Bobby Socks and Poodle Skirts. Retro Unsettles the Myth of the 1950s
A recent review of Retro: The Culture of Revival by Elizabeth Guffrey takes a look at Guffrey's argument that the popularly held image of the 1950s was actually invented a decade later through musical groups like Sha Na Na.
Guffrey explains:
On the fourth day of the Woodstock Festival of 1969, just before Jimi Hendrix's celebrated finale, the stage was held by a group of unknown undergraduates from Columbia University. . . .The rock-'n'-roll revivalist group Sha Na Na bombarded the audience with tightly choreographed 1950s classics like 'Teen Angel' and 'At the Hop.' The festival's unlikely scene stealers sported dated looks, including greased ducktails, white socks and cigarettes rolled into T-shirt sleeves. Sha Na Na's impossibly upbeat and exuberant version of the 1950s seemed the opposite of the arty psychedelica and hard rock that characterized Woodstock.
See the full article in Columbia College Today.







