The teddy boy style’s original inspiration was the New-Edwardian style that appeared at the end of the 1940s which was simply termed ‘Edwardian’ at the time. But how reflective of men’s Edwardian fashion was the ‘Neo-Edwardian’ style of the late 1940s and early 1950s? What was – or were – the original Edwardian styles in […]
Great rock’n’roll links
Rockin’ Nidge’s The Edwardian Teddy Boy John Facer’s The Great British Teddy Boy Ian Wallis’s American Rock n Roll The UK Tours Dik de Heer’s In the Can – American rock’n’roll recording sessions 1954-62 John Klompenhouwer’s 706 Union Avenue Sessions BlackCat Rockabilly Europe The Complete Rock’n’roll UK Gig Guide RockaRocky – rock’n’roll gig guide for France […]
1963 Teds in Pontypridd
The Valleys is the usual name of the densely populated mining coalfields of south-eastern Wales in the hinterlands of the port metropolises of Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. The well-known Welsh historian Gwyn Alf Williams described all of south-eastern Wales – his region – as ‘American Wales’ based on the fact that the ‘uprooted’ population was […]
1956 The only ted who got to be friends with Elvis
Tom Jones, tuxedoed ladies’ man superstar balladeer of the 1960s, started life as plain old Tommy John Woodward in mining village of Trefforest next to Pontypridd, self-styled capital of the Welsh Valleys. Born in 1940, he was the right age to be amongst the initial generation who discovered rock’n’roll in 1955 when he left school. […]
Great French rock’n’roll covers
There was some great rock’n’roll in France in the rock’n’roll era (which I can’t call the 50s since French people always call the early rock’n’roll era les années soixantes ‘the sixties’ because the rock’n’roll only took off in that country in 1960-63 and faded as the Beatles appeared in 1964 and the sixties, as English-speakers understand it, began). Les années yé-yé ‘the […]
1960s teds, Nelson, South Wales
I’ve been trying to show that – or at least to find out how long – ted and rock’n’roll fashion styles subsisted amongst young men into 1960s Britain, in the ‘provinces’ if not in south-eastern England, the London hinterland. But, frankly, if you weren’t there, it can be impossible to grasp what was going on […]
