Part 5 of our 50 part series was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 last night was 1955 – a really seminal year for lots of different reasons.
As a researcher it feels like there was a significant shift in the musical agenda. 1955 was the year when Elvis Presley started to get noticed and rock ‘n’ roll is very much on the agenda with artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley all releasing big records. It must have been quite a shock to conservative audiences (with a small c) to hear these young men yelling about “tearing the place up” – particularly when the charts had been dominated by the crooners for so long.
BBC Television gets its first competitor with the arrival of ITV and shows like Take Your Pick and Dragnet – which owed a lot to American TV shows with their upbeat presentation style and flashing lights.
In the world of film, young star James Dean is killed before moviegoers have seen him in Rebel Without A Cause, becoming one of the most iconic faces in movie-going history in the process (only the good die young, etc).
And the biggest news story in the UK is the unmasking of Kim Philby as the Third Man. You’ll have to wait for another 6 months to find out who the Fourth Man was!
The programme will be on iPlayer for the next week.
This is a wonderful series which sadly, I only discovered from 1956 onwards.
I agree, what a brilliant series and a mammoth undertaking.
Unfortunately I didn’t discover it until 1959!
I hope they will re-broadcast it again at some stage so I can listen to the episodes for 1951-58 inc.
Just a note, I’ll actually be drawing my state pension when the series finishes!!
Excellet series. However your comments regarding the rock and roll of 1955 are abit wide of the mark. very few of these songs were heard in the UK until a few years later. These artists were ignored by the BBC.
Yeah, it would be great if the first episodes are re-broadcast again, since I started listening in 1954. I simply love Sounds of the 20th Century. Greetings from Lima, Peru
Such a good series – can it be televised to capture an even bigger audience?
“can it be televised to capture an even bigger audience?”
The whole point of it being an Audio Documentary is that radio provides far better pictures than TV can.
It is not too late to start podcasting this programme. After all it is running for 50 weeks!
just loving this series but why cant it be put on earlier or given a weekend repeat say sat/sun teatimes.Its like the rock and roll years that bbc 1 did some years ago,only alot lot better.
Hi John and Peter,
Thank you for your comments. The series is available for listen-again on the BBC Radio 2 website, but due to licensing restrictions around music we aren’t able to podcast it.
Best wishes,
Heather
Agree this is a great series. Love the way the stories are presented without editorial comment, and even though you control what’s included, at least we’re not told how or what to think about it. A small gripe – the way you present news stories with that bizarre ‘tickertape machine’ noise in the background grates a bit. Are these stories that you couldn’t find any genuine clips about,or maybe felt you needed to summarise into a 30-second headline? If so, I wonder why you decided to present them like that – to me they detract from the ‘genuine’ feel of the programme. Anyway, keep up the great work and here’s hoping that other producers recognise the value of programmes like this and copy the format. BBC4 for example does some fine documentaries, but they are obsessed with the need for a scripted voiceover.
This is an excellent series for anyone like myself who has an interest in Social/Musical History. I have followed it since the 1958.episode and would very much like to get access to the first few programmes. I hope that the series will be repeated in the future.
Really enjoying listening to the series, unfortunately I didn’t pick this up until the 1978 session, so I have missed quite a significant and interesting part, I would be interested in downloading the whole playing list, could you please advise if this will become available.
Why can all of this series be available to listen again?
I’m so upset that I’ve only just found out about this series, and I can only listen again to one episode!! Will the whole series be repeated/be for sale?
Also, I know our memories can stretch as far back as the noughties quite easily, but do we have to wait another 100 years before they’re featured as well?
This would be an ideal series to repeat in the BBC Music 6 slot, say at 3.00 am when The Story of Pop comes to its current end shortly. Are there any plans to repat this fascinating series as I have missed some episodes.