The Music Of The 1950's
It Was A Great Time To Be Alive!
I Remember It Well....
1950s music was a turning point in popular culture, especially because of the rise of rock and roll.
The decade blended influences from rhythm and blues, country, gospel, jazz, blues, and pop. Artists like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis helped make rock and roll popular with teenagers. The music was energetic, danceable, and often seen as rebellious.
At the same time, traditional pop singers such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Doris Day, and Patti Page remained popular. Doo-wop groups also became important, known for vocal harmonies and romantic lyrics.
The 1950s also saw the growth of youth culture, radio, jukeboxes, and television shows like American Bandstand, which helped spread new music styles quickly.
Overall, 1950s music marked the shift from older pop traditions to modern youth-driven popular music, laying the foundation for rock, soul, and later pop music.
Listen to some of the greatest hits!
Remember Them?
Real Rock And Roll
Rock and roll dominated popular music in the latter half of the 1950s. The musical style originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music; with country and western and Pop.[9] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music.
The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar (developed and popularized by Les Paul). Paul's hit records like "How High the Moon," and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," helped lead to the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing of such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore. Chuck Berry, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Rock and roll music, refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.
Artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Big Joe Turner, and Gene Vincent released the initial rhythm and blues-influenced early rock and roll hits. Rock and roll forerunners in the popular music field included Johnnie Ray, The Crew-Cuts, The Fontane Sisters, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. The Rock and Roll Era is generally dated from the March 25, 1955 premiere of the motion picture, "The Blackboard Jungle." This film's use of Bill Haley and His Comets' "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" over its opening credits, caused a national sensation when teenagers started dancing in the aisles.
Pat Boone became the first rock and roll teen idol in 1955 with heavily Pop-influenced "covers" of R&B hits like "Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)," "Ain't That a Shame, and "At My Front Door (Crazy Little Mama)." Boone's traditional approach to rock and roll, coupled with his All-American, clean-cut image helped bring the new sound to a much wider audience. Elvis Presley, who began his career in the mid 1950s, soon became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances, motion pictures, and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial during that period. Boone and Presley's styles/images represented opposite ends of the burgeoning musical form, which competed with one another throughout the remainder of the decade.