Lindisfarne sang about the Fog on the Tyne, Mark Knopfler about Cullercoats and Whitley Bay, and Alan Price chimed in with the Jarrow Song.
Now an event on Monday, November 9 will examine how the North East’s people, places and landscapes have inspired artistic expression, storytelling and cultural identity.
Titled Planning, Place and Creative Inspiration, it will be hosted by Newcastle University’s Farrell Centre.
It will feature an interview-style conversation with Maxïmo Park lead singer and solo artist Paul Smith, exploring the influence of the North East and its places on music and creativity.
The event, organised by the Royal Town Planning Institute, will also explore through film, photography, music and discussion how creativity helps people understand and celebrate the places around us.
The evening will be chaired by Alastair Welch, RTPI regional chair, and another participant will be Ellen Stone, curator, writer and creative director at The Side in Newcastle, where she leads the curatorial development of the AmberSide Collection.
Her work focuses on documentary photography, working-class and popular cultures, and the relationship between photography and social history. She has a particular interest in how photography records communities through periods of cultural change.
Today, the AmberSide Collection is an archive of more than 20,000 photographs and 100 films, preserving the social, architectural and industrial history of the North East.
It extends beyond Amber’s own photography, embracing historic works such as The Building of the Tyne Bridge and images by Jimmy Forsyth, who documented life in Newcastle’s West End.
Among the photographers represented are Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, whose acclaimed Byker and Byker Revisited projects captured a changing Newcastle community, and Tish Murtha, whose work included Juvenile Jazz Bands and Youth Unemployment.
The collection also features work by Mik Critchlow, who documented life in Ashington and the Northumberland coalfield, Chris Killip, whose subjects included the communities of Skinningrove, and Bill Brandt, whose photographs captured life on Tyneside.
The Farrell Centre is also hosting, until November 27, an exhibition which celebrates 30 years of the top architectural accolade, the RIBA Stirling Prize, which was won in 2002 by the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.