like , I’m hip , daddio, it was coolsville!
The Aged P but that’s why we have Depends...
As a double 6, Seasoned Citizen, who remembers that era vividly, I still play the oldies regularly as I reminisce with buds about that Golden Era.
Ah, the 50's! That wonderful innocent decade that fell between the disastrous WWII decade of the 40's and the yet to come, chaotic and nascent, drug cultured, anti-war, hippie movement of the 60's and for many of us, our never to be forgotten tour of duty, in Nam.
Our "rides" were called "irons" cuz that is what they were made out of and they were (beginning in the mid-50's) Hot and stayed that way for the next 15 years as we cruised looking for chicks ala American Graffiti and trying to line up our next drag on public streets.
Our biggest thrill (for guys that is)--when not trying to find a National Geographic Mag to spy on some nubile African girl's naked breast--was trying to cop a feel--usually over a sweater/blouse and padded bra--on a date without getting your faced slapped. lol
I can still remember (around 12 or 13) my first "spin the bottle" game at some girls house party and my first kiss (which I don't remember). Ah, those were the days!
Sorry to bore y'all with this ol timers trip down memory lane!
Was that when “hep” was changed to “hip”?
Very good.
Oh the memories, thanks.
I don’t know about England, but in Texas we were listening to R&B radio and going to R&B reviews to see Berry, Frogman Henry, Little Richard, Big Mama Thornton, Ruth Brown, Bo Diddley, and a whole host of trios and quartets.
You might be interested to know that Presley absorbed that same sound in Memphis and “Hound Dog” was a remake of Big Mama’s original of four years before.
The move into the crossover market by the R&B performers was, however, due to the emergence of Rock& Roll which took the R&B beat and added a little southern Country sound. The white boys popularized the sound and gave the R&B folks a whole new white audience outside of the south.
I was there too. And still have a lot of those R&B 45s I collected later.
Oh, Sussex! How precious!
I, too, came of age in the 1950s. What a glorious decade that was. I will never forget the day that I saw Bill Haley and the Comets on TV and was introduced to what was called rock’n roll. This was quickly followed by seeing Little Richard and other R&B stars such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, who quickly blended into the genre of rock’n roll.
Part of my teen-age years were spent in Miami, where I had my first date at 16 with a real live girl. We went to see Elvis in “Jailhouse Rock.” Darn, I have (temporarily) forgotten her name! Senior moment.
Lots of other memories but this has gotten too long as it is.
In retrospect, the 50s were such an age of innocence. Too bad the 60s came along and ruined it.
RIGHT ON!! What a wonderful time, the best of best of music, girls who were girls, boys, boys, fun times at the ‘dance’, chaperons and all.
THANKS!!!!
As I remember it, the fifties culture lasted until at least 1965, here in an eccentric SoCal beach town full of beatniks. Even later in small towns across America. The hippie antiwar movement was a small cult until 1967 or so, and then only in cities and college towns. When Cronkite urged the antiwar movement forward after Tet, things changed in a hurry.
Frankie Ford - SEA CRUISE I still love that song and love singing it!
I was born in 1951 but had older siblings so the music was there when I was growing up.
My brother told me a joke when I was 7 years old: What did Jerry Lee Lewis say when he sat on a hot stove? “Goodness, gracious! Great Balls of Fire!”
And Sputnik orbiting overhead. Magical times.