h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's a pretty impressive list paulh!

In fairness, I have to admit I grew up in radio stations
and became a disc-jockey at 15 (in 1960), so my familiarity
with mid-2oth century pop music is likely the only 'expertise'
I have. Sadly it often betrays me into assuming that everyone
else would/should also know what I know.

I'm gonna start a new thread about pop icons of the mid-century,
the 50s & 60s in particular, and ask how many people recognise
the names. I suspect this will only confirm how old I'm getting
and how useless and irrelevant my 'knowledge' has become.


~jwf~

Thanks,jwf.

I still feel like a beginner, though. It doesn't help that so many of the researchers here listen to pop singers who are well-known in the UK but not the U.S. Probably they feel the same way about my U.S.-heavy list. I will probably get Billy Bragg and the Glums and Little Boots so I will have an inkling about what they're talking about.

Here are some pop singers [not yet on my list] who were popular in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s:

Bobby Rydell
Bobby Vinton
Fabian
Pat Boone
Paul Anka
Donovan
Sonny and Cher
Patti Paige
Jimmy Dean
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Vic Damone
Tom Rush
The Chad Mitchell Trio
Chuck Barry
Jimi Hendrix
Tab Hunter
Bobby Darin
Tiny Tim
Mrs. Miller

Donovan (British psychedelic folk singer)
and Jimi Hendrix (heavy psychedelic blues)
are the only two on that list I would recommend.
Both have 'greatest hits' albums.

All the others are very 'soda pop' and 'treacle'
and with very little musicality or lyric content.
There are sorta like Muzak for the teeny-bopper
listeners of 'soft rock' radio. My advice is to save
your money. At least check them out on some
free online service like Utoob before investing.

Chuck Berry is of some interest but mainly for the
way he 'borrowed' from jazz and R&B to create his
own rhythmic variations of roots music for a wider
commercial-radio teen-audience.

Paul Anka, Vic Damone and Bobby Darin all have better
vocal abilities and are known mostly as Las Vegas type
lounge singers, doing standards and light jazz crooning
that is well above the quality of one hit wonders like
Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Pat Boone, etc.

Tennessee Ernie Ford has an amazing basso voice but his
repertoire is mostly quasi-religiose hymns and ballads.
Hearing one track every few months is quite sufficient.

I confess I've never heard or Mrs Miller.



~jwf~

Mrs. Miller was a broken down opera singer with a wobbly voice. She was a novelty item. Her most famous song was "When the buzzards fly back to Hinkley, Ohio."

I'm not seriously interested in acquiring CDs by Pat Boone. I would have to look at the songs on CDs by the likes of Rydell, Vinton, etc. "Put your head on your shoulder" was by Paul Anka. Some other songs I'dlike to have are "Mona Lisa," Venus," and "Oh, my darling" [made famous in the movie "Ghost."] I remember those songs from American bandstand, which I used to watch on TV in the early 1960s.

>> "Put your head on your shoulder" was by Paul Anka. <<

I saw him just last week being interviewed on CBC TV.

Apparently he ran with Frank Sinatra's "rat pack" in his
early Las Vegas years, before coming of legal drinking age.
And since we are judged and we judge by the company we keep
he was more often drunk than not. I heard him recollect that
song was originally written as Put Your Legs on My Shoulders.
(Proving that what happens in Vegas has to be moderated before
being offered up to the reel whirled.)


~jwf~

Marty Robbins' "El Paso" turns out to be in one of my CDs, namely "Columbia Country Classics, vol. 3, Americana." I remember several of the other songs from the first time I listened to it.

"El Paso" is the 5th song on the CD. I remember the first track "Ballad of Davy Drockett," the second track "Don't take your guns to town, the fourth track "The Ballad of Paladin," the ninth track "Big bad John," the fifteenth track "Ballad of new Orleans," the eighteenth track "Ballad of Jed Clampett," the twentieth track "Flowers on the wall," and the twenty-second track "A Boy named Sue." That's a lot to assimilate
on the first run-through. To be honest, I had already heard tracks four and eighteen as TV theme songs. I had heard "Flowers on the wall" and loved it, so I was happy to have a recording of it. "Ballad of New Orleans" was on the radio a lot when I was a kid. "Big Bad John" was also popular when I was a kid.

That list of pop country ballads brings back a lot of memories.

'El Paso' was big around the time of all the early B&W TV westerns
like Davy Crockett, Gunsmoke, Paladin, The Rifleman, etc.

~jwf~

Another volume of country hits has "Goat-riders in the sky."

There was a pun embedded in post 8. Did you catch, it, jwf?

I did indeed.
But mostly I recalled a version of Ghost Riders
I haven't heard for years. A really rockus rock
version with reverb and a full on stampede rhythm.
Can't even remember who it was by now, but your post
brought back an echo of a memory of a great moment
in rock and roll.


~jwf~

Well I've had some fun listening to variations on a
Ghost Rider theme and have to say the Blues Brothers
is probably the best ever.

But this one from 1961 by the Ramrods was definitive
and had a serious impact on my youthful rebel outlet.

http://youtu.be/6eknVLLdhjk


~jwf~

I'm pretty sure I have many different versions of "Ghost Riders." I had forgotten that the Blues brothers also sang it. I do have the soundtrack album from their 1980 film. I actually have more soundtrack and original cast CDs than pop CDs.

Right now I'm listening to a CD of 12th-Century French troubadour songs that just arrived in the mail. We humans have produced oceans of music over the last 1,000+ years. I feel a little guilty about overlooking 95% of it when I listen to pop songs from the late 20th century. I bet there are millions of Americans who have never heard of Billie Holiday and Bing Crosby.

This morning I went through my Amazon wish list. There are dozens of pop singers and bands that deserve to be added to my collection. I never settled on a CD to represent Adele, for instance. Nor Pink Floyd, for that matter. I didn't like "Dark Side of the Moon" because it was frankly boring. "The Wall" was used as the soundtrack for a film which I rather enjoyed. So many decisions to make. Cher sold 100 million records, as did Diana Ross and the Supremes. I got a kick out of Cher's performance in the recent film "Burlesque." I also enjoyed her TV series when she was with Sonny Bono.

Lately I've been tinkering with a different part of my collection, the area that has great choral works. I found a web site that listed the 100 greatest choral works of all time. I looked through the list, and found that I had recordings for about 70 of them. I'm looking at the 30 that I don't have, to see if there are any I can add.