20s Revival in the 50s?

[Paisley]

Was there a popular interest in the 1920s during the 1950s?

There was the movie Some Like it Hot. There was the TV show The Untouchables. And I just downloaded the album Trad Mad! The Pye Trad-Jazz Anthology 1956-1963 (It's a Jazzed-up Frantic Fad, Dad!). It's full of songs that sound like they are from the 20s.

Anything else?

And can someone tell me what "pye" means?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

There certainly was.

More than anything else, it was sparked by the movie Singin' in the Rain.

High school and college kids began to throw "Roaring '20s" theme parties. (LIFE magazine mentions them.)

 

[Sefton]

I've read many accounts of young men in the 50s begining a lifelong love of 1920s music after they became curious about the many old 78s that they would see being sold cheap or even tossed into the rubbish. Most of the music was Jazz and Blues by (then) obscure names like Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson. These old records turned out to be extremely rare and valuable. One of these young men was the artist and professional Mr.Moldy Fig, R.Crumb.

 

[dhermann1]

I think our sophomore year dance had a Roaring 20's theme, that would be about 1962. About as accurately 20's as you might imagine, but what they hey.
The image of the 20's then was much more sanitized than the one now in vogue. But neither is very accurate. If you want an accurate picture, look at Shorpy.com on a regular basis.
There was a movie, and then a TV show (with Dorothy Provine???) called The Roaring 20's.

 

[Flivver]

There was definetly a 1920s revival in the 1950s and early 1960s. I'm sure it's at least part of the reason I have been a 1920s enthusiast all my life.

If you think about it, the high school kids of the 1920s were in their late 40s and early 50s in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The kids were gone and these people were becoming nostalgic for their youth. Marketers took note of this and created many movies, TV shows and record albums with 1920s themes. As others have said, the 1950s interpretation of the 1920s is not very accurate...kind of like the 1970s interpretation of the 1950s.

As a kid, I watched the "Untouchables" and "The Roaring 20s" (yes it was Dorothy Provine) every week. I even have the Nelson Riddle "Untouchables" record album done by Capitol Records and the two "Roaring 20s" albums put out by Warner Brothers around 1960. All of these albums contain great music and are well worth seeking out to get the flavor of the 1920s revival. Nearly every major record label put out several 1920s inspired albums at this time.

A very obscure TV show about the 1920s was "Margie"...aired for one season only in 1961-1962. It starred Cynthia Pepper as a high school girl of the 1920s. Other than the 1920s theme and costumes, it was pure 1960s sitcom...but very entertaining nevertheless (at least it was when I was 10). Does anyone else remember this show?

 

[Fletch]

A pre-Singin' in the Rain influence was Art Mooney, who went from a moderately hip NY swing bandleader to a chart-topping recording artist in 1947 and '48 with what I call Styrofoam-Boater-Hat Music.

Ever hear a record of I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover with the unison glee club and the glockenspiegel and the banjo(s?) going chonk chonka chonk? Like a Philadelphia Mummer band without the excitement? That was Art Mooney. He cleaned up with that slop.

That's how sick people were of 25 years of big dance bands. They wanted something that reminded them of the 20s without actually sounding like the 20s. [huh]

Click here to hear ILOAFLC as actually played in 1927, by Jean Goldkette's Ork with Billy Murray singing.

 

[Paisley]

Ah yes--bad 20s revival. Charleston mash-ups generally seem to be done to saccharine boop-boop-bi-do neo-20s music that is much, much worse than that version of Four Leaf Clover. They're embarrasing. Where's the authenticity crowd when you need them?

 

[Paisley]

Click here to hear ILOAFLC as actually played in 1927, by Jean Goldkette's Ork with Billy Murray singing.

Thanks for the link!

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Pye" was a British record label -- an outgrowth of the Pye radio manufacturing firm of the 30s and 40s.

There was a lot of pseudo-twenties stuff right into the sixties -- remember "Winchester Cathedral," with that guy doing a bad Rudy Vallee impression with a megaphone? And how about "Your Father's Moustache Banjo Band," which would have made Harry Reser writhe in his grave.

 

[Fletch]

Ah yes--bad 20s revival. Charleston mash-ups generally seem to be done to saccharine boop-boop-bi-do neo-20s music that is much, much worse than that version of Four Leaf Clover. They're embarrasing. Where's the authenticity crowd when you need them?

Hey, the dance crowds are the fun, party hearty people who get tanked and hug strangers. The music folks are the wet blankets who sit with one glass of cheap white wine for an hour with scrunchy faces and knees together. Never the twain shall meet.

the Pye radio manufacturing firm of the 30s and 40s.

And television. Isn't that a gem?

 

[dhermann1]

I think this happens with every generation. When they get middle aged, or late middle aged, nauseatingly homogenized versions of the music that was populat in their youth gets promulgated. This gives the current younger generation the idea that their parents were hideous fuddy duddies, and they never get to hear the real youthful vitaliaty of the authentic original product. This has happened to Dixieland to an appalling degree.
Same thing has happened to 50's doo-wop. If I ever get 75 pounds overweight, with a tacky tux, probably dyed hair, with an audience full of equally overweight 50 somethings in front of me clapping their hands in the air in unison, with a mike in my hand and the urge to sing . . . what . . . "I'm not a Juvenile Delinquent", JUST SHOOT ME!

 

[dhermann1]

Let's not forget "Your red scarf matches your eyes, you close your cover before striking, father had the shipfitter blues, loving you has made me bananas." I liked really that one.

 

[volatile]

Was there a popular interest in the 1920s during the 1950s?

There was the movie Some Like it Hot. There was the TV show The Untouchables. And I just downloaded the album Trad Mad! The Pye Trad-Jazz Anthology 1956-1963 (It's a Jazzed-up Frantic Fad, Dad!). It's full of songs that sound like they are from the 20s.

Anything else?

And can someone tell me what "pye" means?

Where did you manage to download it from? I'd love to get hold of the CDs, but the set's been discontinued!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... remember "Winchester Cathedral," with that guy doing a bad Rudy Vallee impression with a megaphone?

Lizzie, "that guy" is Ian Whitcomb. In the '80s and '90s, he had an L.A. radio show that played (mostly British, all authentic) 1920s music.


Today, Ian sings '20s standards live with a group called "The Bungalow Boys." They play from time to time at Maxwell DeMille's Cicada Club here in L.A.!


.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lizzie, "that guy" is Ian Whitcomb. In the '80s and '90s, he had an L.A. radio show that played (mostly British, all authentic) 1920s music.


Today, Ian sings '20s standards live with a group called "The Bungalow Boys." They play from time to time at Maxwell DeMille's Cicada Club here in L.A.!


.

Ah! Is that the same Ian Whitcomb whose writings and reviews used to turn up in various nostalgia-type publications in the 80s and 90s? If so, I forgive him for the bad Rudy Vallee impression.

 

[Flivver]

Pye made some really nice radios in the early 1930s, many with their trademark "rising sun" speaker grille design. These sets are quite beautiful...this photo doesn't do the set justice:

http://www.vintageradio.me.uk/valve/pye_pb/pye_pb.jpg

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Ah! Is that the same Ian Whitcomb whose writings and reviews used to turn up in various nostalgia-type publications in the 80s and 90s?

The very same.

.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Ian Whitcomb doesn't sing "Winchester Cathedral"

Sorry, Marc - I went and looked this up:

The Wikipedia article on Ian Whitcomb (who has indeed written some good documentary stuff) doesn't mention "Winchester Cathedral". And, in fact, here's most of its article about the song:

"Winchester Cathedral" is a song released in late 1966 by Fontana Records, whereupon it shot to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was released by The New Vaudeville Band, a novelty group established by the song's composer, Geoff Stephens. Stephens was a big fan of tunes from the British music hall era (or what Americans would call "Vaudeville"), so he wrote "Winchester Cathedral" in that vein, complete with a Rudy Vallée sound-a-like (John Carter) singing through a megaphone.

Although recorded entirely by session musicians, when the song became an international hit, an actual band had to be assembled, which toured extensively under the tutelage of Peter Grant, who later went on to manage The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. Ironically, while very British in sound and style, the tune only went to number four in the UK Singles Chart. It went all the way to the top in the U.S., however, displacing "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Supremes on December 3, 1966.

After a one-week run at #1, "Winchester Cathedral" was knocked off the summit by the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations", only to rebound to number one the following week. After two additional weeks, it was knocked off the top for good by "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees.

 

[Paisley]

Where did you manage to download it from? I'd love to get hold of the CDs, but the set's been discontinued!

Amazon.com. It was about $16 for some 80 songs, the vast majority of which I think sound really good.

Then, as today, there were bands that did a past genre really well, and others that, well, had their own take on it.

 

[Paisley]

"Pye" was a British record label -- an outgrowth of the Pye radio manufacturing firm of the 30s and 40s.

Thanks--I thought it might have been early 60s slang.