Why Britain Rocked – Elizabeth Sharkey
Amazon Best Selling Author Elizabeth Sharkey in conversation with Beatles’ author Dr Richard Mills.
Why Britain Rocked: How Rock Became Roll and Took Over the World by Elizabeth Sharkey travels deep into Britain’s history to trace the events that led to its twentieth century musical explosion and argues that The Beatles’ arrival that so surprised the world really shouldn’t have been a surprise at all.
From the Celts and the Quakers, to Ira Aldridge and Paul Robeson, Why Britain Rocked breaks out of British pop history’s twentieth century confines. Instead, Sharkey starts the story in Celtic Britain and follows the migration of the peoples who carried their music from
the British Isles to the southern states, laying the foundations of America’s folk music and ultimately, rock n’ roll. Sharkey then brings the story back to the British Isles, identifying the Celtic inheritance of superstars from Lonnie Donegan and The Beatles, to David Bowie, John Lydon, Kate Bush, Johnny Marr, Noel Gallagher and Ed Sheeran, and the Scots and Irish balladry that became the blueprint for a music revolution.
Elizabeth Sharkey is a music historian, author, columnist and media commentator. A trained actress, Elizabeth’s previous career was working extensively in television and film. She is also recognised as one of the UK’s leading voice-over artists. Elizabeth first discovered music at the age of five when she secretly played her father’s jazz records. But it was on first hearing The Beatles’ ‘Something’ around the same age that she was hooked. This book is a love story, not just for British pop, but for her father, for it was through his love of music that she began her own.
Dr Richard Mills is an Associate Professor in English and Popular Culture at St Mary’s University, London. He has been programme director for the Film and Popular Culture, Cultural Studies and Irish Studies degrees. He has published extensively on popular music, Irish literature and culture, film, fashion and British television. Mills is co-editor of Mad Dogs and Englishness (Bloomsbury, 2017), the author of The Beatles and Fandom: Sex, Death and Progressive Nostalgia (Bloomsbury, 2019). He is also the author the recently published The Beatles and Black Music: Post-colonial Theory, Musicology and Remix Culture (Bloomsbury, 2023) and The Beatles and Humour (Bloomsbury, 2023). Richard is a regular contributor to
BBC 4’s Last Word, Sky News, RTE, Portobello Radio and BBC Live. He is also on the editorial board of The Journal of Beatles Studies.
