Fiftieth Anniversaries
With all the fuss going on about this year being the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination, plus Dr Who's first appearance on BBC TV, it's easy to overlook a much more important anniversary, namely the start of the British Beat Boom, an event surely with more lasting consequences than both of the others.
There was a precursor to 1963's great burst of musical creativity, and that came the previous October with the release of the first Beatles single "Love Me Do". But it was the Fab Fours second single, "Please Please Me" that really sounded the starting pistol for British record companies to venture out from their comfort zone in London and go out into the provinces. Liverpool was their first stop, and a whole slew of Liverpudlian bands quickly followed the Beatles into the studios and the charts. The first out of the blocks were bands managed by Brian Epstein, groups like Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas. Then other companies signed up the Searchers, the Big Three, the Fourmost and a multitude of others. Within a short period, Manchester was raided too, with the Hollies and Freddy & the Dreamers hitting the charts. London belatedly got in on the act with the Dave Clark Five as well as the more derivative Brian Poole & the Tremeloes, with the first stirrings from the Rolling Stones, launched with a Chuck Berry cover, "Come On". Many of these bands had a limited shelf life, but they laid the foundations for young musicians in both Britain and America to get out and do their own thing, rather than letting the staid record industry tell them what to do. The next ten years are arguably amongst the most fertile and creative times in popular music, with British musicians as key figures throughout. Great time to have lived through, and a lot of superb music to look back on and appreciate.
There was a precursor to 1963's great burst of musical creativity, and that came the previous October with the release of the first Beatles single "Love Me Do". But it was the Fab Fours second single, "Please Please Me" that really sounded the starting pistol for British record companies to venture out from their comfort zone in London and go out into the provinces. Liverpool was their first stop, and a whole slew of Liverpudlian bands quickly followed the Beatles into the studios and the charts. The first out of the blocks were bands managed by Brian Epstein, groups like Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas. Then other companies signed up the Searchers, the Big Three, the Fourmost and a multitude of others. Within a short period, Manchester was raided too, with the Hollies and Freddy & the Dreamers hitting the charts. London belatedly got in on the act with the Dave Clark Five as well as the more derivative Brian Poole & the Tremeloes, with the first stirrings from the Rolling Stones, launched with a Chuck Berry cover, "Come On". Many of these bands had a limited shelf life, but they laid the foundations for young musicians in both Britain and America to get out and do their own thing, rather than letting the staid record industry tell them what to do. The next ten years are arguably amongst the most fertile and creative times in popular music, with British musicians as key figures throughout. Great time to have lived through, and a lot of superb music to look back on and appreciate.