‘Only one can rule the night’
Fairs and music in post-1945 Britain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.34399Keywords:
fairgrounds, subcultures, soundscape, popular music, listeningAbstract
This article charts and examines the relationship between popular music and the British travelling fairground in the post-war years. I set out a historical trajectory of the importance of sound and noise within the fairground, and examine how music in the post-war years emerged as an important aspect of this wider soundscape. The complex spatial characteristics of the fairground are considered as fragmented zones with ‘interiors-within-interiors’ forming to facilitate certain music and sounds. This progresses to encompass and engage the subcultural explosion in British society. The fairground becomes a complex mode of musical consumption, enhancing the sound through somatic engagement and providing a temporary space for subcultures to flourish. I draw on historical materials, archival evidence and gathered testimony to look at the 1950s period of new music, then plot a course to the current phase of dance music and club culture.
References
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Weedon, Geoff, and Richard Ward. 1981. Fairground Art. London: White Mouse in association with New Cavendish Books.
Willis, Paul. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Braithwaite, D. 1968. Fairground Architecture. London: Hugh Evelyn.
Cain, Rebecca, Paul Jennings and John Poxon. 2013. ‘The Development and Application of the Emotional Dimensions of a Soundscape’. Applied Acoustics 74: 232–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2011.11.006
Cameron, D. K. 1998. The English Fair. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton.
Chambers, Iain. 1985. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17818-6
Cohen, Stanley. 1987 [1972]. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Cohen, Sarah, Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard and Les Roberts. 2014. Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places. New York: Routledge.
Dallas, D. 1971. The Travelling People. London: Macmillan.
DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489433
Dyer, Richard. 1979. ‘In Defense of Disco’. Gay Left 8: 20–23. http://www.gayleft1970s.org/issues/gay.left_issue.08.pdf
Forbes, Kenny. 2015. ‘“You had to be there”: Memories of the Glasgow Apollo Audience’. In Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places, ed. Sara Cohen et al., 143–59. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. 1984. ‘Des Espaces Autres’. Architecture / Mouvement / Continuiete #5 (October): 46–49.
Gelder, Ken. 2007. Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice. London: Routledge.
Hanna, Mike. 1988. ‘Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll!’ Fairground Mercury 11/3: unpaginated.
Harrison, Martin. 1998. Young Meteors: British Photojournalism: 1957–1965. London: Jonathan Cape.
Hoggart, Richard. 1957. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life. London: Chatto and Windus.
Laughey, Daniel. 2006. Music and Youth Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623808.001.0001
Lovell, Ben. 1989. ‘The Sound of Music’. Fairground Mercury 12/1: unpaginated.
Malbon, Ben. 1998. ‘The Club’. In Cool Places, ed. Tracey Skelton and Gill Valentine, 266–88. London: Routledge.
—1999. Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy and Vitality. London: Routledge.
Marr, Johnny. 2016. Set the Boy Free. London: Century.
McCulloch, Ken, Alexis Stewart and Nick Lovegreen. 2006. ‘“We just hang out together”: Youth Cultures and Social Class’. Journal of Youth Studies 9/5: 539–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676260601020999
Muggleton, D. 2000. Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style. Oxford: Berg.
Priestley, J. B. 1934. English Journey. London: Heinemann.
Schafer, R. M. 1994. The Soundscape: The Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.
Starsmore, I. 1975. English Fairs. London: Thames and Hudson.
Swinbank, Dave. 2000. ‘It’s Only Rock’n’Roll’. Platform 62: 11–13.
Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. London: Polity.
Toulmin, V. 2003. Pleasurelands. Hastings: The Projection Box.
Truax, Barry. 2000. Acoustic Communication. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood.
Walker, S. 2013. ‘Centre or Periphery? The Architecture of the Travelling Street Fair’. In Peripheries, ed. R. Morrow, 54–66. Oxford: Routledge.
Walvin, James. 1984. English Urban Life 1776–1851. London: Hutchinson.
Weedon, Geoff, and Richard Ward. 1981. Fairground Art. London: White Mouse in association with New Cavendish Books.
Willis, Paul. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Published
2017-12-21
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Trowell, I. (2017). ‘Only one can rule the night’: Fairs and music in post-1945 Britain. Popular Music History, 10(3), 262-279. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.34399
