| Teen Stars |
 Bill Forbes appearing on Oh Boy! in 1958. Accompanying him are Lord Rockingham's XI with Harry Robinson (director), Benny Green (baritone saxophone), Cherry Wainer (organ), Don Storer (drums), Reg Weller (percussion), Red Price (tenor sax), Rex Morris (tenor sax), Cyril Reubens (baritone sax), Ronnie Black (double bass), Bernie Taylor (guitar), & Eric Ford (guitar). Backing the singer are the Vernons Girls, the Dallas Boys and Neville Taylor's Cutters. |
| The first two major singers to emerge are Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard, although others also pretended to the throne. Both Steele and Richard demonstrate the tendency of these artists to move from rock singer to pop singer to film star as managers groomed them for larger markets. They started their careers playing music with clear rock/blues roots, moved to performing cabaret and theater songs, and finally ended up on the screen. Just as in the United States, with the success of these performers, the managers found other vocalists to sell and a new wave of faces in fashionable clothes appeared on Britain's television screens. |
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| Recording team for Oh Boy album at EMI. Back row: Cuddly Dudley (Dudley Heslop, singer), Vince Eager (Rod Taylor, singer), Harry Robinson (music director), Peter Elliott (singer), & Norman Newell (EMI artist & repertoire manager) Front row: Jack Good (producer), Stan Dallas (singer, arranger), John Barry (arranger, trumpet), Neville Taylor (standing, singer, arranger), & Geoff Love (arranger). EMI Studios for the OH BOY! album. Photo by Harry Hammond courtesy of V&A Publishing, Halfway to Paradise - The Birth of British Rock |
| Female singers play a less significant role in this culture than their American counterparts, but were still important. The first Americans to have an impact were singers like Connie Francis and, later, Brenda Lee and the "girl groups" (e.g., the Shirelles) associated with New York's Brill Building. Brits Alma Cogan and Shirley Bassey fit the professional entertainer mold, but were not teen idols. Helen Shapiro would later update that image. |
| Most of these male and female singers survived 1963's beat boom, although they never quite regained the prominence they had in the late 1950s. Richard, however, continued getting hits throughout the sixties and into the seventies. |
| Tommy Steele | Cliff Richard | Adam Faith |
| Billy Fury | Marty Wilde | Johnny Leyton |
| Joe Brown | Helen Shapiro | Johnny Gentle |
| Cudley Dudley | Peter Elliott | Vince Eager |
| Dickie Pride |
| Early British Rock and Pop | Outline | Early Rock Groups |
| 23-oct-15 | ||