Its been a while since we had a big project here at Afterword towers. Before the great outage we had a long-running series of threads travelling the world a country at a time through music (or did I imagine that?). More recently there’s been a great one about all things starting with a letter of the alphabet. I kind of miss those, and as far as I can remember we’ve never had a chronological thread.
So here’s the deal. Dead simple. We start at 1955 and work our way forwards with a new year every week. Why 1955? Because this idea started when I was idly looking at a fantastic book long since out of print – The NME Rock and Roll Years (spoiler, it ends in 1991, but hopefully we’ll be able to do without it by then), which starts then and uses the NME archives to tell ‘the story of rock n roll in the form of the news articles of the period’ . A quick check reveals its on Amazon at a penny. I’ll dig out a few choice facts from the book to kick us off and get those collective musical synapses firing . What goes? Share anything released in that year. Pretty simple. All musical memories of the year especially welcome. Wikipedia has a ‘Year in Music’ for further research…and of course any and all types of music are welcome. Those with a detailed knowledge of the French or German musical scenes, what was rocking the charts in Munich or Paris?
So I hope you’ll help me go Back To The Future. Peak music AKA 1971 should arrive sometime in the spring and we’ll get back to the present day this time next year. Just about anything goes as long as it’s ’55, and these thread series tend to evolve over time in all sorts of ways. Or maybe it’ll all die on its arse, in which case fine.
Let’s get this show on the road then. Ladies and Gentleman welcome to the show that never ends, the 1955 show.
Your headlines from this year’s NME include:
‘Controversy as R and B sweeps America’
Seven of America’s current top 15 pop best sellers have their roots in the rhythm and blues field. Produced primarily for the black market, the songs have hit a responsive chord with white teenagers – but they are rushing to buy not the original versions but duplications by white acts who benefit from AirPlay on us radio stations, most of which are racially segregated.
This means that while the McGuire Sisters reign at number one with ‘Sincerely’, the original recording by the The Moonglows is nowhere to be seen. Similarly the Charms R and B climber ‘Hearts of STone’, stands at No 2 in a version by the Fontane Sisters, while both Perry Como and The Crew Cuts are riding high with ‘Ko Ko Mo’ originally by Gene and Eunice….Atlantic, the top selling R and B label for the past three years, is particularly angry about the profile ration of white copies, or ‘cover versions’ as they are known.
‘Radio stations are falling over themselves to play the Georgia Gibbs version of ‘Tweedle Dee’while listeners aren’t given the chance to hear the original by Lavern Baker. Consequently Georgia Gibbs has the hit’ says Atlantic executive Jerry Wexler, who also saw the Crew Cuts ‘obliterate’ The Chords novel waxing ‘Sh-Boom’
’78rpm discs on the way out’
Hoping to persuade record buyers to invest in 45rpm singles, three major American companies – RCA Victor, Columbia and MGM have announced startling retail price changes. In future, 10 inch 78rpm records will cost ten cents more than their 7 inch 45rpm counterparts – indicating that the old-style breakable discs may soon be phased out of production.
In Britain where a 78 is now cheaper than its American equivalent, there are no plans for a price incentive to develop interest in the slower speed times.’
‘Leonard Plots Chess Moves’
REgarded by many as home of the blues, Chicago could soon become a centre for rock and roll – according to Leaonard Chess, the owner of the locally based Chess and Checker labels.
Chess has already enjoyed regional succeeds with Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter and the Moonglows – who cut the original version of the McGuire Sisters’ million selling Sincerely, but he is convinced that his two new discoveries will ‘change the face of rock and roll’
Both are vocalists who are equally adept as guitarists and songwriters. Bo Diddly (26) hails from Missippi but has been playing around the clubs of Chicago for several years, while Chuck Berry hails from ST Louis.
Both their debut discs are rising up the US R and B charts: berry is clicking with Maybellene while Diddley’s tune is actually called ‘Bo Diddley’
Blackboard Jungle has opened in London. One critic said the movie was ‘one for those with strong stomachs’
Tributes have poured in for R and B balladeer Johnny Ace, who died on Christmas Day aged 25. Reportedly, Ace was fatally wounded playing Russian roulette.
After a distinguished career of more than 50 years in the UK recording industry, Parlophone manager Oscar Preuss is retiring. Succeeding him is George Martin, his assistant for the past five years.
In the charts that year Mario Lanza, Ruby Murray, the McGuire Sisters and Bill Haley and his Comets. But I know the hive mind will surely dig up many gems from the Year Zero they are already calling 1955. It’s the 1955 show, I’m -10 years old, let’s go.
Links in the article not working, here’s Lavern Baker’s original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ExHOoHeXRg
The Sounds And Music Of The RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer was released this year.
Here’s a banger!
Nice idea, Moley. Johnny Guitar Watson released some singles in 1955, but his 1954 recording ‘Space Guitar’ probably pointed more clearly to the rock era just over the horizon. Take away the 1950s US R&B horns and it might as well be Jeff Beck era Yardbirds from 12 years later…
I was born on March 6th. It was a Sunday. The world carried on turning.
One year after the momentous event that was my birth, The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate a Black people’s boycott of all city buses.
You certainly did not imagine those country by country threads. I took notes and made some splendid Spotify playlists. We got up to 97 songs for Brazil (largely due to Ivylander’s impressive record collection).
A chronological project sounds great. Like Salwarpe’s epic Alphabetical thread, it will probably be either loved or hated.
To keep us on our toes, it might be an idea to choose a year at random every week. 1955, 2003, 1972 etc. I think it could lead to a broader appeal thanks to the surprise factor. There are some decades which some of us have no interest in at all. That will be 10 weeks of silence from them. And some will not want to venture beyond that annus mirabilis 1971……
In 1955, Mambo Fever was sweeping the world thanks to Perez Prado, the Cuban bandleader who relocated to Mexico.
Cherry pink and apple blosssom white
Like the Almanac Randomizer idea.
One of the cinematic hits of the year was the terrifying Quatermass Experiment.
And in other news:
August 31 – A Londoner is fined for “creating an abominable noise” for playing “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” at top volume.
In 1955, the funniest TV show ever hit the screens. Here’s an episode:
The Phil Silvers Show – The Toast Of The Town
*rifles through 78s*
Here’s a curveball – in the year that rock’n’roll was beginning to surface (in Memphis, anyway) US folklorist Alan Lomax was in the British Isles to begin the first of his series of country-by-country music collecting releases for Columbia in their ‘World Library of Folk and Priomitive Music’ series. There would be at least 18 volumes released, spanning 1955-63 and covering parts of four continents, beginning with an LP entitled ‘Ireland’ in 1955.
Lomax was also very good at convincing the BBC (radio and TV) and Granada TV to give him various series during the late 50s, which to a large extent catalysed the ‘British folk revival’.
The ‘Ireland’ volume in the Columbia series included the likes of Margaret Barry singing ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ (possibly its first time on record, off the cuff), Elizabeth Cronin singing ‘Dance To Your Daddy’ (later a favourite of Geordie TV shows, yaboogaman), Seamus Ennis singing ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ (with a ring-dum-a-doo-dum-da…).
Indeed, Seamus was Alan’s guide to the ‘source singers’ and traditional instrumentalists in Ireland and cannily managed to get 9 tracks on the record himself (his first commercially released recordings, though he had been featured in occasional radio sessions since 1947).
One of his items on the LP was the classic test piece for pipers ‘The Bucks of Oranmore’ (much like ‘Anji’ would be for guitar pickers in Britain in the 1960s). Here is performing it on TV in 1972:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXsmfmqcFA
Here’s an Extract from ‘The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uillean Piping’ on the project:
Late in 1950, Alan Lomax, a driven man from America whose father, John, had begun the family dynasty in field recording, arrived in England. Being a socialist, he was effectively on the run from the House Un-American Activities people back home*, but was also pursuing – using his own money in tandem with a commission – an ambitious project to document the traditional music of the world for a series of releases on Columbia Records: The Columbia World Library Of Folk & Primitive Music.
Alan didn’t take long to get his feet under the table, with Brian George an ally, at the BBC, presenting his first of many BBC series, Adventures In Folk Song, in February 1951 – with himself and a female sidekick, Robin Roberts, singing and presenting field recordings from the BBC Library.
The previous month, with an Irish volume of the Columbia series in mind, Alan and Robin had loaded up a car with a heavy Magnecord tape recorder and travelled to Dublin, heading straight to
Jamestown on Brian George’s advice. As Robin later noted: ‘We found a long, young greyhound of a fellow with mischievous sharp eyes and a low, measured brogue, always combining drollery with seriousness.’
John Szwed (Lomax biographer): After a night of drinking and singing in the Ennis family kitchen the next day, Alan was convinced they could collaborate. There were still songs to be heard that had not been recorded, Séamus said, and he could find the people … Before they set out, Alan tested his equipment by recording Séamus’ piping, and the tape recorder broke down on the first try …
They ended up borrowing a mobile recording unit and a man to operate it from Radio Éireann, with whom Séamus was still employed. Over six weeks they recorded all over Ireland, using Séamus’ contacts, from Elizabeth Cronin in Cork to fiddler Mickey Doherty in Donegal. A sizeable number of items from Séamus himself were also recorded.**
Released as one of the first 14 volumes in the series in December 1954, the Lomax/ Columbia double LP on Ireland would also include eight performances by Séamus, including three items on pipes: ‘The Bucks Of Oranmore’, ‘Were You At The Rock?’ and ‘The Woman Of The House’. They were his first commercially available recordings.
Over the next four years, as he continued with his somewhat frustrating RÉ career, Séamus had several more encounters with the BBC. He recorded a couple of spoken and musical contributions for BBC programmes at RÉ studios in Dublin in 1947–48 and then, in September 1949, he was recorded in Dublin over four days, probably during Brian George’s second visit, for the BBC Permanent Library: at least 28 songs and seven tune sets on pipes and whistle. Many of the songs had been learned from his sources during IFC days, although a few he credited to Colm Ó Lochlainn (as source or translator). Once again, ‘Were You At The Rock?’, a hauntingly beautiful piping air, was among the pipe tunes.
Séamus was flown over to London three times in late 1950 and 1951 for BBC broadcasts, on one occasion providing a further Permanent Library session, this time at Broadcasting House. Most or all of these early BBC bookings had been for producer David Thomson. Thomson’s next booking, reuniting Séamus with Alan Lomax for The Stone Of Tory, an ‘Irish Ballad Opera’ to be recorded in Dublin, would be a turning point in Séamus’ career and the beginning of a major repositioning for
the BBC’s involvement with the traditional music of the British Isles.
With Alan writing it and Séamus hired as both researcher and participant, the programme was the first in a series of ‘Ballad Operas’ Lomax planned, involving different cultures of the world. The exuberant American went on a collecting trip to Scotland that summer, involving the then similarly freelance leftist writer and collector Hamish Henderson. Along the way, Alan’s force of personality helped to galvanise the beginnings of the Scottish folk song revival and the beginnings of the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe. These were also having an effect in London:
John Szwed: Once they saw the results of Lomax’s collecting, the BBC created a folk music project under the direction of Peter Kennedy and Séamus Ennis.
* Lomax was never formally charged with Communism, but he was investigated by the FBI for years, with agencies in the various European countries he visited being asked to monitor his activities. The idea of Scotland Yard listening to his BBC broadcasts on folk music, hoping to detect revolutionary plots, is both absurd and amusing.
** Extracts from Alan’s recordings of 55 items from Séamus from this trip and two later sessions, in June 1951 and in 1953 (probably in London), can be heard here: research.culturalequity.org/rc-b2/audio-ix-recording.jsp?d-446288-p=1 Michael Lydon’s 2012 Galway University paper ‘Lomax In Ireland: Fieldwork, Commercial Recordings And ‘Great Remembers’’ looks at the trip in detail and is also available online.
I’ll try the YouTube link again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXsmfmqcFA
Drat…
Well, here’s another (equally brilliant) piece he performed on that 1955 Columbia LP, ‘Were You At The Rock?’ – this version, again, from a 1972 TV appearance:
A bit of rifle through the car boot 78s followed by some googling turned up several from 1954, ’56 and ’57, but I eventually found some from 1955.
Here’s John Henry by Lonnie D. and His Skiffle Group, the flip to Rock Island Line (the video’s title says 1954 but other sources say ’55 so that’s what I’m going with!).
I think your discographical anomaly, Mini, is because both Lonnie’s tracks originally appeared on a Chris Barber Group LP ‘New Orleans Joys’ released in 1954, but were issued separately a year later as a single under Lonnie’s name.
Cheers, Colin!
George’s auntie Rosemary with Learnin’ The Blues. I love this, perhaps ‘cos it’s classy, like me. Hmm, whassat?
Is she wearing a tent?
This from “Tennessee” Ernie Ford was released in 1954, but reached number 1 in the NME charts on January 21st 1955.
One, two, three o´clock, four o´clock, rock…..
(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock was released in 1954 but roundly ignored until the following year when it featured in the film Blackboard Jungle and became a worldwide hit and the song that kick-started rock & roll.
Bill Haley was a middle-aged fat bloke in a tartan jacket, so the rock & roll craze he started was ripe for the taking by a good-looking young white kid. That’s exactly what Elvis did in 1956.
But Rock around the Clock remains just about the most important rock & roll song of all time. To this day guitarists are still trying to figure out how Danny Cedrone played that amazing solo. Cedrone was a jazz guy who found himself in a hillbilly country band playing the new fangled rock & roll music. No wonder he played something weird.
We laughed at Bill Haley when Elvis came along, finding him square, but he recorded some great stuff and opened the door for so much that came later.
A watershed moment in music from October 1955: Miles Davis cuts his first session for Columbia Records. John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones are with him. He’s been making great music – and great records – for ten years already, but here he begins to truly ascend.
Here’s one from that first day in Studio D.
I was just wondering myself what was going on in jazz in 1955, Moose. 1959 is the apex of American modern jazz (as we’ll see when the year comes up in the AW Almanac), with seminal albums from Miles, Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck, and no doubt others (John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ was 1960, wasn’t it?) but here’s Mingus in 1955 with a track later covered by the Pentangle, in 1968: ‘Haitian Fight Song’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yj95vfeu1w
Clifford Brown had a busy year: Clifford Brown & Max Roach, Brown & Roach Inorporated, Study In Brown, Clifford Brown & Strings and Best Coast Jazz were released. He died the following June.
Jordu
It sounds like You Remember Clifford, Tiggs. Looks like Max Roach was busy that year too.
Cliff and Max were besties for ever. Someone has to remember Clifford. I think he was a better musician than Miles. Who knows what might have been if he’d lived.
“1959 is the apex of American modern jazz (as we’ll see when the year comes up in the AW Almanac), with seminal albums from Miles, Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck, and no doubt others”
Absolutely right – Ornette Coleman “The Shape of Jazz to Come”!
Miles was signed to Columbia by George Avakian after he played the 2nd Newport Jazz Festival to great acclaim.
Notable 1955 Jazz Album releases
Herbie Nichols: The Third World
Ahmad Jamal: Poinciana
Erroll Garner: Concert by the Sea
George Shearing: Spell
Horace Silver: Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers
Lennie Tristano: Lennie Tristano
Oscar Peterson: At Zardi’s
Frank Morgan: Frank Morgan
Herbie Nichols: Herbie Nichols Trio
Frank Sinatra: Songs for Young Lovers
Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington
Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray and James P. Johnson all died in 1955.
Annie Whitehead (trombone), Bill Laswell (bass), Cassandra Wilson (vocal/guitar), Chuck Loeb (guitar), David Murray (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Hamid Drake (drums), Hiram Bullock (guitar), Jane Siberry (vocal), Jeff Golub (guitar), Joey Baron (drums), Jon Balke (piano/composer), Kenny Kirkland (keyboards), Marilyn Mazur (drums/percussion), Nathan East (bass/vocal), Robin Eubanks (trombone) and Wayne Horvitz (keyboards/composer/producer) were all born in 1955.
I think Concert By The Sea was released in 1956, though recorded in 55. How about Chet Sings And Plays?
Good shout TL. Chet Baker In Europe too. Chet at his finest. That mid/late 50s time Sweet toned. Adroit. Immersed. Oh and handsome as the livelong day.
That is a very impressive and inspiring list. Thanks Mike. And almost all of those albums are on Spotify.
For me one of the few reasons I’d want to have been alive in Britain in the 1950s would have been to go down to the Camden Theatre of a Sunday night to see the Goons throwing the shit down live and direct.
1955 was really when the Goon Show entered its imperial period. The mighty Denis Bloodnok is now not only a conman and a lech, but is starting to develop his legendary digestive problems; Bluebottle now offers a Boys-Own style running commentary on everything he does (“Blunebotton springes into cardboard action!”); Henry Crun’s voice is lower, while Minerva Banister is deeply addicted to brass polish and modern rhythms; Moriarty has started his descent from supervillian to toothless cringeing wreck; and the satire on Britain and Britishness is bleakly unforgiving and misanthropic. Hurrah!
Most of my favourites are from later (no, I do not prefer the early stuff from before they went commercial…. I prefer the later stuff from when Milligan was in and out of mental hospitals.)
Here’s one from the beginning of series 6. Watch out for “He’s British!”, something of a catchphrase in my family.
I think with the Goons you ‘had to be there’ at the time. Listening to Harry Secombe putting on silly voices leaves me cold, I’m afraid.
But here’s Goon Show house band the Ray Ellington Quartet on 78rpm from 1948, ‘Five Guys Named Moe’ – featuring Lauderic Caton on reputedly the first (recorded) electric guitar in Britain. (Amazingly, John McLaughlin was the guitarist with the Ray Ellington Quartet, for a few months in 1964 – sadly unrecorded bar weekly radio appearances that are very likely non-existent. John later described the gig as having “the hardest book in the world” – with Ray’s repertoire being hard swinging big band arrangements condensed for 4 people, with lots of complex voicings for the guitarist. And if John McLaughlin found it tough, well…)
Dude, you didn’t have to been there at the time – me and my mate from school were both born in ’73 and our conversations have long been riddled with references to shattered Union Jack underpants and the Third Disgusting Fusiliers.
Age ain’t nuthin’ – tune in, turn on, needle-nardle-noo-out.
PS. That’s a good call on brother Ray. I used to spool through his numbers but I now I listen and dig. (Max “Conks” Geldray, however, remains unforgiven.) It’s a bit of a stretch to call the REQ the Goon Show “house band” – there was an orchestra, usually directed by Wally Stott, that did the incidental music and joined in with the Quartet on their “turn”. They can usually be heard getting the show’s in-jokes/running gags before the audience, which contributes to the slight chimps-tea-party atmosphere. Musicians eh?
Whenever I hear Max Geldray’s harmonica I’m instantly transported back to the 50s. It’s a very dated pre-rock & roll sound you just don’t hear anymore.
Speaking of Brother Ray. In 1955, he was doing strange things to Gospel music.
Ray Charles – A Fool For You
http://youtu.be/vsqgTDnGKI4
When I say he was doing strange things to Gospel Music, I mean he was inventing Soul music! And no-one from The Afterword noticed. Cuh.
I knew what you meant, tigs. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Thank you, mini. That stroke made me feel better.
All it takes is one. Such nice hands.
Eh?? I didn’t touch him, I swear!
It still counts as contact, even with the glove on!
In fact, I prefer it with gloves on.
Gardening, driving or boxing?
Operating and sex.
That Ray Charles track is a fabulous thing.
“Five Guys Named Moe” was a cover of the marvellous Louis Jordan, from sometime in the later ’40s.
Strangely enough Louis’ version came up on my random play just a few hours ago.
Sadly LJ was slightly past his best by 1955, but his great 40s/50s work cast a long shadow. Arguably it was the link between Cab Calloway before him and the Coasters later (from whom we then get to The B***tles). I also think the way he wrote was an influence on Chuck Berry, early Dylan and quite a few pop/rock artists from Tom Waits down.
But never mind that, it’s Saturday Night, and you know what that means….
I listen to The Goons, my radio is perpetually set to Radio 4 Extra, but I’ve never found them particularly funny.
Interesting, yes; funny, maybe – not helped by the fact that, after hearing 300 episodes, I still can’t really tell any of the characters/actors apart.
However, I’ve always adored Hancock’s Half Hour. Can’t think of anything since the mid-50s better than Hancock.
Re: this blog. Can I please stay in 1955?
On a point of order, there aren’t 300 episodes left. (Not complaining. I’ve heard some of the pre 1954 ones and they really are crap). I’ve known all my life the Goon Show is Marmite McMarmiteface. Convince people? Can’t be done. Life’s too short.
Hancock is a whole other thing because it’s based around a character, perhaps the most perfectly realised character in the history of British comedy. Everything in those shows flows from that. ( I think HHH was better on the radio than the telly by the way, partly because of the risks that G & S were prepared to take with pacing… eg slowing everything right down. They wouldn’t do that again until some of the colour episodes of Steptoe)
PS. By 2019 I predict deramdaze will be telling us that the General Strike was the point when everything in popular culture went to shite…
Well the audience here don’t look wildly impressed – not a toe tap or a head shake to be seen – but the times they really were a-changing
http://youtu.be/LvKDr8AgvK8
Can you believe the man who made that, and this are still alive.
Re. the Chuck Berry clip. I love the way the announcer sprints off stage toward the camera as if he’s about to attack someone.
Great clip though, from French TV I think. From Chuck’s guitar I can tell it had to be recorded later than mid-1962, despite the date on the clip (the record is from 1955 though).
Yes the announcer is great isn’t he? As are the studio session band perhaps not quite sure what they’re dealing with. Didn’t realise it was as late as that, nor that it was French – that of course accounts for the cool restraint of the audience….
And Chuck’s announcements are curiously verbose and stilted at the same time. Could be because he thinks they don’t understand him.
Walking The Blues/Willie Dixon & The Allstars
Why Baby Why?/Webb Pierce & Red Sovine
Sixteen Tons/Tennessee Ernie Ford S
But Beautiful/Stan Getz
Hallelujah I Love Her So/Ray Charles
A Satisfied Mind/Porter Wagoner
He’s A Tramp/Peggy Lee
When I Stop Dreaming/The Louvin Brothers
Need Your Love So Bad/Little Willie John
Jumpin` At The Woodside/Lionel Hampton & Stan Getz
Rich Woman/Li’l Millet & His Creoles
Cry Me a River/Julie London
Why Baby Why/George Jones
When Your Lover Has Gone/Frank Sinatra
Live Fast/Faron Young
Mystery Train/Elvis Presley
Ay-Te Te Feel/ Clifton Chenier
What Am I Here For?/Clifford Brown & Max Roach
The Blues Walk/Clifford Brown & Max Roach
Ring-Ding-Doo/Chuck Willis
Break Up/Charlie Rich
It’s My Life Baby/Bobby “Blue” Bland
I’m A Man/Bo Diddley
Ocean Of Tears/Big Maybelle
Not a bad selection on my computer, considering my seed had yet to be sewn. It looks as if quite a few came off Boho/Unshod “Roots of” selections.
In other news:
ITV was launched in the UK, breaking the BBC’s television monopoly.
King Hussein of Jordan came over on a Royal visit.
Cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio, working with Albert Levan at Lund University, demonstrated that there are forty-six human chromosomes.
Gilbert Plass submitted his seminal article “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change”.
The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, received full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Just as the emergence of the teenage market paved the way for the growth of new types of music, the writing was on the wall for Russian Roulette with the invention of Buckaroo, Mousetrap and Operation, The Mad Doctor’s Game – although these games were often hotly contested, they seldom resulted in fatal injury to any party..
Some good books from 1955:
The Chrysalids
The Stars My Destination
The Quiet American
and the completion of a little known work called The Lord Of The Rings. Have any other AWers heard of it?
Yep.
Also from that year, Cards of Identity by Nigel Dennis.
The Muddster did one of his best that year.
The first properly accurate Atomic Clock was built.
Albert Einstein died
Was there a connection? Like that bloody Grandfather Clock song?
One of the great Leiber-Stoller songs is from this year.
I was born at the end of June 1955 and I believe that the number 1 was Unchained Melody by Jimmy Young. And that well known Hancock episode ‘The Melon Patch’ aired (on the radio obvs) for the first time just before I came into the world.
A selection of the best films of the year. WW2 was casting a long shadow
Rififi – Jules Dassin (France)
Ordet – Carl Theodor Dreyer (Denmark)
The Ladykillers – Alexander Mackendrick (UK)
Smiles of a summer night – Ingmar Bergman (Sweden)
The Dam Busters – Michael Anderson (UK)
A Generation – Wadja (Poland)
The Cockleshell Heroes – José Ferrer (UK)
Hollywood was creating some legendary classics
Rebel without a cause – Nicholas Ray
The Seven Year Itch – Billy Wilder
To catch a thief – Hitchcock
A little McAloon/Hitchcock treat……
That’s rather good. I LOVE Billy, so maybe I should finally invest in some Prefabs. Any pointers welcome.
Start with Jordan, which is equidistant between Mac’s 80s and “mature” period. And is…. brilliant.
‘Who won the Derby in 1955?’
‘It was Phil Drake – am I right Sir?’
And Newcastle United beat Manchester City 3-1 in the FA Cup Final….
On a more sombre note…Ruth Ellis was hanged in 1955 for the murder of David Blakeley. The last woman to be hanged in Britain.
I used to work at the Magdala Tavern in Hampstead, where she did the deed. You could still see the bullet chips on the wall outside the saloon bar. For the price of a pint the old hands would tell you highly embroidered tales of that awful night.
Despite the Cholmondley-Warner voice, a surprisingly thoughtful piece from Pathe news.
Great clip, Mike, and one that says so much about the times, Not so much a news clip, more an editorial questioning the death penalty. For women at least.
The last executions in the UK were in 1964.
“…listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox…”
Don’t know if anybody reads it these days, but I was smitten by Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, written in 1955. A lot quicker and easier to read than Kerouac’s On the Road. You can hear him intoning it in 1956 here.
And that summer a post-ECT Sylvia Plath submitted her thesis on Dostoevsky. Then she came to England.
And that year Larkin moved to Hull.
ho-hum….
Howl is powerful stuff and definitely more than just a museum piece:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49303
I have always tended to think of the 50s as a rather prim and proper, squeaky clean decade that was a prelude to the Bachanalian excesses of the 60s. But over there in San Francisco there were already “angelheaded hipsters” who were listening to those jazz albums that Mike mentions above.
I enjoyed baby boomer (born 1951) Bill Bryson’s memoirs of a Mid West childhood .
He captures the shiny. affluent optimism of the time.
In 1955 George Martin became London’s youngest record label boss at age 29 when he took over from Oscar Preuss at Parlophone.
One of the first records he produced as head of the label was Eve Boswell’s Pickin A Chicken. This is my actual copy of the record and one of my few remaining 78s.
How does it sound? Let’s just say it’s a very long way from Strawberry Fields Forever
http://i.imgur.com/wDVY8OF.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SQSysLTDbk
A few revelations here, including the idea that GM was once 29…..
GM’s pre-Fabs CV was possessed of the insane eclecticism (jazz, pop, classical, comedy) that was a product of the UK record industry that would not have been possible in the US, where you were pretty much bound to one particular genre. He also dug a lot of stuff (R’n’B, c’n’w, R’n’R) and was pretty un-snobby with it.
It’s difficult to believe that anybody landed so solidly and squarely and their feet as (finish the rest of this yersel’s…..)
I love much of Big George’s pre-Fabs novelty output: Right Said Fred, Nellie The Elephant, all those Jimmy Shand polka records etc. Great stuff, all of it.
Incidentally fact fans, Pickin A Chicken peaked at #9 in the UK charts in December 1955 and made two subsequent chart re-entries the following year.
And if you don’t like Eve Boswell, hang in there. Only 864 Parlophone single releases and 7 years after Pickin A Chicken came Love Me Do.
I love the idea that Lennon & McCartney were knocked out that they were working with the guy who made The Best of Sellers, simply the best British comedy record to have been made up to that time.
As they were about to tear into Twist & Shout, a voice from the control booth said, “Let it play from your hearts, lads…”
The stars aligned and it all fell into place: Brian Epstein, Ringo, George Martin.
If just one of those elements had been missing, what would we be talking about now? Would the Afterword even exist?
My brain hurts.
You’re suffering from groovy forehead! Take Zim-don!
I’ll eat the document instead
Wales shared the 5 nations rugby championship with France, including a ritual slaughtering of England in Cardiff, it finished 3-0
Kingsley Amis’s first novel, Lucky Jim, was published in 1954, so in 1955 it was doubtless a rather popular choice at the local library. I read it in the 70s: a very entertaining read.
Here he is in Swansea, where he taught at the university, in 1958, talking about his first three novels. The BBC journalist has an accent that is well posh. Sorry Moose. Judy Dyble is just not in the same league as this chap.
A suggestion for this Almanac. How about a few book, film and record reviews from the years we’re visiting? I’ve never seen Bergman’s Smiles of a summer night which is billed as an hilarious comedy. I suspect I’ll be slapping my sides. Not.
Rififi and A Generation. mentioned above, also appeal. Not to mention a few Hollywood noir films. Charles Laughton’s terrifying Night of the Hunter is from 1955 starring Robert Mitchum as hellfire preacher hunting the children of the woman he has murdered.
And if Mr Moles could borrow the Tardis, we might even be able to manage a Night out or two? Out on the town in 1955? The beers are on me!
You missed the point of thread KFD. (Don’t worry, everyone always does) That BBC announcer is not on a pop record. It’s perfectly normal for him to be posh. Context is everything.
Even now you’re not likely to hear a BBC announcer who sounds like, say, Wreckless Eric.
Seriously, the only person who would call Smiles of a Summer Night a comedy was probably Bergman himself. It’s shite, to be blunt.
Davis Grubb was probably also a popular read in 1955. His first novel, Night of the Hunter, on which the Mitchum film was based, has been completely over-shadowed by the film. Sounds like a book that Gillian Flynn would enjoy.
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/01/161408688/depression-era-evil-gothic-horror-in-a-haunted-land
The car boot today provided another handful of 78s, including Love Is A Many-Splendored (sic) Thing by the Four Aces, from 1955. It’s kind of sappy and I prefer the upbeat flip side: their version of Shine On Harvest Moon.
Les Paul & Mary Ford released “Les and Mary”, a 16-track album on Capitol Records. Chronologically their 4th album and not their best, but the following information on formats is interesting.
The album was available in multiple formats, including a single 12-inch LP (W-577), as a 10-inch double-album (H-1-2-577), and with two separate options as a 45rpm EP set, one with 2 tracks per side, the other with four tracks per side. Additionally, the album was released in true album format as a set of 78rpm discs.
1955 was also saw the introduction of the first domestic stereo releases by EMI, in the form of “stereosonic” reel-to-reel tapes. These releases, on both the HMV and Columbia labels, were exclusively classical music.
It would be several years before stereo records were perfected.
To inspire you all to further comments, here are two hours plus of fine music from 1955.
And it’s by no means finished yet ……
Bar Lonnie and Eve I think your entire list are Americans, Fatz. Surely the British Isles can do better than that?
I’ve already given you one Irish great, above (Séamus Ennis). Here’s another, with a 1955 track – Ottilie Patterson (from Northern Ireland), a largely forgotten great, perhaps, but just about the only blues great from any part of Ireland prior to Van Morrison et al a decade later. The band is: Chris Barber (Tb); Pat Halcox (Tp); Monty Sunshine (Cl); Ottilie Patterson (Voc); Lonnie Donegan (ba); Micky Ashman (bs); Ron Bowden (dr).
To be fair to KFD, Colin, the UK component of the UK top 100 for ’55 was a pretty anodyne bunch – Dickie Valentine, Ronnie Hilton, Winnie Attwell, Jimmy Young, Ruby Murray….
Presumably here, as there, all the interesting music was coming out of jazz, r&b, country, or combinations of all 3, most of which didn’t trouble the charts and is therefore harder to dig up, although easy to dig :-).
Ronnie Scott, Johnnie Dankworth, Tubby Hayes and Jimmy Deuchar were all hard at it in 1955, though what they were doing is under-represented on YouTube. Here’s Jimmy D, featuring Tubby Hayes if I’m not mistaken.
Edit: I’m not mistaken. Also features Phil Seamen and Victor Feldman. But Discogs says 1957, so…
Thanks Colin! What a voice Ottilie had!
Here she is with Lonnie Donnegan,
And of course you’re absolutely right, so far we’ve only scatched the surface of 1955.
What about
France: Boris Vian Le Deserteur
Italy: Fierro Aurelio – Scapricciatiello (what a wonderful Neapolitan word!)
Brazil: Angela Maria – Terra Secco (Dry earth)
Composed by Aquarela do Brazil Hitmaker, Ary Barroso, who led a very colourful life:
http://daniellathompson.com/ary/lifetimes.html
I saw Ottilie Patterson at the 1967 Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival.
I don’t remember her though, because I was more interested in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (with Mick Taylor), Cream, Jeff Beck, the debut performance by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and, yes, DONOVAN.
Not Pentangle? Chris Welch’s review of the band, in total, was ‘Bert Jansch was pretty dire’.
From the “Encyclopaedia of New Zealand” – “In mid-1955 HMV’s New Zealand branch realised it had made a mistake turning down a hit song from the US, Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock around the clock’. They recruited Maori country singer Johnny Cooper to record a local version with a group of Wellington jazz players, which was released in September 1955”.
And here it is folks. Dig that ‘rocking’ out’ piano solo!
Poor old NZ. We were always a little slow, but we did eventually catch on.
Gosh! Maori country singers don’t grow on trees!
This track has a more Pacific Ocean feeling thanks to the steel guitar.
Country music has a history of travelling all over this globe of ours.
I was listening to an old Word podcast last night where Heppo was chatting to Idris Elba.
Heppo asked his stock opening question of “What music was playing in your home when you were a child” and Idris answered that his West African dad played a lot of Country music, as well as the expected Jazz, American Soul, Ghanaian Highlife and Congolese Rhumba.
I recall discovering how much Jamaicans and Trinidadians loved old-style Country music alongside their Calypso, Mento and Reggae.
Not only did West Indian like country songs, they often did cover versions of them, the most famous probably being Toots and his version of Take me home country roads.
But he was far from alone.
Skatalites Occupation (Ring of Fire)
There’s even a Trojan 3CD box set. The comments by the compiler, Chris Bolton, are worth a read.
http://www.savagejaw.co.uk/trojan/tjetd365.htm
In case you are interested, Mike.
From 1973, Ken Parker’s Will the circle be unbroken?
That is the sound I grew up with in New Zealand. It’s Pacific Island music rather than American country music, although obviously they cross over. But the Polynesian vocal harmonies are so distinctive.
(This is in reply to KFD’s Johnny Cooper post up there)
Well there’s clearly a bit of life in the idea then. I’ve been tussling with my initial idea of inexorable historical progression to 1971 (or my own peak year which is probably 1979 or 1980) followed by inevitable decline and fall to Oasis in the early nineties (great article in The Guardian on Fri on how Be Here Now was flattened by the ‘cocaine panzers’ – a phrase I am now going to use at every opportunity), versus @kaisfatdad‘s suggestion that freshness and a wider group of participants might be obtained by a randomized approach. On balance I’ve got to go with the randomized, the more the merrier for the next few Almanacs. Let’s see how that goes, next instalment next weekend.
I meant to say earlier that I’m all for chronological order, because I think being given my bearings in this way I’d find it more edumacational.
I can see the value of that approach too, Mini. But if we have a week or two away from the 50s, for example, we’ll all be raring to go with stuff we’ve discovered in the meantime.
We might also uncover other unexpected links.
It’s the difference between a novel or film where there is a strictly chronological time scheme and one which has flashbacks or has several narratives in different periods running simultaneously.
It’s up to Mr Moles. I will contribute enthusiastically whichever road we take.
You describe the kind of films and novels I can’t stand! I’m big fan of the linear narrative.
But okay birthday boy, I won’t argue today! xxx
That was sweet of you, Mini. No decision needs to be taken today.
Another approach could be to do it in chunks of four or five years. (I am just throwing ideas out here.) Then we would have the advantages of both approaches,
Happy birthday, KFD. 🙂
I agree with mini by the way. I find her gloves irresistible.
*squeak-squeak*
You people disgust me.
As you were.
Ove in Brazil, Bossa Nova didn’t realy start to make waves until 1958. But as Joao Gulberto practised the guitar for hours in his sister’s bathroom in Minais Gerais, Tom Jobim was already making rather fine records with Luiz Bonfa and others inthe choro style.
O barbinha branca
Chora chorao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jg2Ko46nVM
In 1955, reggae hadn’t been invented. Instead, there was calypso.
Chin’s Calypso Sextet – Adam And Eve
Would you Adam and Eve it? It’s only Elvis!
Woops!
Does anyone have the Soul Jazz album Rastafari – The Dreads Enter Babylon 1955 – 1983? I’d love to know what the 1955 track is.
Here you go, Alias! From the Souljazz site
“One of the earliest mentions of Ethiopia in Jamaican music can be found on mento singer Lord Lebby and the Jamaican Calpysonians’ 1955 recording ‘Etheopia’. In the song Noel Williams, aka Lord Lebby, discusses Ethiopianism, the political movement that calls for a return to Africa for black people.”
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/rastafari-the-dreads-enter-babylon-1955-1983
Two more from them later……
Limbo
Dr Kinsey Report
Great stuff! Thanks.
In 1955 Harry Belafonte recorded the album Calypso which was released in 1956. The first LP to sell over a million copies.
Back inthe West Indies, in 1955 The Mighty Spoiler won the Calypso Crown with Picking sense from nonsense.
From Cuba, one of the big hits of the mid-50s: El Bodeguero (The Grocer) performed here by Nat King Cole.
Pre-Revolutionary Cuba was the playground of the Carribbean. One of the most popular tunes of 1955 was this bolero, written by a Panamanian and made famous by Cuban, Leo Martini.
Historia de un amor
Incidentally, it’s impressive how many 1950s American artists did whole abums in Spanish.
Nat King Cole
Connie Francis
Eydie Gorme
Still releasing well received albums today, Art Neville sang on this 1955 R’n;B hit:
The Hawketts – Mardi Gras Mambo
What a standard that song has become @Alias.
I found it on Spotify on a compilation called Teen Rock in the USA! Art was 16!
“The band’s members hailed from the African American community in New Orleans, Louisiana, and were all teenagers when they recorded the 1954 song written by Frankie Adams, Ken Elliot and Lou Welsh.[1][2] Their membership consisted of Art Neville on lead vocals and piano, who was only sixteen years old at the time of the recording, and would later gain fame in the Meters and the Neville Brothers, George Davis on alto sax, Alfred August on guitar, Israel Bell on trumpet, August Fleuri on trumpet, Carroll Joseph on trombone, Morris Bechamin on tenor sax, and John Boudreaux on drums.[2] The band had no bass player.[2][3] According to drummer John Boudreax, “We didn’t know that a band was supposed to have a bass player.”[2][4] The song they recorded reflects rhumba and Caribbean influences in early New Orleans R&B.[5]”
On reflection, @moseleymoles, after seeing the great success of this thread, I can see that Mini B was right and I was wrong. To go scurrying away to a year like 1997 at a point when we are really getting our teeth into the 50s would be a mistake. Can we please stay in this decade for a few more weeks?