What is the relationship between Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the Stones’ top record : Satisfaction? To find out, read more in the following text. How is this also related to the Blues Revival ? Another reason to read more of what is to come.
To explain it I need to go back to the 50ties.
In my walk through the memory lane of pop music I ended up so far enjoying the great music of the (American) blues and paid a quick visit to the Brill Building. I stayed in America, because there were born the great cultural heritages that the US left to the world : R&R and foremost the blues.
In the beginning of the sixties, R&R died and only by the mid sixties, when Robert Allen Zimmerman sang that the “times they are a’changing”, the establishment started to be worried that a new wave of protest was on its way, which would in a very short lapse of time change the cultural scene forever, after its was challenged a first time between 1955 and 3rd of February 1959.
But what happened overseas? In the UK?
Britain, as other (european) countries was in great shock after the WW II. The psychological recovery was going to be tough. As is the case in circumstances of complete destruction of the infrastructure after disasters, there was going to be an economic recovery, but it would come somewhat later than it did in the US and would need massive support from the green back. American military troops were all over to protect us from the danger coming from the Eastern communisme. And, what is important, the UK remained a very conservative, class based society, where traditionalism reigned. It was culturally poor.
Music was dominated by show tunes, folk and traditionnally arranged songs. There was no background of blues and country, no African influences, that were so typical for the US.
Not surprisingly, the new trend that saw the light in the 50ties in the Uk was more or less inspired by the US music. The absence of a linguistic barrier was not strange to this.
Skiffle music became enormously popular. It was inspired by the country blues, jazz and folk (inspired also by Leadbelly’s blues/folk). It was easily digestable, played on simple instruments. It fitted perfectly in the ruling establishment values.
Though there were numerous skiffle bands all over, counting by the houndreds, the most popular one was without any doubt that of Lonnie Donegan. The Beatles in the late 50ties started off also as a skiffle band, the Quarrymen.
The late 50ties gave us also some other ‘first’ British pop idols : Tommy Steele, Bill Fury, Wee Willie Harris and the somewhat more controversial Screaming Lord Sutch. Let’s not forget also Johnny Gentle, Marty Wilde, Vince Eager, Duffy Power, and the quite original Johnny Kid and his Pirates (Glad all over).
All of this however was not very innovative and was culturally not very stimulating. Cliff Richard was also copying the American Rock & Roll, adding however some more original accents, in harmony with his ‘Shadows’ (first called : the Drifters – not very surprising, is it). It was a form of R&R, but without the real energy that was so typical for the Rebels without a cause in the US. There was also strong pressure for commercial success, to make the music more digestable by the conservative middleclasses and over-thirties.
However, as in the US, the soil was fertile for a cultural revolution. Even more than in the US even, there were the germs of rebellion in the younger, leasure generation. Witnessing a strong, class based society and a (belated) economic development that didn’t really brought more joy to live, the frustration grew amoung youngsters who felt more and more bored. The society was un-fun, as David Townsed called it. The youngsters were on the look for more fun in their dull live. Skiffle didn’t fill that need. Instead they looked at the US and what happened there. It was through films and US-import of vinyl that they got to know what was going on at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean (the BBC was a conservative bastion and did not broadcoast the revolution music from the States). There were also some highly creative people, and here I’m thinking of the (jazz) musician, Chris Barber, who invited black blues players as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Bill Broonzy for concerts in the UK. Eddie Cochran introduced Ray Charles in the UK. I owe a special posting to him.
And then, in a very short span of time, after 1963, it all happened. In different urban centres a form of music developped based on R&R, R&B, soul and skiffle, with a typical strong beat.
Liverpool witnessed the rise of the Beatles, Gery & the Pacemakers, the Searchers and Cilla Black. Birmingham met Spencer Davis and the Moody Blues. Manchester created Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman Hermit’s and the Hollies. In London, thé cultural center for the development of what was then ‘underground’ music, Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds threw some serious questions in the direction of the Establishment.
The impetus for the cultural revolution amoung the younger generation was stronger than in the US, where the class division was less obvious than in the strong conservative English society. And the clash was important. The world would never be the same again with the start of the roaring sixties.
It was a conflict of generations, a cultural clash between the young, frustrated generation and the upper classes which were depicted as hypocretic. The rebellions stood up with a cause : have some fun and challenge the main cultural values of society. This revolutionary spirit was linked gradually with political motives and fueled several social movements for emancipation of women & black people. It became also a peace movement. But foremost, it was a search to bring about an own identity. This showed itself also in the haircut, dressing code (jeans and casual clothing were introduced) and general behavior. Street riots were not uncommon. Sex liberation and drugs were on the agenda. The aim was to shock and have some fun.
Some music was more traditional and less challenging than others. The Beatles sparked the revolution, but very quickly left behind this real rebellion spirit and aimed higher. In their traces followed typical Mearsybeat groups. I’m sure you remember the sweet ‘Ferry crossed the Mersey’.
But the more rebellious London gave birth to a rougher kind of protest, mixed with and inspired by the American R&R and blues. The Rolling Stones were of another kind than the Beatles. Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones literally showed his tongue to the well Respected Man so sarcastically painted by the Kinks. The Who made it clear that they hoped to die before they got old. The generation conflict shook the establishment in a matter of a few months.
This wave of protest landed on the American shores where prefab music coming from the Brill Building was dominant, and where the moral and political majority seemed to have won the battle against the R&R rebels without a cause. The shock was enormous. This second British invasion created an enormous cultural and creative movement. Where a few years before the British copied American music, Americans now copied British pop bands (Beach Boys, Four Tops, the Byrds, …). Garage pop was born. Experimentation was on the agenda. Times did indeed change. The British rebel with a cause woke up the American rebel to tell him that there was something to live for.
This also explained the Blues revival in the US. Blues had been forgotten by the mainstream. John Hurt was again working at a farm, and great artists as Muddy Waters continued to work hard, but without reaching the masses. And then, there were those white musicians as Eric Clapton, Alexis Corner (also coming from Chris Barber’s stable) and John Mayall who came to tell that they were inspired by the original blues. The white, critical American youngster discovered them together with the British blues artists. First came the ‘original’ Delta and Mississippi blues artists, and later the more polished blues from B.B. King was picked up.
I think it is hard to imagine now how profoundly this cultural wave spread over the States.
In any case, even though the establishment showed again to be resistant to the challenge, and by the 70ties, the shock was over and the hippie boy had become a manager of a profitable company, life would never be the same again. If today, one can go out to the office in jeans, we owe it to this generation.
I hope that by now the relation between the immense success of Monty Python in the UK, the Stones’ Satisfaction and the Blues revival is clear. They were all exponents of a major cultural revolution, the roaring sixties, in the UK where young people wanted to show their sarcasm, disrespect to the ruling classes in a funny and amused way. Values were turned upside down. The Blues revival was a way of showing there was more to life than washing machines, television sets, transistor radios, cars and a nice clean garden with carefully arranged flowers.
Let’s thank this coureagous generation for the change it brought about.
(I owe a great deal to the insights from reading David N. Townsends ‘Changing the world’. The photograph below is from John Hoppy Hopkins, showing George Harrison as if he is pointing his guitar like a gun to the well respected man.)
