Pop concerts this real gone daddy would love to have attended

Taunton? Yes, Taunton. Wherever, I bet it was fun (although I might have given Vince Eager a miss). Cochran, 21 at the time, was to die following a car crash in Chippenham two months later...

But the King of Country Music would be around for another ten months after this 1952 concert in Corinth, Misssissippi. And the King of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe (a hopped-up version of whose "Blue Moon of Kentucky" would actually be the "A" side of Elvis's' first single, "That's All Right", two years later), was on the same bill:

Fast forward to February, 1956 and this gathering in Washington DC (I'm deducing the year from the fact that Roy Hamilton's December 1955 release, "Everybody's Got a Home But Me" is mentioned on the poster as his "new hit"):

And I would have loved to be present at the National Guard Armory, Amory, Mississippi on March 10th 1956 to see Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and, as a special bonus, my favourite rockabilly singer Carl Perkins with his new song, "Blue Suede Shoes".  I don't wish to appear morbid, but Perkins's burgeoning career was catastrophically derailed eleven days after this concert when he and his band were involved in a car crash on their way to New York to appear on the Perry Como Show:

Five months later, Elvis was done co-headlining shows:

The only problem with this next poster for a January 1957 concert in Hartford, Connecticut is that Chuck Berry didn't record "Johnny B. Goode" until the following year. Mysterious. 

I think this terrific-sounding Topeka, Kansas concert took place in 1957, mainly because Chuck Berry didn't record "Roll Over Beethoven" until April 1956.  From his lowly position on the bill, it seems Sir Chucklesworth wasn't as big a draw when it came to black R&B fans as he was with white rock 'n' rolling teenagers: 

The next poster seems to be a generic one for DJ Alan Freed's "The Big Beat" series of shows in 1958 - which were pretty much scuppered when there was a "rock 'n' roll riot" at one of the concerts in Boston in 1958. The disc jockey "payola" - or 'pay to play"- scandal effectively ended Freed's career the following year.

I'd have been happy to catch Buddy Holly again at the Summer Dance Party in Arlington, Texas on May 26, 1958 - especially as the Winter Dance Party would literally be the death of him early in 1959:

Raw rockabilly and rock 'n' roll were already on the wane by the time this next concert took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee in June, 1959. Elvis was in the army, Buddy Holly had died in February, Jerry Lee Lewis's career had hit the skids following the revelation that he had married his 13-year old cousin, and Little Richard had got religion. In order to cross over to the pop charts, black stars were reduced to performing such anodyne fare as the Sam Cooke song highlighted on this poster - "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha", which wasn't exactly his finest hour. But I'm sure he and Jackie Wilson would have been giving it some old-style welly at what was presumably a show aimed at a black audience:

Never mind - American stars knew they'd always find a warm welcome waiting for them here in the UK. Sounds like a lively evening in Bradford on the Everly Brothers/Bo Diddley 1963 tour, supported by a little known gaggle of British no-hopers called the Rolling Stones and some South African loser called Mickie Most, who would go on to produce The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" the following year:

And lo! seven short months later, that gaggle of British no-hopers - or "England's Newest Hit Makers" as they were billed - were playing the first concert of their first American tour. With Bobby Vee on the bill!:

I think I'd probably have opted to wait until 1965 to see this:

And1966 that to catch this one - what a line-up! (I have no idea what The Box-Tops were doing there, but I expect them being from Tennessee played a part - besides, I adored them):

A quick trip back to England to catch the Stones' 1966 UK tour (with Ike & Tina Turner, The Yardbirds and Long John Baldry!):

And then back to the States for this New York concert in February, 1967:

But let's face it - all of the above concerts would have paled into insignificance compared to this final one. Just imagine - Freddie and the Dreamers and Hermans Hermits on the same bill! It doesn't get better than that - I bet old-timers still talk about that legendary evening in Scarborough: