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Abstract
This article examines the career of Tommy Steele, Britain's first ‘home-grown’ rock ’n’ roll star. Steele has seldom been accorded much attention by popular music scholars, but his significance as a pioneering rock ’n’ roll musician in Britain should not be overlooked. This article examines the highly distinctive role which Steele played in adapting the brash ‘American’ sounds of rock ’n’ roll for a British audience, and in quelling fears regarding the linkage between the genre and juvenile delinquency. In many respects, Steele's remarkable career provides a very useful lens through which to view distinctive developments in British youth and popular culture during the late 1950s.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express her gratitude to the CBH editors and readers for their helpful advice and suggestions, and to colleagues and family members for their assistance and encouragement.
Notes
Gillian A.M. Mitchell is Lecturer in American History at the University of St. Andrews. Research interests in the history of forms of popular music in post-war Britain and the USA.
[1] Steele's 1982 sculpture of Eleanor Rigby was gifted to the people of Liverpool (see Holt, Pauline ‘Ask Tommy Steele’, Sunday Sun, 11 November 2007. Available from http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/your-questions/2007/11/11/ask-tommy-steele-79310-20090346/ (accessed 12 March 2010). Among Steele's children's novels are Quincy: A Story for Children (1981) and The World's Most Famous Bus Driver (2001).
[2] CitationHopkins, The New Look, 426.
[3] Smurthwaite, Nick ‘Scene Stealer—Tommy Steele’, The Stage, 7 November 2005. Available from http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/10322 (accessed 22 June 2009).
[4] CitationMelly, Revolt into Style, 47–50 and CitationCohn, Awopbopaloobopawopbamboom, 57.
[5] CitationBradley, Understanding Rock ’n’ Roll, 13 and 71.
[6] CitationFrith, ‘Look! Hear!’, 283.
[7] Bradley, Understanding Rock ’n’ Roll, 78–9.
[8] CitationSandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 472–8.
[9] Ibid., 472–3.
[10] Hopkins, The New Look, 426.
[11] Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 469.
[12] Sandbrook suggests that this encounter was a ‘myth’ (472), but Kennedy's story is essentially corroborated by CitationSteele in Bermondsey Boy, 242–3.
[13] Quote from ‘The Observer Profile: Tommy Steele’, The Observer, 21 December 1958. (Manchester Guardian and Observer Digital Archive, accessed 29 May 2010).
[14] CitationKennedy, Tommy Steele, 17.
[15] Statistic cited in ‘From Our Special Correspondent: ‘Stimulus Behind “Rock ’n’ Roll” Disturbances: Suggested Effect of Disorder Reports’, The Times, 15 September 1956 (Times Digital Archive, accessed 26 October 2009).
[16] Bradley, Understanding Rock ’n’ Roll, 13. In Asbury Park, New Jersey, 25 young people were hospitalised after a fight broke out during a concert by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers in 1956, while Time Magazine reported that, in a dance hall in San Jose, a similar riot during a rock ’n’ roll show caused $3000 worth of damage. See ‘Music: Rock ’n’ Roll’ Time Magazine, 23 July 1956, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865369,00.html (accessed 30 March 2011).
[17] CitationDavis, Youth and the Condition of Britain, 103–116 and 164.
[18] CitationHill, Sex, Class and Realism, 13–14. For discussion of the demonising of certain youth groups, see CitationCohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics.
[19] CitationHorn, Juke Box Britain, 132–3.
[20] See, for instance, ‘Rock ’n’ Roll for 24 Hours: “We did it just for the laughs”’, The Times, 25 January 1960, on a 24-hour rock ’n’ roll dancing marathon at a youth club, and ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Session for a Bishop’, The Guardian, 7 January 1960, on an enthusiastic visit made by the Bishop of Derby to a lunchtime rock ’n’ roll session at a local factory.
[21] The Times reported that those boys who engaged in rioting at the Gaiety Cinema in Manchester were deposited at the cinema by a lorry—suggesting premeditated hooliganism. See ‘Rock and Roll Disturbances: Film Halted in Manchester. Police Dogs Disperse London Crowd’, The Times, 11 September 1956. (The Times Digital Archive, accessed 26 October 2009.)
[22] ‘Stimulus Behind “Rock ’n’ Roll’ Disturbances’.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Kennedy, Tommy Steele, 17.
[25] Frank CitationMort, Capital Affairs, 90.
[26] Smurthwaite, ‘Scene Stealer—Tommy Steele’.
[27] Kennedy, Tommy Steele, 25–35.
[28] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 244. The Duke of Kent had, apparently, been in the vicinity of the Stork Club while Steele was performing there, but had not actually heard him play.
[29] See ‘Tommy Steele is Debs’ Delight (200 for a party)’, Melody Maker, 1 December 1956.
[30] Quoted in ‘The Observer Profile: Tommy Steele’.
[31] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 254–5.
[32] Tatham, Dick, ‘Vocal Views by Dick Tatham’, Record Mirror, week ending 9 February 1957.
[33] Melly, Revolt into Style, 47–8.
[34] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 183–8.
[35] Ibid., 187–8.
[36] Ibid., 236–7.
[37] Ibid., 238–9.
[38] Ibid., 235.
[39] Ibid., 240.
[40] Ibid., 239.
[41] This interview appears in a commemorative magazine-style 1957 fan publication, Citation The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture Story Album .
[42] ‘Film Offer to Tommy Steele’, Melody Maker, 22 December 1956.
[43] Kennedy, John ‘Tommy Steele: The TRUE Story of His Success’, Melody Maker, 31 May 1958.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 244.
[46] Steele's South African tour is discussed in CitationHamm, ‘Rock ’n’ Roll in a Very Strange Society’.
[47] Kennedy, John, ‘Tommy Steele Story Part 2’, Melody Maker, 7 June 1958.
[48] Quotations from The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture-Story Album.
[49] Ibid.
[50] CitationSpicer, ‘Male Stars, Masculinity and British Cinema’, 93–6.
[51] All of these items are advertised at the back of The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture-Story Album.
[52] Ibid.
[53] ‘Tommy's Party Was So Homely!’, Record Mirror, week ending 7 September 1957.
[54] ‘The Observer Profile: Tommy Steele’.
[55] ‘Tommy Steele Says’, Melody Maker, 2 February 1957.
[56] Kennedy, Tommy Steele, photographic illustration.
[57] Ibid., 48.
[58] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 299.
[59] Quotation from The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture-Story Album.
[60] Quoted in CitationHarper and Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s, 262. This estimation of Steele was also quoted in Hentoff, Nat, ‘An American View of Tommy Steele’, New Musical Express, 10 January 1958.
[61] The Tommy Steele Story, dir. Gerard Bryant (Insignia Films, 1957). Quote from Harper and Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s, 192.
[62] According to Kennedy, Steele's mother did attend one of his performances at the Stork Club. Kennedy, Tommy Steele, 31–2.
[63] Harper and Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s, 192.
[64] Ibid., 262.
[65] CitationHoggart, The Uses of Literacy, 203–5.
[66] Statistic from Hopkins, The New Look, 424. For a contemporary survey of teenage consumerism in this period, see CitationAbrams, Teenage Consumer Spending in 1959.
[67] Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 11.
[68] CitationGeraghty, British Cinema in the Fifties, 16.
[69] Horn, Juke Box Britain, 3.
[70] Ibid., 187.
[71] CitationBlake, ‘Americanisation and Popular Music in Britain’, 149–50.
[72] Horn, Juke Box Britain, 187.
[73] Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 10–11.
[74] Ibid., 15.
[75] CitationEllis, ‘The Younger Generation’, 221.
[76] Cited in Horn, Juke Box Britain, 102.
[77] Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 190–1, 199–202 and 399–401. These works were not uniform in their depictions of the working class, but collectively they reflected a marked increase of general interest in the ‘grittier’ aspects of British life.
[78] Davis, Youth and the Condition of Britain, 103.
[79] Cohn, Awopbopaloobopawopbamboom, 57.
[80] Melly, Revolt into Style, 49–50.
[81] Cohn, Awopbopaloobopawopbamboom, 57.
[82] Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 477.
[83] Race, Steve, ‘Teddy Boy Element is Fouling Jazz’, Melody Maker, 26 January 1957.
[84] Radio Times 1957–1958 (National Library of Scotland Collections).
[85] Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 476.
[86] Laing, ‘Tommy Steele’.
[87] Harper and Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s, 262.
[88] Quoted in The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture-Story Album.
[89] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 303–4.
[90] ‘Great Stuff, Tommy!’, Record Mirror, week ending 24 August 1957. See also ‘A Cavalcade of Rock and Skiffle’, Record Mirror, week ending 28 December 1957.
[91] Kennedy, Tommy Steele, 30.
[92] Quoted in The Wonderful Tommy Steele Picture-Story Album.
[93] ‘Vocal Views by Dick Tatham’.
[94] Record Mirror, 28 December 1957 (caption beneath cartoon drawing of Steele).
[95] ‘The Observer Profile: Tommy Steele’.
[96] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 261. See also ‘Girls Mob Tommy Steele: Rescued Unconscious’, Manchester Guardian, 1 May 1958 (accessed 29 May 2010).
[97] Kennedy insisted that Steele keep his relationship with his future wife, dancer and actress Ann Donoghue, a secret. See Kennedy, Tommy Steele, 66–7 and 88. See also Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 299.
[98] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 298.
[99] Kennedy, ‘Tommy Steele’. Kennedy's book was also undoubtedly intended to dispel the myth that Steele had been exploited by revealing the ‘truth’ about their relationship.
[100] Steele, Bermondsey Boy, 305.
[101] Steele's apparent unhappiness and ill-health were frequently commented upon in Melody Maker as 1958 progressed. See, for example, ‘Now it's “Bed By Ten” for Steele’, Melody Maker, 24 May 1958 on his exhaustion, and ‘Steele Looks Back in Anger’, Melody Maker, 14 June 1958 on his Caird Hall ordeal.
[102] Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 475.
[103] CitationMarwick, British Society Since 1945, 98.
[104] Melly, Revolt into Style, 40.
[105] ‘Beatles are “Just Cuddlesome”: Young Girls’ Reaction’, The Times, Thursday 28 May 1964 (The Times Digital Archive, accessed 9 March 2010).
[106] Albums such as Tommy by The Who (Track, 1969), Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake by The Small Faces (Immediate, 1968) and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts’ Club Band (Parlophone, 1967) all demonstrated a degree of Music-Hall or Variety influence in different regards. Blake notes the Music-Hall influences within the work of the Small Faces and Kinks in ‘Americanisation and Popular Music in Britain’, 150.
