ABSTRACT

When rock ‘n’ roll began its ascendancy in the 1950s the older generation saw it as dangerous, renegade, threatening the moral stability of a nation. Young people saw it as freedom, and most importantly, as their music. The teenage revolution was here, This book, first published in 1982, traces the roots of this cultural transformation, its emergence in rock ‘n’ roll and other media, and shows just how violent the confrontation was by looking at contemporary newspaper reports.

chapter 1|11 pages

Into the 1950s

chapter 2|10 pages

Rock around the clock

chapter 3|8 pages

Country music

chapter 4|8 pages

Rhythm’n’blues

chapter 5|7 pages

Good rockin’ tonight

chapter 7|15 pages

Rock island line: Britain in the mid-1950s

chapter 8|18 pages

Back in the USA: America in the late 1950s

chapter 9|4 pages

This rock’n’roll has got to go . . .

chapter 11|4 pages

It doesn’t matter any more

chapter 12|7 pages

Rock’n’roll is here to stay