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Sat 11 Nov 2002The Man, the musicBIOGRAPHY: The1960s in Belfast were full of music. The city centre had many clubs and dance halls, pubs and "hops" where an extraordinary variety of performed music was on display.From traditional Irish music to "trad" to music hall (the dying embers) to showbands and the proliferating urban sound of r 'n' b - that rawer, passionate bluesy encounter that became a signature of the times. Certainly for many of the young generation born in the postwar provincial city, venues such as the Maritime (at the side of Inst' school) or Sammy Huston's Jazz Club in Great Victoria Street became meccas of dance and live music. Before the curtain dropped in the late 1960s and the city, despite the best efforts of thousands of ordinary men and women who braved the terror, fell for over a decade into a kind of fragmented darkness, Belfast's vibrant music scene was a liberation.