THE THE '50s ERA, WHERE ARE THEY NOW ? TABLATURE
SERIES: Where Are They Now?
CATEGORY: Guitar Mixed Folio
VERSION: Guitar/Vocal with Tablature
FORMAT: Book
Dave Rubin
Each book in the Where Are They Now? series contains over 50 songs by the artists who defined the music of the era. Plus, each book contains an essay about the times and a special "Where Are They Now?" update section on the songs and the artists.
The '50s Era artists include: Beach Boys, Bill Haley and the Comets, Debbie Reynolds, Del Shannon, Diamonds, Dion and the Belmonts, Duanne Eddy, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Penguins, Platters, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Ritchie Valens, and more!
Nel 1964 un'allora sconosciuto chitarrista di nome Jimi Hendrix, registrava con uno speudonimo con gli Isley Brothers la canzone "testify". Hendrix in quel periodo era senza casa e fu O'Kelly Isley che lo vide mentre era in un negozio e lo portò a casa della famiglia Isleys. Presto Hendrix sarà incluso nelle registrazioni che il gruppo stava facendo, "Testify" e "Move" over and let me dance".
The '50s Era: Rockin' Around the Clock
An amazing confluence of musical and sociological forces combined to create the first rock era in the '50s. The end of World War II in 1945 was followed by a period of cautious optimism regarding our economic future and anxiety about the vast global changes brought about by the dropping of the atom bomb and the ascendancy of Russiaas a world power. After being excluded from aspects of American life taken for granted by white people, doors began opening for blacks starting with Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball in 1947. That same year Leo Fender brought out the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar, thereby allowing the playing of much louder music. As had been the case in the first half of the twentieth century, popular music was affected by these developments. Swing jazz, boogie-woogie, and blues had begun metamorphosing into a hybrid known as rhythm & blues (R&B) near the end of the war. More dance-oriented than blues, but earthier than swing jazz, it was the music of celebration and romance although topics like race and politics were sometimes alluded to. Saxophonist and singer Louis Jordan was in the forefront with jumpy, jivey tunes like "Choo Choo Ch Boogie" and "Caldonia" that were built on infectious rhythms and featured witty, intelligent lyrics. Other early pioneers included Charles Brown, Nat "King" Cole, and Ray Charles. All three were accomplished piano players and singers with a blues bent and were supported by low-key guitarists as sidemen. The electric guitar was, however, making noise as an exciting featured solo instrument around the music scene as the technology advanced, and it had been ever since blues godfather T-bone Walker and jazz giant Charlie Christian ignited the airwaves in the early '40s. By the beginning of the '50s, blues shouters like Big Joe Turner were belting out a form of raw, raucous R&B suspiciously close to what would become rock 'n' roll. At the same time Les Paul and Mary Ford were creating an innovative type of pop music that was so optimistic it was practically giddy. Though Les had a blue streak in his playing, the artificial, overdubbed studio world where his guitar and Mary's voice existed was a far cry from the funky juke joints and house parties where the new black music fomented. Concurrently, R&B vocal groups with bird names like the Orioles, Ravens, and Flamingos began singing street-corner harmonies that would come to be called doo-wop. Out in the country, guitar pickers like Scotty Moore-influenced by the western swing of Bob Wills, the honky-tonk country & western (C&W) of Merle Travis, and the blues-were starting to fool around with a new music that borrowed from white C&W and black R&B. A revolution was in the making, just waiting for someone to lead the way. Four years into the decade the planets were in the right position in the heavens for a shooting star from decidedly humble beginnings to blaze a path to the front. The end of one decade and the beginning of another does not demarcate eras. An argument can be made that the '50s rock era did not arrive until 1954. That year Senate hearings on Commie-baiter Joseph McCarthy were televised, the Supreme Court banned school segregation, and powerful H-bombs were tested by the U.S. Government, events that would have a profound effect on teenagers and later the baby-boomers born just after WWII. Though their parents had weathered the war years and were grateful for the outcome, some children felt disaffected and confused, a situation dramatically presented in Rebel Without a Cause with new teen idol James Dean. Most significant for the emerging youth culture, however, were Bill Haley and the Comets' waxing "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" in April and the work of a poor young truck driver from Memphis, Elvis Aron Presley, who in July of 1954 cut a couple of songs at Sun Records in Memphis as a gift for his mother and to celebrate his nineteenth birthday. A year later Haley's blockbuster would hit #1 on the Billboard charts and be prominen ea ured in Blackboard Jungle, one of the first films about tension in inner-city schools. Elvis would be called back to Sun by producer Sam Phillips. Phillips, who had been recording heavy bluesmen like Howlin' Wolf and Ike Turner, had been frequetly quoted as saying that he could "make a million dollars" if he had a white man who could sing like a black man. He gambled on Elvis being the one and changed the course of popular culture. The irony is that black blues and R&B already figured prominently in Elvis's musical experience and that the song that broke him in the South was "That's Alright Mama," originally performed by blues artist Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. This co-opting of black culture by rock 'n' rollers, though accomplished with respect and acknowledgment by Elvis and many others since, would cross ethical boundaries with "covers" of black songs by pale imitators like Pat Boone. The ramparts of pop music continued to be scaled in 1955 as Chuck Berry, the "father of rock 'n' roll guitar," roared across the radio waves with "Maybellene" in 1955. Besides creating an original instrumental style based on the blues, boogie, and C&W music, Berry astutely observed the consuming passions of (white) teenagers with cars, girls, and rock 'n' roll itself. In 1956 Elvis hit the big time by signing with RCA Records. Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, the Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, and Buddy Holly, not to mention instrumentalists like Duane Eddy and the Ventures, would follow as the reign of the tenor saxophone ended and the low-slung guitar became the sound and the symbol of the times. The visceral effect that the new music had on the youth of America was not lost on the keepers of the public morals. Crusaders relentlessly criticized rock 'n' roll and deemed it "jungle music" whose ability to excite to the point of delirium was alarming. Unfortunately, they were provided with unintentional ammunition. Elvis was censured for wiggling his pelvis on TV (and removed from the scene by induction into the Army in 1958) and pioneer R&B and rock promoter Alan Freed (credited with coining the term "rock 'n' roll") was caught up in the payola scandals of the late '50s. It all seemed to come to a grinding halt when Chuck Berry was arrested for violating the Mann Act (transporting a minor girl across state lines for immoral purposes) and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) were killed in a small plane crash in 1959. Cute novelty songs about flying saucers and "The Purple People Eater" coming on the news of the Russians launching Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, did nothing to stop the powers that be from prematurely dancing on the presumed grave of the rebellious music. Meanwhile, Dick Clark with his daily "American Bandstand" and his Saturday night show kept the barely flickering flame alive with tame pop acts like Fabian and Frankie Avalon as the decade ended. The next three years saw folk and its puny cousin, hootenanny music, followed by the descendants of doo-wop, the great girl groups like the Shirelles and Crystals. Early soul music, the next evolutionary step from R&B and surf, that revitalizing instrumental music from California, helped to rescue rock from Andy Williams and Connie Francis. The Beach Boys, though coming from the same Southern California hot rod and beach scene as surf music, elevated popular music again to a level of youthful exuberance founded on finely crafted songwriting that owed a surprising debt to Chuck Berry. Though Elvis never regained his bluesy vitality after coming out of the Army in 1960, Roy Orbison made the transition from '50s rockabilly to epic flights of emotional intensity with classics like "Crying." The torch was passed to John F.Kennedy from the old general, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1960, but the sound, look, fashions, and conservative politics of the '50s persisted until JFK'sassassination in November 1963 and the British Invasion of 1964. The counter-culture revolution that rose out of those two seminal events would alter the music and politics of the entire civilized world in the '60s.
Includes the Following Selection:
Title Composer
1953 - (WE'RE GONNA) ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK - BILL HALEY AND THE COMETS
FREEDMAN, MAX/DE KNIGHT, JIMMY
1955 - AIN'T THAT A SHAME - FATS DOMINO
ANTONIE DOMINO, DAVE BARTHOLOMEW
1961 - BARBARA ANN - BEACH BOYS
FRED FASSERT
1957 - BIRD DOG - EVERLY BROTHERS
BRYANT, BOUDLEAUX
1960 - BLUE ANGEL
ROY ORBISON AND JOE MELSON
1957 - BLUE MONDAY - FATS DOMINO
DAVE BARTHOLOMEW AND ANTOINE DOMINO
1957 - BYE BYE LOVE - EVERLY BROTHERS
BOUDLEAUX BRYANT AND FELICE BRYANT
1965 - CALIFORNIA GIRLS - BEACH BOYS
WILSON, BRIAN
1958 - CLAUDETTE
ROY ORBISON
1960 - CRY CRY CRY - BOBBY BLAND
DEADRIC MALONE
1961 - CRYING
ROY ORBISON, JOE MELSON
1961 - DADDYS HOME - SHEP AND THE LIMELIGHTS
JAMES SHEPPARD AND WILLIAM MILLER
1964 - DON'T WORRY BABY - BEACH BOYS
BRIAN WILSON AND ROGER CHRISTIAN
1956 - DONNA
VALENS RITCHIE
1954 - EARTH ANGEL - THE PENGUINS
D. WILLIAMS, G. HODGE & J. BELVIN
1964 - FUN, FUN, FUN - BEACH BOYS
LOVE, MIKE/WILSON, BRIAN
1960 - GEE WHIZ - CARLA THOMAS
CARLA THOMAS
1957 - GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY - LITTLE RICHARD
ROBERT BLACKWELL, JOHN MARASCALCO
1960 - HELLO, MARY LOU (GOODBYE HEART) - ROCKY NELSON
PITNEY, GENE/MANGIARACINA, CAYET
1965 - HELP ME RHONDA - BEACH BOYS
LOVE, MIKE/WILSON, BRIAN
1956 - HONKY TONK -
BILL DOGGETT, CLIFFORD SCOTT, BILLY BUTLER, HENRY
1950 - I DON'T CARE IF THE SUN DON'T SHINE - ELVIS PRESLEY
MACK DAVID
1934 - I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU (from "42nd Street") - THE FLAMINGOS
WARREN, HARRY/L: DUBIN, AL
1959 - I WANT TO WALK YOU HOME - FATS DOMINO
ANTOINE DOMINO
1957 - I'M WALKIN' - FATS DOMINO
ANTOINE DOMINO, DAVE BARTHOLOMEW
1964 - IN MY ROOM - BEACH BOYS
BRIAN WILSON AND GARY USHER
1957 - KEEP A KNOCKIN - LITTLE RICHARD
RICHARD PENNIMAN
1958 - LA BAMBA -
ADAPT & ARR BY RITCHIE VALENS
1955 - LET IT BE ME - EVERLY BROTHERS
BECAUD / CURTIS / DELANOE
1934 - MILK COW BLUES - ELVIS PRESLEY
KOKOMO ARNOLD
1957 - MY SPECIAL ANGEL - BOBBY HELMS
DUNCAN, JIMMY
1964 - OH, PRETTY WOMAN -
ROY ORBISON / DEES BILL
1960 - ONLY THE LONELY (KNOW THE WAY I FEEL)
ROY ORBISON AND JOE MELSON
1958 - PETER GUNN (FROM "PETER GUNN") - DUANE EDDY
MANCINI HENRY
1958 - ROCKIN ROBIN - BOBBY DAY
JIMMIE THOMAS
1961 - RUNAWAY - DEL SHANNON
SHANNON, DEL / CROOK, MAX D.
1966 - SEA CRUISE - FRANKIE FORD
SMITH, HUEY P.
1959 - SHOUT - ISLEY BROTHERS
O'KELLY ISLEY,RONALD ISLEY,RUDOLPH ISLEY
1958 - SIXTEEN CANDLES - THE CRESTS
DIXON, LUTHER/KHENT, ALLYSON
1933 - SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES - THE PLATTERS
JEROME KERN; OTTO HARBACH
1958 - STAGGER LEE -
HAROLD LOGAN, LLOYD PRICE
1958 - SUMMERTIME BLUES
JERRY CAPEHART / EDDIE COCHRAN
1956 - TAMMY - DEBBIE REYNOLDS
RAY EVANS/JAY LIVINGSTON
1957 - TEQUILA - THE CHAMPS
CHUCK RIO
1957 - THE STROLL - THE DIAMONDS
CLYDE OTIS AND NANCY LEE
1960 - THE WANDERER - DION AND THE BELMONTS
MARESCA, ERNIE
1957 - WAKE UP, LITTLE SUSIE - EVERLY BROTHERS
BRYANT, BOUDLEAUX / BRYANT, FELICE
1960 - WALKING TO NEW ORLEANS - FATS DOMINO
ANTOINE DOMINO, DAVE BARTHOLEMEW
1963 - WIPE OUT -
THE SURFARIS
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