-
what is your best gig ever?
Jeremy Thomas tells us his
-
Press power
Karl makes a friend
-
Christchurch to London every week
Can you image this, four and a half hours drive to play all night at the Flamingo club in Wardour Street and then get back to work in the morning.
-
Tab Collars, Slim Jim Ties & Winklepickers
The Very Best Of British Rock ‘n’ Roll Rock & Roll got off to a fairly slow, low-key start in the UK, and it peaked late; indeed, it would take a couple of years before we got the collective bit between our teeth, the first genuine classic British R&R record (Cliff’s ‘Move It’, of course)…
-
Samwell, Goddard, Worth, Lennon, McCartney & More
Great British Songwriters British songwriters only really started to come into their own during the latter half of the 1950s, commensurate with the arrival of Rock & Roll and the gradual development of a genuine home-grown scene (i.e. as opposed to the ‘manufactured’ version which the music/record industry had earlier tried to foist upon us). …
-
Calypsos, Boogies, Rockers, Ballads & Bluebeat
The Rise Of Black Music In Britain In 1948, the Empire Windrush famously docked at Tilbury, carrying 493 passengers from Jamaica and Trinidad (plus, by all accounts, one stowaway!). Pathe News were among the media gathered there to meet them, and a remarkable piece of newsreel footage survives in which the freshly disembarked King Of…
-
The British Hit Singles 1940-1952
For several years now Steve here has been working on this extra-ordinary project, to get the work of the late Colin Brown into print and now we are nearly there. Long time manager, producer and music compiler, Colin Brown collected sales figures at the time from all the major record companies as he had become obsessed with wanting…
-
Interviewing Pete Brown
In addition to the Davy Graham programme where filming and interviews are now well underway we have joined forces to make a programme about the life and times of poet and lyricist Pete Brown. He is probably still best known for his Cream songs including Sunshine Of Your Love & White Room – in this…
-
and there’s more
New technology is now in play here at RockHistory.co.uk and just a couple more interviews have been managed over the last week – two more for the Harvest Records canon and more with other subjects including Queen, Bat Out Of Hell and Britney Spears. Plus and EMI Records reunion of staff from the middle period…
-
the book version
Now making serious progress on the book version of these interviews for your scurrilous edification. With two people reading it and helping check typos and facts there is a high chance that we will be in print by this autumn. Blimey who would ever have thought it would take so long – and that is why…
-
Trumpets, Banjos, Clarinets & Striped Waistcoats
The Very Best Of British Trad Jazz Coming along, as it did, almost directly on the heels of Skiffle and Rock & Roll, Trad was perhaps the least likely Pop Music phenomenon of the era. Yet for a brief spell at the end of the 50s and the very early 60s, it was massively popular…
-
50 years of the gee-tar
A really interesting look at the story of three feet of german ply and how it developed into a group essential. Stalwart research from Mo and a great read