Eager for new trends which would enable them to express their wilderness and rebellion, rock and roll was adopted by the European youth, mostly the British baby-boomers.

The sounds of Radio Luxembourg were heard in places such as Liverpool, England where youngsters who later became famous as The Beatles were also listening and attempting to copy the music they heard. Freed had featured in the famous Rock’n’Roll movie called Rock Around the Clock in that year, which "wrecked the movie theater in Liverpool" according to Ringo Starr who was among the youngsters that attended the opening of the movie in his hometown. Freed’s radio show was then booked onto Radio Luxembourg a pirate radio, thus making "Black Rock’n’Roll" popular in The UK.

The Paradox

American Bandstand TV Show starts being aired in the US at a time when British Youth was already in touch with Rock’n’Roll

It is worth mentioning Dick Clark’s TV show in the late 50’s called American Bandstand (first aired on the ABC network on Monday, 5 August 1957 – coincidently enough is the fact that, Paul McCartney met John Lennon when Lennon's group the Quarrymen played at the Garden Fete, St. Peter's Church, in Woolton, Liverpool on June 7th, 1957, that is, two months before the Dick Clark’s show was first aired in The US! A historical paradox - American Bandstand was one of the few television shows where one would get to see Black people. Dick Clark was remarkable in that he had all of best of the Black rock 'n' roll artists on his show. Dick Clark revealed to the public where the originality of this music was coming from. Over the years Clark gave young Black entertainers a stage to perform on, nationally.

Who were the kids in England listening to Rock and Roll at that time? We might say the ones that were growing up along with the reconstruction of a torn apart Europe.

The Beatlemania and the Subsequent British Invasion

Rock bands started to pop-up everywhere in The UK, heavily influenced by US African American artists that were not given credit at home. British youngsters would listen to the Blues singers as well. Fair to mention that the Rolling Stones themselves were big fans of blues artists, such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker and so forth. What followed was that huge numbers of youngsters started to be self-taught guitar players - among which we might quote George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and others - by listening to African American Rock and Roll artists, thus creating the basis for the "so called" British Rock. Rock and Roll under this format was packed and sold back to the US white audience.

The door to the US was opened by the Beatles performing on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. The term "Beatlemania" was used during the 1960s to describe fan frenzy (particularly by young teenaged girls) towards The Beatles. The movie * A Hard Day’s Night is a perfect chronicle of Beatlemania and in a deeper analysis; one might understand that not only does it depict the Beatlemania, but it may also suggest the need for old traditional and conservative values to be replaced. The youth taking power, unwillingly to accept pre-war concepts and behaviors. This can be seen in scenes that involve two old men on a train where the Beatles are traveling. The first old man to be shown in the movie plays the role of a troublemaker and the second one claims he should be respect due to having thought the war for them by saying: "I thought the war for your sort". Many fans across the world were known to have Beatlemania, which hit the United States hard after The Beatles performed at the Ed Sullivan Show. Such appearance is a landmark as to what was later referred to as the British Invasion (1963-1967). This historic performance became a major "port of entry" for the many bands that followed such as The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, The Searchers and others, many of them delivering definitive performances of now classic songs that continue to resonate to this day. As a result, an uncountable number of British bands started to score in US hit charts.

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