The Real Rock 'n’ Roll Underground

Do you ever get so sick of the latest Leon Russell or Ten Years After album that you switch off the FM radio in disgust and head for the closet to root out those old Elvis 45s you’ve had since you were a kid? And listening to them, do you find yourself nodding your head and tapping your toes, and realizing how long it’s been since any music provoked this reaction? If so, perhaps you went on to wonder just what’s happened to rock & roll, why people will settle for so little when there’s so much more waiting to be discovered. Doesn’t anyone remember those old sounds, you muse? Am I the only one left?

. Well, you needn’t have worried, because I’m here to tell you that rock & roll lives on, in a loose-knit network of fanatics covering the entire world. As an organized movement, it seems to have had its beginnings in England. It’s a funny thing about England, you know, the way they look at American music. Whenever they can find some style that is neglected and dying here, a cult springs up over there to revive the music, glorify its practicioners, and index the records. ,It happened with folk and jazz in the late fifties (remember the “skiffle” and the “trad jazz” revivals?) and then with blues and finally rock & roll. I don’t know if it’s the same people each time (I rather doubt it) but the fact that the impetus and energy to keep a moribund musical form alive always seems to turn up in England is undeniable.