Credit: Far Out / Album Cover / Bent Rej
There’s no question that in the global rock and pop rankings, the British Isles come a confident second after the US of A for the sheer plethora of bands and dazzling songbook exported across the Atlantic.
It all comes down to those four Liverpudlians playing that fateful 1964 slot on The Ed Sullivan Show. There were some early examples of Americans faring better in the UK than in their Stateside homes, Bill Haley & His Comets and Buddy Holly undertaking mammoth tours across Britain and enjoying a higher and more enduring chart presence compared to the various Billboard rankings back home. But once Beatlemania had brought the world’s attention to Blighty, suddenly a volcanic plume of pop heavyweights would shove the original rock and rollers out of the way to score the 1960s’ shattering youthquake.
Pop suddenly became baked into the very British soil, boasting a world-class industry, live music petri-dish, and a crowded gaggle of budding managers and impresarios eager to spot the next Beatles or Rolling Stones. It was a fertile environment for any US Anglophile shaped by the British invasion and lost in the vast crevices of the States’ music terrain that didn’t recognise their subversive lyrics, foundations away from the blues, or a stirring melancholy more at home with the English weather than the West Coast’s sunny uplands.
Whatever it may be, some of the most famous names in US rock and pop eyed up an opportunity across the water and managed to find the fame they were fruitlessly clamouring for back home. Join us as we peruse the musical titans who finally struck gold when landing on the island of pop’s ultimate above-weight punchers.
