America, after a show in Wisconsin, the local Catholic Church sent an urgent message to the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warning that âPresley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ⦠[His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. â¦â American youth, meanwhile, took a different view. After the show, more than a thousand teenagers tried to get into Presleyâs room at the auditorium. Youth culture had arrived and led to a whole new way of life, not just in music but in everything, especially clothes.
Until the 1950s, youngsters followed their parentsâ fashions, but, with the birth of rockânâroll, this changed forever. Teenagers were no longer younger copies of their parents, but became people in their own right with their own fashions, language and identity, of which the Teddy Boys were the most extreme example. At school, the first signs of this came when many of the boys stopped wearing school uniform. It had never actually been compulsory, although most wore it but in the late 1950s there was a big fashion for leather jackets, something our parents would never dream of wearing. Most boys had black jackets, a few had red ones, but even then, although I wanted to take part in this rebellion, I still wanted to show my individuality and so I persuaded Mum and Dad to buy me a green leather jacket. I was the only boy at school to have a green one.
Milk bars with jukeboxes also arrived as places where teenagers could hang out on their own and where kids were encouraged to listen to and even make their own music, skiffle. Hackney had its very own milk bar in Mare Street, where you could also buy that other modern innovation: espresso coffee straight from Italy. To see the shiny new Gaggia Espresso Machine spluttering away amid clouds of steam and spilling out its glamorous new drink was a wonderful and liberating experience, one that belonged exclusively to the young. Not only was skiffle played on the jukebox but groups of kids would give impromptu performances too.
British skiffle music was a homegrown development of American rockânâroll that shot to prominence following the release of Lonnie Doneganâs hit record âRock Island Lineâ in 1956. Its main appeal was that it was cheap to imitate and therefore popular among the young, who could improvise or build their own instruments at little or no cost. Not only was skiffle a different type of music, one we could call our own, but it was also easy to have a go. No need for expensive instruments, just get a secondhand beat-up guitar or, if you couldnât afford that, you could join in with your mumâs washboard or a large box with a string attached for a bass. And, better still, you didnât even have to be American. Whereas rock stars like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were looked on as superstars that we could never aspire to be, the leading skiffle proponents were local working-class kids like ourselves. Along with Lonnie Donegan, other homegrown acts such as The Vipers and Tommy Steele burst onto the scene, encouraging British kids like me to have a go. When I was ten years old, there was talk of some of us in ourclass forming a homemade skiffle group. I auditioned in front of the boy who decided heâd be the group leader, giving a full rendition of âCumberland Gapâ. I thought Iâd performed pretty well, but his only comment was, âYou need to move your hips more.â And so, at the tender age of ten, that was the end of my career as a rock star. Mind you, the group never formed anyway.
My parents and grandparents were forever grumbling about rockânâroll. Although not quite a teenager yet myself, I wanted to watch television programmes like 6:5 Special and Oh Boy! just coming on to BBC television in the late 1950s to cater for this new young audience but Dad wouldnât hear of it. âThat music is
Until the 1950s, youngsters followed their parentsâ fashions, but, with the birth of rockânâroll, this changed forever. Teenagers were no longer younger copies of their parents, but became people in their own right with their own fashions, language and identity, of which the Teddy Boys were the most extreme example. At school, the first signs of this came when many of the boys stopped wearing school uniform. It had never actually been compulsory, although most wore it but in the late 1950s there was a big fashion for leather jackets, something our parents would never dream of wearing. Most boys had black jackets, a few had red ones, but even then, although I wanted to take part in this rebellion, I still wanted to show my individuality and so I persuaded Mum and Dad to buy me a green leather jacket. I was the only boy at school to have a green one.
Milk bars with jukeboxes also arrived as places where teenagers could hang out on their own and where kids were encouraged to listen to and even make their own music, skiffle. Hackney had its very own milk bar in Mare Street, where you could also buy that other modern innovation: espresso coffee straight from Italy. To see the shiny new Gaggia Espresso Machine spluttering away amid clouds of steam and spilling out its glamorous new drink was a wonderful and liberating experience, one that belonged exclusively to the young. Not only was skiffle played on the jukebox but groups of kids would give impromptu performances too.
British skiffle music was a homegrown development of American rockânâroll that shot to prominence following the release of Lonnie Doneganâs hit record âRock Island Lineâ in 1956. Its main appeal was that it was cheap to imitate and therefore popular among the young, who could improvise or build their own instruments at little or no cost. Not only was skiffle a different type of music, one we could call our own, but it was also easy to have a go. No need for expensive instruments, just get a secondhand beat-up guitar or, if you couldnât afford that, you could join in with your mumâs washboard or a large box with a string attached for a bass. And, better still, you didnât even have to be American. Whereas rock stars like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were looked on as superstars that we could never aspire to be, the leading skiffle proponents were local working-class kids like ourselves. Along with Lonnie Donegan, other homegrown acts such as The Vipers and Tommy Steele burst onto the scene, encouraging British kids like me to have a go. When I was ten years old, there was talk of some of us in ourclass forming a homemade skiffle group. I auditioned in front of the boy who decided heâd be the group leader, giving a full rendition of âCumberland Gapâ. I thought Iâd performed pretty well, but his only comment was, âYou need to move your hips more.â And so, at the tender age of ten, that was the end of my career as a rock star. Mind you, the group never formed anyway.
My parents and grandparents were forever grumbling about rockânâroll. Although not quite a teenager yet myself, I wanted to watch television programmes like 6:5 Special and Oh Boy! just coming on to BBC television in the late 1950s to cater for this new young audience but Dad wouldnât hear of it. âThat music is
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