Rockabilly takes over
Rockabilly, jive, swing and big band hits AKA…
A lover of 50’s retro glam and the music and parties of the period, Christianne Beck has been throwing rockabilly, jive and swing parties as Baby Blue Eyes in Brighton for a couple of years now. She launches her (and our!) first London swing shindig at AKA on Thursday November 29th. Christianne touches on the roots of the scene below...
Have you noticed the girls with headscarves tied in a knot around gravity defying backcombed hair? Boys with tight blue jeans and even tighter white T-shirts? Amy Winehouse’s her red lips and streaks of black eyeliner? Richard Hawley’s rodeo shirts and lacquered hair? There are more and more characters wearing this larger than life style entering our lives every day. But they are not the first; the style is inspired by rockabilly music, and is taken from a period in time when teenagers clothes and aesthetic were an outward expression of a new era. A time when the young experienced ‘freedom’ - the 1940’s and 50’s.
No one had ever heard the term ‘teenager’ before the late 40’s. After the depression that America and England experienced both mentally and financially a result of two world wars, those coming of age realised life was too short. They began spending the countries’ new earned cash on all the fruits of the new, freer world around them. Saturday nights were spent necking at the drive in, cruising in (and posing in front of) sleek sports cars. Cash was splashed in record stores, in diner jukeboxes and on new poodle skirts and slacks to jitterbug in at the high school dances.
All the while rock ‘n’ roll provided the hormonally charged and sexually suggestive soundtrack to the era. Rockabilly is a hybrid of the genres rock and roll and hillbilly, referencing its roots in both the black-influenced 12 bar blues, and country and western crooning and finger picking. Dion and The Belmonts wined about the angst of being a ‘Teenager in Love’, Elvis moved his controversial pelvis declaring he was ‘All Shook Up’ and the Johnny Burnette Trio lamented on teenage heartbreak with ‘Lonesome Tears in my Eyes’. It was a time of rebellion, spurred on by the powerful beat from the tunes of the decade. However conservatives declared it ‘the devils’ music’ and even today Legacy Recordings (a record label who put out original rockabilly hits) advertise the content of their CDs as ‘The original voice of teen frustration, known to anger parents and induce juvenile delinquency’.
Rockabilly style is very much still alive as a subculture today. Its influences are everywhere; in music, movies and the media. There are still crowds of kids and young adults bopping to the music and enveloping themselves in the original culture – many taking it to extremes. Some pay thousands of pounds to restore original Cadillacs and wear their hair as high Brian Setzer’s gravity defying quiff. The 50’s were known as a glamorous and decadent time so it’s no surprise that some people just do not want to let go!
Baby Blue Eyes launch party
Thursday 29th November 2007
1900 – 0300 Entry £8 / £7 (NUS)
DJ Suave, Helena Jessie and band, Vamp of Savannah, UCL Big Band (17 piece set up)
London Swing Dance Society, Burlesque artist Miss Vicky Butterfly
Published: 21/11/2007
