Soho clubs

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...