The Origin Of "The Fifties"

[BlueTrain]

Some, like George Burns, kept at it too long, but it really wasn't singing. I wouldn't dare say anything about Marlene Dietrich, though. I never thought Gene Kelly had that great a voice, if you want criticism. Like Dietrich, some other performers just keep racking up the miles, sometimes literally. Mireille Mathieu is still at it, I believe.

One of my favorite songs, no matter who sings it, is J'attendrai. Lucienne Delyle does a nice version and it's also in the movie Das Boot (as Komm Zuruck). I happened to run across a YouTube voice of a little backyard performance of the song by three musicians who happen to be semi-professionals. The singer in that one, who I believe is Sarah Quintana, has one of those rough voices. Another performer on that same video, Leyla McCalla, turns out to be an accomplished (mostly) blues performer, if not exactly a professional, though she has done an album.

There is so much out there these days and so easy to access that I'm spoiled. These days my tastes, such as it is, runs to German and Slovenian pop and Volksmusik. I don't know why.

 

[vitanola]

Some, like George Burns, kept at it too long, but it really wasn't singing. I wouldn't dare say anything about Marlene Dietrich, though. I never thought Gene Kelly had that great a voice, if you want criticism. Like Dietrich, some other performers just keep racking up the miles, sometimes literally. Mireille Mathieu is still at it, I believe.

One of my favorite songs, no matter who sings it, is J'attendrai. Lucienne Delyle does a nice version and it's also in the movie Das Boot (as Komm Zuruck). I happened to run across a YouTube voice of a little backyard performance of the song by three musicians who happen to be semi-professionals. The singer in that one, who I believe is Sarah Quintana, has one of those rough voices. Another performer on that same video, Leyla McCalla, turns out to be an accomplished (mostly) blues performer, if not exactly a professional, though she has done an album.

There is so much out there these days and so easy to access that I'm spoiled. These days my tastes, such as it is, runs to German and Slovenian pop and Volksmusik. I don't know why.

 

[BlueTrain]

That must be Czech or Slovene. Even traditional music changes over the years, you know. It changes partly because it's a living thing. But once it comes to this country, it starts growing in a different climate, so to say, and it changes in a different way. Thanks for the link.

 

[EngProf]

I'm talking more about the cultural legacy of "The Fifties" than the actual historical 1950s -- as I've expressed thruout this thread, I don't consider them the same thing. One is the common perception of the period, the other is the actual reality of what that period was.

"The Fifties" as a cultural phenomenon started the trend of "rock" as the default form of popular music -- and the Boomer generation, especially, has carried this forward in its thinking and its criticism. All other forms of popular music in the Anglo-American discourse are valued for the level of their connection to the evolution of "rock." Thus the only forms of pre-"Fifties" popular music that are considered to have any significance or worth are such things as blues, jump, some forms of country, and other "roots music." The mainstream popular music of the first four decades of the 20th Century -- a period of extraordinarily rich musical creativity -- is written off completely by the postwar musical cognoscenti because it didn't influence any of the notable "rock" artists. This is a legacy of the synthesized construct of "The Fifties."

As far as the actual 1950s go, my mother was a member of the Class of 1957, the dead-center demographic for the first wave of "rock-n-roll." She *hated* it -- she thought Elvis was disgusting, and during the years of my own childhood we had absolutely no rock-n-roll of any kind in the house. Her favorite musical artist of the 1950s was, and remains, Liberace. But even she, now, remembers Elvis as the definitive figure of "The Fifties."

As a card-carrying member of the Baby-Boomer generation and rock-and-roll fan I'd like to emphatically plead "Not Guilty" to the charges leveled at us concerning the treatment that we allegedly subjected 1900-1940 music to.
As a whole, we had little or no concern for, or interest in, music of that time-period one way or another. That is NOT the same as doing anything that would be detrimental to it.
Having known hundreds, at least, and possibly thousands, of my fellow baby-Boomers I can say that I have not heard any one of them say anything negative about pre-WWII music. The topic just never comes up.
It seems that the "postwar musical cognoscenti" are the ones to blame here. I can say for sure that I don't know any of those and doubt if the others of my generation, after you explained to them what "postwar musical cognoscenti" means, would know any either.
If some small segment of our generation - unknown to us as a whole - did something wrong by your reckoning, don't blame all of us Baby Boomers in a sweeping generalization for something we didn't do.
The defense rests...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I guess the logical question then would be -- why doesn't the topic come up? Why weren't you ever exposed to a vast swath of your cultural heritage? Didn't you ever wonder if anything meaningful ever existed in the world of popular music before your own generation? Didn't you ever once question the dominant paradigm?

I don't accuse the Boomer brigade of drawing moustaches on portraits of Gershwin or Kern. It's that apathy, that sense of "well, it existed before I was born, so who cares" that I challenge, and that I maintain has led to the cultural erasure of pre-rock popular music. And yes, that attitude began with and is still promoted, for the most part, by the work of Boomercentric critics writing and publishing for the Boomer generation.

Full disclosure: I was born in 1963, on the tail end of the Boom. Demographically I'm considered a boomer, but I reject any personal identification with that generation.

 

[EngProf]

Why doesn't the topic come up? Why weren't you ever exposed to a vast swath of your cultural heritage? Didn't you ever wonder if anything meaningful ever existed in the world of popular music before your own generation? Didn't you ever once question the dominant paradigm?

I don't accuse the Boomer brigade of drawing moustaches on portraits of Gershwin or Kern. It's that very apathy, that sense of "well, it existed before I was born, so who cares" that I challenge. It's the same sort of attitude that a lot of Boomery folks right here on the Lounge have accused millennials of having when those millennials don't fall right into line with looking at culture the way the Boomers think they should.

Full disclosure: I was born in 1963, on the tail end of the Boom. Demographically I'm considered a boomer, but I reject any personal identification with that generation.

Why? One reason is that there was a lot of other more-engaging things going on in those days (1950's - 1960's) than listening to music from way-back-when. However, that is not the same as being somehow opposed to it or doing anything detrimental to it (assuming we as a generation had that power anyway).
Every generation could be better-educated and more culturally aware and it would probably be better all around , but that's not the same as actively damaging or demeaning any other time periods as was stated in the original indictment.

Personally, I'm tone-deaf and have no musical talent so there was less incentive to look into music as a topic of interest. Other topics had great interest and I question paradigms in those on a regular basis.

Full disclosure: I was born in 1948, at the peak of the Boom. Demographically I'm 100% Boomer and proud of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And yet -- it's still considered part of a well-rounded musical taste to be conversant in Elvis and the Beatles and Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and all the rest of that generation. By comparison, from the perspective of a millennial, that would be like expecting you, as a teenager, to be conversant in the music of the 1890s. But as remote as it is historically, we're still drenched in the popular music of the Boomer generation, right back to 1955 or so, but zap -- nothing before, unless it can somehow be tied into rock as "roots music."

I question the validity of that whole mindset. It's beyond individual likes and dislikes -- it's a cultural force.

 

[EngProf]

And yet -- it's still considered part of a well-rounded musical taste to be conversant in Elvis and the Beatles and Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and all the rest of that generation. By comparison, from the perspective of a millennial, that would be like expecting you, as a teenager, to be conversant in the music of the 1890s. But as remote as it is historically, we're still drenched in the popular music of the Boomer generation, right back to 1955 or so, but zap -- nothing before, unless it can somehow be tied into rock as "roots music."

I question the validity of that whole mindset. It's beyond individual likes and dislikes -- it's a cultural force.

As someone whose line of work is educating people, I certainly think that knowing as much as possible about as much as possible is a good idea (and goal).

The fact that Boomer-music/rock-and-roll is a "cultural force" may be the key. It goes on and on...
On an anecdotal level, one of my college-senior teams was working on their design project in the lab just a few weeks ago and brought their own music with them. Beatles and other 1960's music...
Out of all the possibilities nobody made them do that - they just did it on their own.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And *why* is it a cultural force, and not the music of Kern or Gershwin or Porter or Arlen or Harburg or Mercer? That's what I'm getting at. Is it because it's what the kids are familiar with? Why are they familiar with it?

Is it "timeless" because they've been raised in a culture that *tells* them it's timeless? Is that timelessness based on actual musical merit -- if so, why aren't, say, Bix Beiderbecke or Fats Waller or Artie Shaw considered equally "timeless," because as a matter of sheer musical skill they stand as towering figures. Or is the enduring presence of Boomer music based on incessant commercial marketing of the *idea* that it's timeless?

I'm not particularly interested, on an individual level, in what anyone's listening to -- what I'm interested in, and am questioning, are the cultural and commercial currents that are framing their tastes.

 

[EngProf]

And *why* is it a cultural force, and not the music of Kern or Gershwin or Porter or Arlen or Harburg or Mercer? That's what I'm getting at. Is it because it's what the kids are familiar with? Why are they familiar with it? Is it "timeless" because they've been raised in a culture that *tells* them it's timeless? I'm not particularly interested, on an individual level, in what anyone's listening to -- what I'm interested in, and am questioning, are the cultural currents that are framing their tastes.

As an engineer I tend to think of things in engineering terms, so I'd be satisfied to change "cultural force" to "cultural inertia". If you get a large mass going the same way you get a tendency for it to keep on going. Same with culture and music... For better or worse (better, I think) there were a lot of us B-B's and the "cultural force"/"cultural inertia" keeps the music going - basic Physics.

There are just not enough people who like or are even aware of the persons you mentioned to have any broad cultural effect.

The Laws of Physics are not Sinister - They Just Are - Yoda (May the 4th be With You)

 

[LizzieMaine]

As an engineer I tend to think of things in engineering terms, so I'd be satisfied to change "cultural force" to "cultural inertia". If you get a large mass going the same way you get a tendency for it to keep on going. Same with culture and music... For better or worse (better, I think) there were a lot of us B-B's and the "cultural force"/"cultural inertia" keeps the music going - basic Physics.

I would agree, in part, with that -- but would also add that something had to start that mass moving in the direction that it did, and that any mass, eventually, will slow to a stop thru the effects of friction. There's no such thing as perpetual motion -- so something has to be keeping that mass rolling. I submit that "something" is the marketing of a specific idea: popular music begins and ends with the rock era, and anything before that is of no consequence. There's been a lot of money made promoting that idea over the years -- look over the 781.66 section at any library and you'll see an awful lot of words spilled to promote that belief, and even rock critics don't write for free.

There are just not enough people who like or are even aware of the persons you mentioned to have any broad cultural effect.

And yet -- prior to the rock era, each of those personalities was a national figure of extraordinary talent and wide acclaim. Beiderbecke died the same sort of harrowing suffering-artiste death that many rock stars did -- he boozed himself into an early grave, and Waller was a black man who broke barriers and flourished in spite of the racism of his time, so you'd think those two would be of interest to modern authors. And Shaw -- who Ray Charles called "one of the greatest musicians who ever lived" -- was an outspoken rebel against commercial forces who insisted on doing things his way or not at all, who had a notoriously vigorous and rather public sex life, and who lived into the 21st Century. All this -- and yet, why don't people today know about them? What makes Bix Beiderbecke any less important, culturally, than Jimi Hendrix?

 

[EngProf]

I would agree, in part, with that -- but would also add that something had to start that mass moving in the direction that it did, and that any mass, eventually, will slow to a stop thru the effects of friction. There's no such thing as perpetual motion -- so something has to be keeping that mass rolling. I submit that "something" is the marketing of a specific idea: popular music begins and ends with the rock era, and anything before that is of no consequence. There's been a lot of money made promoting that idea over the years -- look over the 781.66 section at any library and you'll see an awful lot of words spilled to promote that belief, and even rock critics don't write for free.



And yet -- prior to the rock era, each of those personalities was a national figure of extraordinary talent and wide acclaim. Beiderbecke died the same sort of harrowing suffering-artiste death that many rock stars did -- he boozed himself into an early grave, and Waller was a black man who broke barriers and flourished in spite of the racism of his time, so you'd think those two would be of interest to modern authors. And Shaw -- who Ray Charles called "one of the greatest musicians who ever lived" -- was an outspoken rebel against commercial forces who insisted on doing things his way or not at all, who had a notoriously vigorous and rather public sex life, and who lived into the 21st Century. All this -- and yet, why don't people today know about them? What makes Bix Beiderbecke any less important, culturally, than Jimi Hendrix?

Eventually we B-B's will die out - but the going is more gradual than the arriving, plus we have had some effect on following generations. Perhaps in 50 years the lump will get out of the system and there will be more equality of consideration of all persons/time-periods.
However, it will likely be among historians/authors and not the general public.

As for marketing, I think that the continuing popularity of artists of that era is more a matter of taste than "convincing". If someone is an Elvis or Jimi Hendrix fan, they don't have to be convinced at this point that they are one.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, there's now more millennials than there are boomers. And their culture seems far less ingrown than that of the boomers, so at least we can be thankful for that much. One of my millennial acquaintances loves Fats Waller, and laughs out loud at "Yo' Feets Too Big," which gives me some small hope for the future.

 

[EngProf]

Well, there's now more millennials than there are boomers. And their culture seems far less ingrown than that of the boomers, so at least we can be thankful for that much. One of my millennial acquaintances loves Fats Waller, and laughs out loud at "Yo' Feets Too Big," which gives me some small hope for the future.

The fact that my college seniors were listening to the Beatles gave me the same hope for the future.

 

[LizzieMaine]

John Lennon and George Harrison were both huge fans of 1930s British novelty singer George Formby, who was a towering figure in prewar British popular music. Ask them if they know about Formby's influence on the Beatles.

 

[EngProf]

John Lennon and George Harrison were both huge fans of 1930s British novelty singer George Formby, who was a towering figure in prewar British popular music. Ask them if they know about Formby's influence on the Beatles.

George Formby?? Didn't he market a line of furniture refinishing products?

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Speaking as another vintage Baby Boomer (born '47, thus even more classicaler than EngProf) I have to plead our cultural media upbringing. By the mid-50s, the pre-eminent transmission of pop songs was the 45 rpm record. These were what we heard on the radio and these were what we bought. There were only a handful of radio stations and even fewer tv stations. We knew little about 30s and 40s music because it wasn't played on the radio any more. That wasn't our choosing, we were too young to have any say in such things. The Big Band venues - all those Ballrooms, Dance Halls and Revues, had pretty much died out. It was radio and the juke box that we heard and responded to. It was in later years - the 80s and 90s and later, that Public radio and the multitude of venues that became available with Cable, that we were exposed to Cole Porter, Gershwin, the Big Bands and other great music of the past. Now I can flip on my local NPR station (as I do every morning) and listen all day to jazz, Big Band, '40s country, Ragtime, blues and all the other great American music styles of the early 20th century, but those just weren't available in the 50s - 70s.

 

[EngProf]

First - The George Formby/furniture-refinishing line is a setup for LizzeM to correct me.

In Nashville in the late fifties we had a probably-unique mix of country, rock-and-roll, rockabilly, and you-name it until things got sorted out and pure rock-and roll took over the local radio. (Country music went it's own way...)
Here is a story related by a disc jockey (Hal Smith) from our first Top-40 station (WKDA):

Hal Smith also related this interesting story from back during the late-50's era at WKDA: “We did weekly ‘hops’ with some well-known recording artists of that time...Gene Vincent, Link Wray (“The Rumble”), Dicky Doo and the Don’ts, (who didn’t....show up, that is), Carl Perkins, Patsy Cline, among others. The ‘hops’ were held mostly at the old Hippodrome Roller Rink. We also booked Jerry Lee Lewis and rented Sulphur Dell baseball stadium. Just after the deal was signed, it was announced that Jerry Lee had married his 13-year old cousin. He was in Europe and ours was the first show after he returned. About 600 people showed up. Jerry Lee got a percentage of the gate, no guarantee, 10-percent went to the baseball stadium. We then had expenses of cops, a sound system and a piano. When all were paid, we had $20-dollars left. The guy we rented the piano from came in and said that Jerry Lee had broken the piano stool and he wanted to be paid for it. I’m sitting there with $20-dollars in my hand and said, ‘how much?’ He looked at me and said “$20-dollars!”

 

[2jakes]

Speaking as another vintage Baby Boomer (born '47, thus even more classicaler than EngProf) I have to plead our cultural media upbringing. By the mid-50s, the pre-eminent transmission of pop songs was the 45 rpm record. These were what we heard on the radio and these were what we bought. There were only a handful of radio stations and even fewer tv stations. We knew little about 30s and 40s music because it wasn't played on the radio any more. That wasn't our choosing, we were too young to have any say in such things. The Big Band venues - all those Ballrooms, Dance Halls and Revues, had pretty much died out. It was radio and the juke box that we heard and responded to. It was in later years - the 80s and 90s and later, that Public radio and the multitude of venues that became available with Cable, that we were exposed to Cole Porter, Gershwin, the Big Bands and other great music of the past. Now I can flip on my local NPR station (as I do every morning) and listen all day to jazz, Big Band, '40s country, Ragtime, blues and all the other great American music styles of the early 20th century, but those just weren't available in the 50s - 70s.

I would like to add that in the early '50s (in my area) I had to tune in
to the few black radio stations if I wanted to listen to rock music from
the likes of Little Richard, Chuck Beery, Fats Domino & others.

We could watch Elvis “gyrate" on the television,
but only from the waist up.

I also heard 40s music growing up because of my mother.
Classical music, I owe it to my grandmother.
Even though these sounds were before my time nevertheless
I loved hearing them.
Still do.

 

[Edward]

Ahem...
The Beatles performed.
And then some.
AND wrote... (to paraphrase Edward, they drew the dots, changed the shape of the dots, made the dots do things dots had never done before, joined the dots together, and invented new ways of dot joining)...
And then stopped performing.
Because they couldn't perform what they'd drawn and joined together...
And because they could...

Doubtless they were very significant, and remain so. (Though how innovative they truly were - as distinct from bringing innovation to the mainstream - remains debatable. Macca himself has often said the Beatles were "the greatest nickers ever there were"). The thing is that they are especially emblematic of that switch from performance being valued in and of itself to the notion that performance is of lesser valueif the performer is not also the writer. Ultimately, this is as much at the root of the demise of live music as any other factor. I recollect hearing a young, American lady criticising another's wedding for featuring a live band instead of a DJ - "I don't want to hear some band play 'Satisfaction'." she said. "I want to hear the Rolling Stones." A philistine with no concept of the value of live performance.

This sneering snobbery about having to both write and sing. Can you imagine it in the world of classical music? Luciano Pavarotti bit of a has been really, OK he performed Nessun Dorma at The Football World Cup. Big deal, never saw him write like Giacomo Puccini. (Nessun Dorma is an aria from Puccini's opera: Turandot.)

Exactly. What is it about modern "rock" that instills this daft attitude?

There was, however, such a thing in the Era as the "cut in." This was a situation where songwriters would offer to "cut in" a popular singer or bandleader on the royalties from a particular number in exchange for their agreeing to feature -- or "plug" -- the selection on their records or in their radio broadcasts. This would usually be done by simply adding the performer's name to the official credits registered with ASCAP. Al Jolson was known for getting "cut in" on quite a few songs, and Rudy Vallee was also known for indulging in this practice -- but only if he was allowed to actually make changes in the number. I suspect the vogue for the "singer songwriter" has as much to do with wanting to get the whole chunk of the ASCAP/BMI royalties as with any idea of whole-souled artistic integrity.

Quite plausibly.... of course, by the rock and roll era, the 'cut-in' was widely used to shaft songwriters: most of the people listed as co-writers of Chuck Berry's records were people who worked for the lable or owned a studio or whatever, and simply had nothing whatever to do with writing the numbers. Berry was bribed with various trinkets to sign all sorts of paperwork. The idea of the music industry screwing over its artists is nothing new (and makes it all the more sickening when record labels whine about copyright infringment affecting their poor artists.... not that I'm in any way opposed ot copyright law, but I do baulk at the hypocrisy of the industry middlemen....).

One of the things I resent most bitterly about "The Fifties" is their near-complete effacement of just about every bit of pre-WW2 popular music. If it isn't "rock" or "roots of rock" it's considered unworthy of discussion or consideration. The cult of "The Fifties" started that, and it's continued to dominate popular culture with its great greasy smear ever since.

I should think a major plank in this was the surging growth of consumerism. That's the point where back catalogue starts to become more valuable than putting out new stuff, heading towards the extremities of what we have nowadays, where most top selling musicians have been dead for decades.

[