Dance Like Fred and Ginger, Sing Like Gracie and George
Dancehalls, Glitterballs and DJs - From the Pleasure Garden to the Discotheque - Bruce Lindsay
Bruce Lindsay [+]
Music Journalist and Social Historian
Description
The BBC’s wireless broadcasts may have made little effort to attract the nation’s youth, but there were plenty of other new media eager to do the job. Gramophone records let British fans hear what their musical heroes sounded like, but the movies let them see their favourites as well. Once those movies talked, a whole new world of dance and song opened up. Away from Britain’s biggest cities, it was the talking pictures that showed eager youngsters just how glamorous life could be, through movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or choreographed by Busby Berkley. If anyone needed reminding of how grey and drab life in Britain could be there were the films of George Formby and Gracie Fields, filled with dance and song on a different scale and far removed from the glamour of the American silver screen. New dance music stars arrived from the Caribbean, bandleaders made starring roles in British movies, lesser-known musicians struggled to find work or entered dance band contests. “Rock and Roll” arrived from an unlikely source, but once again, war loomed on the horizon.