Before we get into Year Three proper let’s clear up the way forwards. I think some sort of hive mind consensus is emerging from the various comments on chronological vs random. Taking a chunk of 3-5 years seems to offer some coherence so, for example, we can track musical movements like rock and roll or punk. Then zipping around to a different era should keep things fresh and draw in contributors itching to let fly on the heyday of glam or acid house. So I’m proposing this chunk (technical term) has a fairly clear endpoint. Elvis joining the army for a two-year hiatus in March 1958 put the endcap on the first explosive era of Rock and Roll. Yes, King Creole and various recordings were in the can, but the Elvis of 1960 re-emerged fully tamed by Colonel Parker and well on the way to being a family entertainer. So we’ll do 1957 and 1958, bid the King farewell at Fort Hood and then jump into the Aftertardis and set the controls for the heart of….somewhere.
Back to 1957, the year of Jerry Lee Lewis,
BBC Wooing Teenagers with Extra-Hour TV show
The BBC are making an all-out drive to capture UK teenagers when the ‘extra hour televisions’ begins on February 16. Rock ’n’roll and traditional jazz will be two staple indgreientfs of a new Saturday night show, Six-five special, which being specially aimed at the 16-25 age group. A number of artists have already been booked for the first programmes, including Tommy Steele and his Steelmen, Lonnie Donegan, Humphrey Lyttleton, Kenny Baker and the King Brothers.
Star comedians and sportsmen will also appear on the show, which will be hosted by Peter Murray and Josephine Douglas. Commercial television are also hoping to impress the teenage audience with their new series, Cool for cats.
Little Richard Quits Showbiz for Church
Though only 21, Little Richard is giving up a spectacular and lucrative career to devote his life to evangelism. In future he will only make spiritual records, he is finished with rock’n’roll.
The astonishing decision was made on his return from Australia, where he is said to have thrown four diamond rings into Sydney harbour to prove his faith to God.
His latest American Top Tenner, ‘Keep A-Knockin’’ is released here later this month – but his early awaited UK tour, scheduled for next February, is now obviously off. He plans to enrol at a theological college in Atalanta Georgia.
UK Fans Go Wild for Jackie’s US Flop!
Reviewer Keith Fordyce was certainly on the ball when he predicted a hit for a ‘gimmick-laden disc which combines pep, beat and originality with an irresistible go’ for that’s how he described Jackie Wilson’s ‘Reet Petite’. Colleague Derek Johnson was not so sure, however. He thought ‘the strange collection of noises, ranging from gargling to an outboard motor, was obviously Stan Freberg indulging in one of his satires.’
Well, like it or late it, ‘Reet Petite’ is now a smash hit, firmly lodged in the NME Top 10 – even though it stalled at No 62 in the US Hot 100 Chart.
Wilson was born in Detroit, but in 1953 moved to New York to make his name in R & B vocal outfit, The Dominoes. Wherever the group went, audiences were thrilled by his distinctive vocal stylings – and it is evens aid that Elvis derived some of his presentation from studying Jackie’s dynamic stage act. It was only a matter of time before he broke away to go solo. ‘Reet Petite’ was co-written by his friend Berry Gordy. Maybe he can explain what the words are all about!
The 1933 Young Person’s Act, prohibiting any person under 15 years from broadcasting, prevented Frankie Lymon from appearing on the ATV show Saturday Night a the London Palladium.
Critics agree that The Girl Can’t Help It, release this month, is the best rock’n’roll film so far.
I still sing “cheese” instead of “fire” thanks to this:
Fantastic facts, and a great idea to compromise on the timeline.
My thoughts exactly
Mmmm…. baked beans….
From that year’s sumptuous Where Are You album, here’s someone singing flat.
https://youtu.be/Khvm5FzP974
Number one on the day I came into the world.
In 1957 Elvis bought a house in Memphis and renamed it Graceland.
Great work Moseley! A nice compromise that will keep everyone happy.
In November 1957 Tom Jobim (and lyricist Newton Mendoca) released an album, Desafinado (Out of tune/Off key), that was a milestone in Brazilian music. Bossa Nova had arrived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44sp4W3WiBk
The title song went on to become a jazz standard. Here’s Ella in Sweden in the early 60s.
A short Brazilian documentary about this momentous event. Ignore the talking heads and watch the vintage music clips.
An extended hospital visit in the early 70s was made all the better for a small record player in a common room and a selection of old singles. This is the only one I can remember. It was well played.
Wake Up Little Susie – The Everly Brothers
I got this on 78 in the summer for 50p. Here’s the flip, Maybe Tomorrow.
I don’t get how they looked almost identical at this age in some pictures and twenty years later they look nothin’ like, and not just because Don put on the suet.
Stunning voices.
Another 78, bought at a freezing boot sale back in January. Frankie Vaughan and the Kate Sisters – Got-ta Have Something In The Bank, Frank.
http://youtu.be/ifpVqQxDPDY
Also bought the same day, a classic from Harry Belafonte – Cocoanut Woman (great value for money, as the b-side is Island In The Sun).
http://youtu.be/87fFK00cD4M
Harry B is a class act…. and what a honey!
As featured on an episode of CBVD this year (but I’m sure* you know that).
*I’m not
I listen to all of them, mostly with the lights off. Even the music!
Bumper Christmas one in the works. 🎄🎅🎶
Splendid. Parrp!
Another 50p 78rpm, bought on Easter Sunday this year. Pet Clarke’s With All My Heart. Phwooar, look at that hardware!
I blew a whole quid on Lonnie’s Puttin’ On The Style back in April. It was recorded live at the Palladium (as was the other side of this double A, Gamblin’ Man), and sat at the toppermost of the poppermost for two weeks in the summer of ’57.
And finally, two weeks ago I got Frank’s gorgeous All The Way, with Chicago on the other side.
That’s Chic———-ago. He’s outrageous with his timing.
Que sera sera by Doris Day won an Oscar for best song in the Hitchcock film The Man who Knew too much and was a gionormous international hit.
By 1957, the Gospel origins in the music of Ray Charles were barely recogniseable.
Night Time Is The Right Time
Sam Cooke might sing like an angel but I doubt all his romantic thoughts were holy.
You Send Me
Paul McCartney straps his guitar on his back and rides his bike to Woolton Church Fete.
He meets John Lennon for the first time and joins The Quarrymen.
What if it was raining on 6th July?
Hard to reconcile such a bunch of squares turning out this bit of rock ‘n roll greatness:
Danny & the Juniors – At The Hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3SrtN6tMyg
Jackie Wilson, eh? So that familiar story – U.S. artist makes ace record which America ignores but the U.K. clutches to its becardiganned bosom – goes waaaaaaaaay back to Jurassic times..
Sonny Rollins invented ‘strolling’ on Way Out West, in which he soloed over just bass and drums, no piano.
Solitude
http://youtu.be/HZVTdF-72co
Miles Davis teamed up with Gil Evans to make an orchestral type of jazz on Miles Ahead. His rhythm section found other people to play with. Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones climbed aboard John Coltrane’s Blue Train, but all three, including Red Garland, gave Art Pepper a springboard he sorely needed.
http://youtu.be/HZVTdF-72co
Oops!
A complete stranger recommended that Art Pepper LP to me in a record shop a few months ago. I wasn’t even looking at jazz records at the time.
You haven’t been in Bristol of late, have you?
Not to my knowledge. However, that complete stranger knows what he’s talking about!
My jazz section is small but that Art Pepper album is deeply cool. I love fifties jazz.
1957 was a year that produced many classic films. Off to a beach on Ingmar Bergman’s beloved island of Gotland for one of the most iconic (and most parodied) scenes in cinema history.
The Seventh Seal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg
What’s so striking about it is that it’s all so low-key. Meeting the Grim Reaper is like running into a fellow beachcomber and having a chat about the weather,
Have just learnt that The Seventh Seal was based on a one-act play, Wood Painting, by Bergman.
It was first performed on the radio and then as part of a triple bill in Malmö.
http://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/production/wood-painting-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb9vcqam_tQ
Astonishingly, could probably have come out any year since and got away with it. Remarkably potent simplicity
It is on the first of April that Panorama broadcast the spaghetti tree report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
There is considerable misunderstanding.
After School Sessions is a great LP – as well as this humdinger there’s Too Much Monkey Business, No Money Down, Brown Eyed Handsome Man…..
January ’57 saw the opening of the Cavern Club. The Quarrymen played there in August 1957…
I never went there, but I have been to the Caveau de la Huchette in Paris, which was its inspiration apparently. It’s been going strong since 1949. The original Cavern only made it to 1973.
I presume we’re all familiar with the Beatles at the Cavern vid, so here’s Gene Vincent instead, wearing a rock ‘n’ rollneck sweater.
Clearly a shadow almanac is going to be looking at whatever HJH history happened in that year.
As mentioned, 1957 was a bumper year for cinema goers.
Here is an IMDB list so you can see what I mean.
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?year=1957,1957&title_type=feature&sort=moviemeter,asc
A few highlights
Kurosawa’s re-telling of Macbeth: Throne of Blood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4KMDzNx1Xk
The Incredible Shrinking Man – very existential sci fi
Sidney Lumet’s coutroom drama Twelve Angry Men
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSG38tk6TpI
And last but not least, David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai. Lean was not keen on the project and took it because he needed the money. However the film’s enormous success catapulted him into the Hollywood A List.