2Times are changing : the 1960s

Immigration from the colonies of the British Empire was facilitated by the British Nationality Act 1948, which created the status of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) and granted colonial subjects political rights as well as freedom of movement. In France, the 1946 Constitution declared equality among all overseas peoples and guaranteed them freedom of movement. After 1962, these migratory movements continued, with the difference that immigrants were now citizens of independent countries arriving under negotiated agreements.

Many artists of this era came from this immigrant background, although few mentioned it; some even went so far as to change their names. For baby boomers born between 1945 and 1960, the trend was toward rock ’n’ roll, Afro-American culture, and a certain challenge to the established order.

Rock ’n’ roll was perceived as dangerous because it was associated with the enduring fear inspired by youth. In Paris, police reports written after the Nation concert revealed the authorities’ concern. In Great Britain, this fear was heightened by the abolition of national service in 1963, which had been seen as a remedy against delinquency. This association between youth and violence was also linked to the fact that rock ’n’ roll represented African American culture, then regarded as “corrupting” young people.

The Rock Scene in London

Crowd surges, packed venues, screams so loud that the music became inaudible, fits of tears and fainting spells… The images—and sounds—of Beatlemania were broadcast around the world, and every appearance by The Beatles received unprecedented media coverage. Newspaper headlines, special radio programs, and television shows multiplied from 1963 onward. Beatlemania, and in its wake the wave of British pop music, were widely amplified by iconic television programs such as Six-Five Special, Ready Steady Go!, and later Top of the Pops.

British youth eagerly awaited these television rendezvous to discover new groups such as The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Who, The Kinks, The Hollies, The Merseybeats, and David Bowie (then performing as Davy Jones and the King Bees). All of these artists drew inspiration from African American music traditions such as blues, rhythm and blues, and soul.

The yéyé era

Rock in France was born in the streets, initially ignored by the musical establishment. “The wave spread into the working-class districts and suburbs, reigning over the jukeboxes of cafés frequented by young people,” noted Edgar Morin in his famous 1963 article in Le Monde, where he coined the term “yéyé” for the movement. These young people shared a desire to distinguish themselves from adults through their musical tastes, clothing, and hairstyles—quiffs, beehives, braids—but above all through their capacity for ecstatic communion, “from house parties to music-hall shows, and perhaps, in the future, giant gatherings modeled on the one at the Nation,” the sociologist predicted.

In Paris, this musical fervor had its temple: the Golf-Drouot, located in the 9th arrondissement. While major British rock groups such as The Pretty Things, The Animals, and The Yardbirds performed there, the venue was especially known for launching many French talents, including Eddy Mitchell (during his time with Les Chaussettes Noires), Dick Rivers of Les Chats sauvages, Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc, and Vigon.

By 1965, out of the 450,000 West Indians recorded across the country, 150,000 had settled in London, mainly in the districts of Islington, North Kensington, Paddington, and Brixton. They were followed by migrants from India and Pakistan, whose numbers increased from 1960 onward. By 1965, there were 180,000 Indians and 120,000 Pakistanis in Great Britain. Many settled in Greater London, where they proportionally outnumbered West Indians in neighborhoods such as Southall and Stepney.

Initially facilitated by the status of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, which granted freedom of movement from 1948 onward, immigration from former colonies that had become independent was made subject to the granting of work permits starting in 1962.

Focus : The Windrush

The HMT Empire Windrush carried around 800 Caribbean migrants from the British West Indies, mainly Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, to work in the United Kingdom in 1948. They were among the first to benefit from the free movement rights granted by the status of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.

Passenger records show that many intended to settle permanently. Their status entitled them to permanent residence. This special status had various long-term consequences, some of which were still felt in 2018, when the British authorities created difficulties in recognizing the full British citizenship rights of these former citizens of the Empire.

From 1962 onward, the label Blue Beat Records dominated ska production in Great Britain to such an extent that the term “blue beat” became commonly used to refer to ska music itself. The genre’s first major hit, My Boy Lollipop, was recorded in 1963 by the singer Millie Small. More discreetly, African music made its mark through tours by artists mainly from Ghana and Nigeria, such as E. T. Mensah, and thanks to clubs that hosted performers including Ebo Taylor and the young Fela Kuti. A genuine scene emerged at the end of the 1960s and into the following decade, notably with Osibisa, a group founded by musicians of Ghanaian and Caribbean origin.

While Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Algerians, Moroccans, and Tunisians accounted for half of these foreign residents over three decades, the other half came from all over the world. Of all social backgrounds, they settled in neighborhoods ranging from the affluent western districts to the more working-class areas of eastern Paris, around Barbès, Place de Stalingrad, and Belleville. The Île-de-France region also became a major destination for immigrants. From the 1960s onward, some settled in shantytowns in the northwest suburbs, Nanterre and Gennevilliers, and in the east, such as Champigny-sur-Marne, before being rehoused in public housing estates in the greater Paris suburbs.

Foreign musical scenes in Paris

Paris, a capital of cross-cultural music and a magnet for intellectuals and artists from around the world, became as early as the 1940s a major center of North African music in France. Although immigration from sub-Saharan Africa was smaller at the time, Maghrebi communities were already well established in the capital.

From the most modest immigrant cafés tucked inside furnished hotels to the Oriental cabarets of the Latin Quarter, Maghrebi and Arab song found stages in Paris on which to meet their audiences. Yet the glittering façade of music cafés, with their stucco and papier-mâché décor, masked the more underground reality of the many Algerian cafés scattered across the city. These improvised stages, some of which still exist today, served as vital places of sociability in the lives of Maghrebi workers, whose daily existence was largely defined by labor. They functioned as information hubs and offered various services, including that of public letter writers. Modern both in the professionalism of their performances and in the spirit of freedom that animated their long nights, these Maghrebi stages undoubtedly formed the avant-garde of shows created and sustained by a foreign community in France.