To John on the Sunset Coast:

You are right as rain regarding the Crew Cuts. I was up in Fresno County in those days, which may explain the reference to the "Crew Cuts." They happened to have the record on the juke box in our cafeteria. We had a senior quartet during my freshman year of high school who went by the name "The Squires." They did a better version of "Sh-Boom" than the Crew Cuts, but no one did it better than the Chords. And yes, I do remember the take-off on "Your Show of Shows that skewered all those rip-off masters of the era. The mainstream record companies didn't have the cojones to use the original artists, so we got the 'white' version of a lot of great songs back then.

Several folks mentioned Frankie Laine. When I moved to San Diego, in 1967, one of the first people I ran into was the late Frankie Laine, who lived for many years in Point Loma. There is a hospital wing at Mercy Hospital named for him and his late wife, Nan, using his birth name of Frank LoVecchio. He was a very generous guy who kept singing into his 90's. He told the story on himself once about recording "Blazing Saddles" for Mel Brooks. Brooks let him believe it was a straight western, and he did it that way. He didn't find out until the premier what sort of wacky film it was.