The Origin Of "The Fifties"

[Inkstainedwretch]

This almost belongs in the movie anachronism thread. Because the film "The Sting" used Scott Joplin music, people now associate it with the Depression 30s, when it actually dates from 3 decades earlier. the movie and the music are badly juxtaposed, but it has fixated that music with that time period in the public mind.

 

[2jakes]

This almost belongs in the movie anachronism thread. Because the film "The Sting" used Scott Joplin music, people now associate it with the Depression 30s, when it actually dates from 3 decades earlier. the movie and the music are badly juxtaposed, but it has fixated that music with that time period in the public mind.

I posted “Solace” by Scott Joplin as interpreted in the movie “The Sting”
because I love this rendition.

Anyone that is familiar with Scott Joplin music would probably
know the time period & style in which they were originally
produced.

But, as you’ve explained, it may very well be that in the
“public mind”, they associate it with the Depression 30s
because of the movie.

To this day whenever I hear the “William Tell Overture”,
I associate it with the “Lone Ranger Show” which I used
to watch on TV every Saturday morning during the
“fabulous fifties”!

 

[GHT]

To this day whenever I hear the “William Tell Overture”,
I associate it with the “Lone Ranger Show” which I used
to watch on TV every Saturday morning during the
“fabulous fifties”!

If you have ever been to the former Church Street complex in Orlando and seen the waitresses dance the can can on the bar, it's an image that is forever branded on your brain.
Listening to a classical recital of Jacques Offenbach's: Orpheus in the Underworld, without conjuring up Rosie O'Grady's is impossible.

 

[Fading Fast]

Growing up in the late '60s, Elvis was a past his moment, but still had youth cache with kids as he was the "King of Rock and Roll" and somebody our parents didn't like (mine were ambivalent). At the time, his music seemed a solar system away from Frank Sinatra, etc., but now, listening to him and Frank, I hear Elvis more as if he was on a continuum - a bump or two down the line, but still on a continuum - with the crooners like Sinatra. The real break in the continuum came with the Beatles / Stones / et al. So from a music perspective, I think the 50's went until about '64 and the British Invasion.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The one Elvis owes even more to was Al Jolson -- a larger-than-life figure whose heyday was the 1910s and 1920s but who experienced a huge resurgence in popularity in the late 1940s, just as Elvis was entering his teens. Jolson dominated a stage like no other performer of his era, and even did a number of pelvic moves on stage which later became associated with Presley. There is very little that is new under the sun.

There was a brief vogue for ragtime-era music in the mid-thirties, as part of the "good old days" nostalgia fad that bubbled up around the repeal of Prohibition. Most of the music that came out of this was pastiches of beer-garden sob ballads, but ragtime also got the occasional nod.

 

[Fading Fast]

The one Elvis owes even more to was Al Jolson -- a larger-than-life figure whose heyday was the 1910s and 1920s but who experienced a huge resurgence in popularity in the late 1940s, just as Elvis was entering his teens. Jolson dominated a stage like no other performer of his era, and even did a number of pelvic moves on stage which later became associated with Presley. There is very little that is new under the sun.

There was a brief vogue for ragtime-era music in the mid-thirties, as part of the "good old days" nostalgia fad that bubbled up around the repeal of Prohibition. Most of the music that came out of this was pastiches of beer-garden sob ballads, but ragtime also got the occasional nod.

I don't remember who it was, but during a Michael Jackson special, I saw a clip of a performer (in the '40s or '50s, but definitely pre Michael Jackson) doing the moon walk thing Jackson was known for. To be fair, Jackson might have discovered it independent of this earlier performer, but I agree, not that much is fully new.

However, the great ones put their own spin on "it," highlight "it" in a unique way, have a verve that makes "it" their own, etc. Elvis "stole" his style from black rhythm and blues singers of the time - but does anyone really think Elvis was just a cheap ripoff, or did he have his own light that brought something special to what he did.

It's a continuum alright, but the great ones advance the continuum in a way that most of us don't. Alexander Fleming and Steve Jobs owe much to those who came before them, but there were millions of others (like me) who had access to that same past information that Fleming and Jobs had that didn't discover penicillin or invent the iPhone and iPod. There are singular people who invent / discover things that advances the world for everyone.

 

[Edward]

Growing up in the late '60s, Elvis was a past his moment, but still had youth cache with kids as he was the "King of Rock and Roll" and somebody our parents didn't like (mine were ambivalent). At the time, his music seemed a solar system away from Frank Sinatra, etc., but now, listening to him and Frank, I hear Elvis more as if he was on a continuum - a bump or two down the line, but still on a continuum - with the crooners like Sinatra. The real break in the continuum came with the Beatles / Stones / et al. So from a music perspective, I think the 50's went until about '64 and the British Invasion.

I'd say much the same here - the Beatles ushered in the Sixties. I also blame them for destroying British rock and roll.... and I'd take one Brand New Cadillac over their entire ouevre, any day.

 

[Edward]

It's a continuum alright, but the great ones advance the continuum in a way that most of us don't. Alexander Fleming and Steve Jobs owe much to those who came before them, but there were millions of others (like me) who had access to that same past information that Fleming and Jobs had that didn't discover penicillin or invent the iPhone and iPod. There are singular people who invent / discover things that advances the world for everyone.

Jobs was certainly gifted - both as a salesman, and at taking the credit for other people's innovations. Jonathan Ive invented the iPod - Jobs only sold it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Jobs was certainly gifted - both as a salesman, and at taking the credit for other people's innovations. Jonathan Ive invented the iPod - Jobs only sold it.

I knew I was skating on thin ice with Jobs as I really didn't know the history well (as I do with Fleming), but despite my ignorance, the point is there are singularly special people who dip into our well of knowledge - available to all - and do something special with it - like, it seems, Ive's did in inventing the iPod. Thank you for the correction - sincerely.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't remember who it was, but during a Michael Jackson special, I saw a clip of a performer (in the '40s or '50s, but definitely pre Michael Jackson) doing the moon walk thing Jackson was known for. To be fair, Jackson might have discovered it independent of this earlier performer, but I agree, not that much is fully new.

However, the great ones put their own spin on "it," highlight "it" in a unique way, have a verve that makes "it" their own, etc. Elvis "stole" his style from black rhythm and blues singers of the time - but does anyone really think Elvis was just a cheap ripoff, or did he have his own light that brought something special to what he did.

I think much of what Elvis was was a creation of the way he was marketed -- he had a good voice and an instinctive stage presence, but the whole idea of packaging him as a sort of ruttish outlaw who was sensitive and loved his mother, came more from Colonel Parker and the marketing department at RCA Victor than from anything he himself came up with. He was in that sense one of the first of the manufactured stars that characterized the rock era.

 

[GHT]

I'd say much the same here - the Beatles ushered in the Sixties. I also blame them for destroying British rock and roll.... and I'd take one Brand New Cadillac over their entire ouevre, any day.

That was more or less what I told a BBC DJ. Every year there's an air festival over the sea front at Bournemouth. On the Friday night at the commencement of the activities, a local 11 piece band were playing music from the 30's & 40's. A big crowd of us were either listening or dancing to their music. The local BBC radio DJ followed them, the first record was a Beatles number. The crown dispersed. Later, in a local bar, the DJ came in with his BBC crew. "Where did you lot go?" he asked, "We are just not into that 60's trite." I said.
TRITE? He exclaimed, good grief you would have thought that I started the Middle East war. "How can you call the greatest band, trite?" He went off on one then, going on about the 60's, 70's & 80's gave us so much memorable popular music. He even had a snide pop at our ages, working out that most of us were teenagers when The Beatles hit the scene. "Not my cup of tea, " I said and left him standing there. He took opinionated to a new level.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think much of what Elvis was was a creation of the way he was marketed -- he had a good voice and an instinctive stage presence, but the whole idea of packaging him as a sort of ruttish outlaw who was sensitive and loved his mother, came more from Colonel Parker and the marketing department at RCA Victor than from anything he himself came up with. He was in that sense one of the first of the manufactured stars that characterized the rock era.

Agreed - he was tightly controlled and manipulated - but he had something that shined through all that marketing and packaging. Even in those horribly cheesy '60s movies with their, mainly, vacuous songs - he still sparks here and there.

And when he "came back" in the later '60s, it was clear he had a raw connect to the music that all the glitz and (later) schmaltz couldn't completely overwhelm.

Many stars are package and marketed, but IMHO, Elvis endures and rises above that on his raw talent and energy; whereas, other marketing successes are flash in the pans.

 

[GHT]

but despite my ignorance, the point is there are singularly special people who dip into our well of knowledge - available to all - and do something special with it.

Like Watson & Crick who cracked the DNA code in 1953. Nearly 100 years before, a young Swiss physician named Friedrich Miescher, isolated something no one had ever seen before from the nuclei of cells. He called the compound "nuclein." This is today called nucleic acid, the "NA" in DNA (deoxyribo-nucleic-acid) and RNA (ribo-nucleic-acid).

 

[BlueTrain]

I'm not so sure about any of this. There are lots of elements to musical entertainment and when it comes to pop and folk music, probably the performer is the biggest thing, followed by the music itself. There was a time when performers in quite different styles could and would do the same song and it would sound great both ways. Later, certain songs became much more identified with individual artists.

I think it's both pointless and wrong to compare any given performer to some sort of standard, which is not to say you can't expect a good performance from someone. But Sinatra (can't believe he's gone) and Elvis (same thing) are doing different kinds of music, same as Bob Wills did. Basically, most successful musicians and singers create their own style. Bob Wills didn't really create Western Swing but he was there when the first note was played. So, anyway, you shouldn't try to compare Sinatra with Elvis but I suppose you compare him with, say, Bob Eberly. They're all pop singers. And you're free to listen to any and all of them. As Peter Schickele, whom I have met, said, it don't matter what kind of music it is as long as it's good music. Or words to that effect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think a swing band is a good example of how individual effort contributes to a collective whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Benny Goodman was an excellent clarinetist -- not the greatest clarinetist who ever lived, but he was technically proficient, highly adaptable in his style, and had an instinctive feel for improvisation. But Benny Goodman standing alone with his clarinet is just one guy tooting in the dark.

But put him in with Gene Krupa, Jess Stacy, Hymie Schertzer, Art Rollini, Ziggy Elman, Harry James, Chris Griffin, and the rest of those guys, and have Fletcher Henderson write him a bunch of arrangements, and have Helen Ward do the vocals, and he becomes "Benny Goodman, the King of Swing." He accomplished none of that by himself -- and despite his difficult personality, he was humble enough to admit it.

A number of successful swing bands took this one step further and were run as actual collectives, with no official leader and all decisions made by a vote of the band itself. The most successful of these, the Casa Loma Orchestra, was the most popular band in the country during the mid-1930s, and was organized on a fully cooperative basis. Saxophonist Glen Gray was chosen to stand in front of the band and wave the stick, but all decisions about the band's operation, repertoire, and bookings, were made by vote of the members. The result was successful both artistically and from a business perspective for many years.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I knew I was skating on thin ice with Jobs as I really didn't know the history well (as I do with Fleming), but despite my ignorance, the point is there are singularly special people who dip into our well of knowledge - available to all - and do something special with it - like, it seems, Ive's did in inventing the iPod. Thank you for the correction - sincerely.

Often things are discovered without the original discoverer grasping the implications of their discovery. In the 17th century the pioneer of microscopy van Leeuwenhoek discovered and described microorganisms (he called them "animalcules"). For the next 200 years scientists observed and studied bacteria and single-celled organisms invisible to the naked eye and in all that time, prior to the 1860s, nobody thought to connect them to disease. Then Pasteur and others came up with the germ theory but even then the medical establishment resisted the new theory for decades Sometimes the old guard has to just die off to make way for new knowledge but in time, as usual, good science prevailed by delivering results.

 

[Fading Fast]

Often things are discovered without the original discoverer grasping the implications of their discovery. In the 17th century the pioneer of microscopy van Leeuwenhoek discovered and described microorganisms (he called them "animalcules"). For the next 200 years scientists observed and studied bacteria and single-celled organisms invisible to the naked eye and in all that time, prior to the 1860s, nobody thought to connect them to disease. Then Pasteur and others came up with the germ theory but even then the medical establishment resisted the new theory for decades Sometimes the old guard has to just die off to make way for new knowledge but in time, as usual, good science prevailed by delivering results.

Years ago (hence, this is from an old memory), I saw a special on ancient Roman technology and they had something called a steam ball. it was a metal ball suspended on an axel over a fire with two valves pointed in a away that when steam came out, it pushed the ball into a continuous spinning motion.

Rome never took it any further and saw it as a curio (again, based on my old memory). But effectively, they had the rudimentary element of a steam engine and with it the ability to harness its power. But to your point, no one in Rome grasped the implications. Boy would the world be a different place today if Rome had had a very early industrial revolution.

 

[GHT]

Often things are discovered without the original discoverer grasping the implications of their discovery.

Most famously was the Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology by Hedy Lamar. She gave the technology to the American Military, unable to find a significant use for it, they simply locked it away.
Today, her wireless invention, powers everything from remote locking on car doors to cell phones to the TV remote. She was an incredible scientist, not taken seriously, perhaps because she was such a pretty face.

 

[Fading Fast]

Most famously was the Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology by Hedy Lamar. She gave the technology to the American Military, unable to find a significant use for it, they simply locked it away.
Today, her wireless invention, powers everything from remote locking on car doors to cell phones to the TV remote. She was an incredible scientist, not taken seriously, perhaps because she was such a pretty face.

Agreed, read this book (below) a few years back - she was impressive:

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have that book as well, and it acknowledges that her work on that project was a collaborative effort with George Antheil - a very peculiar man in his own right. He was a musician by trade, and together they pieced together a system of frequency-shifting powered by the guts of a player piano. It was basically an analog approach to digital technology, but nobody realized that at the time.