In addition to three published excerpts from BFYP-Book 1, 1954-1959, see new #4 below!
Blastfrom Your Past-Book 1 Excerpt #3
Blast from Your Past-Book 1 Excerpt #2
Blast from Your Past-Book 1 Excerpt #1
♫1955 & the Music of
Our Times | BFYP Excerpt #4, Snippet #1:
“Before Black artists made their
own names in Rock & Roll music, their 'tell it like it is' bouncy tunes
were pasteurized and milkified by White performers, for the White audiences.
Pat Boone covered Fats Domino’s 'Ain’t That a Shame' in 1955; and they both charted with it. Good thing Pat
didn’t get his way on a title revision to 'Isn’t That a Shame' – it simply
doesn’t have the same flow.
A random thought here … since
music creates a common neutrality atmosphere, why don’t we require music be
played at all political meetings? It might calm a few folks down. Teehee.
So finally, because we all wanted
to enjoy this hip new sound, the racial lines began to blur … let the good
times roll!
Alan Freed organized dance
parties that mixed cultures. Dick Clark invited a racial mix of teens to his
popular TV set of American Bandstand.
Ever-so-slowly, radio stations began hiring the Black DJs who dared to be
different.”
[LR: Keep in mind,
context is everything. This is a snippet of the way things were then. And I
tend to hide behind rose-colored (no other color) glasses. We – with the
optimism of youth – had all hoped racism would be nothing more than a painful
part of our past by now. Unfortunately, society continues to battle nearly all
of the same ills that have always plagued cultures across the centuries – discrimination, greed, and
power.]
♫1955 Steppin’
Out of Stepford | BFYP Excerpt #4, Snippet #2:
“Movies and music were ‘a couple,’
with hit songs inspiring films, and films firing up the popularity of its
soundtrack songs.
Remember ‘Rock Around the Clock’
by Bill Haley and His Comets? [The movie] Blackboard
Jungle turned it into a #1 hit on Billboard’s
R&B chart, and earned not only an Oscar nomination, but the distinction as
the first movie to use a Rock & Roll song in its soundtrack. Movie-goers
danced in the aisles to the energetic tune.
Unfortunately, they didn’t stop
with dancing. Let the rebellion begin!
Many historians blame our last forty-plus
years of social unrest on Rock & Roll – do you know that? But I say it was
old-fashioned boredom with our 1950s Stepford lives that evoked riotous actions
in teenage movie-goers.
Yep. They rioted. Over a movie.
In 1955. And not just in the US. In England, as well. Who woulda thunk it?”
[LR: And I bet you
thought the unrest didn’t start until the 1960s … ]
♫1955 News
and Notable | BFYP Excerpt #4, Snippet #3:
“1955 in the News
We’re gonna roll out another DJ for you in a sec,
but let’s first take a look at 1955’s news briefs of the day:
♪ January 14th, Alan
Freed produced the first Rock & Roll concert in New York City
● March 2nd,
a teenage Black girl refuses to offer her seat on a public bus to a White
woman, setting the scene for Rosa Parks’ (1913-2005) historic act on the same
bus line in December that resulted in the Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Boycott
♪ July 18th, the innovative
Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim, California
● September
30th, heartthrob, James Dean, was killed in an automobile accident
near Cholame, California (north of San Francisco)
♪ October 20th,
Cleveland disk jockey Bill Randle hosted an Elvis show at St. Michaels Hall …
nothin’ saintly about the mass hysteria that closed the show when Elvis broke
his guitar strings
In and of themselves, these
events were more or less significant, not only as general news, but in their
affect and reflection on us as a nation, and on our lifestyle.
What does this have to do with
Rock & Roll Radio? We often heard our news first from our local radio DJs. At that time, major news reports
were televised and certainly not in the as-they-happen broadcasts of today.
Radio filled the gap between
real-time and the five o’clock evening news, with staccato stories arriving by
teletype and often acting as a teaser for the TV news shows.
Our DJs excitedly broke the news
of Freed’s concert, and reported Rosa’s symbolic action, with somber
trepidation. Their jubilance over Disney was catching, and they wept with us
when James Dean met his maker.
We hung on every word of our
favorite DJs as they described the melee that was just the beginning for Elvis
concerts. Their bemused reports streamed through mom’s kitchen-counter RCA
radio.
Although the big box radio in the
living room gave the DJs’ pipes deeper timber, more often than not, we held our
trusty, mostly tinny, transistor radios close to our ear and listened with
teenage rapture.
Quality didn’t much matter – we
were rockin’!”
♫1955 Radio’s
Rebel | BFYP Excerpt #4, Snippet #4
“Radio’s rebels became more vocal
as the decade rolled on; new formats were explored and MOR [middle-of-the-road]
stations climbed on the Rock & Roll bandwagon. New York City’s WINS radio
station made a significant stand for the future of music. On August 19, 1955,
they issued a declaration that their DJs would no longer play White cover
versions of Black R&B songs.
‘Ain’t That a Shame’ by Fats
Domino finally got its fair share of air time. Pat Boone’s vanity version had a
head start though, and still beat him out for #1 on the Billboard charts. For many, WINS became one of the first true Rock
& Roll radio stations.”
[LR: This is the
earliest WINS Top 40 survey in my collection – week of August 24, 1959 – with Jan
& Dean’s “Baby Talk” at #1. Cool.]
Get your copy of Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs: the First Five Years 1954-1959 for your tablet today! (Or click here for a signed print copy.)
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