Various Artists - Rock 'N' Skiffle: Brit Beat Beginnings

Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele, Lita Roza, Winifred Atwell, Red Price, Tony Crombie, Alma Cogan, Bert Weedon, Beryl Bryden and Ray Ellington are part of the colourful line up of musical talent from a wide musical spectrum that stood at the cradle of British Beat.The 1950s was an extraordinary decade in the history of British popular music. On the one hand it was still basically a forum for 'light entertainment' as conceived by Tin Pan Alley moguls and broadcast by Aunty BBC. At the same time the post-war sounds of rhythm 'n' blues and rock 'n' roll were starting to wing their way across the Atlantic and a new generation of British teenagers (a hitherto unclassified market) was restlessly shuffling off the old order and demanding a change of pace.The result was a kaleidoscope of revolutionary good-time looseness in the form of skiffle, a lot of cover versions of contemporary US hits (ranging from the remarkably competent to laughably inept), some outright parodies, and the first stirrings of home grown rock 'n' roll.It's all here in his evocative, 100 track set with 40 page booklet. Pay no heed to romanticists, this is how it really was.