Parents hated it. The clergy condemned it. But when rock and roll burst onto the scene in the 1950s teenagers instantly connected with its vital, rebellious energy. It changed popular music forever and kick-started teenage culture not just in the USA but around the world as well.
Click through the gallery to see amazing images from the early days of this cultural revolution and its impact around the world...
With their matching suits, bow ties and slicked-back hair, Bill Haley and His Comets didn’t look much different to the big bands that had dominated the musical charts in the 1940s. But when the world heard the whip crack snare at the start of Rock Around The Clock in 1954, something changed. There was rioting in schools and cinemas and the song was promptly banned by the American government. Rock and roll was born, and teenage culture would never be the same again.
While Rock Around The Clock was the first rock and roll record heard by millions of people worldwide, the genre had its origins in the rhythm and blues coming out of music joints in America’s South. It would take another southern boy, one Elvis Aaron Presley, to take rock and roll to the next level. Here we see him playing and dancing at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show in Tupelo.
African Americans had been using the term rock and roll as a euphemism for sex for decades and Elvis achieved success by leaning into this more lascivious side of the genre. Little Richard was another artist not afraid to tease or offend. And with appearances in movies like Mister Rock And Roll (pictured) he was able to gain exposure unimaginable to fellow Black artists only a few years before.
The impact of rock and roll was incendiary and immediate. Parents were horrified by the music and the impact it was having on their previously reserved children. Here we see young teenager Penny Taylor attending a matinee performance by Elvis at a Philadelphia theatre in 1957. Thanks to rock and roll teenagers from all around the world would never be the same again.
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The popularity of rock and roll among American teens during the 1950s was driven largely by the efforts of self-styled ‘Mr Rock and Roll’, disc jockey Alan Freed (pictured, seated on the right). He was the first DJ to use the phrase and his radio show, first on WJW in Cleveland and then on WINS in New York, was the place to tune in if you wanted to hear the latest songs. A tireless promoter of the genre, Alan Freed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
American teenagers quickly became obsessed with rock and roll, much to their parents’ alarm. But even if Mum and Dad forbade them from listening to ‘the Devil’s music’ on the family radiogram, they quickly found ways of circumventing the ban. RentaRadio in New York rented radios to teenagers for just 35 cents an hour. You had to rent it for a minimum of three hours – more than enough time to catch Alan Freed’s late night radio show 'Rock 'n' Roll Party' on WINS.
The theme of rebellion against authority had been hardwired into rock and roll right from the very beginning. The seemingly innocuous Rock Around the Clock became an unlikely call to arms when it was used in the movie Blackboard Jungle. In the movie, a teacher at a troubled inner-city high school calls for teens to declare their independence from adult control. It was a call that teenagers, like these ones hanging out at a local gathering place in San Francisco, were happy to heed.
That push back against authority meant that the first rock and roll concerts were often rowdy affairs. As well as hosting his popular radio programme, Alan Freed also organised the very first rock and roll concerts like this one at the Paramount Theatre in New York in 1957. The shows offered fans the chance to see up to 16 acts on the same bill, creating feverish excitement and the necessity for a sizeable police presence.
The popularity of rock and roll wasn’t just about rebellion. The economic boom in America after the Second World War meant that teenagers in the 1950s had more disposable income than any other generation before them. The average weekly income of a teenager jumped from $2.41 in 1946 to $8.96 in 1956. So many teenagers could afford their own cars that parking became an issue at high schools. In 1953 Life magazine reported that Carlsbad high school in New Mexico was forced to create a special parking area for students only.
This young generation of Americans had the disposable income to break away from the habits of their parents and defined themselves by their music. By 1958, 70% of records were sold to teens. By the late Fifties, companies in America were selling 10 million portable record players a year. This decade saw American teenagers become a vital segment of the economy and the driving force behind popular culture.
American teenagers in the 1950s had the time and the means to have fun. And rock and roll quickly became the soundtrack to that fun. Wherever teenagers gathered the latest hits could be heard, usually from a jukebox in the corner of their favourite malt shop or diner. By 1955, The Billboard, as Billboard magazine was called back then, ran a separate chart that measured jukebox plays.
For teenagers, the most important forms of entertainment revolved around music. They spent their time listening to music and going to dances. Some schools stopped holding 'sock hops', so called because the teens were required to take off their shoes so as not to damage the gym floor, because dancing to rock and roll was deemed too dangerous. Private organisations, including sororities, stepped in and hosted dances and proms so teens could cut loose to their favourite songs with their shoes on, just like the young man pictured here.
Going to the movies has always been a favourite past-time for American teenagers. But the high levels of car ownership among young people saw the popularity of drive-in movie theatres hit an all-time high, with more than 4,000 screens dotted around the country. A car afforded a higher level of privacy than the local cinema for teen couples and soon Hollywood studios started producing films specifically directed towards this market. They were low budget, of course, and often included teenage rebels, such as Marlon Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
As a tireless promoter of rock and roll, DJ Alan Freed saw an opportunity to combine the music teenagers craved with their love of cinema. He started making ‘jukebox musicals’ that not only included the biggest hits of the day but often featured the bands playing as well. Movies like Don't Knock the Rock; Rock Around the Clock; and Rock! Rock! Rock! were successful around the world. Indeed, in places like Australia where it was prohibitively expensive to tour, these movies often provided the only chance for teenagers to see their favourite acts play.
Thanks to these jukebox musicals – and radio, of course – the excitement and energy of American rock and roll was energising teenagers in other parts of the world too. American bands started touring Europe and Canada in particular, as part of rock and roll shows that featured a semi-revolving cast of stars. Here we see Bill Haley and His Comets tearing up the dance floor in Strasbourg, France, with bass player Marshall Lytle giving it his all.
Soon the impact of American teen culture was being felt everywhere. Teenagers from London to Sydney and all points in between wanted to look like their heroes on the big screen and in magazines. Here we see British teenagers learning the finer points of rock and roll grooming at a school for rock’n’roll in south London. The school also taught students how to play the genre's music and what aspiring band members should wear.
Meanwhile in Wales, dance schools were teaching students the latest rock and roll dance moves like The Twist, popularised by the Chubby Checker song of the same name. Here two teenage girls practise their dance steps next to a pianist and instructor in Butetown, Cardiff. Similar scenes were being played out all around the world.
In Vienna, young Austrians began shunning the elegant grace of the waltz that their capital was famous for, taking up the more modern and altogether more energetic dances coming out of America. Here we see a group of Viennese teenagers gathered for an impromptu rock and roll dance party in the Prater, a large public park in Leopoldstadt, in 1957.
Such was the popularity of rock and roll in Europe when bands toured there, demand often outstripped the capacity of venues. Riotous scenes like this one in Milan, Italy in 1957 were seen all across the continent, confirming the fears of older generations and fuelling the genre's popularity with the youth.
Italians put their own stylish spin on teenage rebellion. Motorbikes were an integral symbol of teenage rebellion in the US but Italian teenagers didn’t really take to the leather jackets or to British and American motorcycles which they considered loud, oily and messy. They preferred the stylish lines of a Vespa, with the messy engine components tucked out of sight under voluptuous cowls. It was a different kind of cool, but the effect was just the same.
The Swedes had no such concerns. In this unlikely scene at the opening of a new petrol station in Sweden in 1958, we see a group of three teenage rockers being welcomed with flowers as the first customers at the new enterprise.
Even Iceland’s isolated teenagers succumbed to the rebellious pull of rock and roll. Although largely cut off from the world, the country was not immune to the influence of American youth culture. Here we see two rebellious Icelandic teens putting their own spin on the new cultural phenomenon while one sucks insouciantly on a traditional Iceland pipe down by Reykjavik harbour.
One country that fell particularly hard for rock and roll was Japan. An entire generation of young Japanese people grew up on a diet of American rock and roll, broadcast by the US military's country-wide radio station as they rebuilt the country after the Second World War. Acts would tour and perform for service personnel, with some lucky locals, like the girl pictured here, allowed in too. It’s a love that continues to this day in Tokyo, where the city’s rockers gather in Yoyogi Park to parade their fashions, their pompadours and their dance moves.
Rock and roll even managed to sneak behind the Iron Curtain. American jukeboxes like this one in Budapest, full of rock and roll records, were creating new problems for Communist officials in Hungary. Youngsters in the capital were bringing new prosperity to the city's coffee houses by jamming the cafes where jukeboxes were installed. Officials were faced with the dilemma of whether to ban the jukeboxes for the sake of socialism or to tolerate them for profit reasons.
Arguably rock and roll was most feverishly embraced by the youth of Britain. They weren’t experiencing the same prosperity as their American cousins. The country was still under rationing because of the Second World War. But the aggressive beats and rebellious nature appealed, particularly to the Teddy Boys, ‘delinquent’ young men with a penchant for wearing ‘Edwardian’ clothing. Like these lads, enjoying a day out at a funfair in Britain in the late 1950s.
Pre-Beatles Ringo was particularly quick to embrace American rock and roll culture. Here we see him when he was still plain old Richard Starkey, showing off his rather impressive pompadour hairstyle in 1959. He was the drummer in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes at the time.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, teenagers were splintering into different subcultures. You had Rockabillies, Pin Ups, Greasers, Teddy Boys and Judies, all differentiated by the clothes they wore and the hairstyles they chose. In the coffee shops of New York, one group, the Beatniks (pictured), rejected post-war materialism altogether, turning to philosophy, literature and jazz instead.
Throughout the rest of the country the life of an American teenager remained pretty much the same. Jobs were still easy to find. Leisure time and disposable income were equally plentiful. And the local malt shop (milk bar) was still the place young lads took their girl for a first date.
More teenagers than ever had their own cars and they spent their Saturdays working on them or cruising the streets in them and hanging out with their friends. Just like these young guys in the parking lot of an A&W drive-in restaurant in Hutchinson, Kansas in 1959.
But change was on its way. Soon not only would US teens wear different clothes and change the way they cut their hair, they would be listening to a different type of music as well. When four mop-topped lads from Liverpool stepped off the plane in New York in 1964, the 1950s incarnation of teen culture was finally over and it entered a totally new and more outward-looking incarnation, alongside a decade full of political, social and cultural upheaval.
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