for those who never gave up their turntables
THIS IS THE SECOND in a series of ten articles listing and addressing the #1 records of the year as they appeared on Cash Box magazine’s Top 100 chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Take Good Care Of Runaround Sue” on my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium on January 15, 2019. [Continue reading]
THIS IS THE FIRST in a series of ten articles listing and addressing the #1 records of the year as they appeared on Cash Box magazine’s Top 100 chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Save The Last Twist For Me” on my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium on January 1, 2019. [Continue reading]
MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI played an important role in the Beatles career, one that has been shoved aside by fans and historians. If you were of age and paying attention in 1968, the Maharishi was the Big Poobah in the Fab Four’s lives, at least for a while. [Continue reading]
OPINION QUESTIONS are big on Quora and I try to provide answers that are accurate but somewhat off the beaten path. The question I received this morning was, “Who are the all-time great frontmen in music?” I read the question as who are the great lead singers of rock groups, as both vocal and visual performers. [Continue reading]
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 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]
I NEVER THOUGHT of Antoine “Fats” Domino as a rock & roll artist. I thought he was a rhythm & blues-based artist, maybe a boogie-woogie artist, definitely a New Orleans artist. For some reason, white teenagers in the ’50s glommed onto him and the rest is rock & roll history.
I mean, yeah, when I was a kid inheriting my Aunt Judy’s 45 collection, I thought everything in it was rock & roll, from great stuff like Fats and the Platters to Fabian and silly jive like Who put the bomp in the bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp, who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong? [Continue reading]
WHAT EXACTLY IS A ROCK & ROLL ALBUM? To answer that question, we need to answer another: What is rock & roll music? After sixty years, we still don’t have a definition that everyone agrees with! Arguments about its definition and its origin in the early ’50s—no wait, was it the late ’40s?—have [Continue reading]
I’M WORKING ON A PIECE titled “What Was the First Rock & Roll LP Album of the ’50s?” At one point, I turned to Wikipedia for information to determine the release date of Fats Domino’s first album, Rock And Rollin’ With Fats Domino. I wasn’t prepared for what I found—although I should have been. [Continue reading]