In 1956 I was
9 years old. I may of have been quite young but I was into rock and roll from
the beginning of its popularity. I saw Elvis Presley’s first TV appearances on
The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dorsey Brothers Show, and The Milton Berle Show. I
may have missed Elvis’s appearance on The Steve Allen Show because it was on at
the same time on Sunday nights as The Ed Sullivan Show which was a staple in
the house I grew up in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QDDo1j3a7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QDDo1j3a7U
I often
watched Dick Clark’s American Bandstand program after school at around 4 p.m. I
had no idea at the time that the young talents Clark had on his program were
lip syncing. Over a period of time some of the teenagers who danced on the
program became familiar faces to me.
Radio was
where the biggest access to rock and roll was but growing up in Montreal there
were only certain stations that played that kind of music and only at
particular times of the day, usually in the late afternoons and evenings. What
totally blew me away as a kid was that there was always something new happening
in rock and roll music.
Radio always
made people use their imaginations. I remember hearing Freddy Cannon sing a
song called Way Down Yonder In New Orleans. I pictured Freddy as some blonde haired
guy from the American South only to find out later that he was an Italian guy
from Massachusetts.
There are
some that look at the music of the later 1950s and early 1960s as corny and
simplistic. In some ways it was but so was a lot of other music we listened to
in the decades that followed. There are things that may seem corny today but
back in the day when we were in the moment there were thoughts a lot of us had
about what we were listening to that stirred our emotions. We were too young to
be cynical.
I’m pretty
sure that a lot of younger people today think that teenagers in the 50s and 60s
listened to nothing but rock and roll. First of all even the term “rock and
roll” is a pretty loose description of a type of music. Does it include
doo-whop? Does it include ballads?
1950-1956
What we were
actually listening to on the radio back then was “popular music”. That might
sound kind of dull but it wasn’t. It was like one continuous variety show. It
didn’t really matter what area of music a tune came from as long as the song
was catchy.
Starting in
the 1930s there were two magazines that tracked the popularity of songs based
upon record sales. One was called Billboard and the other was called The Hit
Parade. From the late 30s through the mid-1950s most popular music was
performed by big bands and crooners. The big names in popular music in the
early 50s that catered to younger people were singers like Johnny Ray, Eddie
Fisher, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Patti Page, and Rosemary Clooney. Joining
them at the top of the charts were white singing groups like The Four Lads, The
Crewcuts, The Ames Brothers, and The Four Aces.
 |
| Dean Martin and Perry Como https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zahYUpDgfWs |
To get an
understanding of where popular music was for the first half of the 1950s one
has to understand the times in the US. Eisenhower was the president and The
Cold War with the USSR was going on. The US economy was booming. The middle
class was becoming larger. There was still racial segregation in the US South.
America was a conservative country at the time. Families that had experienced
The Great Depression and WW2 were often satisfied with the status quo. Things
were good now. They didn’t want to see the boat rocked. Often things that were
considered to be different were thought to be a threat. There was an image that
many middle class American families wanted to project that included patriotism,
hard work, and solid morals. Years later this would be called “family values”.
Musically in
the early 1950s there wasn’t any “rocking the boat” in popular music. Songs lke
How Much Is That Doggy In The Window, Cross Over The Bridge, Hernando’s
Hideaway, and Stranger In Paradise were hardly threats to the moral fiber of
America’s young people.
The same
couldn’t be said for the movies. Marlon Brando and James Dean became big stars
in the early 1950s. In the 1953 movie The Wild One Brando played a rebellious
motorcycle gang leader and leather motorcycle jackets became popular with a
segment of America’s youth. In his short movie career Dean played a confused
teenager angry at being told what to do by his parents. In real life Dean would
forever be 24 years of age after dying in car crash while driving his Porshe on
a California highway.
 |
| Marlon Brando |
Around 1952
something was starting to percolate in music. A number of radio stations,
particularly smaller ones, realized that they were going to have a really tough
time of it competing with television which had just become the number one
source for family entertainment. A number of smaller radio stations converted
their entertainment format to include a type of music called rhythm and blues
(R & B). This type of music was almost entirely played by black people. The
lyrics could often be on the risqué side but because most of the radio audience
was black nobody in authority was paying much attention.
Some white
guys, particularly in the South, started listening to black R & B and fell
in love with the music. A number of these guys had backgrounds in country music
and made attempts at combining R & B and country music. Drums became an
important part of this new style of music with a heavy back beat. This new
music style is sometimes called Rockabilly. It wouldn’t be called rock and roll
until several years later. A Rockabilly band usually consisted of a lead and
rhythm guitar player, a stand-up bass player, and a drummer. Some bands added a
piano player or a saxophonist.
The first
rock and roll song to reach the charts was probably Bill Haley and the Comet’s
Crazy Man Crazy which came out in 1953. The first really big rock and roll hit
was probably Bill Haley’s cover of black R & B singer Big Joe Turner’s song
Shake, Rattle and Roll in 1954. Haley’s version had the lyrics “Get out of that
kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.” Turner’s version was more like he was
kicking some gal out of bed to make him breakfast. Not the kind of stuff that
conservative America wanted their kids to be listening to.
 |
| Bill Haley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw |
In 1955 a
movie came out called Blackboard Jungle. It starred Glenn Ford as a teacher at
an inner city school trying to manage some unruly students including a young
Sidney Poitier. The movie also introduced the song Rock Around The Clock also
done by Bill Haley and the Comets. Blackboard Jungle brought in 10 times the
investment it cost to make the movie and kind of set a pattern for youthful
rebelliousness and fast paced music with a heavy drum beat.
During his
career Bill Haley and his Comets sold over 25 million records. He wasn’t ugly
but he also wasn’t handsome. He had a kind of doughy face and “kiss Curl” hung
from his forehead. Although he was only about 27 at the time he looked older
and not the kind of guy teenaged girls could identify with. It wouldn’t be long
before a young man who was the complete package would turn American popular
music on its head.
Elvis Presley
was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His family
was poor and his father once spent 8 months in jail for cheque forgery. One day
when Elvis was about 18 he walked into Sun Records in Memphis and made his first
recording. He said he made the record for his mother who he was very close to
but some others thought he wanted to impress the owner of Sun Records, Sam
Phillips.
Elvis’s first
public appearances happened in 1954 and he was backed by a drummer and a
guitarist.. In 1955 he became a regular on the Saturday night country and
western radio program Louisiana Hayride out of Shreveport Louisiana. The
Louisiana Hayride was broadcast to close to 200 stations in 28 States. It might
have been nervousness that made Elvis shake his legs while singing. The shaking
became part of his act and it drove a lot of female teenagers wild.
By late 1955
Elvis had acquired a new manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who was Elvis’s manager
for the rest of the colonel’s life. Parker bought Elvis’s contract from Sam
Phillips and got Elvis signed to the RCA Records label for 40 thousand dollars.
Parker was very effective at managing Elvis but he was a bit of a mystery man.
His title, colonel, was an honourary one. It was questionable whether or not
Parker was actually an American citizen. He was born in The Netherlands and it
has been said that he jumped ship to stay in America. Parker’s background
before he met Elvis was working at carnivals and he was experienced at the con
and the hustle. In Elvis’s career the only other country he performed in other
than the US was a few dates in Canada. This may have had something to do with
Parker not having a passport.
1956
Whatever
Parker was he was good at his job. He got Elvis major exposure on a number of
the biggest variety TV shows at the time including The Ed Sullivan Show. Right
from the start Elvis’s hip swiveling and leg shaking drove conservative
American parents crazy. They looked at Elvis as a juvenile delinquent type who
was going to be a bad influence on their kids. The TV cameras started filming Elvis
only from the waist up.
Elvis became
a sensation to millions of younger Americans. With his dark dyed black hair and
sideburns he looked different. He didn’t look anything like previous teen
heartthrobs like Frank Sinatra and Eddie Fisher. He was good looking, had a
unique voice, and brought excitement to all his appearances. He had a kind of
humbleness that girls and some parents liked.
Elvis was the
right person at the right time. In 1956 he had a number of major hits including
Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, Heartbreak
Hotel, and Love Me Tender. His first movie Love Me Tender was released in
November of 1956.
 |
| Elvis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SF58opo6Ps |
The wild
Elvis with the swinging hips fairly quickly became a cleaned up Elvis. Tom
Parker realized that in order to capture the hearts and minds of conservative
America Elvis would have to become more clean cut. It wasn’t that long before
the sideburns disappeared. In the movies Elvis always played the good guy who
was honest and trustworthy. The ladies chased him more than he did them. There
was never an Elvis movie plot that included Elvis getting laid.
Elvis didn’t
put rock and roll on the map all by himself. He had a lot of help. 3 black
guys, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry had a lot to do with the
success of this new music. A year or so after Elvis found fame Jerry Lee Lewis would
put an exclamation mark on rock and roll.
Out of the 4
of these other guys Fats Domino was by far the tamest. His hits in 1956 alone
included My Blue Heaven, Blueberry Hill, and Blue Monday. Fats Domino sang and
played a kind of rolling style on his piano. His background in music was R
& B and he started playing piano in the late 1940s.
 |
| Fats Domino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbfMlk1PwGU |
If Fats
Domino was non-threatening, the same couldn’t be said for Chuck Berry. He
scared the living shit out of conservative America, For starters he looked a
lot older than the teenagers he played in front of and he had a pencil thin
mustache. Berry’s signature move on stage was bending his knees and strutting
across the stage while playing his guitar. It wouldn’t be a big stretch to say
Berry was sexually suggestive. He waved his guitar around like it was his
penis. You knew that the women he got involved with personally or sang about
were a lot looser than the typical teenager of the time.. Chuck Berry had a
whole string of hits that became rock and roll standards including Roll Over
Beethoven, Rock And Roll Music, Johnny B. Goode, Sweet Little Sixteen, and
Maybelline. In the early 60s he had a few more hits including You Never Can
Tell and No Particular Place To Go. Berry wrote a lot of the songs he sung.
 |
| Chuck Berry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQJHyLLTHU |
Richard
Penniman was Little Richard’s real name. His background in music before getting
into rock and roll was church gospel music. Little Richard transferred the wild
frenzy and exuberance he had witnessed in gospel churches to rock and roll. He
often screamed the lyrics to his songs in a high pitched voice. Elvis was
pretty tame next to Little Richard’s flamboyancy. Little Richard was the first
rock and roller to challenge the boundaries of male sexuality. He may have
picked this up from a garish wrestler at the time, Gorgeous George. Richard
wore eye makeup and sometimes had a feather boa around his neck. Among his hits
in the 1950s were Tutti Fruiti, Lucille, Jenny, Jenny, and Keep A-Knockin’.
 |
| Little Richard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3-OaNevkfg |
1956 was also
the year that Pat Boone had his first hit songs. Some people may not know that
in 1956, and for a few years after, Pat Boone was just about as popular as
Elvis was. He was what a lot of American conservative parents wanted their kids
to have as a role model. He was clean cut, photogenic, and had a great voice.
He got married when he was 18 to the daughter of country music legend Red
Foley. Being married didn’t seem to affect his popularity.
 |
| Pat Boone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjP5FHGOnHk |
Pat Boone and
his management were notorious for taking a black R & B tune and
homogenizing it. Among the songs originally recorded by black artists that Pat
Boone covered were Ain’t That A Shame by Fats Domino, Tutti Fruiti by Little
Richard, Don’t Forbid Me by Charles Singleton, and I Almost Lost My Mind by
Ivory Joe Hunter. Other hits Boone had in the middle to late 50s were
Bernadine, April Love, Friendly Persuasion, and Love Letters In The Sand.
Like Elvis, Pat
Boone starting making movies in 1956. For a while he had his own TV show. For a
brief period the white bucks shoes Boone wore were a bit of a craze with some
American teens. Many years later Pat Boone’s Christian faith became more
evident and as he got older he turned into a right wing crackpot.
A black
singing group that consisted of 4 guys and a girl and called The Platters had 3
hits in 1956, My Prayer, The Great Pretender, and Magic Touch. The Platters
sold more records than anyone else in the 1950s other than Elvis and Pat Boone.
Two cross over hits from country music that year were Tennessee Ernie Ford’s
Sixteen Tons and Johnny Cash’s I Walk The Line. Carl Perkins had his one big
hit with Blue Suede Shoes.
 |
| The Platters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyM8NVl4yBY |
Gene Vincent
and The Blue Caps had their only major hit in 1956, Be-Bop-A-Lula. Vincent’s
music was of the Rockabilly style. He had trouble in coming up with another hit
and spent a number of years performing in the UK. He died at the young age of
35 due to health problems brought on by alcoholism.
 |
| Gene Vincent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDU9FP5_B2M |
One of the
most popular black singing groups in 56 was Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.
Lymon’s song, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, would symbolize early rock and roll as
much as any other song.
1957
1957 was as
big a year in rock and roll as 1956 was. There was a lot of new talent that had
their first hits in 1957. Elvis picked up where he left off in 1956 and had a
number of more hits with songs like Jailhouse Rock, All Shook Up and Loving
You.
It seemed like
there was something in the water in the US South.
One of these
Southerners was a guy named Jerry Lee Lewis. He was pure high energy and could
really put on a show. He had unruly blonde hair that flew about as he worked
himself into a frenzie while playing his piano. Sometimes he would get up on
top of his piano. He even played his piano with his feet. Jerry Lee Lewis
pumped out hit after hit starting in 1957. His songs included Great Balls Of
Fire, A Whole Lot A Shakin Going On, Breathless, and High School Confidential.
You might say the Jerry Lee was the first white bad ass in rock and roll.
 |
| Jerry Lee Lewis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yRdDnrB5kM |
In May of
1957 Buddy Holly and the Crickets had their first hit with a song called
That’ll Be The Day. Holly was from Lubbock, Texas and looked like a bit of a
geek with his black rimmed thick glasses. The group spent a week in 1957
playing the Apollo Theatre in New York City which was like a shrine for black
entertainers. Buddy Holly’s musical career was short, lasting only about two
years, but he introduced a number of rock and roll standards in that time
including Rave On, Peggy Sue, Not Fade Away, and True Love Ways.
 |
| Buddy Holly and the Crickets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvJXCNwzBq4 |
The Everly
Brothers, Don and Phil, moved around a lot when they were kids and lived in
Kentucky and Tennessee. They looked a lot alike although they were 2 years
apart in age. Their Dad Ike was a country singer and had his own show on radio
in the 1940s. Don and Phil grew up singing country music with their parents.
Their first big hit was in 1957 with Bye Bye Love. They went on to have a long
career in rock and roll. Some of their bigger hits were All I have To Do Is
Dream, Cathy’s Clown, I Kissed You, Bird Dog, Wake Up Little Suzie, and Walk
Right Back.
 |
| The Everly Brothers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X7b2E_Jq-k |
In 1957 many
Americans would tune in a TV program called Ozzie and Harriet once a week. It
was kind of a light family sitcom. Nobody ever seemed to know what the dad
Ozzie did for a living but they knew he liked ice cream. The younger of the two
sons on the program was Ricky Nelson. Both of his parents had been in the music
business. Ozzie had led a big band in the 1930s and 40s and Harriet had
been a big band singer. Ricky started singing to impress a girl at his high
school. Soon after he was singing on the TV show and he got a lot of national
exposure. He was one good looking dude with a pleasant singing voice. Teenaged
girls couldn’t get enough of him. His first hit in 1957 was a song called A
Teenager’s Romance which was followed by Be-Bop Baby. His biggest hit was in
1958 with Poor Little Fool.
 |
| Ricky Nelson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLkCWT2neuI |
A couple of
male black singers were starting to make a name for themselves in 1957. Soul
Music was still a few years away but Sam Cooke gave a hint of what was to come
with his song You Send Me. Back in 1957 if a vote was taken among American
teenagers and they were asked whose music they would prefer playing in the
background while they were making out on the couch, Johnny Mathis’s name would
likely come up. Almost all his songs were slow ones. He had two hits in 1957
with Chances Are and It’s Not For Me To Say.
Another black
guy who started ripping it up in 57 was Jackie Wilson with his song Reete
Petite. The song Reete Petite was partly written by future Motown founder Berry
Gordy. Jackie Wilson was like a 50s version of James Brown. Wilson was known
for his high energy and his moves on stage which included collapsing to his
knees. Some of his biggest hits were Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher And
Higher, Baby Workout, Lonely Tear Drops and That Is Why. Jackie Wilson’s cousin
was Levi Stubbs who later became the lead singer for The Four Tops. Wilson had
a heart attack on stage while singing when he was 40 and died 9 years later.
 |
| Jackie Wilson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1nZ-u41H9s |
One of the
biggest female singing stars of the late 1950s was Connie Francis. Her big hit
in 1957 was Whose Sorry Now. She would have a number of hits in the ensuing
years including Stupid Cupid, Lipstick On Your Collar, and Where The Boys are.
Connie Francis briefly dated Bobby Darin in the late 50s. Her dad ran Darin off
at gunpoint and she has said not marrying Darin was the biggest regret of her
life. In 1974 Connie Francis was raped after performing at The Westbury Music
Fair in New York. In 1981 her brother was shot and killed by a mafia hit man.
This woman had more than her fair share of bad luck in life.
 |
| Connie Francis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ws60MDF7OY |
Two of the
biggest country music crossover hits for the year were Bobby Helms’s My Special
and Sonny James’s Young Love. A young Canadian teenager from Ottawa, Paul Anka,
had his first hit with a song called Diana. Other big tunes in 57 include The
Del-Vikings Come Go With Me, The Rays’ Silhouettes, The Diamonds’ Little Darlin,
Guy Mitchell’s Singing The Blues, and Buddy Knox’s Party Doll.
1958
The most
popular tune in America in 1958 was a song called Volare and it wasn’t rock and
roll. Originally the song came out in Italian and was sung by Domenico Modugno.
He was pretty well never seen or heard from again in America after his one big
hit. Volare was covered later on by Bobby Rydell, Dean Martin and many years
later still by The Gypsy Kings.
Two novelty
songs that got a lot of air play in 1958 were Shep Wooley’s Purple People Eater
and David Seville’s My Friend The Witch Doctor. Seville’s real claim to fame
was inventing the cartoon characters The Chipmunks and doing their voices.
Danny and the
Juniors had a hit in 58 with At The Hop. Do-whop music which was all about 3
and 4 part harmony was becoming more and more popular with teenage America.
Bobby Darin
had his first big hit with Splish Splash in 58. Over his career Darin would
have hit songs in a number of different forms of music. 18 Yellow Roses was country.
If I Were A Carpenter was folk. Dream Lover was rock and roll and Mack The
Knife and Beyond The Sea were crooning songs backed up by big bands. Bobby
Darin was 22 when he discovered that who he thought was his sister was actually
his mother. He was sickly a good part of his life and died at the young age of
37 after open heart surgery.
 |
| Bobby Darin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzkECdHu1dQ |
In 1958 J.P.
Richardson (The Big Bopper) had his lone big hit with Chantilly. A young guy from Philadelphia, Frankie Avalon,
found himself on the charts for the first time with his songs Dede Dinah and
I’ll Wait For You. Duane Eddy had one of the first rock and roll instrumental
hits with Rebel Rouser.
Sometimes
forgotten in the history of rock and roll was a young Canadian guy from
Windsor, Ontario named Jack Scott (originally Giovanni Scafone Jr.). He lived
in Canada until was 10 when the family moved across the river to Detroit. He
had a deep singing voice with a bit of a country twang. In 1958 he had a double
sided hit with My True Love and Leroy.
 |
| Jack Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksyruTrYZc |
By 1958 black
singers and black singing groups were all over the charts. They may have had to
enter through the side door at the hotel they were staying at and not allowed
to mix with their audience when travelling in the US South but when it came to
having their songs played on the radio, race didn’t matter as long as the tune
was catchy. Little Anthony and the Imperials had a hit with Tears On My Pillow
and The Monotones had a hit with Book Of Love.
The first
rock instrumental to reach #1 on the pop charts was The Champs tune Tequila.
Glen Campbell and folkies Seals and Crofts later played with The Champs.
Once in a
while a folk song would make it onto the charts in the 1950s. In 1958 the
Kingston Trio had a hit with a song called Tom Dooley. 4 or 5 years later folk
music would become very popular with a lot of college types in the US.
In 1958 a 13
year old girl introduced a song that would become a Christmas standard. Her
name was Brenda Lee and the song was Rockin Around The Christmas Tree. She had
a very distinctive voice and often seemed to be pleading when singing. Among
her hits over the years were I’m Sorry, As Usual, All Alone Am I, and Break It
To Me Gently.
Another often
forgotten name from early rock and roll is Eddie Cochran. In 1958 he had a big
hit with Summertime Blues. He died in a car accident in the UK in 1960 at the
age of 21. He may have been the first of a number of rock and rollers to die
young.
 |
| Eddie Cochran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWbXCz9UZYo |
Here’s a list
of some of the other big songs on the Hit Parade in 1958. It’s All In The Game
by Tommy Edwards, Little Star by The Elegants, Yakety Yak by The Coasters,
Rockin’ Robin by Bobby Day, Short Shorts by The Royal Teens, When by The Kalin
Twins, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine by Jimmy Rogers, 26 Miles by The Four Preps,
Born Too Late by The Poni Tails, and Chanson D’Amour by Art and Dottie Todd.
Among the
country crossover hits of 1958 were Don Gibson’s Oh Lonesome Me, Marty Robbin’s
The Story Of My Life, and Conway Twitty’s It’s Only Make Believe.
 |
| Conway Twitty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJefPaBsSug |
1959
1959 was a
landmark year in rock and roll. On February 3rd a plane carrying
Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, a young Mexican American singer named Richie
Valens, and a 21 year old pilot, Roger
Peterson, crashed in a corn field near Clear Lake, Iowa. It was a small plane
and all four passengers died. That day would later be immortalized in Don
MacLean’s song American Pie which came out in 1971. “The day the music died.”
Buddy Holly,
The Big Bopper, Dion and the Belmonts, and Ritchie Valens were in the middle of
a tour (called The Winter Dance Party) of one night stands across the mid-west
States. Buddy Holly was the veteran of the group. About a year earlier he had
parted company with his manager and his band The Crickets and replaced The
Crickets with some other musicians including Waylon Jennings. The Big Bopper
was the oldest of those that died. He was 28 and had one big hit, Chantilly
Lace. Dion the Belmonts were a doo whop group who also only had one big hit at
the time, I Wonder Why. Richie Valens had 3 big hits before he died, Come On,
Let’s go and the double sided record hits La Bamba and Donna.
 |
| Dion and the Belmonts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWRl-l_-jVg |
 |
| Ritchie Valens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ziSLGVQOSg |
 |
| The Big Bopper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNrpAgTXiC4 |
 |
| Buddy Holly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku5UeUT7yIQ |
The group had
been traveling by bus in the middle of the winter. The heater on the bus packed
it in and one of the back-up musicians got frostbite in his toes. The bus was
replaced by a school bus but by then a number of the crew had come down with
the flu including The Big Bopper. It was Buddy Holly who decided he wanted to
fly ahead of the tour, partially because he wanted to get some laundry done.
Dion took a pass on the plane ride because he thought the $35.00 fare was too
much money. Waylon Jennings gave up his seat to the sick with the flu Big
Bopper. Ritchie Valens won a coin toss with another musician to secure his
seat.
After the
crash and the death of the three young rock and rollers the tour resumed with
Bobby Vee taking the place of Buddy Holly. That the tour continued at all is a
sad comment on the business behind rock and roll. 2 months after the crash, in May of 1959,
Dion and the Belmonts had one of their biggest hits with A Teenager In Love.
From the
beginning of rock and roll touring smaller cities was part of the deal of being
a rock and roll star. The promoters always got most of the money. Las Vegas was
where the money was for big name entertainers but promoters there weren’t much
interested in young rock and roll stars because teenagers were too young to
drink or gamble. Elvis was about the only rock and roll star who could fill big
stadiums in big cities but Tom Parker didn’t want Elvis to be over exposed.
Rock and Roll
didn’t die in 1959 but for the most part it had been tamed. Elvis was in the
military from 1958 to 1960. His image had been cleaned up for some time so that
he was more suitable for “white bread” audiences. Jerry Lee Lewis was shunned
by both the American public and promoters when it was discovered that he had
married his 13 year old cousin once removed. Little Richard rediscovered
religion and became an evangelical. In December of 1959 Chuck Berry was
arrested under The Mann Act for having sexual relations with a 14 year old.
After a number of trials and appeals he ended up spending 1-1/2 years in
prison.
A lot of the
raw grittiness of rock and roll disappeared. Not totally but to a large extent.
Rock and roll was becoming more and more manufactured by the people behind the
scenes. Just find a good looking guy and teach him how to sing and watch the
money come rolling in was one way of doing it. This is exactly what happened to
a singer called Fabian (Fabian Forte). He couldn’t carry a tune to save his
life and still he became a big star. So what if he couldn’t sing they probably
thought, the movies were always looking for handsome young guys. When Fabian
was drafted into the army he got a deferment when he claimed that being around
a lot of men might stir up his homosexual tendencies.
New rock and
roll stars were starting to come more from the north eastern area of the US,
from places like Philadelphia and New York. People like Bobby Rydell and and
Frankie Avalon. Up until 1959 most big names in rock and roll had come from the
US South.
 |
| Bobby Rydell |
 |
| Frankie Avalon |
The biggest
song on the Hit Parade in 1959 was Johnny Horton’s The Battle Of New Orleans.
He later had other hits with Sink The Bismark and North To Alaska. Horton died
in a car crash on a highway bridge in Texas in 1960.
A trio from
Washington State that consisted of 2 girls and a guy and called The Driftwoods
had 2 big hits in 1959, Come Softly To Me and Mr. Blue. Santo and Johnny had a
big hit with an instrumental called Sleepwalk. Black singer Lloyd Price had 2
hits that year with Stagger Lee and Personality. Ray Charles had his first hit
with What I Say.
Black singing
groups had a lot of hit tunes in 1959 including The Coasters’ Poison Ivy and
Along Came Jones and The Flamingo’s I Only Have Eyes For You.
Other big
songs from 1959 include The Skyliners’s Since I Don't Have You, The Bell
Notes’s I’ve Had It, Frankie Avalon’s Venus, Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover, Ritchie
Valen’s Donna, The Crests’s 16 Candles, and Jerry Wallace’s Primrose Lane.
Reg Owen’s
Manhattan Spiritual and Dave “Baby” Cortez’s Happy Organ were two of the
biggest instrumental hits of the year.
Once again
country based tunes also were on the charts including The Brown’s The Three
Bells, Stonewall Jackson’s Waterloo, Billy Grammer’s Gotta Travel On, and Jerry
Wallace’s Primrose Lane.
1960
“Payola” was
a word that was created around 1960 to describe the receiving of cash from
record promoters that was given to disc jockeys to play certain records. The
theory the record companies had was that teenagers weren’t that bright and if
they heard a record on the radio enough they would go out and buy it whether or
not they really liked the song.
The US
congress started to investigate Payola in 1959 and in 1960 they had hearings. A
number of people were called as witnesses including Alan Freed, the disk jockey
who coined the term “rock and roll " and TV’s Dick Clark who hosted the afternoon
teenage music show American Bandstand. Freed has been credited for introducing
black R &B music to white America.
When all was
said and done Alan Freed’s career as an influential disc jockey was over. Taking
money for playing certain records became illegal. Alan Freed had been involved
with rock and roll from the very beginning. His radio show was one of the first
to promote rock and roll music and he had a huge following. His radio name was “Moondog”.
Starting in 1956 Freed produced a number of rock and roll movies. He also
promoted a number of rock & roll tours in the US.
 |
| Alan Freed |
Freed had a
short temper and could get in anyone’s face who criticized rock and roll. He
was the prime target in the US congressional heariings. Squeaky clean Dick
Clark, on the other hand, got off Scott free. At one time Dick Clark had
investments in something like 33 record labels. One of those record labels was
called Jamie Records that made guitarist Duane Eddy famous. Clark made over
31 thousand dollars on his initial investment of 125 dollars in Jamie Reords.
Over a period
of time Clark had an interest in around 150 pop songs. He often received
royalties for being one of the song’s writers when he wasn’t. Today there are
some old videos around on YouTube showing Clark on American Bandstand with
teenagers back in the 50s and asking them to rate some new songs that were just
being introduced. It is more than obvious that a number of the songs the
teenagers were asked to rate were absolutely terrible.
Dick Clark
certainly knew all of the greats in rock and roll in their heydays. Never the
less he really wasn’t anything more than a slick huckster. After he died
several years ago it seems that the baton has been passed to Ryan Seacrest.
 |
| Dick Clark |
1960 was the
year that Chubby Checker introduced The Twist. It was a pretty big hit but the
Twist sensation didn’t really take off until about a year later when Chubby
recorded Lets Twist Again.
 |
| Chubby Checker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmR00cErBdw |
1960 was also
the year that a man with one of the most beautiful voices in rock and roll had
his first big hit. His name was Roy Orbison and the song was Only The Lonely.
Orbison wasn’t much to look at but he could sing a song like nobody else. He
also wrote his own songs. Among the hits he had in his career were Crying, In
Dreams, Up Town, Running Scared, Oh Pretty Woman, Dream Baby, Blue Bayou, It’s
Over, Love Hurts, and Mean Women Blues. The man was prolific. Orbison had bad
eyesight all of life and wore sunglasses on stage. He also had a lot of tragedy
in his life, losing his first wife in a motorcycle accident and two of his kids who
died in a house fire when he was out on tour. In the late 1980s Orbison became
part of The Travelling Willburys along with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan
and Jeff Lynne from ELO. Roy Orbison died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age
of 52.
 |
| Roy Orbison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrKUW_NT1g |
Among the
songs that crossed over from country music to the Hit Parade were Jim Reeve’s
He’ll Have To Go, Johnny Preston’s Running Bear, Hank Locklin’s Please Help Me
I’m Falling, Johnny Burnette’s Dreamin’, and Bob Luman’s Lets Think About
Living. Most songs back then were a little over 2 minutes. Marty Robbin’s El
Paso was just over 4 minutes long.
Jimmy Jones
sung the first version of Handy Man. It would later become a big hit for Del
Shannon. The Ventures had an instrumental hit with Walk Don’t Run and updated
the tune and reintroduced the song as few years later as Walk Don’t Run 64.
Other big
songs in 64’ were Maurice Williams’s Stay, Freddy Cannon’s Way Down Yonder In
New Orleans, The Hollywood Argyles-s Alley Oop, and Bobby Vee’s Devil Or Angel.
Elvis was out
of the army and his big song in 1960 was It’s Now Or Never.
1961-1964
Rock and roll
was evolving. Singers were always looking for new songs that were catchy. Some
of the best songwriters worked out of The Brill Building in New York. A song
writer and record producer named Phil Spector was writing or co-writing a
number of hit tunes including Ben E.
King’s Spanish Harlem and the first version of Twist And Shout. Spector played
guitar on The Drifters’s On Broadway. Later on he would create “the wall of
sound”.
In 1961 black
girl singing groups became quite popular. The Shirelles had 3 big hits that
year with Dedicated To The One I love, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, and Mama
Said. Ben. E. King had a big hit with Stand By Me. Ray Charles sang Hit The
Road Jack. Gary US Bonds recorded a song called A Quarter To Three and it
sounded like a party was going on.
 |
| The Shirelles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3irmBv8h4Tw |
The Twist and
Chubby Checker were back in 61’. This time around the Twist swept America.
Adults learned how to do the dance and they could be seen everywhere from
country clubs to nightclubs moving their legs around. Former US president
Eisenhower condemned the Twist as a sign of the moral decay happening in
America. Joey Dee and the Starlighters had a hit with The Peppermint Twist.
It wasn’t
uncommon for singers and groups to dig out old songs from the 1930s and
forties, speed up the tempo, and add a few gimmicks to the tune. One of those
songs was The Marcels’s Blue Moon which was written by Rogers and Hart in 1934.
In 1962 The
Four Seasons had their first hit with a song called Sherry. Folk music became
very popular. For a while there was a TV program that was broadcasted from
various college campuses called Hootenanny. Peter, Paul, and Mary had a hit with If I had
A Hammer. Trini Lopez too. The Brothers Four sang Where Have All The Flowers
Gone. Dee Dee Sharp did Mash Potato Time and Little Eva did The Loco-motion.
 |
| Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pWBnodrR1M |
Other big
songs of 1962 include Bryan Hyland’s Sealed With A Kiss, Bruce Channel’s Hey
Baby, Bobby Vinton’s Roses are Red, Gene Chandler’s Duke Of Earl, Neil Sedaka’s
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Chris Montez’s Let’s Dance, Mary Wells’s You Beat Me
To The Punch, and Gene Pitney’s A Town Without Pity.
In 1962 a gal
named Toni Fisher had a big hit with a song called West Of The Wall. The song
was about two lovers who were divided because of the Berlin Wall.
1962 would
also see the first appearance of a west coast group called The Beach Boys.
Their hit in 62 was Surfin’ Safari.
A lot of the
music in 1963 was about surfing on the west coast and singing groups from
northern places in the US like Detroit, Philadelphia, and New Jersey.
Jan and Dean
had a hit with Surf City. 2 surfing instrumental tunes, The Chantays’s Pipeline
and The Safaris’s Wipe Out made it to the top of the charts. The Beach Boys had
a whole string of hits in 1963 including Surfer Girl, Catch A Wave, In My Room,
Surfin’ USA, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down, Things We Did Last Summer, and
Little Surfer Girl. Only one of The Beach Boys knew how to surf.
 |
| The Beach Boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JuRhsB322k |
If girl
singers and girl singing groups were kind of left out of the earlier years of
rock and roll they were certainly making up for lost time in 1963. They were
all over the charts with songs like Easier Said Than Done by the Essex, Hello
Stranger by Barbara Lewis, Be My Baby by The Ronettes, The Doo Ron Ron by The
Crystals, One Fine Day by the Chiffons, and Just One look by Doris Troy.
 |
| The Ronettes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVbawRPO7I |
The Miracles
with Smokey Robinson had a hit with You Really Got A hold On Me and Marvin Gaye
had a hit with Pride And Joy. These were the early years of the Motown sound.
Jimmy Soul
had a great party song in 63, If You Want To Be Happy. Some disc jockeys wouldn’t
play the song because the lyrics included a reference to ugly women. The
original Jersey Boys The Four Seasons had hits in 63 with Walk Like A Man and
Candy Girl.
Towards the
end of 1963, on November 23 in Dallas, Texas President John Kennedy was shot
and killed. Time kind of stood still for a few months.
In February
of 1964 The Beatles turned up on The Ed Sullivan Show. Not much later The Dave
Clark Five made their first visit to America. It was the beginning of The
British Invasion. Popular music would change forever. What was considered rock
and roll would still be around but it wouldn’t be quite the same. The old tunes
became part of nostalgia and although a lot of the originators of rock and roll
had been ripped off by agents and record companies many of the them could still
make a buck many years later by performing their old tunes. Every once in a
while PBS has them on TV. It won’t be that long before all of the entertainers
from early rock won’t be around anymore.
 |
| The Beatles |
It was a
blast while it lasted!
Some Of My Personal Picks
Best rock and
roll song ever. Don’t Be Cruel by Elvis Presley.
Best
rock and roll instrumental. Last Night by The Mar-Keys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Rq1SL1goc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Rq1SL1goc
Most
underated female singer. Timi Yuro and her song I’m So Hurt.
Most
prolific rock and roll songwriter. Roy Orbison.
Best
white guy hand moves on stage. Len Barry of the Dovells.
Wildest
white guy moves including a somersault off of the stage. Roy Head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BLQgQNuN-M
Best falsetto voices. Frankie Valli, Lou Christie, Del Shannon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05w1XbZTG8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BLQgQNuN-M
Best falsetto voices. Frankie Valli, Lou Christie, Del Shannon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05w1XbZTG8
Happiest
rock and roller on stage. Fats Domino.
Best
foreign song to make The Hit Parade. Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakimoto.
Best
Rockabilly tune. Heartbeat by Buddy Holly.
Best
imagery in a song. On Broadway by The Drifters.
Best
black male singing voice. Sam Cooke singing You Send Me.
Most
under rated black female singer. Barbara Lewis. Hello Stranger and Baby I’m
Yours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSa0EH0LiGk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSa0EH0LiGk
Closest
to sounding like Elvis. Terry Stafford singing Suspicion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKI9Mcwaf14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKI9Mcwaf14
Thanks for coming out.Goodnight
and drive safely and don’t forget if you have a bit extra cash Radio Free
Europe can use it.
