The Restless Generation: How Rock Music Changed the Face of 1950s Britain

Book excerpt: It was our version of a Hollywood epic, shot in black and white over a ten year period, with no script and a cast of thousands who had to make it up as they went along. Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Lonnie Donegan, Terry Dene, Marty Wilde, Mickie Most, Lionel Bart, Tony Sheridan, Billy Fury, Joe Brown, Wee Willie Harris, Adam Faith, John Barry, Larry Page, Vince Eager, Johnny Gentle, Jim Dale, Duffy Power, Dickie Pride, Georgie Fame and Johnny Kidd were just a few of those hoping to see their name in lights. From the widescreen perspective of one who watched the story unfold, Pete Frame traces the emergence of rock music in Britain, from the first stirrings of skiffle in suburban pubs and jazz clubs, through the primitive experimentation of teenage revolutionaries in the coffee bars of Soho, to the moulding and marketing of the first generation of television idols, and the eventual breakthrough of such global stars as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Castic and irreverent, but authoritative and honest, this is the definitive story.