obbie Robinson will go down in history as the man who successfully read the riot act to the Jacksons to get them to bury their differences and appear on stage.

It was on February 19, 1979, that Mr Robinson, the manager for 19 years of the of the Civic Theatre in Halifax (now the Victoria Theatre), found himself facing a rebellion from Michael and his brothers, who had been booked for two shows at 6.45pm and 9.15pm.

Although the second house was virtually a sell-out, the audience for the first house was sparse, and because of that the Jacksons weren’t happy to go ahead with the second show. There had been some arguing between them from the moment they arrived at the theatre which had led to one of them asking for a separate dressing room.

Robbie Robinson, who died in 2004, said of that night: “When I got there they were messing around and the eventual outcome was that I told them, Michael Jackson included, that I wanted them on to the stage – now, do the show, and get out of the building as soon as they had finished. They all looked at me in a state of shock, because I added that they would never play at any theatre where I was in charge, ever again! So you see – we all make mistakes!”

Assistant manager Les Milner confirmed the story, adding: “To give them full credit, after Robbie had got them together and given them the hard word, they went on stage and were superb. No-one in the audience would have known about the troubles.”

Not a lot of people know that. Nor will many people have seen the only photograph taken during that visit, of Michael Jackson sitting with three local girls who were allowed backstage.

This is typical of the sort of priceless insider material included in Small Town Saturday Night Volume 2, Trevor Simpson’s second book of pop-music memories of Halifax (and by association Bradford) in the 1960s.

Trevor was around throughout that era and has again done a marvellous job of recreating it in detail through interviews and meticulous research. At the launch of the book last week broadcaster Ian Clayton described it as “a work of scholarship”, and that indeed is what it is. No stone has been left unturned, no file left unopened, no photo album left unthumbed-through, in the quest for material.

Like its predecessor, this is a book packed with information and images. There are photographs galore, many of them previously unpublished – including one of Dusty Springfield when she was a member of The Lana Sisters, barely recognisable without the trademark make-up that came with her Springfield days.

There are gig tickets, record sleeves, reproduced newspaper cuttings. And there is absolutely masses of anecdotes and hard facts about scores of artists and bands.

One of Halifax’s famous sons was Don Lang, he of Frantic Five fame. An adopted famous son was New Orleans-born bluesman Champion Jack Dupree, who in 1959 married 18-year-old Shirley Harrison from Halifax, who had been a waitress in the London club where he had been performing.

They came to live in Ovenden, which was Jack Dupree’s base for the rest of his career, his big American car becoming a familiar sight around the town. Visitors to the house included Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker and BB King.

His eldest daughter Georgina, who still lives in Halifax with her husband and four children, told Trevor: “I suppose he was just like the dad of everyone else except when my dad went to work he could be gone for the night, a week or even a month.”

There’s a comprehensive history in the book of Bradford band Smokie, going back through their Kindness and Elizabethans days to their beginnings at St Bede’s Grammar School.

And four full pages, plus a host of other passing references, are devoted to Bradford’s own Garth Cawood, who Trevor Simpson describes (accurately, as always) as “theatrical agent, entrepreneur, compere, promoter and all-round good egg.”

A photograph on the back of the book shows him surrounded by the Beatles, whose show he compered when they appeared with Mr Acker Bilk at the Queen’s Hall in Leeds.

Garth, who still sings with Bradford rock’n’roll group The Dingos, wins his place in a book about Halifax largely because he was the man behind most of the booking for the dances at the Alexandra Hall. But Trevor Simpson reminds readers that his parents, who were professional ballroom dancers, owned the Tudor Ballroom at Dudley Hill where, around 1954, young Garth had a splendid idea.

While the resident band were having their half-hour smoking/drinking break he could keep the dancing going by playing records. But he didn’t just play them. He announced them with the help of an autochange radiogramme which allowed a few seconds between records while the next one in the stack of 78s dropped on to the turntable.

And so a disc-jockey was born.

l Small Town Saturday Night Vol 2 (with 264 pages and lots of colour illustrations) costs £16.95 from Wade’s Bookshop in Rawson Street, Halifax; Jumbo Records in the St John Centre, Leeds; and Wall Of Sound Records in Huddersfield.