Soho clubs

Written by Charlie Gillett

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

The mid-1950s were do-it-yourself time for young singers and musicians throughout the world. In the United States, depending on the region of the country, the options were joining an electric-guitar bar band that played country music or blues or singing doo-wop on a street corner. In England, from the moment Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line” hit the charts in 1956, a would-be performer was more likely to play skiffle—a simple-to-play idiom based on American folk and blues songs, performed on guitar, broomstick bass, and washboard—which first emerged in jazz clubs. Every city had at least one such club, mostly in ...(100 of 283 words)

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