga and more before moving into lyrics, and jungle.