Introduction
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Notes Introduction 1 . The literature on American ‘rock ’n’ roll’ and ‘rhythm and blues’ is vast. Two books stand out in presenting detailed explorations of the origins and develop- ment of these musical genres and their impact on wider US society. For rock ’n’ roll, see G. C. Altschuler, All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed America (Oxford, 2003) and for ‘rhythm and blues’, B. Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations (London, 1998). 2 . The emphasis on England and the English experience of popular music does not necessarily suggest that the relationship between class and youth culture was always different in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but in some respects it clearly did differ. For examples in the literature, see S. Hill, Blerwytirhwg? The Place of Welsh Pop Music (Aldershot, 2007); M. Kielty, Big Noise: The History of Scottish Rock ’n’ Roll (Edinburgh, 2006); D. Cooper, The Musical Traditions of Northern Ireland and Its Diaspora: Community and Conflict (Aldershot, 2010). 3 . There are really only two academic books written by historians devoted to this aspect of British society. See B. Osgerby, Youth Culture in Britain Since 1945 (Oxford, 1998) and D. Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain, c1920–1970 (Basingstoke, 2008). 4 . W. Straw, ‘Consumption’, in Frith, Straw and Street (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock , p. 55. For a critical survey of the limited histories of popular music, see S. Frith, ‘Writing the History of Popular Music’, in H. Dauncy and P. Le Guern (eds), Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain (Aldershot, 2011), pp. 11–22. 5 . Popular music histories on television range from the nostalgia of the Yesterday channel through to the more serious, comprehensive and analytical documenta- ries produced for BBC4. 6 . Mort’s excellent book on permissiveness is a detailed exploration of the sexual politics of London but has very little on popular music. See F. Mort, Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society (New Haven, 2010). 7 . Kynaston’s work is notable for drawing on the autobiographies/biographies of some of the leading musicians of the 1950s/60s. See D. Kynaston, Family Britain 1951–57 (London, 2009). 8 . A. Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1958 – c.1974 (Oxford, 1998); D. Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London, 2006) and Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain . 9 . The seminal collection of papers from CCCS can be found in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds), Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain (London, 1976). 10 . R. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life with Special Reference to Publications and Entertainments (Harmondsworth, 1957). 11 . For a recent re-appraisal, see J. Moran, ‘Milk Bars, Starbucks and the Uses of Literacy’, Cultural Studies , 20, 6 (2006), 552–73. 200 Notes 201 12 . R. Williams, Culture and Society, 1780–1950 (London, 1984), p. 310. 13 . R. Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford, 1977), p. 132. 14 . For a discussion of ‘structure of feeling’ and its applicability to the literature of the late twentieth century, see John Kirk, ‘Class, Community and ‘Structure of Feeling’, in Working-class Writing from the 1980s’, Literature and History , 3, 8, 2 (1999), 44–63 . 15 . Although Williams was not associated with the Birmingham school, his work shared their methodology of applying a critical Marxist analysis to the relation- ship between class and culture. A broader advocacy of ‘structure of feeling’ can be found in Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth, 1961), pp. 64–88. A critical appraisal of the concept can be found in P. Filmer, ‘Structures of Feeling and Socio-cultural Formations: The Significance of Literature and Experience to Raymond William’s Sociology of Culture’, British Journal of Sociology , 54, 2 (2003), 199–219. For a biography of Williams, see F. Inglis, Raymond Williams (London, 1995). 16 . See Williams, Culture and Society . 17 . For another seminal CCCS exposition of class, capitalism and subculture, see P. Cohen, Subcultural Conflict and Working Class Community (Birmingham, 1972). 18 . D. Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London, 1979). 19 . Both Fowler and Sandbrook have attempted to comprehensively dismantle the claims of the CCCS but have merely replaced one partial interpretation with another and are equally guilty of hyperbole and rhetoric in imposing what they perceive to be a ‘common sense’ view of popular music and its place in post-war English history. See Sandbrook, White Heat and Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain . 20 . See for example A. McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen (Cambridge, 1991). 21 . For a good summary, see P. Hodkinson, ‘Youth Cultures: A Critical Outline of Key Debates’, in P. Hodkinson and W. Deicke (eds), Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (London, 2009), pp. 1–21. Also, K. Gelder, Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice (London, 2007), chapter 5. 22 . For a critique of the CCCS, see C. Bugge, ‘Selling Youth in the Age of Affluence: Marketing to Youth in Britain Since 1959’, in L. Black and H. Pemberton (eds), An Affluent Society? Britain’s Post-War Golden-Age Revisited (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 185–202. Also the collection of essays in K. Gelder and S. Thornton (eds), The Subcultures Reader (London, 2005). For a critical defence of the CCCS, see the essays on youth culture, popular music and the post-war consensus in Contemporary British History, 26, 3 (2012). 23 . Frith, ‘Writing the History of Popular Music’, p. 12. 24 . Interestingly a number of leading popular music scholars outside of the academy also have very privileged educational backgrounds, but have made a career out of extolling the virtues of various popular music performers and genres. Barney Hoskyns (Oxford), Johnny Rogan (Oxford), John Harris (Oxford), Simon Reynolds (Oxford) and Dave Haslam (King Edwards’ School Birmingham) are most notable in this respect. 25 . See P. Henessey, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (London, 2006). This book has 740 pages with only three devoted to a discussion of ‘rock ’n’ roll’. Sandbrook’s work has devoted more space to popular culture, but is sceptical of the claims made for popular music by other writers. He shows his own prejudices by putting more emphasis on particular youth cultures while ridiculing others. 202 Notes See D. Sandbrook, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979 (London, 2012). A much better examination of popular culture in the 1970s can be found in A. W. Turner, Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s (London, 2008). 26 . For a recent call for popular music and youth culture to be taken more seriously by historians, see introduction to the special issue of Contemporary British History: Youth Culture, Popular Music and ‘Consensus’ in Post-War Britain 26, 3 (2012), 265–71. 27 . D. Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London, 2005), p. xix. 28 . For example, see the testimonies in K. Farley, They Rocked, We Rolled: A Personal and Oral Account of Rock ’n’ Roll in and around Wolverhampton and the West Midlands 1956–1969 (Wolverhampton, 2010). Similarly, in the late 1950s Aberdare remained a vibrant community with coal mines, labour movement institutions and a developing youth culture based on a local record shop, music venues and accessibility to the city of Cardiff where working-class youth could see both American and British performers. 29 . For English resorts in the twentieth century, see J. Walton, The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, 2000). 30 . In the 1960s, writers such as Nell Dunn and television directors such as Ken Loach were aware of the importance of popular music in working-class life and used it accordingly in their attempts at documenting the experiences of English youth. As John Hill stresses in his critical analysis of the Loach directed BBC play of Dunn’s Up the Junction , which was broadcast in November 1965: ‘the play avoids representing ‘mass culture’ as simply a culture imposed from above but seeks to show how the characters succeed in making pop songs their own . and are able to use pop music as a cultural resource in the struggles of everyday life’. J. Hill, Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television (London, 2011), p. 45. 31 . S. Hall, ‘Notes on Deconstructing ‘the Popular’, in R. Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory (London, 1981), p. 230. 32 . R. Hewison, Culture and Consensus. England, Art and Politics Since 1940 (London, 1995), p. xiv. 33 . For a recent exception, see J. P. Wilson, ‘Beats Apart: A Comparative History of Youth Culture and Popular Music in Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne, 1956– 1965’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Northumbria, 2009). 34 . For examples of this particular genre, see A. Flowers and V. Histon, It’s My Life! 1960s Newcastle: Memories from People Who Were There (Newcastle, 2009), D. Hale and T. Thornton, Club 60 & The Esquire: Sheffield Sounds in the 60s (Sheffield, 2002) and Farley, They Rocked, We Rolled . 35 . J. Davis, Youth and the Condition of Britain: Images of Adolescent Conflict (London, 1990). 36 . Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain (Basingstoke, 2008). 37 . Osgerby, Youth Culture in Britain Since 1945 . For a summary of his main points, see B. Osgerby, ‘Well, It’s Saturday Night and I Just Got Paid’: Youth, Consumerism and Hegemony in Post-War-Britain’, Contemporary Record , 6, 2 (1992), 287–303. Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain . 38 . R. Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940–2000 (Basingstoke, 2002).