Brest, major naval seaport of western France, situated at the western end of Brittany, the Celtic part of France, was one of the hotspots of the rock’n’roll revival in France in the 1970s and 1980s and for a few years it was – rockingly speaking – a wonderful place to be ! The kernel of […]
The Colourful Era
1972-87 Au Bonheur des Dames
The earliest bands of the 1970s rock’n’roll revival didn’t always have a dress code that chimed with the 1950s (think Sha-na-na in America, Memphis Bend and Showaddywaddy in Britain). In France a group called Au Bonheur des Dames (‘At the Ladies Pleasure’, the title of a novel by Émile Zola on a department store, go […]
1974 Cambridge teds
A 1974 Granada TV documentary ‘This is Cambridge’ investigating student life happily decided to devote a 3-minute section of the documentary to local teds. Little wonder, the presenter and codirector was Ray Gosling, old-time friend to the teddy boys. To the sounds of ‘tutti frutti’ at a dance hall played by the Bluebirds, Ray gushes […]
1974 Shakin’ Stevens in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
A sprinkling of teds at the performance by Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets of ‘mean woman blues’ and ‘baby, I don’t care’ on the 7 of November 1974 on the pop programme ‘Geordie Scene’ on TyneTees tv. Good performance by shaky, marred a little by the overlong guitar ‘showoff’ solo typical of the late 1960s […]
1978 Saint Helier Arms, Carshalton
The Saint Helier Arms was the Mecca of rock’n’roll life in Sarf Lannan during the late 1970s. Here’s an 8-minute clip from 1978 aired on the BBC in 1979 showing us a good tranche of the teds from 1978 before the advent of the hepcats (it features a performance by the Flying Saucers of ‘keep […]
1990 Teencats
Here are the 1980s Norwegian rock’n’rollers Teencats singing ‘teddy boy stomp’ on NRK channel. It doesn’t get any better than this! (Not to be confused with the French Teen Kats, another good group from the same period). The Teencats from Hernes near Elversum started off in 1984. Teencats er et norsk Teddy Boy Rock’n’Roll-/rockabillyband fra […]
