American Song
American Song
When the Blues Came to Britain, the British Came to America Part 1
The BBC believed they had a responsibility to the nation to uphold the pre-war idea of ‘respectability’, or, at least, not broadcast music that could threaten the morality of England’s youth. It was a lot like the U.S. stations refused to broadcast black music in the U.S. in the ‘20s and ‘30s. More than that, they believed they claimed a responsibility to inform and educate the public in what it perceived as ‘good music’.
English kids were being seduced by the rhythm and forward thrust of American entertainment with movies like Blackboard Jungle (where Rock Around the Clock was heard for the first time), Elvis, and Bill Haley & the Comets. Both these bands were MAJOR influences on those four guys from Liverpool, England. The other musical influencers from America were the living legends of American Blues.
The timing was perfect for a musical revolution that would impact two continents!
Welcome to Episode Eight, Season Two in the American Song series: American Song Ushers in a Changing of the British Guard.
Thanks to Mark Davis, for the new bumper music included in this episode.
You can learn more about Mark and his music at www.towakeyou.com!
Anti-Americanism in England 1960
Water Boys “Old England is Dying”
After WW2, America continued to loom large in the minds of our English cousins, whom we’d defended during the war years. Opinions were divided. Some of the English thought we were naive, rude, materialistic and crass. Others thought we were generous, friendly, hardworking and strong. Of course, to this day we remain a bit of both. America’s presence as a major power could be felt everywhere in British society, and our culture was impacting many parts of English life; in the news, in the movies, even in the “Americanisms” – slang - that formed a big part of the vocabulary of British youth. Phrases like “ya, ya, ya”.
By 1960, The English novelist, Kingsley Amis was able to say that the ‘largely mistaken and dangerous’ state of British attitudes towards the US were commonly Anti-American.” Although we’d wanted to stay isolated prior to each world war, in actuality, those wars catapulted America to a position of global dominance, economically and militarily. We were the ‘leaders of the free world’. Negative British attitudes about America stemmed from envy, and a dislike for how we suddenly were ‘poking our noses’ into everybody else’s business! I remember when I was in my early 20s, on a trip through England, having a conversation with a guy I met in a youth hostel. I’d naively mentioned that America had come to save England during those years. I’d meant it in the way that I’d been taught it in school; America was a friend to Europe, especially our “English cousins”. I was surprised when the backpacker I was talking with shot back with a remark about how arrogant my statement was, and how America ought to get the hell out of Western Europe once and for all.
At the same time that America was ascending to most powerful nation status, England had lost its global empire, and it was pretty humiliating to the average Brit. The UK’s rebellious son was in full bloom, just as the Union Jack was being draped on the coffin of old Imperial Britain. An anti-American vibe grew out of British envy. Used to being number one, England had been lapped by their former colonies. On top of that, this was the era of the Cold War, and that brought a lot of new pressures to western Europe. It didn’t help much that America had such a heavy hand in influencing British foreign policy in those years, either. Pressure makes even the closest of friends quarrel.
Welcome to American Song, Season Two, Episode Eight.
American Music Ushers In a Changing of the British Guard
England was caught between two cultures: the old order and whatever came after it. The rigid class distinctions between upper and middle classes were disappearing, and government reforms had a lot to do with it. The Conservative Party with their slogan, “Set the People Free,” won the 1951 election, and popular culture began to replace stuffy, upper crust stuff like classical music, opera, theatre, and fine art with mass-market media like radio, movies, and television.
Pete Townshend – Music in England, Pre Beatles
Jazz and rock-a-billy music was the music the kids were dancing to in the clubs and music halls. Some old-time theaters were torn down, totally. However it was happening, the new music pushed out the older audiences and made way for a new, younger audience.
As the decade went on, British youth increasingly questioned and made fun of all the vestiges of pre-war culture. Stuffy classical music was out. Jazz, rock-n-roll, new movies, and television was ‘in’. Wagon Train Theme When TV was de-regulated in 1954, the doors were thrown wide open to usher in American pop culture. In fact, the number one show on English television in the 1950s was Wagon Train, an NBC program.
English kids were being seduced by the rhythm and forward thrust of American entertainment with movies like Blackboard Jungle (where Rock Around the Clock was heard for the first time), Elvis, and Bill Haley & the Comets. Both these bands were MAJOR influences on those four guys from Liverpool, England.
Episode 13, of Season One of American Song tells the story of the birth of rock and roll. Just like Muddy Waters sings it here on this song, The Blues Had a Baby, and they Named it Rock and Roll, from his album Hard Again. But English access to America’s music was, at first, restricted. Blues and Rock music came into jolly old England through its ports and the underground.
The Blues Had a Baby, and they Named it Rock & Roll – Muddy Waters
After WW 2, England remained connected to the US via the shipping fleets. In the 1950’s – Liverpool was still a bombed-out wreck, victim of the Nazi Blitzkrieg. Leaving Liverpool and going to places like New York was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz where suddenly everything goes Technicolor! In those post war years, the Brits discovered American blues records and they loved ‘em! The Cunard ships connecting America to England were the chief pipeline of American blues and rock and roll to Britain until the late 1950s. It was like a chemical reaction: The English youth had a deep respect for real, authentic American blues music.
England’s baby boom youth were desperate to cut loose from England’s traditional vaues. American teen rebellion – like rock and roll, American slang, jeans, and teen movies – was the powder keg that drove the explosion of teen culture and the rise of English bands and English mods and rockers.
In those days, Liverpool was the most important seaport, and the forbidden rock and roll fruit came through in small numbers, hand carried by English and American sailors nicknamed Cunard Yanks. One true case in point is the story of Ivan Haywood, who had happened to buy a black Gretsch guitar in New York in 1957, only to sell the guitar again when he met up with his fourteen-year old school mate, George Harrison. As Haywood put it, “I told him I wanted £90 for it but George said he only had £70. George bought the guitar on that condition, So I told him to write an IOU on the back of the customs receipt – because I knew he’d need that if he ever took the guitar abroad.” He signed it “G Harrison” and he played that guitar throughout his career; it’s the one he was holding on the cover of his Cloud Nine album!” George never did come back with the £20! Do you think maybe he couldn’t afford it?
Cunard Yanks - Here
Getting the music on English radio was an uphill climb, instead, it became kind of an underground movement. Most people first heard these great blues and early rock and roll records at their favorite hang outs, coming out of a juke box. Think about this: At the end of WW2, in 1945, there were a couple hundred jukeboxes around England. By 1958, it had mushroomed to an estimated thirteen thousand.
The BBC believed they had a responsibility to the nation to uphold the pre-war idea of ‘respectability’, or, at least, not broadcast music that could threaten the morality of England’s youth. It was a lot like the U.S. stations refused to broadcast black music in the U.S. in the ‘20s and ‘30s. More than that, they believed they claimed a responsibility to inform and educate the public in what it perceived as ‘good music’.
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) were like Orwell’s “thought police” in 1984.
(1984 Clip)
Along with the BBC, England’s music publishers, and talent managers also exerted great control on the music that was available in England. Like New York’s Tin Pan Alley or Brille Building, London had it’s own talented song-writers concentrated in one area called Denmark Street. Powerful talent managers who created and molded a set of Elvis and Buddy Holly imitators including Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury. Not a threatening or divisive one in the lot!
Cliff Richard – Livin’ Doll
The Cunard Yanks brought English music back to America, too, including this one – Cliff Richard and the Shadows, “Living Doll” from 1958. This is how music from newer British bands trickled into the United States in the months before the full-fledged British Invasion of the mid-1960s. The Cunard Yanks were priming a water pump that pretty soon became a flood as massive American demand for British music surged in the early 1960s.
Mark’s Bumper
Pirate Radio companies found a way around this by broadcasting into England from ships off the coast.
From the 1920s through the mid-1960s, the BBC was the sole broadcaster in England. "The government decided that radio was too influential as a means of mass communication to be in private hands," and rock and roll was officially banned from any airplay on Englash airwaves.
But baby boom-era England was not going to stand for that, and a number of enterprising people saw a business opportunity in the making! The first was Ronan O'Rahilly who saw in the small print that the English government's jurisdiction only extended 3 miles into the ocean. Not only that, but stations from neighboring countries already had placed so-called Pirate Radio ships off the English coast!
So, O'Rahilly got himself a 63-ton Danish passenger ferry, and he named it after JFK’s daughter, Caroline! He plunked it down in North Sea, just off Frinton, Essex, and hired a crew of DJs to literally play rock music around the clock. Their first broadcast was on Easter Sunday – truly, a miraculous day! Their first song —the Rolling Stones' single "It's All Over Now". You gotta love the not-so-subtle message!
"By playing nonstop current pop music in a situation where this had never before been available, Caroline had within months a larger audience than all the BBC stations combined," Moore explains.
Here's a recording of Radio Caroline and it’s DJ, Tony Blackburn in 1965. (Integrate Keep on Running)
Radio Caroline
Close:
In this episode, we’ve been talking about England the impact that American music had on British youth and British culture. As we’ll see in the next Episode of American Song, an incredible period of English music was about to burst on the scene! I hope you’ll join us for it!
And as always, if you’re as interested as I am in everything that was happening in and around this music, you can always visit the American Song podcast page on Facebook. All the sources for this, and other episodes can be found there!
And one more note: the new bumper music you’ve heard a few times in this episode was composed by my life-long friend, fellow adventurer in music, and gifted musician and songwriter, Mark Davis. You can learn more about Mark and his music at towakeyou.com
I’ll see you next time around, and thanks for listening! This has been Joe Hines.