Pop Music

I had occasion to walk down to Denmark Street—London’s Tin Pan Alley—several months ago and found the sidewalk lined from one end to the other with teenage girls. In groups, in clusters, simply leaning against storefronts, there must have been about two hundred of them, each clutching an autograph book, a record album, or a piece of sheet-music. I was closely scrutinized as I walked past, but their glances turned hostile and threatening as they saw my recently trimmed hair, button-down shirt and three button suit without leather-trimmed lapels or lace-trimmed sleeves. Feeling rather fortunate to have arrived at my appointment. I asked a secretary the reason for this appalling sidewalk display. She explained that it was Easter Vacation and from eight in the morning until dusk these little Englishwomen kept their vigil hoping to catch a glimpse of Chuck Botfield, Carl Green, Derek Prott, or other similar luminaries. To American readers these figures of the entertainment industry might perhaps be more familiar as the Animals’ organist, the Rockin’ Berries’ tambourinist, a Herman’s Hermit, or one of Them.

The extent to which Pop music has hit Britain is little understood or appreciated outside these Isles. The rock-and-roll craze of the early 1950s in the United States, which reached its apogee in Elvis Presley, is today sustained only by a transatlantic transfusion the extent of which can be grasped by a glance at the American Charts which feature, at this writing, eight of the top ten records by English groups. We are not exploring a new musical idiom or phenomenon here; rather we are witnessing a debasement of the essentials of rock-and-roll music.

FG

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Frank Gannon

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I had occasion to walk down to Denmark Street—London’s Tin Pan Alley—several months ago and found the sidewalk lined from one end to the other with teenage girls. In groups, in clusters, simply leaning against storefronts, there must have been about two hundred of them, each clutching an autograph book, a record album, or a piece of sheet-music. I was closely scrutinized as I walked past, but their glances turned hostile and threatening as they saw my recently trimmed hair, button-down shirt and three button suit without leather-trimmed lapels or lace-trimmed sleeves. Feeling rather fortunate to have arrived at my appointment. I asked a secretary the reason for this appalling sidewalk display. She explained that it was Easter Vacation and from eight in the morning until dusk these little Englishwomen kept their vigil hoping to catch a glimpse of Chuck Botfield, Carl Green, Derek Prott, or other similar luminaries. To American readers these figures of the entertainment industry might perhaps be more familiar as the Animals’ organist, the Rockin’ Berries’ tambourinist, a Herman’s Hermit, or one of Them.

The extent to which Pop music has hit Britain is little understood or appreciated outside these Isles. The rock-and-roll craze of the early 1950s in the United States, which reached its apogee in Elvis Presley, is today sustained only by a transatlantic transfusion the extent of which can be grasped by a glance at the American Charts which feature, at this writing, eight of the top ten records by English groups. We are not exploring a new musical idiom or phenomenon here; rather we are witnessing a debasement of the essentials of rock-and-roll music.