![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Jeff-Lynne-Electric-Light-Orchestra-1970s-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Mon 1 September 2025 17:00, UK <\/p>\n
Patriotism is something of a buzzword at current, and while I don\u2019t wish to sound overly patriotic myself, even I cannot help but feel a pang of national pride when discussing Britain<\/a>\u2019s extensive history of rock and roll greatness. <\/p>\n Although the rock revolution has its roots in cities like Memphis, where American artists blended blues with the infectious emerging sounds of R&B, it did not take very long for the energetic, youth-focused style to travel across the globe. In a grey and drizzly post-war Britain, the rock sounds arriving from the other side of the Atlantic represented an exciting, colourful future for the nation\u2019s youth. Inevitably, then, the UK soon established its own distinct rock and roll scene, which changed the game entirely. <\/p>\n By the time the 1960s rolled around, every city and provincial town across the country was littered with hopeful young rock and roll outfits. Ironically, it was the United States who gave many of these groups their first taste of mainstream success, in an age dubbed \u2018the British invasion\u2019. With the likes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones leading the charge<\/a>, the invasion period typified the rock sounds of the swinging sixties, as well as inspiring the next generation of artists, like future ELO songwriter Jeff Lynne. <\/p>\n Growing up during the 1950s and 1960s, Lynne was as taken with the emergence of American rock as anybody else, but it was the inspiration provided to him by invasion groups like The Beatles which truly set him on a path to musical greatness. When the iconic songwriter was asked by The Quietus<\/a> to compile a list of his favourite records back in 2012, it was always likely that The Beatles were about to feature as heavily as cabron dioxide in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n It might not be of cultural interest to aficionados, but the revolutionary power of the band\u2019s 1963 debut Please Please Me is way too undervalued, Lynne recalled, \u201cThe sound of it, to me, was real, raw excitement. They were a great group, they really were.\u201d Adding the fairly bold claim, \u201cI think \u2018I Saw Her Standing There\u2019 was probably the greatest ever English rock\u2019n\u2019roll song.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n