I'd like to start off by repenting for one misjudgment from last week. I said that no blues artists really stood out, but that was probably because I hadn't gone through enough of my no-year-labeled stuff. I went through a lot of that and caught up on what I'd missed and I have to say that Lead Belly really does stand out as a great blues artist from the 40s. Check him out.
I also kind of glossed over Miles Davis, just putting him in the appendix section. But there will be plenty of time to discuss him later.
Here's the early 50s now. The time period that birthed my parents and rock and roll continued to be developed. Blues got a bigger budget, Hank Williams had a radio show, and jazz exploded.
Let's start with one T-Bone Walker. There was a big CD anthology I picked up once, without knowing anything about the guy, because it looked like he was probably an awesome early rock & roll guitarist, as the cover to the collection features him doing the splits while playing the guitar behind his head. Then I was slightly disappointed to hear that he pretty much just played the blues. But now I have proper perspective. It's blues with a backing band. Horns! Some upbeat stuff that is absolutely early rock & roll! Everything about this guy tells me that he had to have been the second biggest influence on the artistic direction of Chuck Berry (the first, of course, being Marty McFly). This is a slower, more-blues-less-rock track but I keep getting it in my head. It's "Railroad Station Blues."
You know who else really ruled this blues-rock-but-not-blueshammer-style thing in the early 50s? Big Maybelle. Have you heard of her? She's the real deal. If you love a woman singing from the bottom of her being, super powerful vocals, check her stuff out. You will be glad you did. This is "Send For Me," and I don't know why that picture to accompany the song in the video is a cat. It's still the right song though, so give it a listen.
I'd be remiss if I failed to mention Muddy Waters, but I don't know that that's particularly revelatory. But obviously the "real" blues were still being played and you can't go wrong with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Lead Belly.
So in the last installment, I mentioned that Hank Williams "started rock & roll" (not really but it seemed like it in some way). In 1951 he had a radio show and recently a box set of "unreleased recordings" was released so I got it. It's a lot of awesome Hank Williams songs from this radio show. Anyway, there wasn't really much upbeat stuff in this box set, just a lot of great country sadness. So listen to him.
Jazz continued to develop in the early 50s, and I had a total of THREE full albums from 1954 in my collection. They were all jazz/swing. A couple Sinatra records were there, which of course are timeless. I associate him more with the 40s than 50s but as far as my music collection is concerned he got his start in 1953. So sure. He put out the fun Swing Easy! and then also the more ballad-driven Songs for Young Lovers. I preferred that one.
You know what the other jazz album I have from 1954 is? One that is maybe my favorite album of the history of 1899-1954. Maybe. Dust Bowl Ballads was pretty great as well. But this one, it surprised me how engaging it was to me because I'm not a huge jazz guy. And I'm a bit saddened that I don't have more representation of this guy, because he may be my favorite jazz musician: Dizzy Gillespie. The way he wails, it's the first time in my "Ear For An Era" project that I felt the need to TURN IT UP. It's meant to be played loud. The punk rock of jazz or something. The album is Afro and it is beautiful. I'll post the most famous song, the intro that shows up on all sorts of different best of comps and stuff, and that is because the album builds and morphs the themes introduced in this song. The album is full of nuance, but the intro here just gets me excited for the ride because it's so loud and brassy.
I think that'll do for this installment. I have to go to bed now. But be excited because this "rock and roll" thing is about to take off in a big way!
Other Highlights Worth Mentioning:
- I had "Steam Heat" from The Pajama Game come up, and I was going to post the clip from the movie but apparently the movie came out in 1957. Maybe I'll throw it in there next time?
- The Dominoes "Sixty Minute Man" - who knew that songs were that dirty that early on?
- Edith Piaf just keeps going. "Padam Padam" is a good song.
- Louis Prima! "Oh Marie"
- My very first taste of Sam Cooke in the project with the brief gospel song "Jesus Gave Me Water!"
- Sinatra's "South Of The Border" which just makes me think of The Simpsons because they used the song.
- Billie Holiday was still going!
- Elvis put out a few ballady songs, not really rockin yet though.
- Ray Charles got started too, but I don't really care for this super early Ray Charles stuff.
In The Next Installment...
The late 50s! Mostly this means rock and roll really gets going, with everyone from Bo Diddley to Chuck Berry to Buddy Holly to The King (and many many more!) hitting their strides and/or dying. Also looking forward to some Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Screamin' Jay Hawkins (!!), the great Lady In Satin album from Billie Holiday, a little someone called Johnny Cash...........stuff is seriously about to 'splode. I'm almost wondering if 5 years is too big a span for this, but my plan is to do 5 year spans through 64 and then a year at a time from there. We'll see if that changes.
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