No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones (pt I)

Ever since reading Nick Tosches' educating, entertaining and effervescent Unsung Heroes of Rock n Roll (Secker & Warburg, 1991) which profiles the musicians who came before Elvis, I've been meaning to start something similar for the British scene. Hard as it is to believe—certainly if you only watch/listen/read current popular media on this stuff, anyway—there were people who played a key part in the development of the way that pop culture developed post-WWII, and who become more and more obscure as time goes by. They're likely to remain obscure unless a smart researcher points Alan Yentob in their direction and lets him imagine that he's re-discovering them…

There's no point in listening to Gerald Walcan Bright's (b.1904; d-1974) recorded musical output for clues as to his influence on the development of rock n roll in England. Better known as Geraldo, the Royal Academy-trained pianist began his professional career performing during silent movies in cinemas (younger readers; see The Artist for reference). He moved to the fledgling BBC radio of the late 1920s, and formed an orchestra named after himself. They became regular performers on live radio, at dance nights at the Streatham Locarno (probably), in short British b-movies and on recordings released as 78rpm records from the 1930s on. During WWII his orchestra played at the still dancing and swinging big hotels in London (Putting on the Ritz during the Blitz). In 1944 Geraldo hired Wally Stott as saxophonist; Wally went on to form his own orchestra and supply the backing for Diana Dors recordings (among others). In 1972 Wally became Angela Morley, moved to Arizona and won Emmys for composing music for Dynasty and Dallas. None of that's why Geraldo was important in the days before Elvis, The Beatles and Rolling Stones, though.

Geraldo's prime contribution to the development of rock n roll culture in Britain was to open, in 1946, a booking agency which organised for British musicians to work cruise liners going to America and the West Indies. Those musicians brought back to London records from New York, San Francisco, Miami and New Orleans. They returned to grey old, ration-confined Blighty wearing suits made in the Land of Plenty—with long drop jackets, wide lapels and turn-up peg trousers. Geraldo's Navy, as Nik Cohn so elegantly put it in Today There Are No Gentleman (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1971), 'provided an invaluable source of supply for all things American.'

Teddy Boy meets American Look, circa 1954

The suits that Geraldo's Navy came back wearing looked as if they'd been peeled from the back of Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck. At a time when the British Mens Fashion Council were advocating slim lapels and slim leg pants in order to save material that was still hard to get, the excesses of the American Look as one enterprising young clothes retailer called it, was irresistible. At his shop on London's Charing Cross Road, Cecil Gee catered for the musicians and song pluggers who worked and hung out in Tin Pan Alley (Denmark Street), smoking and bullshitting in the hours before work started at West End shows and clubs. Gee soon had his cutters creating the 'American Look' for regular customers who were not in Geraldo's Navy, but who wanted to look like they were.

Edwardian style in 1952 outside Cecil Gee's store

Cecil Gee continued dressing the musicians of Tin Pan Alley throughout the 1950s, supplying Marty Wilde and Tommy Steele, Vince Eager and all the one-hit wonders of the late-1950s pop chart, as well as the jobbing musicians in Saturday night dancehall orchestras who'd begun to travel to Soho from all over London to get 'the look'. The records that Geraldo's Navy brought back were quickly transcribed and re-scored for British versions, whether they were blues, R&B, Country or jazz  numbers, by musicians eager to score a hit or simply play something new and different at parties and after-show gigs. In Liverpool, the teenage Lennon and McCartney were similarly impressed with the new 45 rpm records that they could buy from second-hand stalls down by the docks. The records had often been sold for the fare to other parts of the UK by Geraldo's Navy who'd docked there instead of Southampton. By 1956 Gee had adopted the emerging Italian suit look—all bum freezer jacket and ankle-flapping straight leg pants—that pre-dated but subsequently inspired the Mod look of 1963 (in the process prompting Brian Epstein to ask Dougie Millings to copy it for his boys in preparation of visiting America). Soon after, Bill Green opened 'Vince', selling Italian tight pants, briefs and sweaters at a store just around the corner from Carnaby Street where rent was cheap. It was the beginning of a trend that John Stephen (Lord John) would take over and dominate within a couple of years, but Bill began it.

There are many other unsung heroes of British rock n roll, some of whom should make an appearance here, soon-ish. One—Jack Good, deserves a blog all of his own, so maybe that'll be next. It'll not only include Rock n Roll icons (Good put Gene Vincent into black leather), but the cream of British jazz of the 1950s, too. See Lord Rockingham's XI, for clues.