for those who never gave up their turntables
50s ROCK & ROLL includes articles about the music that people accepted as rock & roll at the time, which was a much more accepting definition than the ones used by historians and record collectors sixty years later.
Whatever definition you believe in, in May 1954, Bill Haley and his Comets recorded Rock Around The Clock. In July 1955, it hit #1 on both the Billboard and Cash Box Top 100, after which there was no going back! Discographies and price guides are included in some articles.
↓
ARTHUR CRUDUP CAME AND WENT, placing five sides from three singles on Billboard’s national R&B chart in 1945-1946. Then the big hits stopped, although RCA Victor kept releasing his records for several years to apparently dwindling returns. His fifteen minutes of fame were over until eight years later when Elvis Presley released his first record. [Continue reading]
“DID YOU LOVE ELVIS PRESLEY?” That was the question that popped up on Quora on Friday and that I ignored over the weekend. It seems kinda dumb but this morning it caught my attention again and I thought I’d check out whatever answers had been posted in the past few days. [Continue reading]
I HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING a lot of attention to Quora lately, but this question caused me to respond; “Will Link Wray ever make the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?” Wray had one seminal hit, Rumble, in 1958 that Cub Koda stated popularized “popularized “the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists.” [Continue reading]
WE LAUNCHED our new publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium on January 1, 2019. The articles within address popular music, primarily rock & roll from the ’60s. “We” are John Ross (my favorite music blogger), Lew Shiner (my favorite novelist), and myself. We love the music (and the books and the movies and the styles and the girls girls girls) of that era. [Continue reading]
THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE AMONG US. They see a wrong and they set out to right it. Mostly, they fail. Nonetheless, we think of them as heroic for their efforts. There are others who set out merely to succeed at their own goals. While achieving those goals, they may also right a wrong, break down a barrier, or expand a horizon. [Continue reading]
FOR MOST OF US, the period in our lives when we are most passionate about music is our teenage years. Somewhere around 13 or 14 years old, we start both intense for love and equally intense hate affairs with the pop music of the day. For me, this period was 1964-1969: to this day, most of my greatest loves come from this “era.”
THE QUESTION ON QUORA was “Who was the first rock & roll superstar to be discarded and forgotten to time?” I answered with Bill Haley, Pat Boone, and Connie Francis. Each singer was a big star in their heyday—the word “superstar” did not exist then—but each has been under-appreciated by most critics and historians since rock & roll became self-reflective decades ago. [Continue reading]
THE BURNING QUESTION on Quora today was “Who was the first rock & roll superstar to be discarded and forgotten to time?” Of course, I couldn’t resist, although my answer may not have been exactly what the questioner was looking for in forgotten superstars. But who knows—maybe this is exactly the kind of thinking-provoking answer the asker wanted? [Continue reading]
THE READERS AT QUORA have been keeping me busy—once I answered a question or two intelligently and fairly, I’ve been getting requests to answer others. Answer one question, and another pops up, even if it wasn’t asked directly of me. Many questions I just pass by, but this one was right in my ballpark: “Why isn’t Connie Francis in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?” [Continue reading]