Music
About this Project
For this project I will listen to one album per week moving through time at the rate of one year per week. I will post an entry in the Music – History page on my blog, http://www.jefah.com, at the end of each week.
This project is the result of my New Year’s resolution to concentrate on less and actually achieve something. The project is a combination of two desires I have held on to for a number of years.
1. Concentrating on one period of music for a week. Listen to the music, read the history, who influenced who? Where did this sound come from? What was left behind? Who took it to the top? And what did it become.
2. An old dream to tell the world of my history of modern music.
I have always wanted to take a journey through the history of modern music with only my memories and popular conceptions as a guide. In documenting the journal I should find a natural path across genres, time and taste.
Where do you pick up the story on modern music? How do you define modern music? These are parameters I had to define before starts the project. For the purpose of this project I define modern music as anything since Bill Haley and His Comets. As a child, Rock around the Clock was considered the first ever Rock song. I will use this as my bases for the beginning of this project. Rock around the Clock was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954. I will take a running start from 1953, the year they released Crazy Man, Crazy.
The resources for the project are Wikipedia and Google, but most of all I will draw from the music itself. I will sight all references to the best of my abilities.
2 Comments to Music
Sent from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
2009/4/1 >
Hi Jeff
Was intrigued by your “project” on hit songs of the 1950′s. What exactly is this project and what sort of info are you actually looking for?
After we spoke on the phone, I sat down and listed some of the songs that I can remember from way back then and the approximate years I remembered them from.
How much is that doggie in the Window – must have been 1950 -1952
Johnny Ray and his “crying” songs. First one I remember is “Crying in the Rain” from 1954 but I think it came out about 1952. He was a BIG hit at the time, probably because he was very different with his histrionics on stage. (The forerunner to singers biting off heads of canaries?) Also because he was partially deaf.
The Platters – although this was early rock n roll era, they were a phenomenon. Their harmonising was wonderful and the content of their songs was romantic. They were fairly unusual in that they achieved world wide recognition and acceptance despite being a “black group”. This was in the days of segregation in America when blacks mainly entertained blacks and whites entertained whites, however there were a few individual exceptions – Winifred Attwell – Louis Armstrong and a couple of others whose names I can’t remember.
I remember the Platters from about 1955 to 1957, but I think they may have started a little earlier and went through to about 1960.
I am talking about the original group here. Other Platter groups containing one or more members of the original group were formed later but they did not have the same impact.
There wasn’t a teen ager alive in the Western world who hadn’t heard of Bill Haley and the comets with “Rock around the Clock”
I remember this as heralding the beginning of RnR in Australia in about 1955 to 1956. We did have something like rocknroll prior to this and it was called “jiving”. In our insular early teens pretty well only bodgies and widgies jived, but with Rock around the clock everyone began jiving. “Rock around the Clock” became a true classic. It caught on quickly, once it took hold it never let go and still seems to be as well known today as it was over fifty years ago. I really can’t believe it was that long ago!
Hope this helps – let me know if you want any more. Are you interested in what sort of clothing we wore back then, e.g members of groups wearing suits and ties on stage and women formally dressed etc? Trish
jefahApril 2, 2009
I guess the aim of this project is to find those moments in musical history were something new happened and people felt it. For example, I remember a particular shower I took in my mid twenties. I had the radio playing in the background, Michael Tunn the teen aged Deejay from Triple J forward announced a track from an English band that was achieving success on the US college charts.
The song was nothing special until about half way through, when this guitar exploded out of the speakers and change music for my generation (well it was the second time this happened to my generation…the first being Nirvana).
It’s these pivotal moments that I’m trying to capture. Either personal or the masses. Though this “thing” I am exploring comes mainly from the sound and lyrics, it would be good to discuss the scene.
April 1, 2009