//London Records promotional image, 1958//

In 1956 the Hollywood photographer John E. Reed took a series of promotional shots of the stars of DJ Alan Freed’s rocksploitation flick Don’t Knock The Rock.

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Tags: Alan Freed, Chuck Berry, Don't Knock The ROck, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, God Save The Queen, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jet Harris, JOhn E. Reed, Little Richard, London records, Patrick Casey, Sam Cooke, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Yvonne Gold

//Poster for Italian release of Alan Freed’s 1956 musical Rock, Rock, Rock!. Photo: John D. Kisch/Separate Cinema Archive/Getty Images//

//Left: Chuck Berry image isolated and bleached out. Right: As it appeared on the t-shirt, worn in this 1973 photograph of singer/songwriter Simon Fisher Turner. Photographer: Unknown//

When they were setting up Let It Rock in 1971, Malcolm McLaren and his original partner in the boutique at 430 King’s Road – Patrick Casey – acquired a cache of posters, showcards and ephemera for 50s rocksploitation movies, including many Continental-language variants.

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Tags: After School Session, Alan Freed, Don't Knock The Twist, Golden Hour Of Rock N' Roll, Harry Foster, Jayne Mansfield, L'Amour Frénétique, Le Cavalier Du Crepuscule, Let's Rock, London Rock N Roll Show, Loving You), Mister Rock And Roll, Patrick Casey, Peter Clifton, Rock, Simon Fisher Turner, Wembley Stadium, You Can't Catch Me

//Lobby card for High School Confidential!, 1958. This is from the opening scene, where Lewis sings the movie’s title track//

Let It Rock was digging in the ruins of past cultures that you cared about. It was giving them another brief moment in the sun. It wasn’t about doing anything new. It was an homage. It was nostalgia.
Malcolm McLaren to Momus, 2002

Forty three years after its creation I can reveal the source of the Jerry Lee Lewis image which appeared on the Let It Rock t-shirt design “The ‘Killer’ Rocks On!”.

It is from a lobby card for Alan Freed’s 1958 rocksploitation flick High Street Confidential!; an original was just one of the pieces of 50s ephemera adorning Let It Rock’s premises at 430 King’s Road in 1972.

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Tags: Alan Freed, Chuck Berry, High School Confidential!, Imogen Hunt, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jeunesse Droguée, Let It Rock, Little Richard, London Rock & Roll Show, Masayoshi Sukita, Momus, Paris Capital Of The 19th Century, Paris Capital of the XXIst Century, Patrick Casey, Screaming Lord Sutch, Shallow 1-21, The 'Killer' Rocks On!, Walter Benjamin, Wembley Stadium