50s 60s Retro Hits streams the golden age of rock 'n' roll, pop and romantic ballads in English, broadcasting from the small hilltop town of Monte San Biagio in Italy's Lazio region. It is free to listen right now, anywhere in the world, no account required.
Broadcasting From a Town Built on a Roman Customs Gate
Monte San Biagio sits on the slope of the Monti Ausoni in the province of Latina, a town whose houses rest directly on bare rock and whose lanes turn into stone steps as they climb toward a medieval fortress, according to Wikipedia's history of the town. The site's strategic value goes back to the Roman era, when the Passo della Portella nearby marked the spot where Rome defeated the Samnites and later built a fortified customs gate for the Kingdom of Naples. Lombards fortified the hill as early as the 7th century, building on top of what may have once been a Roman temple, and the castle that still crowns the town today is the product of centuries of additions by the Carolingians and later the Caetani family. It is an unlikely home base for a station devoted entirely to American rock 'n' roll and doo-wop, which is part of what makes it interesting.
Why 50s and 60s Music Travelled So Well to Italy
Rock 'n' roll's arrival in Italy in the early 1960s leaned heavily on cover versions of songs already popular abroad, a wave documented in the history of the Italian beat scene. Quartetto Cetra had already turned "Rock Around the Clock" into the Italian hit "L'orologio matto" back in 1956, years before Italy had anything resembling its own rock scene. Naples became one of the first places where American culture reached Italian audiences through dance parties and touring shows, and the spread of electric guitars was helped along by EKO Guitars, an Italian maker that ran courses around the country to teach a generation how to play them. Bands like the Rokes, a British group that found its biggest audience in Italy, built careers out of reworking American and British chart hits, in one case taking Jackie DeShannon's "When You Walk in the Room" to number 11 on the Italian charts. That history of cross-Atlantic exchange is a big part of why a station built around 1950s and 1960s hits still finds an audience in Italy today, decades after the originals first crossed the ocean.
What You'll Hear
Expect a steady run of golden-era rock 'n' roll, pop and romantic ballads sung by the artists who defined the sound of two decades, mixed with light news and talk segments. There is no chart-chasing here, just a station built entirely around the records that made people fall in love with radio in the first place.
How to Listen
50s 60s Retro Hits streams free on Radio Shuffle. Press play above for rock 'n' roll and oldies broadcast from a castle town in the Lazio hills.