Posted on 09/25/2015 5:58:42 PM PDT by AZamericonnie
Hi Everybody!
((((HUGS))))
Poodle skirts! Hula hoops! “Duck and cover!” Ike! John Foster Dulles! Pope Johnny! It was a decade of quiet relief after three decades of wild social change. It was an era of preppies and short haircuts, unless you were a bad boy, like a greaser or a beatnik. Juvenile delinquency and reefer were background noise. In some sections of the South, police required parents to sign releases before their children could attend rock and roll shows. It was the Devil’s music!
This year saw the worst recession since the Great Depression, and when Republicans in Ohio and California put right-to-work referenda on their states’ ballots, they got their clocks cleaned, paving the way for 1960. Lyndon Johnson was Majority Leader, Nixon was Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller was about to be elected governor of New York, Jack Kennedy was a handsome senator from Massachusetts, and Pat Brown was about to be the first of his family to be elected governor of California. Many of the Liberal Class of ‘58 in Congress would serve until 1994.
Elvis was in the Army, and this was one of the few periods when he didn’t have something on the charts. The middle-of-the-road pop music of the Fifties was yielding to rock and roll, and doo-wop was a major factor. Let’s listen in on the music of the Silent Generation and the early Baby Boomers.
Cue the Rockumentary theme on Turntable One! (This was a backup band at Motown that consisted of the Funk Brothers and pickup musicians from the Detroit Symphony.)
Edward Raymond Cochran (1938-60) was a rockabilly singer who experimented with multitrack recording and overdubbing even on his earliest singles. He played piano, bass and drums. His image as a sharply dressed and good looking guy with an attitude epitomized the Fifties rocker.
He was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and moved with his family to California in the early 1950s. He played in the school band and taught himself to play blues guitar. His first success came when he performed the song “Twenty Flight Rock” in the salacious film “The Girl Can't Help It.”
He died at age 21 in an accident while traveling in a taxi during his British tour.
In 1987, Cochran was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
There is a line in the song that needs a bit of explaining. “I’m going to take my father to the United Nations.” In those days the UN was actually taken seriously!
HEY KATHY it is true they getting SNOW in Fairbanks AK
http://www.newsminer.com/arctic_cam/
All we need is Jon Harm from Game of throne in middle of Fairbanks AK but he may get shot by my uncle LOL!
There ain’t no cure for that!
Permission granted & presence requested Conor! *Hugs*
What's up with you this weekend?
I'm heading off tomorrow to my 10 year plus several decades High School Reunion.
There were no teeny-boppers in the Fifties outside of Nabokov’s Lolita, a disturbing book that Stanley Kubrick had turned into an equally disturbing movie the year before. Girls interested in contraception were told to place an aspirin between their knees and hold it there.
Formed in a suburb of Cleveland, the Poni-Tails – Toni Cistone, Karen Topinka and Patti McCabe – started singing in high school. A local music publisher signed them, but their first release was covered by another artist for a national hit. Bad luck! Topinka left the group and was replaced by LaVerne Novak.
They signed with ABC-Paramount and released one failure after another. Then came a strange twist of fate.
The “B” side of yet another flop contained the song “Born Too Late.” This was a Brill Building effort by a lesser team of songwriters, but it had a melody that went beyond the simply memorable into the beautiful. The lyrics were heartbreaking.
This was the lament of a young girl in love with a guy years older, perhaps someone like the captain of the football team. In a time when such crushes didn’t cross the rigid bounds of the era’s attitude toward sexuality, this song tugged at people’s heartstrings.
The girls would eventually leave showbiz, take other careers, marry, and produce children and grandchildren. This was their one moment in the sun.
Good evening Gram & loving the Antonio Cartagena! *Hugs*
Great Rockumentary Publius, especially the background stories.
Hello, Connie! How are you and yours?
It’s a labor of love.
Make that Barry White.
Earl Grant (1931-70) was an Oklahoma boy. Though he would be known for his keyboards and vocals, Grant also played trumpet and drums. He attended four music schools and eventually became a music teacher. Grant signed with Decca in 1957, and this first single was his first hit, to be succeeded by “Ebb Tide,” which won him a Gold Record.
He died in a car accident in New Mexico when his car ran off I-10 as he was driving from Los Angeles to Juarez.
This song sold more records in the Sixties than 1958 because the record became the preferred song by which many DJ’s ended their dances.
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I was in first grade in 1958, and still listening to Classical! :-)
The sixties was when i went off the rails. LOL.
Hitting the sack now...I am exhausted.
((((HUGS))))
Check in tomorrow. Great stuff coming up.
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