3. Risen from the Ashes: Post-War Britian - From Liverpool to New York: The Birth of Modern Rock

“Commentators have pointed to a combination of local solidarity, industrial decline, social deprivation, and the existence of a large population of Irish origin, the influence of which has been detected in Beat music” - (1)

Post-War Britain

Following WWII, Britain had been strongly integrated by American culture transported over the Atlantic by American soldiers. Many soldiers brought over records that they left or sold to their British counterparts. Additionally, many films featuring popular American rock and roll opened in British theatres. This “hand-me-down rock” would soon be repackaged with a new British flare and shipped back over the Atlantic (1). The overall economic situation in Britain was stagnant compared to the boom that was going on in the United States. Within this environment a great change occurred in the British working class, they began to have look for ways to use their free time in a rapidly evolving post-war culture. Many moved toward music for entertainment creating a rock and roll scene. An example of this is use of music as a distraction from other aspects of life was Beatlemania. No one is sure what quite sparked the craze in Britain, but many believe that it was a product of the country finding a way to recover from a government sex scandal, the resignation of the prime minister, the Great Train Robbery, and the war (7).

Another explanation for the growing music scene in post-war Britain was the baby boom (7). The United States did not have this vast group of working class teenagers with the spare time to improvise in skiffle and change the future of music. At the same time being so close to the war like their parents, young adults of Britain also wanted distractions from the painful past and had a need to create from the destruction. This was expressed in the skiffle scene. Finally, the advent of international radio made possible by post-war technology allowed for a quick spread of American and local music to a new audience rabid for more rock.

(1)- "British Invasion." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 20 Apr. 2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/80244/British-Invasion>.
(7)- Friendlander, Paul. Rock and Roll: A Social History. Boulder: Westview, 1996. Print.