White Sheet Kids

[Funky 4 Corners]

A young lady film producer has recently made a documentary about teenagers in the 60s and early 70s who were into Soul and Motown and used to listen to it in secret on their transistor radios under the covers in bed. Here's a link to a trailer, I  think it's worth supporting.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/an-undercover-revolution-documentary-short-music-history#/

[Davenpete]

Looks like another re-writing of history to avoid acknowledging the UK (northern) soul scene proper.

...I thought you only got 'white sheet kids' in the southern states of america - very big on setting fire to crosses on people's lawns I believe.

Dx

Edited March 21, 2017 by DaveNPete

[Roburt]

Before UK pirate ship radio stns (AND many many years before NS), to hear soul + R&B 45's you had to either listen to Radio Luxemburg or AFN (pre 1964). The only time the signals from these stns were any good (here in the UK) was after dark. So many school kids (12 to 15) would listen to their transisters in bed (under their WHITE SHEETS) before they'd go to sleep. In many UK towns, you still needed to listen at night to get decent signals from many pirate stns. The people this outfit have interviewed seem to be the (still living) cream of the crop of early British soul fans.

So I'd say, they're doing a decent job as long as they aren't trying to take their report beyond 1970 (which is around when the UK NS scene kicked in) without making reference to the northern clubs & what they played. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Roburt

[Funky 4 Corners]

I've spoken to Charlene at some length and as far as I know she is concentrating on the 60s and again, as far as I know she's only interviewed folk that were tuning in, in the pirate / AFN / Lux days. I think that her quest is to try to understand why white British youth was so into black American music. DaveNPete, when she called in here we had long discussion about the main definition of the expression `White Sheets...` I did explain that it was originally used to describe white American kids in the 50s who were listening to black R&B / RnR although often forbidden by their parents, and she knew that but is simply re-vamping the expression to look at the British version some ten years on. Her dad was had a big Calypso / Blue Beat collection in the late 50s early 60s and so she knows where it's at I feel.