MUSIC 101: The 1950s

With
M U S I C
P L A Y E R !

The MUSIC PRIMER Series!

A fun INTRO into the great musics
of each decade
in one Music Player!

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M U S I C
1 0 1 :
1 9 5 0 s !

MUSIC 101: The 1950s
by Tym Stevens
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101 SONGS
FROM 101 GREAT ALBUMS!
In chronological order,
one song per album.
Rockabilly! Jazz! Blues!
Mambo! Honky Tonk! Folk!
Doo Wop! Fado! Torch Songs!
World! Exotica! Electronic!


From 1950 through 1959!
A crash course in crucial!

Music Primer series:
350 Albums: 1956-2020

The 1960s
The 1970s
The 1980s
The 1990s
The 2000s

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The Music Player contains one song each
from these 101 classic albums!

1 9 5 0
01) Les Paul, "The New Sound"
Advanced Jazz guitar.

02) Machito, "Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite"
Afro-Cuban Jazz.

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1 9 5 3
03) Peggy Lee, "Black Coffee"
Jazz torch songs.

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1 9 5 4
4) Frank Sinatra, "Songs For Young Lovers"
Orchestral Jazz ballads.

5) Yma Sumac, "Mambo!"
Vocal Mambo exotica.

6) Hank Williams, "Honky-Tonkin'"
Honky-Tonk Country.

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1 9 5 5
7) Julie London, "Julie Is Her Name"
Torch songs.

8) Bill Haley And The Comets, "Rock Around The Clock"
Rock'n'Roll.

9) Les Paul And Mary Ford, "Les And Mary"
Jazz guitar wizardry.

10) Kenny Dorham, "Afro-Cuban"
Afro-Cuban Jazz.

11) Helen Merrill, "Helen Merrill"
Jazz vocals.

12) Little Jimmy Scott, "If You Only Knew"
Jazz ballads.

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1 9 5 6

13) Louis and Bebe Barron, "FORBIDDEN PLANET"
All Electronic soundtrack.

14) Elvis Presley, "Elvis Presley">
Rock'n'Roll.

15) Ella Fitzgerald, "Sings The Cole Porter Songbook"
Torch songs.

16) Johnny Burnette And The Rock N' Roll Trio, "Johnny Burnette And The Rock N' Roll Trio">
Rock'n'Roll.

17) Gene Vincent, "Bluejean Bop"
Rock'n'Roll.

18) B.B. King, "Singin' The Blues"
Blues.

19) Woody Guthrie And Will Geer, "Bound For Glory"
Folk and spoken word.

20) Odetta, "Odetta Sings Ballads And Blues"
Folk Blues.

21) The Clovers, "The Clovers"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

22) Elvis Presley, "Elvis"
Rock'n'Roll.

23) Sister Rosetta Tharpe, "Gospel Train"
Gospel Blues.

24) Perez Prado, "Havana 3 A.M."
Mambo.

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1 9 5 7

25) Little Richard, "Here's Little Richard">
Rock'n'Roll.

26) John Coltrane, "Blue Train"
Bebop Jazz.

27) The Crickets, "The Chirping Crickets"
Rock'n'Roll.

28) Johnny Cash, "With His Hot And Blue Guitar"
Country and Rockabilly.

29) Mickey And Sylvia, "New Sounds"
Rock'n'Roll.

30) Louis Prima, "The Wildest!"
Jump Jive.

31) Chuck Berry, "After School Session">
Rock'n'Roll.

32) Ray Charles, "Ray Charles">
Rockin' Soul.

33) Carl Perkins, "The Dance Album"
Rock'n'Roll.

34) Eddie Cochran, "Singin' To My Baby"
Rock'n'Roll.

35) Blossom Dearie, "Blossom Dearie"
Jazz ballads.

36) The Coasters, "The Coasters"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

37) The "5" Royales, "Dedicated To You"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

38) Sun Ra, "Supersonic Jazz"
Experimental Jazz.

39) Amalia Rodrigues, "Amalia A L'Olympia"
Fado.

40) Toshiko Akiyoshi, "The Many Sides Of Toshiko"
Jazz piano instrumentals.

41) Tito Puente, "Top Percussion"
Mambo.

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1 9 5 8

42) Billie Holiday, "Lady In Satin"
Jazz ballads.

43) Buddy Holly, "Buddy Holly">
Rock'n'Roll.

44) Miles Davis, "Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud"
Bebop film soundtrack.

45) Nina Simone, "Little Girl Blue"
Jazz ballads.

46) Bo Diddley, "Bo Diddley">
Rock'n'Roll.

47) Bernard Herrmann, "VERTIGO"
Film score.

48) Buddy Holly, "That'll Be The Day"
Rock'n'Roll.

49) The Everly Brothers, "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us"
Country and Rock'n'Roll.

50) Duane Eddy, "Have 'Twangy' Guitar, Will Travel"
Rock'n'Roll.

51) Wanda Jackson, "Wanda Jackson"
Rock'n'Roll.

52) Elizabeth Cotten, "Freight Train And Other North Carolina Folk Songs And Tunes"
Folk Blues.

53) Ella Fitzgerald, "Sings The Irving Berlin Songbook"
Jazz torch songs.

54) Ahmed Abdul-Malik, "Jazz Sahara"
Jazz with North African and Middle Eastern styles.

55) Johnny Cash, "Sings The Songs That Made Him Famous"
Country and Rockabilly.

56) Ricky Nelson, "Ricky Nelson"
Rock'n'Roll.

57) Jimmy Reed, "I'm Jimmy Reed">
Blues.

58) Dale Hawkins, "Daredevil" (demos)
Rock'n'Roll.

59) B.B. King, "The Blues"
Blues.

60) Jackie Wilson, "He's So Fine"
Rock'n'Soul.

61) The Champs, "Go, Champs, Go!"
Instrumental Rock'n'Roll.

62) Les Troubadours Du Roi Baudoin, "Missa Luba"
African chorals.

63) Sarah Vaughan, "Sings George Gershwin"
Jazz standards.

64) Carl Perkins, "Whole Lotta Shakin'"
Rock'n'Roll.

65) Dorothy Ashby, "In A Minor Groove"
Jazz harp.

66) The Louvin Brothers, "The Family Who Prays"
Gospel Country.

67) The Chantels, "We Are The Chantels"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

68) The Robins, "Rock And Roll Featuring The Robins"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

69) LaVern Baker, "Sings Bessie Smith"
1920s Blues cover versions.

70) Esquivel, "Exploring New Sounds In Stereo"
Lounge Jazz exotica.

71) Lambert, Hendricks, And Ross, "Swingers!"
Jazz vocalese.

72) Melba Liston, "Melba Liston And Her 'Bones"
Trombone Jazz.

73) Martin Denny, "Primitiva"
Exotica.

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1 9 5 9

74) Dave Brubeck Quartet, "Take Five"
Bebop Jazz.

75) Duke Ellington, "ANATOMY OF A MURDER"
Jazzy film score.

76) Ornette Coleman, "The Shape Of Jazz To Come"
Free Jazz begins.

77) Chuck Berry, "Berry's On Top"
Rock'n'Roll.

78) Howlin' Wolf, "Moanin' In The Moonlight"
Blues.

79) Marty Robbins, "Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs"
Country and Western.

80) Joao Gilberto, "Chega De Saudade"
Brazilian Bossa Nova.

81) Ray Charles, "What'd I Say"
Soul begins.

82) Ella Fitzgerald, "Sings The George And Ira Gershwin Songbook"
Jazz torch standards.

83) John Lee Hooker, "House Of The Blues"
Blues.

84) Ritchie Valens, "Ritchie Valens"
Rock'n'Roll.

85) Bo Diddley, "Go Bo Diddley"
Rock'n'Roll.

86) Tom Dissevelt And Kid Baltan, "The Fascinating World Of Electronic Music"
Electronica.

87) James Brown, "Please Please Please"
Rock'n'Soul.

88) Tom Lehrer, "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer"
Satirical songs.

89) Chet Baker, "Chet"
Moody Jazz.

90) Jackie Wilson, "Lonely Teardrops"
Rock'n'Soul.

91) The Wailers, "The Fabulous Wailers"
Rock'n'Roll.

92) Nina Simone, "The Amazing Nina Simone"
Interpretive ballads.

93) Henry Mancini, "The Music From PETER GUNN">
Jazz and Rock soundtrack.

94) The Isley Brothers, "Shout!"
Rock'n'Roll.

95) The Flamingos, "Flamingo Serenade"
Vocal group Rock'n'Roll.

96) Quincy Jones, "The Birth Of A Band!, Vol. 2"
Symphonic Jazz.

97) Link Wray And The Wraymen, "Link Wray And The Wraymen"
Rock'n'Roll.

98) Jack Kerouac And Steve Allen, "Poetry For The Beat Generation"
Beat prose and Jazz piano.

99) The Wes Mongomery Trio, "The Wes Mongomery Trio"
Jazz guitar.

100) Ethel Azama, "Exotic Dreams"
Vocal exotica.

101) Johnny And The Hurricanes, "Red River Rock"
Rock'n'Roll.

Rave on!

© Tym Stevens

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The Music Primer Series:*
1) 350 GREAT ALBUMS That Will Change Your Life!

3) MUSIC 101: The 1960s

4) MUSIC 101: The 1970s

5) MUSIC 101: The 1980s

6) MUSIC 101: The 1990s

7) MUSIC 101: The 2000s


* The albums heard on the Decades series are different than the 350 Albums overview.


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Further Study, dept.:

• Revolution 1950s: The Big Damn Bang of Rock'n'Roll!, with Music Player!

• 1950s PUNK: Sex, Thugs, and Rock'n'Roll!, with Music Player!

• WOMEN OF ROCK: The 1950s, with 2 Music Players!
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• CHUCK BERRY: The Guitar God and His Disciples, with 2 Music Players!

• BO DIDDLEY: The Rhythm King and His Disciples, with 2 Music Players!

• BUDDY HOLLY: Rock's Everyman and His Disciples, with 2 Music Players!

• LITTLE RICHARD: The Voice of Rock and His Disciples, with 2 Music Players!

• JIMMY REED: The Groover of Rock, From Motown To Sesame Street, with 2 Music Players!
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• 1950s Rock, A: The '60s Disciples, with Music Player!
• 1950s Rock, B: The '70s Disciples, with Music Player!
• 1950s Rock, C: The '80s disciples, with Music Player!
• 1950s Rock, D: The '90s disciples, with Music Player!
• 1950s Rock, E: The 2000s disciples, with Music Player!
• 1950s Rock, F: The 2010s disciples, with Music Player!
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• The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE, with Music Player!

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• 2000 Great Albums on Pinterest!


• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: The Music Player Checklist

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SHAKE AND FINGER POP! Soul Music and the Interior Truth

...with Music Player!

Booker T And The MGs
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Soul music is the shared emotion of experience. As such, everyone breathing can relate to it, be touched by it, be moved by it. Soul, like all great traditions, is actually what each person has brought to it and what we shared from it.

No one has a monopoly on pain. And the human heart is too huge to be bound by fake distinctions like class, body type, or skin. We breathe the same air, dream the same hopes, feel the same emotions. As souls, we share this life, and when we forget our commonality, music brings us back to the root; the interior truth of self.

From the beginning soul stew was cooked by everyone. It's initial gumbo ingredients were the sacrilegious mix of Gospel and Blues, but Jazz brass horns, voodoo mythos, Country tearjerkers, European strings, modern pop, Rock swagger, political Folk, and even spy themes have flavored it over time. It was male and female, and included label owners, talent scouts, songwriters, producers, and performers from every possible human persuasion.

Case in point. Until the late 1940's, all music made by African Americans was called "Race Music". Jerry Wexler, a writer for Billboard magazine's music sales charts, found this disgraceful. There had to be a more dignified term, but how do you encompass the various musics being made? Since urban Jump Jive and rural acoustic Blues were the most popular, he split the difference with the umbrella term, Rhythm & Blues. While R&B later became yet another flat euphemism for 'black music', it actually spoke to divergent sounds. As 1950 dawned, small independent record labels sprung up everywhere to sample the smorgasbord of homegrown talent nationwide. Jerry Wexler became perhaps the preeminent Soul music producer of all time working for Atlantic Records, owned by the astute and hyper-hip Ertegun brothers from Turkey: Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, the Coasters, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, the Rascals, and may more were his charges. Similarly, the Chess brothers parlayed the Chess label, the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Etta James, etc. The jewish family had slept with a horse in their house back in Poland to keep warm in the winter. As hardluck musicians migrated from the depleted southern states to their Chicago studios, they found kindred sympathy.

In the South, Gospel music was God's music, and Blues was the Devil's by default. The line between the sacred and the profane was absolute. But the 50's was when the imaginary barriers started being challenged. Ray Charles, a cocksure upstart, committed heresy by combining the two. In 1955 he turned a hymn about love for Jesus into a secular ode to a girl with "This Little Girl of Mine". Churchfolk burned like brimstone over it, but young people felt the relief of constrictions evaporating. Ray had combined the sacred and profane and arrived closer to real life. He showed that any segregation is stillborn while synthesis is always rebirth. All too quickly, radio segregated everyone's psyches using separatist terms like 'Rock'n'Roll' for whites and 'Rhythm & Blues' for blacks. Most often this music was the same thing, just separated by the superficial. But at dancehalls all kids shook their hips the same, yelled the same, felt it the same. It made you move and it said something you understood inside.

Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Taylor, the Womacks, and scores more also left the amen corner to sing new hymns from their hearts about the way they lived, and how they felt. By the early 60's, the R&B tag waned along with the doowoppers and the jivin'wailers. It was a new ere, with the Civil rights movement come to redeem America's heart and open up its future. It was the era of Soul music.

Robert White and Joe Messina of the Motown house band,
the Funk Brothers.
It came from everywhere and back. Motown records in metal Detroit. Chess in hogkiller Chicago. Atlantic in nosebleed New York. Stax in funky Memphis. And from one-hit and no-hit wonders on meteoric labels throughout the south and west and north, and soon from as far east as the United Kingdom. It was tender or tortured ballads, uptempo dance stompers, crazed gobbledygook, strutting proud testimonials, and anthems for justice. It consoled your pain, conjured your joy. Berry Gordy called his label "The Sound of Young America" to transcend useless terms like black and white, but that was only the beginning. Soul music had tapped into the declarative, confessional nature at the heart of all the world's folk musics. Its passionate vocals were a shared memory in all cultures. As such, it was felt, resung, and rebounded back. It was a universal chord that resonates through all pop history since. The British Invasion couldn't win without it, and its influence fused with Jazz, metronomed beneath Psychedelia, got all Funked up, hothoused Ska and Reggae, boogied Glam, strobed Disco, swelled under New Wave, spliced Rap, throbbed in the abstract through House and Jungle, inverted itself as Neo-Soul...well, you feel me.

Every great label had a house band cooking up all the hits. Stax made Memphis soul stew with Booker T and the MG's. Rock steady drums, pulsing melodic bass, slinky azz organ, and zen essence chank guitar. Bring in the class brass of the Memphis Horns, a killer tune, and a belting singer and then look the hell out! Besides their own proto-funk instrumental classics, like "Glass Onion" and "Hip Hug Her", they backed Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Albert King, and more. Like their rivals at the Muscle Shoals studios, they were soul brothers one and all, and the fact that they were varied hues only added more flavors to the brew.

Etta James recording with the Muscle Shoals house band.
Soul music is the soundtrack of the human experience. It's cheap and easy to wear attitude like armor. But it takes real courage to bare your heart to the world. To confess doubt, hurt, or wrestle with anger or anguish. To drop the skin and disclose the interior truth of self. That kind of vulnerability is the core of real growth, toward maturity, solace, wisdom. Listen to these brave songs, where men and women stand vulnerable before the eyes of the world. Listen in recognition as they unveil our common heart.


© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• "Time Is Tight!" - Booker T > The Clash > Elvis Costello > Squeeze

• "Take Me To the River" - Al Green > Bryan Ferry > Talking Heads

• "Tainted Love" - Gloria Jones > Soft Cell

• LADIES FIRST: "What A Man" - Linda Lyndell > Laura Lee> Salt-N-Pepa

• LADIES FIRST: "You're No Good" - Dee Dee Warwick > Betty Everett > Linda Ronstadt > The Plasticines


• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: A Music Player Checklist

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