In the early 1950s, Fats
Domino began making the charts, first in R & B, then in Pop.
Nat King Cole's
records were topping the best-seller list. "Too young" held the top
place on Your Hit Parade for four consecutive weeks in 1951.
From 1951 to 1960, Muddy
Waters assembled the greatest collection of electric blues recordings
ever made.
Composer, producer, arranger, bass player, recording artist, session
musician, talent scout, and bandleader for Chess records in the 1950s and
early 1960s, Willie Dixon did
more to shape postwar Chicago blues than perhaps any other artist save
Muddy Waters.
Before Patsy Cline, Loretta
Lynn and Tammy Wynette,
there was Kitty Wells. Her 1952
recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" became the first
No. 1 Billboard country hit for a solo female artist. She was the first
female to sell a million records.
In 1952, Sam
Phillips began Sun Records. In his Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue
in Memphis,
Tennessee, he recorded future blues greats B.
B. King and
Howlin'
Wolf. He also discovered Carl
Perkins, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Johnny
Cash, Roy Orbison and, in the
mid-1950s, Phillips and Elvis
Presley changed the course of popular music forever.
One of the great pioneers of Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s was Little
Richard from Macon, Georgia.
CORDELL JACKSON
- The first female to write, sing, arrange, accompany, record, engineer,
produce, and distribute her own music.
Like so many of his contemporaries in rock 'n' roll, the young Gene
Vincent served an apprenticeship amidst a poor community in the deep
South, integrating his country music roots with the rhythms of R &
B.
Between 1955 and 1959, Chuck Berry
from St. Louis produced such top 10 hits as "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Rock
And Roll Music," and "Johnny B. Goode."
Self described as the "world's oldest teenager," Rufus
Thomas started out performing with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in the
mid-30s. He released "Bear Cat" in the 50s on Sun Records and "Walking
The Dog" in the 60s on Stax records.
Jimmy Reed
was one of the most influential bluesmen of the post-World War II period.
Reed sold more records in the 1950s and early 1960s than any other blues
artist save B. B. King.
Miles Davis grew up in a middle-class
family in East St. Louis. Miles Davis said that the greatest musical
experience of his life was hearing the Billy Eckstine Orchestra (with Dizzy
Gillespie and Charlie Parker) when it passed through St. Louis.
John Coltrane's spirit inhabits
his sound--a sound so astonishingly individual and powerful that it has
endured mightily since those club dates in the 50s and 60s when it was
reported to have hypnotized audience members who ranged from the uninitiated
of jazz to the aficionados; a sound that continues to melt hearts, open
minds, and unleash passions.
Patsy Cline began recording for Four
Star Records in 1955.
Hank Cochran has had over a
thousand songs recorded by such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Patsy Cline,
Willie Nelson, and Elvis Presley.
Buddy Holly
, a man destined for success, was killed in an aircraft crash in 1959.
The news that Holly, Richie
Valens, and the Big Bopper, among others, were killed in a plane crash,
stunned millions of fans all over the world. The void left in music
history will never be filled. All three were at the peak of their
popularity and had collectively, in 12 months, sold over 10 million records
worldwide.
