{"id":882620,"date":"2026-10-15T01:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T01:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882620\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T01:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T01:12:12","slug":"born-86-years-ago-today-in-india-the-british-answer-to-elvis-presley-who-dominated-the-charts-before-the-beatles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882620\/","title":{"rendered":"Born 86 Years Ago Today in India, the British Answer to Elvis Presley Who Dominated the Charts Before the Beatles"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (October 14) in 1940, Harry Rodger Webb was born in Lucknow, India. Known professionally as Cliff Richard, he burst onto the rock n\u2019 roll scene with his 1958 single, \u201cMove It\u201d. Hailed as Britain\u2019s answer to Elvis Presley<\/a>, Richard ruled the UK charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s before Beatlemania officially took hold. With a career spanning more than six decades, he ranks third behind the Beatles and the \u201cKing\u201d among the best-selling artists in UK singles chart history. Today, we\u2019re spotlighting his life and career in honor of his 86th birthday.<\/p>\n

How He Became Cliff Richard<\/p>\n

After relocating from India to the London suburbs in the late 1940s, Harry Webb found himself swept up in the skiffle craze that spread through the country the following decade. (Blending folk, blues, country, bluegrass and jazz, skiffle often relies on homemade or improvised instruments.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

After receiving his first guitar from his father at age 16, Webb went on to<\/a> form the school vocal harmony group The Quintones before singing in the Dick Teague Skiffle Group. In 1958, he joined UK group the Drifters as lead singer and began going by the stage name Cliff Richard. (\u201cCliff\u201d implied \u201crock\u201d, while Richard came from Webb\u2019s musical hero Little Richard.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s single \u201cMove It\u201d became a massive hit, reaching number two on the UK singles chart. John Lennon credited it as Britain\u2019s first rock n\u2019 roll record, saying that \u201cbefore that there\u2019d been nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

A New Wave of Rock n\u2019 Roll<\/p>\n

By the late 1950s, British music fans were hungry for some homegrown pop heroes, and Cliff Richard was just what they were looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cMove It\u201d catapulted him to stardom and ushered in a boom in British rock & roll. Along with his backing group the Shadows, Richard became its most recognizable face.<\/p>\n

The following year, he scored a number-one hit with \u201cLiving Doll\u201d. This marked the first of 14 number-one career hits for Richard. Indeed, he is the only singer<\/a> in the history of music to have a UK number-one hit across five decades.<\/p>\n

Richard\u2019s commercial peak wasn\u2019t confined to the stage, either. He also enjoyed a successful film career, landing roles in including Expresso Bongo (1959), The Young Ones (1961), Summer Holiday (1963) and Wonderful Life (1964), along with his own BBC show.<\/p>\n

Overshadowed by Beatlemania<\/p>\n

Once the Beatles arrived on scene in the early 1960s, however, there was little room for anyone else on the British pop scene.<\/p>\n

While Cliff Richard continued charting hits throughout the decade, he never quite reached the same level of stardom he had previously enjoyed. And despite four Hot 100 hits \u2014 including the top 25 \u201cIt\u2019s All in the Game\u201d \u2014 between August 1963 and August 1964 \u2014 he never could replicate his success on the U.S. market.<\/p>\n

In 1964, Richard publicly announced his re-dedication to his Christian faith. While he still recorded secular material with the Shadows, he devoted much of his time to Christian-based work.<\/p>\n

Richard experienced something of a career resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s with hits like \u201cDevil Woman\u201d and \u201cDreamin\u201d. <\/p>\n

[RELATED: 3 Forgotten and Lost Songs From 1981 I Bet You Don\u2019t Remember]<\/a><\/p>\n

Knighted in 1995, Cliff Richard had sold more than 250 million records worldwide by then. He continues touring to this day.<\/p>\n

Featured image by Jo Hale\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (October 14) in 1940, Harry Rodger Webb was born in Lucknow, India. Known professionally as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[308857,177243,88,216,370590],"class_list":["post-882620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1940s","tag-cliff-richard","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-n-roll-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}