In terms of innovation it's probably fair to say that from the end of the First World War right through to the closing years of the 1950's, i.e. the pre-Beatles era, Britain was a fairly sterile place for popular music. The main vehicles for popular song in the 1920's - music hall and musical theatre - were inward looking and rather parochial, and in the case of the former, at the beginning of a long decline. Britain's Big Bands were also a pale shadow of their American counterparts during the 1920's and 1930's, a dilute reflection of the scene Stateside.
The wartime years of 1939-1945 on the other hand retain a special resonance in the British psyche, the popular songs of the day reflecting both defiant patriotism and a nostalgic longing. When Vera Lynn sang her two iconic songs We'll Meet Again and The White Cliffs Of Dover, she sang for a fearful but determined nation.

The immediate post-war years saw British popular music once again bogged down in a fairly barren landscape. Across the Atlantic early r&b was beginning to take over from the Big Band sound, but Britain, lacking ethnic and cultural diversity, had a moribund pop scene still dominated by dance orchestras fronted by cabaret singers. Television was just beginning to get off the ground, but it was through the radio, the era's main vehicle for mass home entertainment, that the increasingly insistent rumblings of the seismic shift taking place in American popular music could increasingly be detected.
In the early 1950's Lonnie Donegan, Ken Colyer and Chris Barber picked up on 1920's Chicago "spasm band" jazz and the jug-band traditions originally found in turn of the century New Orleans and, by combining them with bluegrass, came up with skiffle, a style which didn't really have a direct equivalent in America. Donegan had a huge hit by applying the style to Rock Island Line, a Leadbelly song from the 1930's, setting in motion a mini-craze which lasted until the late 1950's. By this time, however, a musical revolution called rock & roll was really beginning to stir up the turgid British music scene.
One of it's earliest beneficiaries was Cliff Richard, whose early hits include Ian Samwell's 1958 classic Move It and Livin' Doll in 1959, a song written by Lionel Bart. Another heart-throb of the time, Adam Faith, went to No.1 with What Do You Want?, courtesy of Johnny Worth (a.k.a. Les Vandyke), who also had a big influence writing for and promoting another early rocker, Eden Kane.
But it was Johnny Kidd who came up with perhaps the most significant British song of the time, the rock & roll standard Shakin' All Over, which was a smash hit for Johnny and The Pirates in 1960. It's revolutionary sound had a formative influence on many early British rock bands which followed, particularly The Who.
Rock & roll sparked Britain's dormant youth culture into life, and, inspired by The Beatles and the pioneers of the British Invasion, it has been at the forefront of popular music ever since.

{back}      {next}