by Music-News.com

London's iconic venue The 100 Club is facing imminent closure if a cure for its financial woes cannot be found. The legendry venue has witnessed the West End debuts of Oasis, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Buzzcocks, while Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Paul Weller still tread the sacred boards.

Aerosmith's Joe Perry described the Oxford Street downstairs night spot as "the finest rock'n'roll club in the world" but in these testing times it seems that it could close within a few months because of soaring overheads unless a buyer can be found. Its rates (tax) bill has hit £4,000 ($6,500) per month and landlord Lazari Investments now demands a rent of £166,000 ($270,000) a year reports the London Evening Standard.

Fortunately, the club continues to receive increasingly high profile pledges of support from the worlds of rock and blues.

New Blues pioneer Stephen Dale Petit has announced the donation of all proceeds from the forthcoming single taken from his new album The Crave, the appropriately titled Need Your Love So Bad, to the Save The 100 Club campaign. The single, now officially titled Need Your Love So Bad (Save The 100 Club) is released on December 6th and is expected to sell heavily to an enthusiastic, fast-growing and proactive grassroots movement which includes nearly 20,000 Facebook supporters.

This follows Stephen Dale Petit's December 1st 100 Club Benefit gig at the club featuring Special Guests, Rolling Stones' guitarists Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor and (exclusively confirmed here) a rare live appearance from octogenarian British Blues Boom architect, jazz trombonist Chris Barber.

In the early 1960s, Barber (along with blues trailblazers Alexis Korner and John Mayall) was directly responsible for encouraging young hopeful musicians like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and members of The Rolling Stones and helped to foment the British Blues explosion that in turn resulted in the British Blues Invasion exported back to the US in the mid to late 1960s.

Organizer Petit enthuses "It's fantastic that Chris Barber's coming down to play. He's the Godfather of modern British music and his connections to the 100 Club are deep and longstanding."

More names for the December 1st Benefit will be announced in coming weeks.

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