Sounds of the 50s.

[The Internet]

Betty Hutton

"Girls, girls, watch out, watch out! There's a two-legged animal running about!"

"He's a demon, he's a devil..."

H-O-T. Informative. Hilarious. "It's A Man!" lol.......how a 'lee sees a 'ler.....awesome....😉

 

[chicago]

Lol why do you think I like them?

 

[The Internet]

Lol why do you think I like them?

That makes me two of us/all of us!

The only song i could think of that could even approach those two would be this one: Julie London begging all us 'lers to ..."go slow......." 😉

Julie London: Go Slow
....just a little here....just a little there.....


Not the a hit, not the greatest song ever written....but sexy, kittenish...........and definitely a Sound of the 50s....... 😉

 

[chicago]

Love Julie London

 

[mb7700]

And let's not forget Brenda Lee, of whom John Lennon once said, "Brenda Lee has the greatest rock and roll voice of them all."

 

[SlaverTickler]

Elvis, from 56-60 it was all about Elvis.

 

[Bugman]

Elvis, from 56-60 it was all about Elvis.

With all due respect to Elvis, no, it was not all about him musically. Far from it. And this thread demonstrates that. He just got the majority of the press coverage.

 

[likeasong]

Absolutely, B-B-Bugman! He was actually planning on producing Ritchie Valens when they got off tour! He'd just moved to Greenwich Village......his career was actually not going so well, he hadn't had a hit in a while (in 1950s rock 'n'roll terms, that is!), that's one reason why he took that tour in the dead or winter. There was no heat on the bus. Fed up, he chartered a plane; there was only room for four so Waylon Jennings flipped a coin with Ritchie Valens and Ritchie Valens "won" the coin toss. The plane went up and crashed within a couple of minutes of takeoff. A sad end to three great rockers.

Actually it was Tommy Allsop with whom Valens flipped the coin. Jennings gave his seat to the Big Bopper, who simply persuaded Jennings to give him his seat.

Huge fan of the '50's, both rock and non-rock. Kind of sad to see the King not getting much love. Not my favorite artist, but he really was great. From his '50's catalog, "I Need Your Love Tonight" is a must listen, but sadly isn't among the better-known ones.

 

[ticklishscribe]

"Take Five" is a jazz icon classic.

A couple of popular instrumental pieces from 1959.

Written by Paul Desmond and performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet:




Written by Henry Mancicni:



😎😎

 

[The Internet]

And let's not forget Brenda Lee, of whom John Lennon once said, "Brenda Lee has the greatest rock and roll voice of them all."

I always consider Brenda more of an early 60s singer, although she did record in the late 50s. "Sweet Nuthin's" is my favorite, and that's 1960, right on the cusp!

Actually it was Tommy Allsop with whom Valens flipped the coin. Jennings gave his seat to the Big Bopper, who simply persuaded Jennings to give him his seat.

Hey, that's right! It was Tommy Allsop, that's right! Right on, I was doing that from memory, obviously yours is better! I bow to you!

Kind of sad to see the King not getting much love. Not my favorite artist, but he really was great. From his '50's catalog, "I Need Your Love Tonight" is a must listen, but sadly isn't among the better-known ones.

Well, hey, bro, we're only a few pages in, and I certainly put Elvis up! But to redress the balance and quell all you Elvis freaks, here's three more, I'm a bigger fan of the early, early pre-RCA Elvis, and these are three masterpieces from that period.....all 1954-55.

Elvis Presley: Trying To Get To You


Elvis Presley: Baby, Let's Play House


Elvis Presley: I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')


I like Elvis when he still had a pock-marked face.....😉

 

[The Internet]

But if I put up three more Elvis, I have to put up three more Chuck Berry, I'm sure you understand....😉

If Elvis was the King, Chuck was the Father - and the Poet Laureate - of Rock & Roll! (and let's hear it for Johnnie Johnson, his amazing piano player!)

Chuck Berry: Rock And Roll Music
I especially love the detail: "they're drinking home brew from a wooden cup"....damn, that's good!


Chuck Berry: Almost Grown


Chuck Berry: Memphis



Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

Help me, information, get in touch with my Marie
She's the only one who'd phone me here from Memphis Tennessee
Her home is on the south side, high up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge

Help me, information, more than that I cannot add
Only that I miss her and all the fun we had
But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree
And tore apart our happy home in Memphis Tennessee

Last time I saw Marie she's waving me good bye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye
Marie is only six years old, information please
Try to put me through to her in Memphis Tennessee

 

[Hemmen]

Don't forget about this guy, folks.

Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody



Summertime Blues

 

[likeasong]

Respectfully, The Internet, I must disagree. Chuck is probably one of the favorites people like to claim. I think Bo Diddley might have a slightly stronger claim than Chuck. But that's if "guitarist" is a non-negotiable criterion for that title. It is most certainly not that way for me. For my money, the Father Of Rock 'n' Roll is Clyde McPhatter, having been a soloist and a key member of both Billy Ward And The Dominoes and the original Drifters. Three noteworthy efforts all before we'd heard of Chuck Berry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdGG1ry-Rks - from his Dominoes days (slightly later song).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_wBp0Y3DAA - this one is credited to his solo efforts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8oNHMNCSjQ - Drifters

 

[Bator]

 

[mb7700]

Lennon, who could be notoriously sharp-tongued, once said, "When Elvis went into the Army, they didn't just clip his hair, they clipped between his legs." Rather hyperbolic, but a lot of fans (including, obviously, Lennon) think that Elvis made his best records in the Fifties.

 

[mb7700]

And I cannot believe that no one has mentioned Sam Cooke!

 

[Bator]

Okay, how about this then lol

 

[mb7700]

Okay, how about this then lol

Yes, that's the stuff! Muhammad Ali once called Sam Cooke (shortly before Cooke was shot to death) "the world's greatest rock and roll singer." Maybe Cooke was and maybe he wasn't, but he was definitely one of the greats!

 

[mb7700]

And what about Fats Domino? "I found my thrill..."

 

[Bugman]

More from Sam.

 

[The Internet]

Respectfully, The Internet, I must disagree. Chuck is probably one of the favorites people like to claim. I think Bo Diddley might have a slightly stronger claim than Chuck. But that's if "guitarist" is a non-negotiable criterion for that title. It is most certainly not that way for me. For my money, the Father Of Rock 'n' Roll is Clyde McPhatter, having been a soloist and a key member of both Billy Ward And The Dominoes and the original Drifters. Three noteworthy efforts all before we'd heard of Chuck Berry.

I love Clyde but sorry, no way. I'm particularly offended that you think it's something I "like to claim", as if I don't have ears, don't know the period, and as if I've been brainwashed!

First off, if its who came first? Fats Domino predates them all. And Louis Jordan predates Fats! Most people call Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88" (which is really the Ike Turner band) as the first rock and roll record (I don't.) Personally I think the records Charley Patton made with Willie Brown in the late 20s are the first rock and roll records! There is no ONE "Father of Rock and Roll' (or King for that matter). It was a term that was affectionately (and rightfully) bestowed on Chuck Berry, ala Elvis and "the King".

Clyde McPhatter, if anything, is the Father of Soul Music, which goes on today in R&B singing (a strange term for a music that has zero to do with rhythm, or blues, but.....there you go.). But he never wrote a song, and other than his singing and early popularity, his contribution to rock and roll vocabulary, as it ended up developing, is not anywhere near Chuck Berry's. Not even close! As great as he was!

Bo Diddley's great, pre-dates Chuck by a year (so does Little Richard and Elvis). But Bo Diddley was an eccentric stylist. Chuck, on the other hand, synthesized the music into it's most basic form, in songwriting and performance....you point to a Chuck Berry record like "Johnny B. Goode" and that IS rock and roll music, textbook rock and roll music. Sorry, but the vocal groups of the 50s did not become the predominant paradigm. Guitar combos did. (The Beatles/British Invasion ended the saxophone-based rock, ended the piano based rock and roll until they themselves brought it back in the late 60s, and the vocal groups all stayed in black music. And the predominant influence, more than all others, on the Beatles and the Stones, was Chuck Berry. And their influence is most definitely felt to this day....)

Here are more Chuck's contributions to the vocabulary of rock and roll....he didn't just make one contribution, he made many:

1.) Driving rhythm guitar that's not in a swing feel (Little Richard also did it with piano, though his pre-Chuck material has the swing feel, "Tutti Frutti"). Bo Diddley was a great, eccentric stylist....but we're all not playing Bo Diddley beats on every song; we're playing straight ahead up and down rock and roll, even if it's at different tempos. Listen to "I Want To Hold Your Hand", the rhythm guitar.....that's Chuck Berry rhythm. When I hear indie rock.....I'll pick one off of the top of my head...."Teenage Riot" by Sonic Youth. Sounds like it has nothing to do with Chuck Berry.....but that rock and roll rhythm is still underlying, propelling the song, that's Chuck Berry rhythm. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing?" Chuck proved them wrong. Now there's hardly any swing in rock-based music, it's not a triplet-feel, it's straight up-and-down eighth-notes.

2.) Lyrics moving from sex and drinking (ala early 50s R&B) to teenage themes like school, jukeboxes, cars...etc., you lay that ALL at the feet of Chuck. Brilliant move. And the whole music went along with him, including Clyde, Little Richard, Elvis and the whole lot of them. Think "At The Hop". You'd never have that pre-Chuck.

3.) He was the first to celebrate rock and roll itself, he celebrated the music and the burgeoning rock and roll culture and audience - especially the white audience.....("School Days","Roll Over Beethoven", "Johnny B. Goode", "Sweet Little 16", etc etc.). Those are THE rock and roll anthems. Not "A Lover's Question" or "Money Honey", sorry. He was the first to do it, he was the first to identify it and put it in song. And he did it beautifully, with great style and craft.

4.) Back to Bo Diddley, who is absolutely on the Mount Rushmore of rock and roll (and who I posted on the very first page of this thread). Rock and roll lead guitar playing goes back to Chuck Berry, that's what every guitar player learned and learns. Bo Diddley is a great, distinctive rhythm player, but single-line leads in rock and roll? Chuck Berry. He got it from T-Bone Walker, of course, and others, but as far as the general population is concerned, Chuck Berry is the archetype of a rock and roll guitarist, not Bo Diddley. And to this day, I see most bands have a guitar player who's going "weedly-weedly-weedly-weedly...."

5.) Chuck Berry's lyrics are fantastic. Go look what everyone from John Lennon & Bob Dylan & Keith Richards to Willie Dixon have to say about Berry's lyrics, don't take my word for it. Or listen to (or read) his lyrics. That's a cut way above the rest. Certainly above the material Clyde was singing. Those words are vivid. He had great "flow" (a hip hop term). "Subterrenean Homesick Blues", completely Chuck Berry-influenced ("Too Much Monkey Business")

6.) Like Elvis, people didn't know if Chuck Berry was black or white when "Maybelline" came out (note the country influence). Both synthesized black and white styles. They are very much counterparts in that sense. And so if you're going to call Elvis "the King" (a term coined when people didn't take this stuff all that seriously), then calling Chuck "The Father of Rock and Roll" is apt. Before Chuck, rock and roll was a loose conglomerate of regional musics. After Chuck, it was its own music, with its own template and - over the long haul of this amazing, diverse style we call rock, or rock and roll, a type of music that encompasses just about anything - his has been the most enduring influence, the one who's ideas are still in use, by the biggest amount of artists, and most varied.

How about "Architect of Rock and Roll"?

Lastly: Regarding "I can't believe this isn't posted this yet!" Lol! It's a whole decade of music, we're only 5 pages in! We could post the whole decade now in one thread, but where would the fun be in that? lol!

 

[The Internet]

And what about Fats Domino? "I found my thrill..."

What about him? He's on the first page of this thread.

 

[The Internet]

What about Jackie Wilson, omg, I can't believe no one posted Jackie Wilson yet! lol

Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops

 

[The Internet]

After Chuck Berry, rock and roll moved away from exclusively sex & drinking themes to records like these:

Danny & The Juniors: At The Hop


Danny & The Juniors: Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay

 

[mb7700]

What about him? He's on the first page of this thread.

Oops, my bad...the thread is so long that I failed to keep up. But anyway, Fats has some claim as "the father of rock and roll" too--he was making records that fit the bill for Imperial Records in the late 1940s.