Pop music in Britain is almost forty years old. By 1957 'Rock around the Clock' had opened a generation gap, London-based record labels like EMI, Decca and Pye had started to refine the art of hit-making, and Manchester had an import record shop bringing American rhythm and blues direct to Northern youth. By the mid-Sixties Jamaican sound systems in South London, Birmingham and the North of England were playing the bluebeat and ska records that marked the ripening of reggae. In 1964, while rock 'n' roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and beat music were mutating into vying forms, and laying down roots in British cities, Brian Epstein had taken the Beatles over to America, and the Beatles had taken over America.

LRB 20 July 1995 | PDF Download