The Birth of Rock & Roll in Britain

I've just finished The Restless Generation by Pete Frame (he of Rock Family Trees fame). It chronicles the birth of rock & roll in 1950s Britain and was a right riveting read about a subject I knew very little about.

First off, it’s not my kind of music, but to be taken back to the era – a time of continuing austerity, national service, the emergence of teenagers, the fascination with all things American and the beginnings of popular culture – brought it all to life.

So it seemed to begin in the early 50s with jazzmen like Bill & Ken Colyer, Chris Barber and the likes. They and others (many as merchant seamen) had been to America and came back wide-eyed. They started to play rootsier jazz and blues. Then Lonnie Donnegan made it even simpler with washboards and box bass and it became known as Skiffle. In July 1954 he recorded Rock Island Line (in the same week as Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right), although it would be two years before it was released.

In the meantime Bill Haley, Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and others were releasing a totally new sound. Not that you could hear much of it in Britain. The BBC were sniffy and the Musicians Union restrictive about air time. One of the few that did get released here was Heartbreak Hotel, described by the NME as follows: “If you like gimmick voices, Elvis will slay you. But if you appreciate good singing, I don’t suppose you’ll manage to hear this disc all through.” The Melody Maker went further, with this famous quote from Steve Race: “Viewed as a social phenomenon, the current craze for rock & roll is one of the most terrifying things ever to have happened to popular music. The promotion and acceptance of this cult is a monstrous threat… let us oppose it to the end.”

By 1956, Skiffle was huge. It was still mostly American songs, largely about trains and sung with American accents. It wasn’t yet rock, more a hybrid of jazz & blues still, and also folk. Nevertheless, Donnegan's Rock Island Line sold a million copies (but only earned him £3.10/-). The first real rock & roll record by a British singer was arguably Tommy Steele’s Rock With The Caveman. The difference was a more insistent beat, amplification, formulaic lyrics which had switched from trains to getting or losing a gal, and, crucially, sex appeal. Bands, especially the singers, needed to look cool and rebelious, like their American heroes. "All our school photographs looked as if we were waiting to go into the army; theirs looked like police mug-shots".

Suddenly, jazz musicians (particularly the brass sections) were history. Many switched allegiances: “I’ve been a martyr long enough – now I want to eat! That’s the great things about rock and roll… we get an audience! It’s a question of economics: I am merely giving the public what it wants.”

Everyone wanted to be in on the act. Managers like Larry Parnes prowled venues like The 2Is on London's Old Compton Street for teenage talent he could mould; Jack Good put them on TV. Everyone but everyone changed their name: Tommy Hicks became Steele, Reginald Smith became Marty Wilde, Maurice Holden became Vince Taylor, Ronnie Wycherley became Billy Fury, Clive Powell became Georgie Fame, Brian Rankin became Hank Marvin, and of course Harry Webb metamorphosed into Cliff Richard.

Many were one-hit wonders, others had two or three years in the spotlight, touring up and down the country, performing twice a night with seven other bands, Sundays off if they were lucky, panto at Christmas. “Looking back, it seems amazing that everything fell into place so smoothly”, said one rocker, “but we accepted it as the way things were done. What you did was form a group, do some gigs, make a demo, go and see a man with a big cigar, he got you a recording contract, you went on television and signed autographs, and all the girls loved you. That’s exactly the way it happened: we hardly gave it a second thought.”

And yet so much was based on chance. Most groups’ singles were poorly arranged and recorded tunes pulled from obscure American records (not even the good ones, which they couldn't improve upon). Cliff Richard’s career could have stalled if Jack Good hadn’t swapped the dull A-side, Schoolboy Crush, for the band-penned B-side, Move It.

But enough! As you can see I really enjoyed the book. Pity there were no pictures, but that's a minor gripe. I can also recommend two good compilations: Skiffle - the Essential Collection (2CD) [btw, the review here is by D.Elliott, but not me!] and British Rock'n'Roll Anthology (5CD).