And people mistakenly think Neil Young’s song From Hank to Hendrix is about Hank Williams but of course in was Hank Marvin. If you hear Neil and the Squires local hits in the early sixties they are mostly Shadows style instrumentals
Radio Luxembourg wasn't a pirate station, it was a perfectly legal continental station that you could pick up in the UK and so a lot of their programming was aimed at Britain (and presented in English).
@@Dave062YTRadio Luxembourg was entirely legal, it had been broadcasting a service to Britain at night since the 1930s. There were two Radio Caroline’s - South, broadcasting off Felixstowe, and North from off the Isle of Man (North was my favourite radio station when I was a kid!). Lots of well-known DJs got started on Caroline. When I was at uni in the late 70s, one of the students I knew had been a part-time DJ on Caroline (under a pseudonym), and he lived in permanent fear of someone from the Home Office coming to arrest him!
He has had a top 5 album in the UK in 8 consecutive decades. He has sold 250 million records world wide and is the third best selling artist in the UK, behind Elvis and the Beatles. he has had 8 US top 40 singles, but never really broke through there. Devil Woman and We Don't Talk Anymore both sold a million in the US.
I voted for him too. My parents told me if you don't vote you have no right to complain about the government. I voted for him to take votes away for the big partys.
Fun fact: Hank Marvin, lead guitarist for The Shadows is also the Cockney rhyming slang for “Starving” “I’m bleedin’ Hank Marvin geeza, I can’t wait for me Lilly & Skinner”
As a Cliff Richard fan for over 40 years from the USA I would like to share a perspective about British music that you were not able to pick up from this excellent documentary. I once owned a copy of a book that listed the top ten songs on the British music charts for every week from 1954 to 1977. What I am about to say is based on my interpretation from what I remember from this book as well as other things I have heard about Cliff Richard. 1954 was the year that the British music charts were based on the sales of 45 records. Before 1954 the British music charts had been based on the sales of sheet music. In the 1950s the British record companies had complete control over the artists who had a contract with them and would dictate to them what song they would record for the record label. The song that the record label would select for their artist to record was always a cover of an American song. The music chart would give the name of the song, the person or group who performed it, and the song’s composer. I forgot if it was 1954, 1955, or perhaps it was in 1956 but for one week the same song written by the same composer was in the top ten British music charts about six or seven times by different artists on different record labels. When Cliff Richard started his music career his record company treated him the same way and instructed him to do a cover version of the American song Schoolboy Crush. While Cliff Richard did as his record company instructed him to do he got their permission to record an original song for the flip side of the 45 record. It is said Ian Samwell wrote the song Move It on a bus. After making the 45 with Schoolboy Crush on the primary side and Move It on the flip side the record company sent the 45 record out to all of the radio stations in the UK. The people working at these radio stations listen to the song Schoolboy Crush but never considered playing it on the radio. Because of a promise Cliff Richard had made to his father this could have been the end of his music career. One man named Jack Goode listened to the song Schoolboy Crush and had the same opinion as everyone else who had heard the song. Jack Goode did something that no one else thought to do. He flipped the 45 record over and listened to the song on the other side. Jack Goode immediately started to play the song Move It on his show and highly praised it. Word of mouth quickly spread throughout the UK and other radio stations followed Jack Goode’s example and started broadcasting the song on the flip side on their stations. This in part might have revolutionized the British music industry allowing the record companies to see that did not have to dictate to their artists what song they were going to record, but could allow the artists to try their own hand at song writing or as in Cliff Richard’s case surround yourself with people who were excellent songwriters and musicians. Of course The Beatles should be given full credit for creating a completely new sounding type of music.
Great comments sir. It's such a shame that Cliff never really made it in America. He is hugely popular all over the world and he's been doing it for well over sixty years. He did have a hit in America with Devil Woman. I'm so glad that you are a fan and haven't missed out on some really great songs. His worldwide record sales speaks for itself.
In spite of both Cliff and The Beatles being enormously successful, the most successful LP of the 1960s was The Sound Of Music which was the best selling record of 1965, 1966 and 1968 in the UK and spent more than 100 weeks in the top 10 in the United States.
@@Home-lb7jr Cliff did have some chart success in the 1980s (at least 3 Top 20s), but it's true, he's not exactly a household name in the US, unfortunately.
Billy Fury is a musical icon now pretty much forgotten, whilst Johnny Kid and the Pirates were the Adam and the Ants of their day. As for Cliff Richard...he goes on forever.
At last someone has mentioned the greatest rocker from that era. The late brilliant Ronald Wycherley aka Billy Fury from Liverpool. Billy was huge in the late 50's the 60's and early 70's. Not only was he a great singer but also wrote a lot of his own songs. The girls loved him and the boys wanted to be him. Sadly we lost him in 1983 at just 42 years old (same as Elvis) check out his album The Sound Of Fury.. a classic..
My mum was related to Cliff Richard. He's is a cousin of hers through the Webb side of her family (his real name is Harry Webb). She liked his music, she was the same age as him. Cant say i ever liked any of his music except the 'Comiic Relief' version of living doll with the Young Ones when i was a kid. We always knew we had a familial relation to "Cliff" but also due to someone undertaking a DNA family tree aswell as historic family research we have discovered a distant relation, to the actor/comedian Robert Webb. Plus American and Canadian family members we didnt jnow we had. Weve hit a bit of a roadblock on my great grandmas side who was indian, and we know she cane to England with her British husband, my scottish great grandad in around 1902-03 but we dont have any records of her to be able to begin tracing her background before then. With Cliff, we do know he was born whilst his parents were in India. But my great nan however, we have no idea wherein india to start, because we only know she wasnt bom in the area my great grandad met her. She was among the first group of indian Asians to settle in Birmingham in the early 20th century. Time will tell. I'm hoping the DNA work will give us an idea where to start.
Johnny Leyton was also an actor, he was in "The Great Escape" alongside many British and US icons, including Steve McQueen, last time I saw him on tv, he was talking to IoM TT legend Guy Martin, who was recreating Steve's barbed wire jump from the film. He was also in "Von Ryans Express" with Frank Sinatra. Marty Wilde has a daughter called Kim, who was very popular in the 80s/90s, and is one of a handful of British women to score a US No1.
I saw Johnny Leyton a few years ago on the same bill as Marty Wilde and Mike Berry. His singing wasn't on the same level as the other two. He is also extremely short, although next to Marty Wilde everyone is short.
Love cliff Richard , I went to see him in concert 2023 . I have been a fan of his since I was about 5 or 6 years old when I went to my first concert. The shadows are brilliant, Hank makes the guitar sing. cliff bought the guitar from America and it was the first one I'm the uk
What a blast from the past! Tommy Steele used to live near me and he used to come and dance around in the school playground when picking up his daughter from school
As an 8 year old in 1960 my father took me to the London Palladium to see Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The UK was still living in the past. We had only just got a black & white TV, outside things around seemed so dull and dreary. When the curtains lifted Cliff & the Shadows with their bright red guitars were there in full "Technicolor" it was unreal. So started my life long love of rock
Thank you so much for this. I was born in 1955 and this was my dad's era so I remember so much of this music and I love it. I can probably remember the words better than the sixties onwards.
The rise of early guitar records from the likes of the Shadows, makes you realize how 'pop' John Barry's production of the James Bond theme from 1962 actually was at the time.
Lonnie Donegan's son appeared on The Voice, in the UK! The Shadows' lead guitarist was called Hank Marvin, which is now commonly used as rhyming slang for starving 😅
They missed out Joe Brown, a London lad who backed Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent. He was very successful and was voted Britain's top performer in 1960. His daughter, Sam, also had a very successful recording career as well as being much in demand as a backing singer. Joe was great friends with George Harrison and performed beautifully at the Concert for George. Both were huge ukulele fans.
Love your reactions to these very dated, but important to the UK, singles. It's a bit of a shame though, that you didn't get to hear just a little more of each track
Really interesting I do hope you get the chance to listen to one or two of the influential tracks in entirety particularly Shaking all Over and Apache. Excellent analysis thank you
There's an interesting addendum here which is that one of the DJs in the burgeoning rap scene in New York in the 70s found a version of Apache and used it in his mixing sets. It had been covered a couple of times, by Danish guitarist Jorgen Ingman and also Seattle’s Ventures. Anyway, apparently the NY rap crowds loved it even though nobody knew what it was. Also, the Sugarhill Gang recorded Apache (Jump On It) in 1981.
At 4.38 there is a picture of Nancy Whiskey, when I went to Lloret de Mar, a small fishing village, on the Costa Brava in Spain in 1954 or 1955, she had an open air bar on the main promanade with fairy lights all round it, I was 8 or 9 and thought it was beautiful. I saw the Searchers at a local venue and went backstage to meet them, it was the first time I spoke to someone from Liverpool and had trouble understanding them if they spoke too fast! I was very disappointed that they were just normal sweaty, spotty boys! I also saw Jeff Beck playing in a local band at one of our town's weekly dances before fame whisked him away. I really enjoyed this video and your comments, it brought back many happy memories, thank you 😊
I still listen to some of these records that came out over a decade before I was born, I grew up with it having boomer siblings. It was nice to see guitarist Joe Morretti get a mention, also worth mentioning would be Big Jim Sullivan and Vic Flick who played on many British pop records and film soundtracks during the 50's and 60's.
What a great video! I always thought it strange that Rock around the clock was often described as the first rock tune, but when you drum to it, it has a swing beat and NOT a rock one. I still have all my old Shadows records and still bang away to them in the basement.
I’ve still got my dad’s membership card for the 2i’s coffee bar in Soho, it was the birthplace of rock n roll in London. It’s a fish and chip shop now! In the 80’s I used to go to a little local jazz club, Tony Crombie was the regular drummer there - one of the most laid back drummers I’ve ever seen 😊
Ps. He went onto appear in musicals like Half A Sixpence on Broadway, and the Disney movie Finnian's Rainbow. Last toured the UK in his late 70s, too. What a legend. Check out his cover of Tallahassee Lassie... Banger.
I'm from the UK but never really took to British music. I was the youngest of 7 kids, with a big age gap. My parebts loved Elvis Presley. My elder brothers followed on & loved Elvis , so that's what was played in our house. The beatles snook in when Elvis was making films. It would be interesting to see if they'd been so big if Elvis was still singing and not away. As John Lennon said .. "Before Elvis Presley, there was nothing"
Lonnie Donegan wrote the hit song "I'll never fall in love again" for Tom Jones. His son Peter Donegan went on The Voice UK and sung the song along with judge Tom Jones. You can find it on UA-cam.
I first saw Cliff Richard and the Shadows at the opening night of the ABC Theatre in Blackpool back in 1963. What a concert that was, the theatre was standing room only. Brian Bennett had just joined the Shadows as the drummer and it was his first 'live' performance with the group after replacing Tony Meehan the original drummer. Brian Bennett remained with the Shadows throughout the rest of their career and today has his own orchestra and released a hit album a few years ago called 'Shadowing John Barry' which included a track that had never been released by the Shadows which was released on this album with Brian Bennett as drummer and was probably the last time that the Shadows played together for a recording.
What is amazing, is how many of those early British rockers are still with us. A couple, like Cliff Richard are still performing. Of the survivors I include Cliff of corse, along wit Mary Wilde (Kim's dad), Tommy Steel and Helen Shapiro.
Really enjoyed this..watched a few times. "Teach You To Rock" is essentially sped up Bill Haley... more like swing than jazz to me, but they were jazz musicians so no doubt some influence. I had siblings nearly a decade older than me so grew up listening to what they played. I remember when I was little the family gathering around the television and everyone being very excited - the Beatles were going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. I feel like I was lucky to grow up in a great era of musical evolution and societal revolution.
In the 1950s I used to buy the charts newspaper Disc (rival to New Musical Express). In 1958 it profiled this new singer called Cliff Richard and his song Move It, saying how he would take the musical industry by storm. How right it was.
My favourite Lonnie Donegan songs were "Does your chewing gum lose it's flavour on the bedpost overnight" and "My old man's a Dustman". I was very young at the time...😁
As a young teen shopping for school uniform in London with me mum, we stopped by the Paris Theatre where the BBC were about to record Gerry and the Pacemakers - fresh from Liverpool. We went in and saw their first gig in London. I was knock over by them, bought the record, it went to no.1 “How Do You Do It!” Had already been recorded by the Beatles but they rejected it in favour of “Love Me Do” which didn’t hit no.1. G&PMs didn’t quite “fizzle out”, @JJLA, they had several more big hits and were still going for years. Many Liverpool bands were going for decades. It’s just that the Beatles were phenomenal. (In fact the Beatles fizzled out while many contemporary bands kept going!)
Please Please Me was number one in the UK charts that people actually paid attention to at the time; it was only number 2 in a fairly obscure chart that several years later morphed into the official BBC chart. At that point, it retrospectively became the yardstick by which singles in the early sixties were measured by.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned or cares, but the soldier at 6:35 surrounded by kids, is Burgess Meredith who played the Penguin in the 60s TV version of Batman
Britsh band with an eye patch is new to you ? Well okay, but he was the one that inspired David Bowie. Adam Ant and Pete Burns with the whole eye patch thing. So that's 4 UK acts with the eye patch gimmick..
That was really interesting! I was pretty familiar with it all, as I was a young kid at the time, with an older brother and two older sisters. I got Elvis and The Shadows from my brother, and Cliff and Buddy Holly from my sisters. Also, reading various Beatles books through the years, many of the artists drifted in and out of their story. As I say, fascinating.
Joe Meek was a big Buddy Holly fan. Due to debt, paranoia and depression he murdered his landlady and shot himself on the 8th anniversary of Buddy's death. Dickie Pride was an early member of the 27 club.
He was also gay at a time when it was illegal. The biggest tragedy was that all the royalties of his huge hit Telstar was held up because a French musician claimed that Joe Meek had stolen the tune from him. By the time that the court case was settled Joe Meek was dead. So sad.
My UA-cam algorithms led me to this channel, and I've watched a few reactions. But finally found someone that appreciates rock and roll as much as I do. As a Brit, however, I was lucky enough to know all about these British artists AND American artists, whereas (I guess) Americans didn't get to listen to a lot of good British artists?
Lonnie Donegan was banjo player in Chris barber's trad jazz band previously, plenty of happy tracks on here, but Petite Fleur, the clarinet hit, is a treat. We were glued to blurred tapes of The Perrry Como show which were shown on tv once a week hoping for glimpse of The Everlys and similar performing.
yet again i would recommend checking out the movie "The Boat That Rocked" the only way a lot of young people got to hear "modern" music even in the 60's
I remember watching a documentary about British 50's rock. Some American bands toured with British bands around Europe. They were shocked at how much the British bands used swear words and were generally just very working class with their language.
The book "Roots, Radicals and Rockers" by Billy Bragg is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating topic - not just about a minor musical movement but about the emergence of an entire music-based or adjacent, youth-led subculture that went on to change the world. "...a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it.... a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s."
You have a good ear J.. all British guitarists in the 1940/50’s are taught Jazz guitar. They were part of big bands & were rarely heard being backing rhythm section in concert with 5 to 35 musicians? This is why bands like the Beatles, Hollies, Small Faces & Kinks had unique rock n roll song arrangements!! Going to a jazz chord for different sounds while playing rock n roll. You were fantastic on the Beatles quiz, you did pause to think a lot & the pressure of being involved is different so I don’t think you can claim victory. I would love to see you go head to head with the lads tho ; preferably in person but on screens with defined rules is cool too 👌🏼 !! 🏴🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸
Cliff Richard 83 years young and still touring in 2024 ! this is a bit from 2018 tour at 77 years old !! LIVING DOLL - ua-cam.com/video/oo_x_hgYeX0/v-deo.html
I am at the ripe old age of 66 , the last gig I was at was The Killers but I did see Gerry and the Pacemakers , The searchers, this was in the 80s, in the late 70's I seen Rory Gallagher. Gary Moore before he hit the big time
The BBC held us back for many years with their old fashioned way of thinking and making us listen to what they thought we wanted to hear. It only got better when pirate radio came online.
Tommy Steele sculpted a statue of Eleanor Rigby and sold it to Liverpool City Council for 'Half A Sixpence' (the name of a musical he appeared in)....this was in the 1980s
Cliff richard also was in films he is still going in 2024 please have a look at summer holiday. The who came out at the same time as the beatles and the rolling stones they are my favourite early 1960s band .
Gerry and the Pacemakers song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' is still sung at Liverpool Football club's home games. Lord Sutch started the ' Raving Loony Party's that still stands a candidate in Parliamentary elections to this day
Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, pen name Novalis (1772 - 1801) "Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange." was something embraced by the surrealist art movement. I remember Tommy Steele being in the movie Finian's Rainbow (1968).
Cliff Richard reminds me of the tv show The Young Ones. Rik Mayall's character Rick was a big Cliff Richard fan. I think the first Comic Relief charity single was Cliff Richard and The Young Ones singing Living Doll.
British music was very popular both classical and popular during these periods. I don't where the idea 'land of no music' came from? Ralph Vaughn Williams collected many old British traditional songs to save them , then there was Purcell, Herscel etc :-)
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Hank Marvin is ludicrously underrated. He more than holds his own against Gilmour at the fender 50th anniversary gig
And people mistakenly think Neil Young’s song From Hank to Hendrix is about Hank Williams but of course in was Hank Marvin. If you hear Neil and the Squires local hits in the early sixties they are mostly Shadows style instrumentals
Truly brilliant guitar player. He now lives in Australia.
especially as his name is now rhyming slang for being hungry
Many British guitarists will cite Hank Marvin as their reason for picking up the instrument
@@blackcountryme "You must be Hank Marvin" (Starving)
ua-cam.com/video/cygzsMwGC70/v-deo.html
Cliff Richard is crazy because he is still going and since the 50’s has had a top 40 hit at least once a decade. Yes even in the 2020’s
Only singer to have had a Number 1 single in the UK in five consecutive decades.
More than 150 UK singles from 1958 (Move It) to 2022 (The Most Wonderful Time of the Year). The man's a legend.
Never broke America, but is one of the biggest sellers of all time.
Legend
And his calendar every year. Yuck.
Radio Luxembourg wasn't a pirate station, it was a perfectly legal continental station that you could pick up in the UK and so a lot of their programming was aimed at Britain (and presented in English).
The pirate stations weren't illegal until auntie had the law changed.
A lot of DJs on latter day radio started on Radio Luxembourg
Radio Caroline was the proper pirate station,being on a boat at sea ;Luxembourg was the forerunner of pirate radio but think it was legal
@@Dave062YTRadio Luxembourg was entirely legal, it had been broadcasting a service to Britain at night since the 1930s. There were two Radio Caroline’s - South, broadcasting off Felixstowe, and North from off the Isle of Man (North was my favourite radio station when I was a kid!). Lots of well-known DJs got started on Caroline. When I was at uni in the late 70s, one of the students I knew had been a part-time DJ on Caroline (under a pseudonym), and he lived in permanent fear of someone from the Home Office coming to arrest him!
@@MichaelOCallaghan-j7x I recall listening to a young whipper snapper on Luxembourg called Steve Wright. Whatever happened to him?
Between 1958 and 2009 Cliff Richard has had 124 top 40 hit singles in the UK charts including 14 at number one.
He has had a top 5 album in the UK in 8 consecutive decades. He has sold 250 million records world wide and is the third best selling artist in the UK, behind Elvis and the Beatles. he has had 8 US top 40 singles, but never really broke through there. Devil Woman and We Don't Talk Anymore both sold a million in the US.
Screaming Lord Sutch founded the "Official Monster Raving Loony Party" and stood as a candidate in 40 elections.
I used to vote for the monster raving loonies party I wish something like that still existed. We need a decent protest vote.
@corringhamdepot4434 Sounds like he would have fit right in with any political environment on this planet.
I voted for him too. My parents told me if you don't vote you have no right to complain about the government. I voted for him to take votes away for the big partys.
@@74kmullins You'll be wanting to look up Count Binface
my sister has got his hat
Wee Willie Harris is one of Ian Dury's 'Reasons to be Cheerful'
I knew him from that song, sadly Wee Willie passed away last year aged 90.
@QuiddDude
I done a couple of shows with Willie what a character he was..
Fun fact:
Hank Marvin, lead guitarist for The Shadows is also the Cockney rhyming slang for “Starving”
“I’m bleedin’ Hank Marvin geeza, I can’t wait for me Lilly & Skinner”
In Glasgow we call it Lee Marvin, not Hank Marvin.
Sometimes I say just I’m Hank and my husband knows 😂😂
As a Cliff Richard fan for over 40 years from the USA I would like to share a perspective about British music that you were not able to pick up from this excellent documentary. I once owned a copy of a book that listed the top ten songs on the British music charts for every week from 1954 to 1977. What I am about to say is based on my interpretation from what I remember from this book as well as other things I have heard about Cliff Richard. 1954 was the year that the British music charts were based on the sales of 45 records. Before 1954 the British music charts had been based on the sales of sheet music. In the 1950s the British record companies had complete control over the artists who had a contract with them and would dictate to them what song they would record for the record label. The song that the record label would select for their artist to record was always a cover of an American song. The music chart would give the name of the song, the person or group who performed it, and the song’s composer. I forgot if it was 1954, 1955, or perhaps it was in 1956 but for one week the same song written by the same composer was in the top ten British music charts about six or seven times by different artists on different record labels. When Cliff Richard started his music career his record company treated him the same way and instructed him to do a cover version of the American song Schoolboy Crush. While Cliff Richard did as his record company instructed him to do he got their permission to record an original song for the flip side of the 45 record. It is said Ian Samwell wrote the song Move It on a bus. After making the 45 with Schoolboy Crush on the primary side and Move It on the flip side the record company sent the 45 record out to all of the radio stations in the UK. The people working at these radio stations listen to the song Schoolboy Crush but never considered playing it on the radio. Because of a promise Cliff Richard had made to his father this could have been the end of his music career. One man named Jack Goode listened to the song Schoolboy Crush and had the same opinion as everyone else who had heard the song. Jack Goode did something that no one else thought to do. He flipped the 45 record over and listened to the song on the other side. Jack Goode immediately started to play the song Move It on his show and highly praised it. Word of mouth quickly spread throughout the UK and other radio stations followed Jack Goode’s example and started broadcasting the song on the flip side on their stations. This in part might have revolutionized the British music industry allowing the record companies to see that did not have to dictate to their artists what song they were going to record, but could allow the artists to try their own hand at song writing or as in Cliff Richard’s case surround yourself with people who were excellent songwriters and musicians. Of course The Beatles should be given full credit for creating a completely new sounding type of music.
Great comments sir. It's such a shame that Cliff never really made it in America. He is hugely popular all over the world and he's been doing it for well over sixty years. He did have a hit in America with Devil Woman. I'm so glad that you are a fan and haven't missed out on some really great songs. His worldwide record sales speaks for itself.
In spite of both Cliff and The Beatles being enormously successful, the most successful LP of the 1960s was The Sound Of Music which was the best selling record of 1965, 1966 and 1968 in the UK and spent more than 100 weeks in the top 10 in the United States.
Too much waffle.
@@Home-lb7jr Cliff did have some chart success in the 1980s (at least 3 Top 20s), but it's true, he's not exactly a household name in the US, unfortunately.
That was really interesting. As a Brit, I sort of knew the story, but seeing the progression spelt out and precisely how things developed was great.
Billy Fury is a musical icon now pretty much forgotten, whilst Johnny Kid and the Pirates were the Adam and the Ants of their day. As for Cliff Richard...he goes on forever.
At last someone has mentioned the greatest rocker from that era. The late brilliant Ronald Wycherley aka Billy Fury from Liverpool. Billy was huge in the late 50's the 60's and early 70's.
Not only was he a great singer but also wrote a lot of his own songs. The girls loved him and the boys wanted to be him. Sadly we lost him in 1983 at just 42 years old (same as Elvis) check out his album The Sound Of Fury.. a classic..
Marty Wilde has a legacy, his daughter Kim Wilde was a massive pop star in the UK in the 80's. She was great.
Kim Wild, had a massive hit with Kids in America.
Managed by her dad.
Also, she was stunning.
@@camoTiaras Just didn't want to say it unless I got cancelled. Yeah, she was a fox.
Same with the sixties folk revivalist Ewan McColl & his daughter Kirsty who was taken from the world so tragically.
In my late 70s and the late 50s and 60s were a fantastic time for music and thankyou for this content. Happy memories.
Marty Wilde is mentioned a few times - his daughter, Kim Wilde, was also a singer. Marty and his son wrote a lot of her songs.
My mum was related to Cliff Richard. He's is a cousin of hers through the Webb side of her family (his real name is Harry Webb). She liked his music, she was the same age as him. Cant say i ever liked any of his music except the 'Comiic Relief' version of living doll with the Young Ones when i was a kid.
We always knew we had a familial relation to "Cliff" but also due to someone undertaking a DNA family tree aswell as historic family research we have discovered a distant relation, to the actor/comedian Robert Webb. Plus American and Canadian family members we didnt jnow we had.
Weve hit a bit of a roadblock on my great grandmas side who was indian, and we know she cane to England with her British husband, my scottish great grandad in around 1902-03 but we dont have any records of her to be able to begin tracing her background before then. With Cliff, we do know he was born whilst his parents were in India. But my great nan however, we have no idea wherein india to start, because we only know she wasnt bom in the area my great grandad met her. She was among the first group of indian Asians to settle in Birmingham in the early 20th century. Time will tell. I'm hoping the DNA work will give us an idea where to start.
How good was that. Excellent documentary!! Just small transitions, that influence whole new sounds and genres.
Johnny Leyton was also an actor, he was in "The Great Escape" alongside many British and US icons, including Steve McQueen, last time I saw him on tv, he was talking to IoM TT legend Guy Martin, who was recreating Steve's barbed wire jump from the film. He was also in "Von Ryans Express" with Frank Sinatra. Marty Wilde has a daughter called Kim, who was very popular in the 80s/90s, and is one of a handful of British women to score a US No1.
I saw Johnny Leyton a few years ago on the same bill as Marty Wilde and Mike Berry. His singing wasn't on the same level as the other two. He is also extremely short, although next to Marty Wilde everyone is short.
Love cliff Richard , I went to see him in concert 2023 . I have been a fan of his since I was about 5 or 6 years old when I went to my first concert. The shadows are brilliant, Hank makes the guitar sing. cliff bought the guitar from America and it was the first one I'm the uk
What a blast from the past! Tommy Steele used to live near me and he used to come and dance around in the school playground when picking up his daughter from school
As an 8 year old in 1960 my father took me to the London Palladium to see Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The UK was still living in the past. We had only just got a black & white TV, outside things around seemed so dull and dreary. When the curtains lifted Cliff & the Shadows with their bright red guitars were there in full "Technicolor" it was unreal. So started my life long love of rock
Tommy Steele still going strong at 87.
Sir Cliff Richard still kicking at 83.
I think my mum went to see him in a West End musical in the late 70s or early 80s. Never knew he was really a rock'n'roll pioneer
@@gwaptivaYes, I remember seeing him in Hello Dolly, but he was probably most famous for the film Half a Sixpence.
I remember him in Finian’s Rainbow with Fred Astaire and Pet Clarke.
Yep Tommy Steele went on to be a huge musical theatre star. You can see him in the movie, Half a Sixpence. He lives in Richmond and is a total legend!
Thank you so much for this. I was born in 1955 and this was my dad's era so I remember so much of this music and I love it. I can probably remember the words better than the sixties onwards.
I love Tommy Steel and have seen him 3 times in different shows. I've seen sir Cliff Richard 7 times. He's in his early 80's and still doing concerts.
Shakin' All Over is one of the all-time classics - you should listen to it in its entirety!
Cliff is still recording today and his last Number 1 was 1999 and was still number 2 in 2000
Pirate rock band? Check out Adam and the Ants. Brilliant, and they had two drummers which actually worked!
Staaaaaand and Deliver. Your money or you life!
Oh my God! Adam and the Ants were…and still are amazing. Years ahead of their time.
@Paul_Bond Adam and the Ants had hits in the US . I think the name of one was “ Goody Two Shoes” ? I love that song to pieces! They’re really good.
Adam covered Shakin all over by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates in the 90s. Can be found on live records of Adam and videos on UA-cam.
@@ebbhead20 Thanks ☺What is the 90?
Love how Tony Crombie just continues to play jazz and calls it rock 'n' roll to score an audience! All the rock hits you love, now jazzified!
The rise of early guitar records from the likes of the Shadows, makes you realize how 'pop' John Barry's production of the James Bond theme from 1962 actually was at the time.
Lonnie, wrote I'll never fall in love again, for Tom Jones.
Lonnie Donegan's son appeared on The Voice, in the UK! The Shadows' lead guitarist was called Hank Marvin, which is now commonly used as rhyming slang for starving 😅
They missed out Joe Brown, a London lad who backed Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent. He was very successful and was voted Britain's top performer in 1960. His daughter, Sam, also had a very successful recording career as well as being much in demand as a backing singer. Joe was great friends with George Harrison and performed beautifully at the Concert for George. Both were huge ukulele fans.
I saw Eddie Cochrane at the Liverpool Empire on the Sunday, four weeks before he died.
Love your reactions to these very dated, but important to the UK, singles. It's a bit of a shame though, that you didn't get to hear just a little more of each track
Prob.due to copywrites
I hear you tube shuts down if it’s too long.
Really interesting I do hope you get the chance to listen to one or two of the influential tracks in entirety particularly Shaking all Over and Apache. Excellent analysis thank you
"Rock Island Line" was my favourite song; my dad had the 78rpm and I would play it over and over. Lonnie was a breath of fresh air.
There's an interesting addendum here which is that one of the DJs in the burgeoning rap scene in New York in the 70s found a version of Apache and used it in his mixing sets. It had been covered a couple of times, by Danish guitarist Jorgen Ingman and also Seattle’s Ventures.
Anyway, apparently the NY rap crowds loved it even though nobody knew what it was. Also, the Sugarhill Gang recorded Apache (Jump On It) in 1981.
Please check out the movie "Telstar: The Joe Meek Story". It's brilliant and so revealing!!
Joe Meek had a sad end, shooting his landlady over the rent, and then himself 😢
At 4.38 there is a picture of Nancy Whiskey, when I went to Lloret de Mar, a small fishing village, on the Costa Brava in Spain in 1954 or 1955, she had an open air bar on the main promanade with fairy lights all round it, I was 8 or 9 and thought it was beautiful. I saw the Searchers at a local venue and went backstage to meet them, it was the first time I spoke to someone from Liverpool and had trouble understanding them if they spoke too fast! I was very disappointed that they were just normal sweaty, spotty boys! I also saw Jeff Beck playing in a local band at one of our town's weekly dances before fame whisked him away. I really enjoyed this video and your comments, it brought back many happy memories, thank you 😊
I still listen to some of these records that came out over a decade before I was born, I grew up with it having boomer siblings. It was nice to see guitarist Joe Morretti get a mention, also worth mentioning would be Big Jim Sullivan and Vic Flick who played on many British pop records and film soundtracks during the 50's and 60's.
that was really good, I enjoyed that.....well done mate
I love this channel, one of the best music commentary channels on UA-cam
What a great video! I always thought it strange that Rock around the clock was often described as the first rock tune, but when you drum to it, it has a swing beat and NOT a rock one. I still have all my old Shadows records and still bang away to them in the basement.
Apache by The Shadows was the first record I bought as a young teenager.
For goodness sake - mine was the Swinging Blue Jeans "Hippy, Hippy Shake", when I was 11 in 1964.
Tommy Steele was huge, he carried it on into musical theatre and films, he is still with us at 87 and performing until recently.
He was also a decent sculptor. He made the Eleanor Rigby statue in Liverpool.
@@ianharrison3662 He also sculpted one of the statues outside Twickenham (Rugby Ground)
Six point five special!🤣😂😀😆🤣😂😆😄Oh man!
Six Five Special coming down the line… 🎵🎶
@@AlBarzUK more skiffle! 😂
I’ve still got my dad’s membership card for the 2i’s coffee bar in Soho, it was the birthplace of rock n roll in London. It’s a fish and chip shop now! In the 80’s I used to go to a little local jazz club, Tony Crombie was the regular drummer there - one of the most laid back drummers I’ve ever seen 😊
Tommy Steele was fantastic. Huge influence on David Bowie. Right up to his last recorded songs he was referencing him.
Ps. He went onto appear in musicals like Half A Sixpence on Broadway, and the Disney movie Finnian's Rainbow. Last toured the UK in his late 70s, too. What a legend. Check out his cover of Tallahassee Lassie... Banger.
Cliff and the Everly's? Well, Cliff and Phil Everly had a big duet hit single decades later.
Hank Marvin also entered the British vocabulary for being hungry. Hank Marvin - starving!
You could have a Ruby Murray
Good old Radio Luxembourg ... in the 70s. My dad's cousin - Bert Weedon. One of my mum's favourites Telstar.
I'm from the UK but never really took to British music.
I was the youngest of 7 kids, with a big age gap. My parebts loved Elvis Presley. My elder brothers followed on & loved Elvis , so that's what was played in our house.
The beatles snook in when Elvis was making films. It would be interesting to see if they'd been so big if Elvis was still singing and not away. As John Lennon said .. "Before Elvis Presley, there was nothing"
Tommy Steele is still around ! He's 87 , but still has that look in eyes !😊
Lonnie Donegan wrote the hit song "I'll never fall in love again" for Tom Jones. His son Peter Donegan went on The Voice UK and sung the song along with judge Tom Jones. You can find it on UA-cam.
I first saw Cliff Richard and the Shadows at the opening night of the ABC Theatre in Blackpool back in 1963. What a concert that was, the theatre was standing room only. Brian Bennett had just joined the Shadows as the drummer and it was his first 'live' performance with the group after replacing Tony Meehan the original drummer. Brian Bennett remained with the Shadows throughout the rest of their career and today has his own orchestra and released a hit album a few years ago called 'Shadowing John Barry' which included a track that had never been released by the Shadows which was released on this album with Brian Bennett as drummer and was probably the last time that the Shadows played together for a recording.
It's really funny to hear you say "Hmm The Shadows............I think I've heard of them?" When they were so big here 😀
Lonnie Donegan wrote the song “I’ll never Fall in Love” for Tom Jones. His son sang it on the voice UK with Sir Tom himself!
I was lucky to be around when this was all happening ,really enjoyed watching this 👏
Hank Marvin now lives in Perth, Australia!
A Geordie lad
The best words in a reaction - 'I had no idea' !!
What is amazing, is how many of those early British rockers are still with us. A couple, like Cliff Richard are still performing. Of the survivors I include Cliff of corse, along wit Mary Wilde (Kim's dad), Tommy Steel and Helen Shapiro.
The Sound of Fury is a great album. He was a brilliant writer and performer.
Really enjoyed this..watched a few times. "Teach You To Rock" is essentially sped up Bill Haley... more like swing than jazz to me, but they were jazz musicians so no doubt some influence. I had siblings nearly a decade older than me so grew up listening to what they played. I remember when I was little the family gathering around the television and everyone being very excited - the Beatles were going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. I feel like I was lucky to grow up in a great era of musical evolution and societal revolution.
Happy Organ (snicker) reminds me of Keyboard Cat (RIP) 😿
In the 1950s I used to buy the charts newspaper Disc (rival to New Musical Express). In 1958 it profiled this new singer called Cliff Richard and his song Move It, saying how he would take the musical industry by storm. How right it was.
My wife grew up in Hong Kong, a British colony, in the 1950’s and 60’s. She was surprised Cliff Richard wasn’t well known in the US, where I grew up.
My favourite Lonnie Donegan songs were "Does your chewing gum lose it's flavour on the bedpost overnight" and "My old man's a Dustman". I was very young at the time...😁
Billy Fury was my 14 year old crush.
That what so thoroughly researched and well documented. Great work
As a young teen shopping for school uniform in London with me mum, we stopped by the Paris Theatre where the BBC were about to record Gerry and the Pacemakers - fresh from Liverpool. We went in and saw their first gig in London. I was knock over by them, bought the record, it went to no.1
“How Do You Do It!” Had already been recorded by the Beatles but they rejected it in favour of “Love Me Do” which didn’t hit no.1.
G&PMs didn’t quite “fizzle out”, @JJLA, they had several more big hits and were still going for years. Many Liverpool bands were going for decades. It’s just that the Beatles were phenomenal. (In fact the Beatles fizzled out while many contemporary bands kept going!)
Please Please Me was number one in the UK charts that people actually paid attention to at the time; it was only number 2 in a fairly obscure chart that several years later morphed into the official BBC chart. At that point, it retrospectively became the yardstick by which singles in the early sixties were measured by.
Burt Weldon had an amazing effect on modern music, not because of his playing, but because of his teaching.
Joe Meek's story is a sad one. There was a film made about him called 'Telstar:The Joe Meek Story
That's wonderful! Pls stay in touch!
Not sure if anyone has mentioned or cares, but the soldier at 6:35 surrounded by kids, is Burgess Meredith who played the Penguin in the 60s TV version of Batman
Britsh band with an eye patch is new to you ? Well okay, but he was the one that inspired David Bowie. Adam Ant and Pete Burns with the whole eye patch thing. So that's 4 UK acts with the eye patch gimmick..
That was really interesting! I was pretty familiar with it all, as I was a young kid at the time, with an older brother and two older sisters. I got Elvis and The Shadows from my brother, and Cliff and Buddy Holly from my sisters. Also, reading various Beatles books through the years, many of the artists drifted in and out of their story. As I say, fascinating.
I remember when Apache was new, I loved it, and I was seven. And Telstar.
Joe Meek was a big Buddy Holly fan. Due to debt, paranoia and depression he murdered his landlady and shot himself on the 8th anniversary of Buddy's death.
Dickie Pride was an early member of the 27 club.
He was also gay at a time when it was illegal. The biggest tragedy was that all the royalties of his huge hit Telstar was held up because a French musician claimed that Joe Meek had stolen the tune from him. By the time that the court case was settled Joe Meek was dead. So sad.
My UA-cam algorithms led me to this channel, and I've watched a few reactions.
But finally found someone that appreciates rock and roll as much as I do.
As a Brit, however, I was lucky enough to know all about these British artists AND American artists, whereas (I guess) Americans didn't get to listen to a lot of good British artists?
Lonnie Donegan was banjo player in Chris barber's trad jazz band previously, plenty of happy tracks on here, but Petite Fleur, the clarinet hit, is a treat. We were glued to blurred tapes of The Perrry Como show which were shown on tv once a week hoping for glimpse of The Everlys and similar performing.
You should check out the Cliff Richard and the Shadows reunion called “Thank You Very Much”.
yet again i would recommend checking out the movie "The Boat That Rocked" the only way a lot of young people got to hear "modern" music even in the 60's
Fantastic film and incredible cast! Love it!
Danny Rivers - Can't You Hear My Heart, Adam Faith - Made You, with joe Brown on guitar- 1960 two more great British, Rock n Roll songs.
I remember watching a documentary about British 50's rock. Some American bands toured with British bands around Europe. They were shocked at how much the British bands used swear words and were generally just very working class with their language.
would love to see a video about another british music institution, the ska scene
Excellent review.
The book "Roots, Radicals and Rockers" by Billy Bragg is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating topic - not just about a minor musical movement but about the emergence of an entire music-based or adjacent, youth-led subculture that went on to change the world.
"...a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it.... a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s."
You have a good ear J.. all British guitarists in the 1940/50’s are taught Jazz guitar. They were part of big bands & were rarely heard being backing rhythm section in concert with 5 to 35 musicians? This is why bands like the Beatles, Hollies, Small Faces & Kinks had unique rock n roll song arrangements!!
Going to a jazz chord for different sounds while playing rock n roll. You were fantastic on the Beatles quiz, you did pause to think a lot & the pressure of being involved is different so I don’t think you can claim victory. I would love to see you go head to head with the lads tho ; preferably in person but on screens with defined rules is cool too 👌🏼 !!
🏴🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸
Cliff Richard 83 years young and still touring in 2024 ! this is a bit from 2018 tour at 77 years old !! LIVING DOLL - ua-cam.com/video/oo_x_hgYeX0/v-deo.html
I am at the ripe old age of 66 , the last gig I was at was The Killers but I did see Gerry and the Pacemakers , The searchers, this was in the 80s, in the late 70's I seen Rory Gallagher. Gary Moore before he hit the big time
1950s every dance hall had at least one resident band, Oscar Rabin and His Orchestra for example.
The BBC held us back for many years with their old fashioned way of thinking and making us listen to what they thought we wanted to hear. It only got better when pirate radio came online.
Tommy Steele sculpted a statue of Eleanor Rigby and sold it to Liverpool City Council for 'Half A Sixpence' (the name of a musical he appeared in)....this was in the 1980s
Cliff richard also was in films he is still going in 2024 please have a look at summer holiday. The who came out at the same time as the beatles and the rolling stones they are my favourite early 1960s band .
Gerry and the Pacemakers song 'You'll Never Walk Alone' is still sung at Liverpool Football club's home games. Lord Sutch started the ' Raving Loony Party's that still stands a candidate in Parliamentary elections to this day
Wee Willie Harris standing to play the piano reminds me of Jerry Lee Lewis.
Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, pen name Novalis (1772 - 1801) "Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange." was something embraced by the surrealist art movement.
I remember Tommy Steele being in the movie Finian's Rainbow (1968).
he never notice HMV record 'HIS MASTER'S VOICE' WRITTEN ON IT
Tommy Steele is still singing today in musicals he must be about 80/90 years old
Cliff Richard reminds me of the tv show The Young Ones. Rik Mayall's character Rick was a big Cliff Richard fan. I think the first Comic Relief charity single was Cliff Richard and The Young Ones singing Living Doll.
Plus "The Young Ones" is a Cliff Richard song.
The theme song of The Young Ones was the cast singing the Cliff Richard song
Yes indeed, Phil Everly and Cliff Richard teamed up and had a couple hit singles in the 1980s
British music was very popular both classical and popular during these periods. I don't where the idea 'land of no music' came from? Ralph Vaughn Williams collected many old British traditional songs to save them , then there was Purcell, Herscel etc :-)
That's where my Mum's washboard disappeared to in the latish 1950's