Repost from 2010

The Birth of an Era: Rock and Roll in the Fifties

The 1950s gave birth to rock and roll. When Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” was recorded in 1954, the term “rock and roll” wasn't yet widely used, but the nation’s youth were already learning to swing to a whole new sound.

However, rock and roll wasn't the only music defining the decade. Other artists and genres kept people humming for much of the 1950s. Take the "Ps," for instance: Pat Boone, Perry Como, Percy Faith, Patsy Cline (who dominated both the country and pop charts), and Patti Page. There were also plenty of holdovers from the 1940s. The Mills Brothers’ recording of “Queen of the Senior Prom” hit the Top 40 charts in April 1957, and "Old Blue Eyes" himself—Frank Sinatra, my mother's favorite singer—was still hitting the charts well into the late 1960s.

The Evolution of "Your Hit Parade"

In 1950, Your Hit Parade moved to television after 15 successful years on the radio, where it would broadcast for another nine years. The television version attempted to dramatize each song with innovative skits, elaborate sets, and a large entourage of performers. However, creating fresh visual routines for long-running popular songs proved difficult, especially with hits of the period like "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" and "Shrimp Boats."

A much more serious problem facing the program was the shifting taste in American popular music. Rock and roll was rapidly displacing the ballads and big bands that had been the mainstay of popular music throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. The earlier music enjoyed a multi-generational appeal, allowing the radio version of Your Hit Parade to cater to a broad family audience. In contrast, the rock music of the 1950s was explicitly targeted toward younger listeners, and it actually thrived on the disdain of its older critics. (How many times did your parents tell you to “turn that radio down” or shut it off completely?)

Chart-Toppers and Forgotten Names

Many artists spanned the decade and beyond, while others enjoyed just a few hits before fading into obscurity. Teresa Brewer sang “’Til I Waltz Again With You” in 1952 and followed it up with “Empty Arms” in 1957. The Ames Brothers asked “Can Anyone Explain?” in 1950 and delivered “Moments to Remember” in 1959.

Then, we cannot forget the 24-year-old lounge singer who hit it big in 1951. Produced by Mitch Miller and backed by the Four Lads, Johnny Ray recorded two massive songs that year: “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” “Cry” was a smash hit, reaching number one and staying there for eleven weeks. Ray continued to record into the early 1960s. Yet, the most prolific artist of the 1950s was Perry Como. He started racking up hits in the mid-1940s and ultimately charted more hits than anyone else between 1950 and 1959.

There are too many others to name who were present at the dawn of the original rock and roll era and successfully transitioned into later decades.

Post-War Optimism and Shifting Styles

The feel-good innocence of much of this mid-century music reflects the post-World War II optimism sweeping America. The young people of the era—an emerging social force officially dubbed "teenagers"—hadn't struggled through the Great Depression. They only knew about World War II rationing through stories, and they were, for the most part, unaffected by the "police action" in Korea. They were looking for something more exciting, and they discovered that vital energy in rock and roll.

Musically speaking, styles tended to fracture mid-decade. Big band music began to give way to pop vocals right around the time World War II ended, and the tunes from 1955 to 1964 shared a very similar DNA. Things didn't change drastically again until the British Invasion hit the United States in the mid-1960s. From that point on, rock and roll evolved into various subgenres. The rock music of the late 1960s and early 1970s was excellent, but by the late 1970s, it bore little relation to its 1950s roots.

Meanwhile, the R&B "Motown Sound" of the 1960s and 1970s was outstanding, and pop music gave us timeless acts like The Carpenters, Billy Joel, and The Osmonds. However, to my ears, most rock music after the 1970s was just noise.

Finding the Fifties Today

Today, there are very few places where you can still find the music of the fifties. Most "Oldies" radio stations are stuck in the 1970s and 1980s (I guess that qualifies as "old" to a 25-year-old DJ). A few country stations still play Marty Robbins, Carl Perkins, and even some of Elvis's early catalog. I recently heard Betty Johnson’s 1958 Top 40 song “The Little Blue Man” on an Oklahoma City classic country station. I will never figure out how that song hit the charts in the first place, or why anyone would still have a copy of it—though, as it happens, I have a copy myself! Johnny Cash and The Tennessee Two also hit the Top 40 charts in 1956 with “I Walk the Line,” a recording that remains a staple on many country stations today.

While stars like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard are impossible to forget, many other fifties artists have been all but lost to time. Few people today could tell you much about the music of The Heartbeats or The Four Tunes. In 1958, Tommy Edwards asked us to “Please Love Me Forever,” and while most folks of a certain age remember the song, they would be hard-pressed to name the artist. That same year, the Kalin Twins released “Forget Me Not,” and unfortunately, history did exactly that.

The decade also brought major shifts in media. In 1956, a local Philadelphia television station fired the namesake host of Bob Horn’s Bandstand after Horn allegedly became far too familiar with the teenage female dancers on the show. Dick Clark took over, the show was renamed American Bandstand, and ABC picked it up for national broadcast in 1957.

Blurred Decades and "Unchained Melody"

Interestingly, some of the music we naturally associate with the fifties was actually recorded in the sixties—such as “Blue Moon” by The Marcels (1961). Another prime example is “Unchained Melody.” While Les Baxter and Al Hibbler first released versions of the song in 1955, the Righteous Brothers recorded their iconic version in 1964. The track has now been recorded over 700 times by more than 500 different artists. Similarly, most of the famous "girl groups" belong to the 1960s rather than the 1950s.

The Truck Driver Who Became King

Probably the most memorable star to hit it big in the fifties—and the most imitated artist today—is Elvis Presley. On July 5, 1954, he recorded two songs at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in Memphis. Phillips cut and released “That’s All Right, Mama” with “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on the B-side. Historically, it was at the tail end of this very recording session that the term “rock and roll” was first used.

The young man from Mississippi became a regular on the Louisiana Hayride stage in Shreveport during the mid-fifties. He also made a single appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in October 1954, singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” He was never invited back. Allegedly, he was told, “Boy, you’d better keep driving that truck.” As it turned out, he would eventually need that truck just to haul his gold records around.

Following that Opry appearance, he signed a one-year contract with Hank Snow Attractions, a company owned by country legend Hank Snow and "Colonel" Tom Parker. Parker managed Presley's singing and acting career for the rest of Elvis's life. He was instrumental in virtually every business decision Presley made, including the choice to cut back on recording and stop touring after his Army discharge in 1960 in favor of a movie career.

Those of us in our sixth or seventh decade don't usually picture Elvis in a white jumpsuit. Instead, we remember the young singer clad in slacks, sporting a DA haircut, and swiveling his hips for national audiences on The Ed Sullivan Show—at least until CBS ordered camera operators to shoot him strictly from the waist up.

Many local teenagers caught him live on stage at the Municipal Auditorium during his two-show stint on October 16, 1955, when he traveled with the Hank Snow Show. He returned on his own tour on April 19, 1956. His third appearance in Oklahoma City took place at the fairgrounds arena on November 16, 1970, followed by a return to The Myriad on July 2, 1973. He played The Myriad again on July 8, 1975, and May 29, 1976. His final appearances in Oklahoma were on March 25 and 26, 1977, for two shows at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman. I didn't attend any of the Oklahoma shows in the 1970s, but I am certain the adults (the 33-to-43 age bracket) far outnumbered the teenagers in the audience.

In total, Elvis made 16 personal appearances in Oklahoma, starting with a show on June 1, 1955, at the Guymon High School Auditorium. The last time I saw Elvis live was in the early 1970s at The International in Las Vegas.

“The King” will live on forever. Today, Graceland is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Tennessee, drawing more annual visitors than the Grand Ole Opry and Dollywood combined. And if you use a little imagination, you can still see him on stage in Nevada—at any given time, you can find one or more Elvis impersonators keeping his memory alive in the showrooms and lounges of Las Vegas.