British music before the Beatles

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Rorschach
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British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 08:58

It really wasn’t very good, was it.

Compared to what the US had been putting out for years, British pop/rock music seems incredibly feeble.
Brand New Cadillac by Vince Taylor is a pretty good record but he’s not a very good singer and, anyway, he was brought up in the States. Then there’s Cliff and Move It. It’s a decent record but if it had been recorded by an American in America it would have just been lost among the vast number of slightly better records being produced at the time.
Tommy Steele and Joe Brown? I enjoy their records a bit but, you know, is that the best we could do?
It probably was at the time.
There is the splendid Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, the one British pre-Beatles chart band who seemed to actually understand rock ‘n’ roll with splendid guitar work from Joe Moretti (who also shone on Brand New Cadillac). And it wasn’t just Shakin’ All Over either; they had several great recordings. It’s a real shame the record label had no idea how to deal with them. It was only at the last minute that Shakin’ All Over was chosen as the single over a cover of Ain’t She Sweet.
There’s also Lonnie Donegan who even managed to have a hit in the US. I think he was an authentic star who actually understood the music he was ripping off.

But I can’t think of anything else worth mentioning. It makes the achievements of the Beatles in particular, and the Mersey scene in general, all the more remarkable. From nowhere, for a few years, the UK fought toe to toe with the US in terms of the quality of rock and pop produced. It’s still a creditable second (arguably).

But anyway, Am I missing anything important from the pre-Beatles era?

(I think Rayge’s argument that the Beatles ruined American music has a lot of merit but that’s another issue.)
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby GoogaMooga » 12 May 2022, 09:11

You're missing plenty. All the Joe Meek stuff, Helen Shapiro, Matt Monro, Marty Wilde, Shadows, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, the list goes on and on. It may not all be "rawk", but so what.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby naughty boy » 12 May 2022, 09:42

GoogaMooga wrote:You're missing plenty. All the Joe Meek stuff, Helen Shapiro, Matt Monro, Marty Wilde, Shadows, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, the list goes on and on. It may not all be "rawk", but so what.


It's not so much that it doesn't rock, it's that half of those artists (Shapiro, Matt M, Marty W and Adam F) are rubbish.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rayge » 12 May 2022, 10:00

OUTPLAY wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:You're missing plenty. All the Joe Meek stuff, Helen Shapiro, Matt Monro, Marty Wilde, Shadows, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, the list goes on and on. It may not all be "rawk", but so what.


It's not so much that it doesn't rock, it's that half of those artists (Shapiro, Matt M, Marty W and Adam F) are rubbish.

Helen Shapiro deffo wasn't rubbish, but she never pretended to have anything to do with rock & roll in the way the others did. Pure pop. Marty Wilde made a couple of goodish singles too, but yes, generally slim pickings for the nascent rock & roll fan. Joe Meek is a good shout, making a star out of John Leyton, but even he didn't really break through until Telstar, which came out roughly the same time as Love Me Do.
What needs mentioning is bleeding trad jazz, which of course nurtured the skiffle and blues/folk scenes that in turn would give rise to the British beat and blues booms of the 1960s, but also provided huge hits for the likes of Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 10:06

GoogaMooga wrote:You're missing plenty. All the Joe Meek stuff, Helen Shapiro, Matt Monro, Marty Wilde, Shadows, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, the list goes on and on. It may not all be "rawk", but so what.



What do you mean, 'so what'? That's what I was talking about. I wasn't including half of these because they're exactly NOT what I'm talking about.
I'll grant Joe Meek. He was on the right track sometimes and Billy Fury had his moments. I dithered about mentioning the Shadows and maybe I should have. Yeah, they were very good.

Adam Faith did Cheryl's Coming Home, which wasn't bad but John Ottway did it better. Apart from that, he, and all the Larry Parnes crew, are totally in the Tommy Steele camp; a second rate imitation of polite American imitations of homegrown US rock.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rayge » 12 May 2022, 10:12

Rorschach wrote:(I think Rayge’s argument that the Beatles ruined American music has a lot of merit but that’s another issue.)


Blimey, someone noticed.
To be fair, that argument is largely adapted from Nik Cohn's in Awopbopaloobop in which he suggested that the Bea*les' musical 'sophistication' and Dylan's lyrical ingenuity, largely destroyed and/or corralled the explosive revolutionary energy that he saw at the heart of rock & roll.
And my view, which is entirely the result of my being 13 years old and newly in love with music in 1962, was that the success of the Beatles and the Beat Boom bands in general (not just the 'Mersey Sound', there were London and Manchester bands involved too) in America, derailed and subsumed US trends that I loved (nascent soul, Brill Building/East Coast pop, the punky Californians, Svengali writer-producers, and so on). But I'm kind of over than now :) .
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby robertff » 12 May 2022, 10:41

To be brutally honest both American and British music wasn't that great immediately before the Beatles exploded the whole music scene, which is why both countries got so wholly and totally smitten by them.

I'm not saying that there weren't some great artists and records before but If the music scene in both those countries was so great, why did both cultures roll over quite so easily and readily to them and the British bands that immediately followed? In my mind the young of both cultures wanted to clear out the old and sweep in something a great deal more exciting, a bit like punk in the late 70s.


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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 10:46

Rayge wrote:
Rorschach wrote:(I think Rayge’s argument that the Beatles ruined American music has a lot of merit but that’s another issue.)


Blimey, someone noticed.
To be fair, that argument is largely adapted from Nik Cohn's in Awopbopaloobop in which he suggested that the Bea*les' musical 'sophistication' and Dylan's lyrical ingenuity, largely destroyed and/or corralled the explosive revolutionary energy that he saw at the heart of rock & roll.
And my view, which is entirely the result of my being 13 years old and newly in love with music in 1962, was that the success of the Beatles and the Beat Boom bands in general (not just the 'Mersey Sound', there were London and Manchester bands involved too) in America, derailed and subsumed US trends that I loved (nascent soul, Brill Building/East Coast pop, the punky Californians, Svengali writer-producers, and so on). But I'm kind of over than now :) .


In retrospect, I don't disagree with you. I think the British Invasion bands, the American reaction to them, and, as you pointed out, Dylan, also diverted a lot of energy away from types of music that might have otherwise flourished more completely. I love what resulted in the 60s and 70s but I can see how we all lost out on other music as a result.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 10:48

robertff wrote:To be brutally honest both American and British music wasn't that great immediately before the Beatles exploded the whole music scene, which is why both countries got so wholly and totally smitten by them.


In terms of chart music, that may well be true, but my point was that the UK never had much to shout about in terms of rock and roll before then whereas America had a LOT.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby robertff » 12 May 2022, 11:14

Rorschach wrote:
robertff wrote:To be brutally honest both American and British music wasn't that great immediately before the Beatles exploded the whole music scene, which is why both countries got so wholly and totally smitten by them.


In terms of chart music, that may well be true, but my point was that the UK never had much to shout about in terms of rock and roll before then whereas America had a LOT.



I wouldn't disagree with you about that at all Rorschach but even in the US rock 'n' roll, as it had been, was on the wane giving way to something much less exciting and tame. Without doubt the American music scene had been much better than the British scene and still was until the Beatles exploded.

As with Rayge, I was just entering a time in my life when I had begun to take an interest in pop music. In the very late 50s and very early 60s I lived in Australia and the music that filtered through was always mainly American, with a trickle diet of Aussie stuff. I loved Little Richard, Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Everleys and all those exciting US Rock 'n' Roll artists, hardly ever heard British ones. Prior to leaving for Australia though Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele, Cliff and the Shadows and Billy Fury were the British ones that I had heard, although I liked them at the time, they were pretty tame compared to the US ones I felt.

So I completely agree with you, the UK didn't have much to shout about music wise compared to the US but even in the US things had become a little less wild and exciting, prior to the Beatles and what followed.


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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 11:40

Fair enough. I think we're completely in agreement.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby GoogaMooga » 12 May 2022, 13:30

Kids in Denmark would party to Chris Barber et al pre-Beatles. And Tommy Steele was extremely popular, but when American imports became more common, it was curtains for Tommy.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby GoogaMooga » 12 May 2022, 18:11

Not sure about their timeline, but I'd add Dakotas to the great instrumental groups. "The Cruel Sea" is one of the all-time great instros.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Charlie O. » 12 May 2022, 18:52

I rate "Move It" more highly than Rorschach does. It may not be Elvis at Sun, but it certainly holds its own against most of the US output of the time. I wonder how things might have turned out had it been released and promoted here. (Cliff did manage to crack the US Top 30 with "Living Doll" and, a few years later, "It's All In The Game".)

And Johnny Kidd & The Pirates... their hearts (and chops) were clearly in the right place, but there's something too clean and reserved about the records (even "Shakin' All Over", which The Guess Who did a superior cover of a short time later). I bet they kicked all kinds of ass live, though.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Matt Wilson » 12 May 2022, 18:55

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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 12 May 2022, 19:13

Charlie O. wrote:..."Shakin' All Over", which The Guess Who did a superior cover of a short time later...


How dare you!

:x :x :x

We get one thing right and you claim Canadians did it better!

Canadians!!!!
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Charlie O. » 12 May 2022, 19:22

:lol:
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Darkness_Fish » 12 May 2022, 19:47

I'd take Ewan MacColl over every name mentioned so far. But America had jazz, which means they win.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Rorschach » 13 May 2022, 11:41

Darkness_Fish wrote:I'd take Ewan MacColl over every name mentioned so far. But America had jazz, which means they win.


Now, why doesn't that surprise me?

But anyway, excellent though he undoubtedly was, I wasn't talking about folk.

Or jazz.

You should start a thread about him. I don't know a lot but I'm a bit fascinated by his version of Dirty Old Town. The time signature surprises me every time I listen to it.
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Re: British music before the Beatles

Postby Darkness_Fish » 14 May 2022, 12:25

I guess I don't really separate things into different pots so much, it's all music, and he was definitely pre-Beatles. I'm not much of an expert on MacColl myself, though I probably know more about the man than the music. I only own a couple of comps, but I do listen to them an awful lot. He gets a lot of abuse for being a trad finger-in-ear folkie, but there's a lot of passion and a lot of fun in those recordings, as well as all the social history and songs about herring.
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