The Who
Event: 23 Jan 1965 · Corn Exchange.
Network: event record → Corn Exchange → artist index.
Context source: Peter Searles' oral history independently discusses the Corn Exchange and top bands appearing there, including The Who.
Artist-level evidence layer
Artist Evidence Network
A bidirectional map between artists, source records, venues and event records. The purpose is to show exactly why an artist appears in the archive, without treating every mention as a confirmed Chelmsford performance.
Method: an artist can enter this network through a dated event record, an oral-history recollection, a surviving listing, memorabilia, or wider scene context. Those evidence classes are kept separate.
Jimi Hendrix
Event: 25 Feb 1967 · Corn Exchange.
Network: event record → venue chronology/dossier → artist index.
The artist link remains anchored to the dated event record; wider oral-history context is not used to manufacture an additional date.
The Clash
Event: 27 May 1977 · Chancellor Hall.
Network: event record → Chancellor Hall → punk scene sources.
Paul Cleary and Ian Fortnam provide independent scene context around Chancellor Hall and Chelmsford punk, but the dated event remains a separate evidence object.
Dr Feelgood
Event: 7 Nov 1990 · Chancellor Hall.
Context: Paul Cleary's oral history records his first attended gig in 1974 at Chancellor Hall, with Dr Feelgood, but this is not evidence for the 1990 date.
Pink Floyd
Event: 23 Sep 1967 · Corn Exchange.
Network: dated event record → Corn Exchange dossier → artist index.
No additional date is inferred from the broader 1960s scene evidence.
Blue Ramblers
Evidence class: oral history / local scene context.
J. Alliston's catalogue record covers the Blue Ramblers, dance-band bookings, Shire Hall, weekly Odeon dances and the changing live-music scene in Chelmsford. It is not being converted wholesale into a dated gig list.
Evidence rules
- A dated event record remains the primary route to a confirmed event.
- An oral history can corroborate venue use or scene context without proving an exact date.
- A catalogue description proves that a source exists and describes its scope; it does not substitute for reading the underlying record.
- Memorabilia can establish that an object survives and what it says, but an undated object does not acquire a date by association.
- Where two sources overlap, the overlap is recorded as corroboration only when their evidential claims genuinely intersect.
Research access
Essex Archives Online describes catalogue holdings but does not expose the full text of every document. ERO says most records have not been digitised and can require Searchroom access, a copy request or a search.