1957
Fred sings, “These fancy fops and fillies…make those hick hillbillies look like squares.” Cole Porter views rock ’n’ roll as emerging out of country or hillbilly music. Blending blues and country, singers like Elvis Presley produced a form of music dubbed rockabilly by Memphis radio station KWEM. Bill Haley and the Comets of Rock Around the Clock fame was a country group.
Others view rock ’n’ roll as sanitized rhythm & blues. Pretty up an R&B number from somebody like Little Richard, give it to a clean-cut white boy like Pat Boone, and just like that black R&B was washed white. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term rock ’n’ roll reputedly to avoid saying rhythm & blues.
Doo wop with its emphasis on multi-part harmony sung to a swing beat grew out of harmonic jazz groups such as the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots. ’60s surf music from groups like the Beach Boys grew out of ’50s doo wop. Jan & Dean started in the ’50s with doo wop and transitioned into ’60s surf.
Lastly, boogie woogie, as Bette Midler established with her cover of the Andrews Sisters’ hit, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, is yet another precursor of rock ’n’ roll.
The words themselves are nautical. A ship rocks side-to-side and rolls fore to aft.
Others view rock ’n’ roll as sanitized rhythm & blues. Pretty up an R&B number from somebody like Little Richard, give it to a clean-cut white boy like Pat Boone, and just like that black R&B was washed white. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term rock ’n’ roll reputedly to avoid saying rhythm & blues.
Doo wop with its emphasis on multi-part harmony sung to a swing beat grew out of harmonic jazz groups such as the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots. ’60s surf music from groups like the Beach Boys grew out of ’50s doo wop. Jan & Dean started in the ’50s with doo wop and transitioned into ’60s surf.
Lastly, boogie woogie, as Bette Midler established with her cover of the Andrews Sisters’ hit, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, is yet another precursor of rock ’n’ roll.
The words themselves are nautical. A ship rocks side-to-side and rolls fore to aft.
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Little Bitty Pretty One — Thurstan HarrisReached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Frankie Lyman got a hit out of it in 1960.
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Wait a minute. Hold the phone. Chalypso? Chalypso was a smoother simpler version of the cha cha. Let's take a look at it.
1958
La Dee Dah — Billy & Lillie
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The most successful chalypso song was Billy & Lillie's La Dee Dah.
La Dee Dah charted number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. As you see, if a girl couldn't get a male partner, she did not feel ashamed to dance with another girl. |
Born too Late — The Poni-Tails
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And, this song goes out to all those who had crushes on an older girl or boy.
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Short Shorts — The Royal Teens
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Don’t tell me you don’t know this song. I know you do. Pianist Bob Gaudio coined the term short shorts to describe the cutoff jeans girls were wearing during the summer of 1957 in New Jersey. Bob Gaudio went on to become one of those Jersey Boys: The Four Seasons.
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1959
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Come Softly to Me — The FleetwoodsThe A Capella version is back on YouTube! The imploring, “Come softly to me,” is not in the lyrics. Even though it made the title very awkward, the words “to Me” were added because “Come Softly” alone was…well, you know.
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Jefferson High, Class of 1968, Alexandria, Minnesota