This early evening nostalgia show from the BBC played rock & roll hits from the years 1956 to 1980 (one year per episode) played over archive news clips from the featured year, cleverly tying in the lyrics of songs with the subject of the news clips.
Starting in 1956 with Elvis Presley‘s Mystery Train, we were taken on an informative, educational and entertaining journey through modern history.
The idea was based on a Radio 1 series called 25 Years Of Rock (subsequently remade and expanded as Sounds Of The 20th Century for Radio 2) and was piloted in 1984 with a one-off programme on the year 1966.
There was no narrator, just superimposed text to provide the ongoing story of the year.
Episodes were well edited with some neat little jokes, such as archive footage of Prince Charles arriving at his first school while Paul Anka crooned Diana over the top.
The series returned in 1994 to update coverage to the end of the eighties.
