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Many musical styles flourished and combined in the 1940s and 1950s, most likely because of the influence the radio had in creating a mass market for music. World War II caused great social upheaval, and the music of this period shows the effects of that upheaval.
Popular music, or "classic pop," dominated the charts for the first half of the 1950s. Vocal-driven classic pop replaced Big Band/Swing at the end of World War II, although it often used orchestras to back the vocalists. 1940s style Crooners vied with a new generation of big voiced singers, many drawing on Italian bel canto traditions. Mitch Miller, A&R man at the era's most successful label, Columbia Records, set the tone for the development of popular music well into the middle of decade. [1] Miller integrated country, Western, rhythm & blues, and folk music into the musical mainstream, by having many of his label's biggest artists record them in a style that corresponded to Pop traditions. Miller often employed novel and ear-catching arrangements featuring classical instruments (whooping french horns, harpsichord), or sound effects (whip cracks). He approached each record as a miniature story, often "casting" the vocalist according to type.
(Mitch) Miller and the producers who followed his model were creating a new sort of pop record. Instead of capturing the sound of live groups, they were making three-minute musicals, matching singers to songs in the same way that movie producers matched stars to film roles. As Miller told 'Time' magazine in 1951, 'Every singer has certain sounds he makes better than others. Frankie Laine is sweat and hard words - he's a guy beating the pillow, a purveyor of basic emotions. Guy Mitchell is better with happy-go-lucky songs; he's a virile young singer, gives people a vicarious lift. Rosemary Clooney is a barrelhouse dame, a hillbilly at heart.' It was a way of thinking perfectly suited to the new market in which vocalists were creating unique identities and hit songs were performed as television skits. [2]
Whereas Big Band/Swing music placed the primary emphasis on the orchestration, post-war/early 1950s era Pop focused on the song's story and/or the emotion being expressed. By the early 1950s, emotional delivery had reached its apex in the miniature psycho-drama songs of writer-singer Johnnie Ray. Known as 'The Cry Guy' and 'The Prince of Wails,' Ray's on-stage emotion wrought 'breakdowns' provided a release for the pent-up angst of his predominantly teenaged fans. [3] As Ray described it, "I make them feel, I exhaust them, I destroy them.' [4] It was during this period that the fan hysteria, which began with Frank Sinatra during the Second World War, really began to take hold.
Although often ignored by musical historians, Pop music played a significant role in the development of Rock 'n' Roll as well:
[Mitch] Miller also conceived of the idea of the pop record 'sound' per se: not so much an arrangement or a tune, but an aural texture (usually replete with extramusical gimmicks) that could be created in the studio and then replicated in live performance, instead of the other way around. Miller was hardly a rock 'n' roller, yet without these ideas there could never have been rock 'n' roll. 'Mule Train', Miller's first major hit (for Frankie Laine) and the foundation of his career, set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock. The similarities between it and, say, 'Leader of the Pack,' need hardly be outlined here. [5]
Patti Page kicked things off with what would become the decade's biggest hit, "Tennessee Waltz."[ citation needed ] Her other hits from this period included: "Mister and Mississippi," "Mockin' Bird Hill," "Detour," "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window," and "Old Cape Cod." Frankie Laine's 1949 hits, "That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)" and "Mule Train," were still riding high on the charts when the decade began. He continued to score with such hits as: "Georgia On My Mind," "Cry of the Wild Goose," "Jezebel," "Rose, Rose, I Love You," "Jealousy (Jalousie)," "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)," "I Believe," "Granada," "Moonlight Gambler," and "Rawhide." Johnnie Ray had a long run of hits in the early half of the decade, often backed by The Four Lads, including: "Cry," "The Little White Cloud That Cried," "Walking My Baby Back Home," "Please, Mr. Sun," and "Just Walkin' in the Rain." [3] The Four Lads racked up some hits on their own with "Who Needs You," "No, Not Much," "Standin' on the Corner," and "Moments to Remember." Nat "King" Cole dominated the charts throughout the decade with such timeless classics as "Unforgettable," "Mona Lisa," "Too Young," "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup," "Pretend," "Smile," and "A Blossom Fell." [6] Perry Como was another frequent visitor to the charts with hits like: "If," "Round and Round," "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," "Tina Marie," "Papa Loves Mambo," and "Catch a Falling Star."
Other major stars in the early 1950s included Frank Sinatra ("Young at Heart," "Three Coins in the Fountain," "Witchcraft"), [6] Tony Bennett ("Cold, Cold Heart," "Because of You," "Rags to Riches"), Kay Starr ("Bonaparte's Retreat," "Wheel of Fortune," "Rock and Roll Waltz"), [3] Rosemary Clooney ("Come On-a My House," "Mambo Italiano," "Half as Much," "This Ole House"), Dean Martin ("That's Amore," "Return to Me," "Sway"), Georgia Gibbs ("Kiss of Fire," "Dance With Me, Henry," "Tweedle Dee"), Eddie Fisher ("Anytime," "Wish You Were Here," "Thinking of You," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Oh! My Pa-Pa," "Fanny"), Teresa Brewer ("Music! Music! Music!," "Till I Waltz Again With You," "Ricochet(Rick-O-Shay)"), Doris Day ("Secret Love," "Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera Sera)," "Teacher's Pet"), Guy Mitchell ("My Heart Cries for You," "The Roving Kind," "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," "Singing the Blues"), Bing Crosby ("Play a Simple Melody with son Gary Crosby, "True Love with Grace Kelly), Dinah Shore ("Lavender Blue"), Kitty Kallen ("Little Things Mean a Lot"), Joni James ("Have You Heard," "Wishing Ring," "Your Cheatin' Heart"), Peggy Lee ("Lover," "Fever"), Julie London ("Cry Me a River"), Toni Arden ("Padre"), June Valli ("Why Don't You Believe Me"), Arthur Godfrey ("Slowpoke"), Tennessee Ernie Ford ("Sixteen Tons"), Les Paul and Mary Ford ("Vaya Con Dios," "Tiger Rag"), and vocal groups like The Mills Brothers ("Glow Worm"), The Weavers "(Goodnight Irene"), [1] The Four Aces ("Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing", "(It's No) Sin"), The Chordettes ("Mister Sandman"), Fontane Sisters ("Hearts of Stone"), The Hilltoppers ("Trying," "P.S. I Love You"), The McGuire Sisters ("Sincerely," "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite," "Sugartime") and The Ames Brothers ("Ragmop", "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane").
Classic pop declined in popularity as rock and roll entered the mainstream and became a major force in American record sales. Crooners such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the first half of the decade, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed by the decade's end. [7] However, new Pop vocalists continued to rise to prominence throughout the decade, many of whom started out singing Rock 'n' Roll. These include: Pat Boone ("Don't Forbid Me," "April Love," "Love Letters in the Sand"), Connie Francis ("Who's Sorry Now," "Among My Souvenirs," "My Happiness"), Gogi Grant ("Suddenly There's a Valley," "The Wayward Wind"), Bobby Darin ("Dream Lover," "Beyond the Sea," "Mack the Knife"), and Andy Williams ("Canadian Sunset," "Butterfly," "Hawaiian Wedding Song"). Even Rock 'n' Roll icon Elvis Presley spent the rest of his career alternating between Pop and Rock ("Love Me Tender," "Loving You," "I Love You Because"). Pop would resurface on the charts in the mid-1960s as "Adult Contemporary."
Rock and roll dominated popular music in the latter half of the 1950s. The musical style originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music; with country and western and Pop. [8] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music, [9] though the terms "rocking" and "rolling" were being used in boogie-woogie and religious music for decades before that.
The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar (developed and popularized by Les Paul). Paul's hit records like "How High the Moon," and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," helped lead to the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing of such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore. [10] Chuck Berry, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Rock and roll music, refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. [11]
Artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Big Joe Turner, and Gene Vincent released the initial rhythm and blues-influenced early rock and roll hits. Rock and roll forerunners in the popular music field included Johnnie Ray, The Crew-Cuts, The Fontane Sisters, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. The Rock and Roll Era is generally dated from the March 25, 1955 premiere of the motion picture, "The Blackboard Jungle."[ citation needed ] This film's use of Bill Haley and His Comets' "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" over its opening credits, caused a national sensation when teenagers started dancing in the aisles.
Pat Boone became the first rock and roll teen idol in 1955 with heavily Pop-influenced "covers" of R&B hits like "Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)," "Ain't That a Shame", and "At My Front Door (Crazy Little Mama)." Boone's traditional approach to rock and roll, coupled with his All-American, clean-cut image helped bring the new sound to a much wider audience. Elvis Presley, who began his career in the mid-1950s, soon became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances, motion pictures, and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial during that period. Boone and Presley's styles/images represented opposite ends of the burgeoning musical form, which competed with one another throughout the remainder of the decade.
In 1957, a popular television show featuring rock and roll performers, American Bandstand, went national. Hosted by Dick Clark, the program helped to popularize the more clean-cut, All-American brand of rock and roll. By the end of the decade, teen idols like Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Rydell, Connie Francis, and Fabian Forte were topping the charts. Some commentators have perceived this as the decline of rock and roll; citing the deaths of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a tragic plane crash in 1959 and the departure of Elvis for the army as causes.
On the other side of the spectrum, R&B-influenced acts like The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans all scored major hits, and groups like The Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955), and The Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the period. [12]
Rock and roll has also been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly (see below) in the 1950s, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in the mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley. [13] Another subgenre, Doo Wop, entered the pop charts in the 1950s . Its popularity soon spawns the parody "Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)."
Novelty songs, long a music industry staple, continued their popularity in the Rock and Roll medium with hits such as "Beep Beep."
In the late 1930s, Bill Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys (named after his native state of Kentucky, the blue grass state) and combined diverse influences into Appalachian folk music. These include Scottish, Poland and Southeastern Europe and folk, as well as doo wop, country and gospel. Monroe became the father of bluegrass music, and his band was a training ground for most of bluegrass' future stars, especially Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Flatt and Scruggs popularized bluegrass as part of the Foggy Mountain Boys, which they formed in 1948. Though bluegrass has never quite achieved mainstream status, it did become well known through its use in several recorded plays, including the T.V. theme song for Beverly Hillbillies and the movies Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance . In the 1950s, bluegrass artists included Stanley Brothers, Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys.
The 1950s also saw the popular dominance of the Nashville sound in country music. Country's Nashville sound was slick and soulful, and a movement of rough honky tonk developed in a reaction against the mainstream orientation of Nashville. This movement was centered in Bakersfield, California with musicians like Buck Owens ("Act Naturally"), Merle Haggard ("Sing a Sad Song") and Wynn Stewart ("It's Such a Pretty World Today") helping to define the sound among the community, made up primarily of Oklahoman immigrants to California, who had fled unemployment and drought.
The late 1940s and the early 1950s saw the beginning of popular folk music with groups like The Weavers. [1] The Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Odetta, and several other performers were instrumental in launching the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. [14]
By the late 1950s, a revival of Appalachian folk music was taking place across the country, and bands like The Weavers were paving the way for future mainstream stars like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Bluegrass was similarly revitalized and updated by artists including Tony Rice, Clarence White, Richard Green, Bill Keith and David Grisman. The Dillards, however, were the ones to break bluegrass into mainstream markets in the early 1960s.
Following World War II, gospel began its golden age. Artists like the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, The Swan Silvertones, Clara Ward Singers and Sensational Nightingales became stars across the country; other early artists like Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Dinah Washington, Johnnie Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett began their career in gospel quartets during this period, only to achieve even greater fame in the 1960s as the pioneers of soul music, itself a secularized, R&B-influenced form of gospel. Mahalia Jackson and The Staple Singers were undoubtedly the most successful of the golden age gospel artists.
In addition, doo wop achieved widespread popularity in the 1950s. Doo wop was a harmonically complex style of choral singing that developed in the streets of major cities like Chicago, New York City, and, most importantly, Baltimore. Doo wop singers would work a cappella without backing instruments, and practice in hallways of their schools, apartment buildings, or alleys to achieve echo effects on their voices, and lyrics were generally innocent youthful observations on the upsides of teen love and romance. Groups like The Crows ("Gee"), The Orioles ("It's Too Soon to Know") and Brooklyn's Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers ("Why Do Fools Fall in Love") had a string of hit songs that brought the genre to chart domination by 1958 (see 1958 in music).
Cuban mambo, cha-cha-chá and charanga bands enjoyed brief periods of popularity, and helped establish a viable Latin-American music industry, which led the way to the invention of salsa music among Cubans and Puerto Ricans in New York City in the 1970s. The 1950s also saw success for Mexican ranchera divas, while a Mexican-American mariachi scene was developing on the West Coast, and Puerto Rican plena, Brazilian bossa nova and other Latin genres became popular.
Mexican-Texans had been playing conjunto music for decades by the end of World War 2, female duos created the first popular style of Mexican-American music, norteña. Mexican romantic ballads called bolero were also popular, especially singers like the Queen of the Bolero, Chelo Silva. In the mid-1950s, when Mexican ranchera was used in Hollywood film soundtracks and the upper-class enjoyed stately orquestas Tejanas and conjunto evolved into a distinctively Mexican-American genre called Tejano. Artists of this era include Esteban Jordan, Tony de la Rosa and El Conjunto Bernal.
The 1940s saw a return to the roots of Cajun music, led by Iry LeJeune, Nathan Abshire and other artists, alongside musicians who incorporated rock and roll, including Laurence Walker and Aldus Roger. In the late 1940s, Clifton Chenier, a Creole, began playing an updated form of la la called zydeco. Zydeco was briefly popular among some mainstream listeners during the 1950s. Artists like Boozoo Chavis, Queen Ida, Rockin' Dopsie and Rockin' Sidney have continued to bring zydeco to national audiences in the following decades. Zydeco shows major influences from rock, and artists like Beau Jocque have combined other influences, including hip hop.
Country is a music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is primarily focused on singing stories about working-class and blue-collar American life.
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within the African-American community in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations.
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in African-American communities throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, and U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential in its proliferation during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular worldwide, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It had a resurgence in the mid-to late 1990s with the subgenre neo soul, which incorporated modern production elements and hip hop influences.
Traditional pop is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
Doo-wop is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s and continued to influence performers in other genres.
The Isley Brothers are an American musical group originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, that began as a vocal trio consisting of the brothers O'Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley and Ronald Isley in the 1950s. With a career spanning over seven decades, the group has enjoyed one of the "longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music".
Johnnie Harrison Taylor was an American recording artist and songwriter who performed a wide variety of genres, from blues, rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel to pop, doo-wop, and disco. He was initially successful at Stax Records with the number-one R&B hits "Who's Making Love" (1968), "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" (1971) and "I Believe in You " (1973), and reached number one on the US pop charts with "Disco Lady" in 1976.
The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a British popular music genre that developed, particularly in and around Liverpool, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The genre melded influences from British and American rock and roll, rhythm and blues, skiffle, traditional pop and music hall. It rose to mainstream popularity in the UK and Europe by 1963 before spreading to North America in 1964 with the British Invasion. The beat style had a significant impact on popular music and youth culture, from 1960s movements such as garage rock, folk rock and psychedelic music.
Jerry Butler Jr. is an American soul singer-songwriter, producer, musician, and retired politician. He was the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group the Impressions, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. After leaving the group in 1960, Butler achieved over 55 Billboard Pop and R&B Chart hits as a solo artist including "He Will Break Your Heart", "Let It Be Me" and "Only the Strong Survive". He was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2015.
Music history of the United States includes many styles of folk, popular and classical music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are rhythm and blues, jazz, rock and roll, rock, soul, hip hop, pop, and country. The history began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America.
American popular music is popular music produced in the United States and is a part of American pop culture. Distinctive styles of American popular music emerged early in the 19th century, and in the 20th century the American music industry developed a series of new forms of music, using elements of blues and other genres. These popular styles included country, R&B, jazz and rock. The 1960s and 1970s saw a number of important changes in American popular music, including the development of a number of new styles, such as heavy metal, punk, soul, and hip hop.
The Edsels were an American doo-wop group from Campbell, Ohio who were active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The name of the group was originally The Essos, after the oil company, but was changed to match the new Ford automobile, the Edsel. They recorded over 25 songs and had multiple performances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The Edsels were one of the few doo-wop groups to sign with a major record label, as most groups of that era found success with small independent labels; before their national hit "Rama Lama Ding Dong", songs like "What Brought Us Together", "Bone Shaker Joe" and "Do You Love Me" helped the group land a major recording contract with Capitol Records in 1961.
"Who Put the Bomp " is a doo-wop style novelty song from 1961 by the American songwriter Barry Mann, who wrote it with Gerry Goffin. It was originally released as a single on the ABC-Paramount label (10237).
"Gee" is a song by American R&B and doo-wop group the Crows, released in June 1953. The song has been credited as the first rock and roll hit by a rock and roll group. It is a doo-wop song, written by William Davis and Viola Watkins, and recorded by the Crows on the independent label, Rama Records, at Beltone Studios in New York City in February 1953. It charted in April 1954, one year later. It took a year to get recognized on Your Hit Parade. It landed No. 2 on the rhythm and blues chart and No. 14 on the pop chart. It was the first 1950s doo-wop record to sell over one million records. Recorded on an independent label, it was one of the first such R&B records to crossover to the wider pop market. Some, including Jay Warner, consider it as the first of the "rock and roll records".
"Little Darlin'" is a popular Top 40 song, made famous by The Diamonds.
This article includes an overview of the events and trends in popular music in the 1960s.
This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1950s.
A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of whom were influenced by doo-wop and which flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the decline of early rock and roll and start of the British Invasion. All-female bands, in which members also play instruments, are usually considered a separate phenomenon. These groups are sometimes called "girl bands" to differentiate, although this terminology is not universally followed.
Though the music itself developed in African-American communities, the Jewish influence in rhythm and blues, particularly in terms of the music's presentation to a wider audience, was important. According to the Jewish writer, music publishing executive, and songwriter Arnold Shaw, during the 1940s in the United States there was generally little opportunity for Jews in the WASP-controlled realm of mass communications, but the music business was "wide open for Jews as it was for blacks". Jews played a key role in developing and popularizing African American music, including rhythm and blues, and the independent record business was dominated by young Jewish men, and some women, who promoted the sounds of black music.
