Coal, Cotton and Rock ‘n’ Roll in North West England

Abstract

This chapter examines the experiences of working-class youth in the northern industrial towns of Leigh and Wigan. It highlights the continuities and ruptures in popular culture and Clive Powell’s place within an industrial milieu in which rock ’n’ roll music played a particular role in both affirming and challenging working-class identities.1 Here is an image of England that still contained features of the Victorian economy and the social structure it created. Through an exploration of social spaces that were defined by particular soundscapes it explores the role that popular music played in complementing a ‘structure of feeling’ that connected young men and women to a sense of class, locality and the possibilities of change. The musical journey traversed by Powell and his peers in the coal and cotton industries of North West England sheds light on the complex relationship between class, youth and popular music in the 1950s.