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This chapter focuses on a selection of teen couples in the 1950s, who were “going steady” and experimented in intense and intimate sexual acts, including premarital intercourse. Going steady—a practice that was in the mainstream of postwar culture—was a pervasive site of sexual initiation, exploration, and exhilaration. Often, it was also the context for sexual coercion, unintended pregnancy, and punitive intervention. Steady relationships illustrate both framed and veiled widespread premarital heterosexual activity. The increase in sexual promiscuity fueled what was arguably the most important ideological development in postwar youth sexual culture: the “permissiveness with affection” sexual standard. This belief in the acceptability of heavy petting and even intercourse between members of a steady couple provided girls a compass for navigating the minefield of sexual contradictions.

This chapter, which explores the influence of both parents and children during the years when the children are making decisions about union formation, considers the influence of the individual factors in equations that control for parental factors measured through age fifteen, but which do not control for later explanatory factors. It focuses on how the heterosexual experiences of the children during their adolescent years—specifically dating, going steady, and sexual initiation—are related to the timing of union formation and the choice between cohabitation and marriage. The chapter also considers the effects of both the timing of the initiation of these courtship experiences and the intensity and extensiveness of heterosexual relationships during late adolescence, and finally, investigates how pregnancies occurring before the initiation of residential unions influence entrance into marriage and cohabitation.

Jimi deepens his entanglement with manager Michael Jeffery by signing another ill-advised contract, and moves with Chas Chandler and Kathy Etchingham into an apartment owned by Ringo Starr. He begins assembling a wide-ranging collection of albums, including many by favourite blues artists Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Elmore James. After a visit with his former bandleader, Little Richard, Hendrix is accosted by the London police due to his skin color and clothing choices. The Jimi Hendrix Experience make their television debut on Ready Steady Go!, and record “Foxey Lady,” “Can You See Me,” “Love or Confusion,” “Red House,” and other original Hendrix compositions. The band’s first single, “Hey Joe” backed with “Stone Free,” is released to rave reviews. Then, while waiting backstage to perform at a Boxing Day matinee, Jimi composes “Purple Haze,” drawing inspiration from a Philip José Farmer science fiction short story. He rings in the new year with Noel Redding’s family.

This chapter examines the complications of race and class as a part of the jazz dance story. Acceptance as an art form has eluded jazz dance for decades. Much of this can be attributed to the separation between the artistic community and what is considered entertainment, and therefore less sophisticated. The development of jazz dance as a codified technique during the latter half of the twentieth century has blurred or erased movement that does not emanate from white ideas of artistic value. This chapter offers theories that encompass the discussion of race and class in America, highlighting the contradiction that allowed jazz dance to become a marginalized dance form while still having great commercial success. Discussion includes the influence of rock and roll music, Motown, and shows like American Bandstand and Ready Steady Go¡

In the 1960s, Dusty Springfield’s voice earned her frequent comparisons to African American vocalists. This chapter argues that Springfield’s vocal sound reveals how racialized listening processes operate. It shows how the historical reception of Black singers in Britain, assumptions about how white women sounded, and a pop music scene that cultivated excitement through engagement with racial otherness moved listeners to hear her voice in racialized terms. The chapter begins with discussion of how Springfield’s story of vocal transformation has been told by her biographers. Then, it consider two key collaborations between Springfield and Black artists: the “Sound of Motown,” a special episode of the TV program Ready Steady Go!, and her 1969 album, Dusty in Memphis. Although separated only by five years, the two performances in question construct Springfield’s relationship to race and identity much differently, responding, in part, to political, cultural, and musical changes that occurred during the intervening years.