Pop Go The 50's

Subject: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:16 PM

Awright, I know this is a folk and blues thread, but I finally put together a lot of my personal favorite recordings of pop music from the 50's. The 50's had a real split personality. Any time Perry Como, Doris Dad, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Little Richard, Pat Boone, Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Penguins and Gogi Grant can share the top 40, you know was truly weird.

I've done sets of several CDs of rhythm and blues, rockabilly, and rock and roll from the era, but I thought it would be fun to pull out some of my favorite pop hits and burn a CD. No, there aren't any Perry Cuts, although at the time I liked him a lot. But, there's Kay Starr, Cuy Mitchell, The Hilltoppers, The Four Tunes and Frankie Lane. No Gogi Grant... sorry, Kendall.

This thread will quickly come and go, as it should. But, I was wondering if there is anyone in the pond here who would like to here some of those cuts again.

I got Hula Love by Buddy Knox..
And House Of Blue Lights by Chuck Miller
or Stagolee by Lloyd Price...

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: bobad
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:19 PM

I love "Wheel Of Fortune" by Kay Starr, do you have that?

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:21 PM

I think I do, bobad... I love it, too.. I'll have to check..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: pdq
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:30 PM

"The House Of Blue Lights" was written and played by Freddie Slack and Don Raye. Ella Mae Morse was lead singer, Don Raye back-up singer. Release date often given as 1947 but recording date as follows:

(L) FREDDIE SLACK WITH RHYTHM SECTION AND ELLA MAE MORSE WITH DON RAYE -1 / ELLA MAE MORSE WITH FREDDIE SLACK AND RHYTHM SECTION -2: Freddie Slack (p), George Van Eps (g), Jack "Red" Ryan (b), Nick Fatool (d), Ella Mae Morse, Don Raye (vcl).
LA, February 12, 1946
1006-3 The House Of Blue Lights (EMM, DR-vcl) -1        Cap 251
1007-4 Hey Mr. Postman (EMM-vcl) -2 -

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:34 PM

I have the Ella Mae Morse recording too, pdq. I like it a lot by her (I also have it by Chuck Berry.) But for me, the Chuck Miller recording is tops. Maybe it's because that's the first version I heard, but it's more than nostalgia. When the song winds down at the end and the singer says, "Whoa, slow down man, you in Deetroit now," I am completely hooked.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:35 PM

Oh yeah... I also put Harmony Brown on the CD by the Four Lads. Took forever to get it. Someone in here was asking about it... don't remember who. The song was written by Terry Gilkenson.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Rasener
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 12:56 AM

Freddie Cannon springs to mind.
Palisades Park, Talahaasie Lassie, Way Down Yonder in New orleans, Buzz Buzz a Diddle it - are my favourites,but don't know how many of those were in the 50's


I go Ape Neil Sedaka The original hit version, not re recordings. Never understood why that wasn't a bigger hit and never really seems to be something he was proud of. Some cracking piano playing in that number.

Jane Morgan The Days The Rains Came

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:17 AM

There's lots of 50's stuff on this site including all the charts and lots of downloads. Worth a look.

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 05:46 AM

Thanks for the site, Terry.

The thing that interests me about the fifties is, mixed in among a lot of kinda Schmaltzy pop like Patti Page were odds and ends of odd-ball hits like Ho Happy Day by Ron Howard, Skokiann by the Bullawayo Sweet Rhtyhm Band, National City by the Joiner Arkansas Junior High School Nad (complete with banjos AND trombones), Summertime, Summertime by the Jamies... a high school choral group, Patience and Prudence... 12 or 13 year old sisters singing a sweeter version of Let's Spend The Night Together called Tonight You Belong To Me, Hambone, Lucky Old Son, Call Of The Wild Goose.... You just don't here the diversity of music anymore that there was in the 50's, because it's all corporate driven.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Scoville
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:45 AM

Oh, I love "Stagolee"! You hardly ever see the Lloyd Price version around, but we have two old mixed tapes we've been playing for probably 20 years that have all sorts of really good songs on them, and that's one of them. Easily one of my favorite 1950's recordings.

I always liked Fats Domino myself. My mom likes Little Richard (I wonder what her parents must have thought--they were not pro-rock'n'roll).

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: bobad
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 11:00 AM

Thanks for the link to that site, Terry, there's a lot of good music there.

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Duke
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 11:24 AM

I've always loved the music of the fifties. Rock n Roll never made it into the sixties in my mind. The music just turned into Rock which is not the same. Of course this is only MY opinion. Some of my favourite music is what is called doo-wop. The Platters etc. Can't get enough of doo-wop.

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 11:35 AM

Hey, Duke:

I put together a 5 CD set of my favorite Doo wop and rhythm and blues groups. It was an exhausting project, because I could only use about 5% of what I have. And I still keep finding stuff... found an amazing CD of a capella doo wop.. by famous groups like the Moonglows, Five Satins and the Jive Five. Some of it was recorded at parties, and almost all of it was recorded live. It's wonderful to hear a capella versions of songs that became all-time greats, done with accompaniment. Nothing is lost, singing them a capella.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 12:41 PM

And here I always thought that the Pop of the 50s was what dve people into Folk.

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:08 AM

I saw the subject line, and immediately guessed, correctly, that this was one of Jerry's ideas. Good one!

Jerry is one of that tiny elite who is even older than I am, which may explain why he has fonder memories than I do of that pre-R&R pop music (Perry Como et al). I thought of it as old-fogy music, and agree with Dick that it's one of the factors that led to the Folk Revival, as something that needed to be rebelled against. Still, I appreciate some of that music more now than I did then.

Count me in as another doo-wop fan. My one favorite single recording? "I Only Have Eyes for You" as sung by the Flamingoes. What a sound!

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 05:49 AM

Hey Poppa:

Some myths become realities with enough repetition. I think that most of us folkies might have turned to folk music in "rebellion" against the 50's Pap music, but if folk music was a rebellion, it had to be the wimpiest musical rebellion in history. Think for a minute about who the big folk artists were in the 50's.... The Kingston Trio in their matching striped shirts and white bucks were about as dangerous as Pat Boone. Burl Ives? Now you're really scaring me! And Jimmie Rodgers? Oh, Oh, I'm trembling with fear.
Harry Belefonte and the Weavers weren't excactly cut in the Marlon Brando mode, and nobody accused the Chad Mitchell trio of being threatening. John Denver? Man, I'd hate to meet him in a dark alley! The only folk singer before Dylan that I can think of who had any edge to him was my hero, Lonnie Donnegan.

You want to talk rebellion, you're talking Elvis, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, The Dominoes (Work With Me Annie & Annie Had a Baby,)
Etta James (Roll with me Henry, cleaned up to Dance With Me Henry,)
Shirley & Lee (C'Mom Baby Let The Good Times Roll,) and of course, just about anything by Chuck Berry.

The only real edge that folk music has ever had was Dylan, and maybe the Byrds (Dylan rocked out.) And my friend Lonnie.

The thing that was crazy about the fifties is the diversity of music. There were a lot of interesting, edgy folk orineted songs, too. Frankie Lane with Mule Train, Call of The Wild Goose and the theme from High Noon, the Fendermen with Mule Skinner Blues, black traditional songs rocked out like Bo Diddley, by the same, Hambone (a children's game song) Mocking bird and Didn't It rain by the Four Lads and Frankie Lane, several hits by Rusty Draper and 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

The fifties weren't all Perry Como and Patti Page, or Poodle Skirts, Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon. It was a creative time for music unlike any I think this country has ever seen. Rhythm and blues and rockabilly have had a lasting effect, to this day and changed the musical landscape. I only wish that folk music retained more energy and inventiveness so that we'd hear it more on the radio..

The very first tape that I made for my wife Ruth, was titled I Only Have Eyes For You. It was the first song on the cassette and is still as exciting to me as the first day that I heard it.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Duke
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 07:05 AM

It was in the late fifties that folk clubs started to pop up in my area and they were very mysterious indeed. My parents warned me to stay away from them. Well, that was like an invitation to me. I found out that they were not the "dens of iniquity" my father said they were, although I could never convince him of that. So I guess that was my little rebellion.

Subject: RE: Pop Go The 50's
From: Rasener
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 07:21 AM

Lucille - Little Richard that was a real stomper and still is.

In the very early days of the Everly Brothers, they did a lot of folkie music and my favourites were Barbary Allen and Here to get my baby of jail.

But in all honesty, I don't think anything can beat the real raunchy rock and roll from the likes of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johhny Kidd and The Pirates, Gene vincent as well as many cracking raw rock numbers from lots of different artists.