British rock

According to Encyclopdia Britannica, rock and roll, also called rock n roll or rock
& roll, is a style of popular music that originated in the United States in the mid-1950s and
that evolved by the mid-1960s into the more encompassing international style known as rock
music, though the latter also continued to be known as rock and roll.
British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom.
Since around 1964, with the so called "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by
the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on not only the development of
American music but also rock music across the world.1
Initial attempts to emulate American rock and roll took place in Britain in the mid1950s, but the terms "rock music" and "rock" usually refer to the music derived from the
blues-rock and other genres that emerged during the 1960s.
The phrase rocking and rolling originally described the movement of a ship on the
ocean, but was used by the early twentieth century, to describe a spiritual fervor. Various
gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently
but still intermittently in the late 1930s and 1940s, principally on recordings and in reviews
of what became known as rhythm and blues music aimed at a black audience. In 1951,
Cleveland-based disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the
term rock and roll to describe it.
The term is often used in combination with other terms to describe a variety of hybrids
or sub-genres, and is often contrasted with pop music, with which it shares many structures
and instrumentation. Rock music has tended to be more oriented toward the albums market,
putting an emphasis on innovation, virtuosity, performance and song writing by the
performers.2
Although much too diverse to be a genre in itself, British rock has produced many of
the most significant groups and performers in rock music internationally, and has initiated or
significantly developed many of the most influential sub-genres, including beat music,
progressive rock, art rock, heavy metal music, punk, post punk, new romanticism, and indie
rock.

V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. rlewine, All music guide to rock: the definitive guide to rock, pop, and
soul (Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), pp. 1316-7.
2
S. Frith, "Pop Music" in S. Frith, W. Stray and J. Street, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock
(Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 93-108.

Early British rock and roll

In the 1950s, Britain was well placed to receive American rock and roll music and
culture.3 It shared a common language, had been exposed to American culture through the
stationing of troops in the country, and shared many social developments, including the
emergence of distinct youth sub-cultures, which in Britain included the Teddy Boys, a British
subculture typified by young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn
by dandies in the Edwardian period.4 Traditional Jazz became popular, and many of its
musicians were influenced by related American styles, including Boogie Woogie and the
Blues.
At the same time British audiences were beginning to encounter American rock and
roll, initially through films including Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Rock Around the Clock
(1955). Both films contained the Bill Haley & His Comets hit "Rock Around the Clock",
which first entered the British charts in early 1955 - four months before it reached the US pop
charts - topped the British charts later that year and again in 1956, and helped identify rock
and roll with teenage delinquency.5 American rock and roll acts such as Elvis Presley, Little
Richard and Buddy Holly thereafter became major forces in the British charts.
The initial response of the British music industry was to attempt to produce copies of
American records, recorded with session musicians and often fronted by teen idols. British
rock and rollers soon began to appear, including Wee Willie Harris and Tommy Steele.
The bland or wholly imitative form of much British rock and roll in this period meant
that the American product remained dominant. However, in 1958 Britain produced its first
"authentic" rock and roll song and star, when Cliff Richard reached number 2 in the charts
with "Move It". British impresario Larry Parnes fashioned young singers to the new trend,
giving them corny names such as Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Vince Eager.
Cliff Richard and his backing band The Shadows were the most successful home
grown rock and roll based acts of the era. Other leading acts included Joe Brown, and Johnny
Kidd & The Pirates, whose 1960 hit song "Shakin' All Over" became a rock and roll standard.
The first American rock and roll artist to hit British stages and appear on television was Gene
Vincent in December 1959, soon joined on tour by his friend Eddie Cochran. The producer
3

R. Unterberger, "British Rock & Roll Before the Beatles", All Music Guides,
http://www.allmusic.com/explore/essay/
4
D. O'Sullivan, The Youth Culture London: Taylor & Francis, 1974), pp. 38-9.
5
T. Gracyk, I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity (Temple University Press, 2001), p. 117-8.

Joe Meek was the first to produce sizeable rock hits in England, culminating with The
Tornados' instrumental "Telstar", which went to number one in both the UK and USA.

The development of British rock in the 1960s and early 1970s

Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat (for bands from Liverpool and nearby areas
beside the River Mersey) is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United
Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll (mainly Chuck Berry
guitar style and the midtempo beat of Lubbock sound artists like Buddy Holly), skiffle and
R&B. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British invasion of the
American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important
developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the rock group around lead,
rhythm and bass guitars with drums.
In late 1950s Britain a flourishing culture of groups began to emerge, often out of the
declining skiffle scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham and London. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has been estimated
that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and
clubs.
These beat bands were heavily influenced by American groups of the era, such as
Buddy Holly and the Crickets (from which group The Beatles derived their name), as well as
earlier British groups such as The Shadows. After the national success of the Beatles in
Britain from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the
charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers, and Cilla Black.
Among the most successful beat acts from Birmingham were The Spencer Davis
Group and The Moody Blues; The Animals came from Newcastle, and Them, featuring Van
Morrison, from Belfast. From London, the term Tottenham Sound was largely based around
The Dave Clark Five, but other London bands that benefited from the beat boom of this era
included the Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Yardbirds.
The first non-Liverpool, non-Brian Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK
were Freddie and the Dreamers, who were based in Manchester, as were Herman's Hermits
and The Hollies.6 The beat movement provided most of the bands responsible for the British
invasion of the American pop charts in the period after 1964, and furnished the model for
6

V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, and S. T. Erlewine, All music guide to rock: the definitive guide to rock, pop, and
soul (Backbeat Books, 2002), p. 532.

many important developments in pop and rock music, particularly through their small group
format - typically lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often keyboards, either
with a lead singer or with one of the other musicians taking lead vocals and the others
providing vocal harmonies.

British blues boom

In parallel with beat music, in the late 1950s and early 1960s a British blues scene was
developing recreating the sounds of American R&B and later particularly the sounds of
bluesmen Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. 7 Initially led by purist blues
followers such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, it reached its height of mainstream
popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by
electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of the genre including The
Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin. A number of
these moved through Blues-rock to different forms of rock music, with increasing emphasis
on technical virtuosity and improvisational skills. As a result British blues helped to form
many of the sub-genres of rock, including psychedelic rock and heavy metal music. Since
then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have
returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest
in the genre.8

The Beatles and the "British Invasion"

The arrival of The Beatles in the U.S., and subsequent appearance on The Ed Sullivan
Show, marked the start of the British Invasion.
The Beatles themselves were less influenced by blues music than the music of later
American genres such as soul and Motown. Their popular success in Britain in the early
1960s was matched by their new and highly influential emphases on their own song writing,
and on technical production values, some of which were shared by other British beat groups.
On 7 February 1964, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite ran a story about The
Beatles' United States arrival in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time

V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, S. T. Erlewine, eds, All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues
(Backbeat, 3rd edn., 2003), p. 700.
8
V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, S. T. Erlewine, eds, All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues
(Backbeat, 3rd edn., 2003), p. 700.

goes by the code name Beatlemania" 9. A few days later, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan
Show.
Seventy five percent of Americans watching television that night viewed their
appearance thus "launching" the invasion with a massive wave of chart success that would
continue until the Beatles broke up in 1970. On 4 April 1964, the Beatles held the top 5
positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the only time to date that any act has
accomplished this. During the next two years, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred
Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders,
Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, and Donovan would have one or more
number one singles in the US. Other acts that were part of the "invasion" included The Who,
The Kinks, and The Dave Clark Five; these acts were also successful within the UK, although
clearly the term "British Invasion" itself was not applied there except as a description of what
was happening in the USA.
So-called "British Invasion" acts influenced fashion, haircuts and manners of the
1960s of what was to be known as the "Counterculture". In particular, the Beatles' movie A
Hard Day's Night and fashions from Carnaby Street led American media to proclaim England
as the centre of the music and fashion world.
The success of British acts of the time, particularly that of the Beatles themselves, has
been seen as revitalising rock music in the US and influenced many American bands to
develop their sound and style. The growth of the British music industry itself, and its
increasingly prominent global role in the forefront of changing popular culture, also enabled it
to discover and first establish the success of new rock artists from elsewhere in the world,
notably Jimi Hendrix and, in the early 1970s, Bob Marley. 10

Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic music is a style of music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and
attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs. It
particularly grew out of blues-rock and progressive folk music and drew on non-Western
sources such as Indian music's ragas and sitars as well as studio effects and long instrumental
passages and surreal lyrics. It emerged during the mid-1960s among progressive folk acts in
Britain such as The Incredible String Band and Donovan, as well as in the United States, and
rapidly moved into rock and pop music being taken up by acts including the Beatles, The
9

The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit

S. Frith, "Pop Music" in S. Frith, W. Stray and J. Street, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock
(Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 93-108.
10

Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, Small Faces, The Move, Traffic, Cream and Pink Floyd.
Psychedelic rock bridged the transition from early blues-rock to progressive rock, art rock,
experimental rock, hard rock and eventually heavy metal that would become major genres in
the 1970s.11

Mainstream and global success

By the early 1970s, rock music had become more mainstream, and internationalised, with
many British acts becoming massively successful in the United States and globally. Some of
the most successful artists, such as Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Elton John, David Bowie,
and Rod Stewart performed their own songs (and in some cases those written by others) in an
eclectic variety of styles, in which the presentation of the performance itself became
increasingly important.12 By way of contrast, Status Quo became one of the most successful
British rock acts by presenting an apparently unsophisticated style of boogie-based rock
music;] and Van Morrison gained international critical acclaim through a blend of rock, jazz
and blues styles. Some well-established British bands that began their careers in the British
Invasion, notably The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, also developed their own
particular styles and expanded their international fan base during that period, but would be
joined by new acts in new styles and sub-genres.13

11

E. Macan, Rocking the classics: English progressive rock and the counterculture (Oxford: Oxford University
Press US, 1997), p. 68.
12
D. Else, Britain (Lonely Planet, 5th edn., 2003), p. 57.
13
J. Atkins, The Who on record: a critical history, 1963-1998 (McFarland, 2000), p. 11.