There is a perceived wisdom that to be a writer, you should at first, be a reader. Handy that, because from an early age, I have ‘lost’ myself in countless books.
History, music, film, sport and fashion, all those subjects and more have crossed my path over the years and in that time, I have developed a fondness for a couple of writers in particular whose writing style I enjoy greatly and whose subject matter, speaks to me.
One of those writers is Nik Cohn. Born in 1946, and from Jewish stock, he did his growing up in Northern Ireland. He landed in London in 1963 as a journalist, freelancing at first, then for ‘Queen’ magazine, before writing a music column for The Observer newspaper.
I distinctly remember being told that his book ‘Today There Are No Gentleman’ was one that I should seek out as soon as possible, when I first mentioned that I wanted to write. And so, seek it out I did, though it took a while to find it. Long out of print by the time of me hearing about it, I ended up getting a hardback copy of it from a book dealer. It was relatively expensive to me back then. Mind you not as silly as the price for one now. Google it.
First published in 1971, for me it simply captures that love of clothes that some of us have. Not a lover of fashion necessarily, but of style. It captures the years when young men dressed, in general, like their fathers right up until the mid 50s.
Then suddenly they began to break away from this norm as they entered into the late 50s and then early 60s world of Teddy Boys and Mods. Cohn describes in fine detail the various ‘looks’, the designers and shops behind them over the intervening twenty-year period up until publication of the book in 1971. I found it beautifully written, fascinating to read and I wanted more of it.
So, to go forward, I went back and I found a copy of ‘Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom’, which was the 1970 retitled paperback version of his book from 1969 called ‘Pop From the Beginning’, written when Cohn was only 22.
It is essentially, his take on the love he had of the world of pop music, from Elvis to The Beatles and all the stops in between, before falling out of love with it by the time of writing the book in 1968. It was described by Rolling Stone magazine as the ‘definitive history of rock ‘n’ roll.
Again wonderfully written.
Funnily enough in recent years Cohn has perhaps become as famous for a short piece he wrote on the club life of young Italians in the borough of Brooklyn, New York. It was entitled ‘Inside the Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night’ and was first printed in the New York magazine in 1976.
The article was discovered by pop impresario Robert Stigwood and developed into the 1977 film ‘Saturday Night Fever’ starring John Travolta as Tony Manero.
Only Cohn later revealed that he had based the whole article, and Travolta’s character on the lifestyles of some Shepherds Bush mods he had once known.
Same lifestyle, just in different clothes, ten years apart.
The Mumper of SE5
