The 1950s didn’t end on December 31st, 1959. Here’s a quiz about 3 very minor hits from 1961-2, a whole bunch of Jews and a few Blacks, and the frustrated egos of several trillionaires.
Continue reading...Rock and Roll
257: Alison Krauss/Brenda Lee: ‘All Alone Am I’
Guilty pleasures.
Could we keep this just between us?
034: Dionne Warwick, ‘Walk On By’ (Burt Bacharach)
So much of the best music of the last hundred years has come from Jewish men writing songs for female Black singers. And it don’t get no better than the Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick, ‘Walk on By’.
Continue reading...249: Bobby Vee, ‘The Night Has a Thousand Eyes’
Bobby Vee died in 2016 from Alzheimer’s. That’s pretty surprising, considering that he’s still an 18-year old pop star and I’m still a pimply 13-year old with my ear glued to a Top 40 transistor radio.
Continue reading...076: Roy Orbison, ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’
Roy was working in his kitchen with his songwriting partner when wife Claudette came in and said she was going shopping. All three knew she had a lover in town. Orbison asked if she needed any money, and the partner cracked, “Pretty woman never needs any money.” By the time she got back, they had the song.
Continue reading...243: Ricky Nelson, “I’m Walkin'”
You can’t understand popular culture without understanding why it was worth waiting half an hour for Ricky. Thunder on the horizon.
Continue reading...237: Wilbert Harrison, ‘Kansas City’
“C’mon, Wilbert, pick up them feet, you shiftless shuffler you! The lady’s a-waiting!”
“Hey, I ain’t sweating or fretting or agitating for no woman.”
235: The Singing Nun, ‘Dominique’ (#1 Hits of 1963)
The #1 hits from 1963, all 21 of them. Our lives before The Beatles.
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