Roots, Radicals and Rockers

A Rough Trade, Mojo and FT Book of the Year

LONGLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE

Emerging from the jazz clubs of the early 1950s, skiffle - a uniquely British take on American folk and blues - caused a sensation among a generation of kids who had grown up during the dreary post-war years. Teenagers were looking for a music of their own in a culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC. Against a backdrop of Cold War politics, rock and roll riots and a newly assertive working-class youth, Billy Bragg charts - for the first time in depth - the history, impact and legacy of a movement that sparked a revolution and shaped pop culture as we have come to know it.