A Great Song from 1958

The Fascinators were quite popular on the East Coast in the late 50s and early 60s. This song is the best of the best from this group, a truly outstanding DooWop ballad.

Enjoy.

I Wonder Why

This is the best video that I've seen from Dion & the Belmonts singing I Wonder Why from back in the day. I suspect it's from American Bandstand, but I'm not totally sure.



Enjoy.

February 3rd, 1959

I remember hearing the news of the plane crash that took The Big Bopper, Richie Valens, and Buddy Holly from us. I was nine years old and listening to Rock & Roll on a daily basis. We had “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper and “Come On Let’s Go” by Richie Valens on 45’s. However, we had no records by Buddy Holly & the Crickets in our modest collection. Come to think of it, I would not get any Buddy Holly songs in my collection until the early 70’s when I bought the Decca release, “Buddy Holly, A Rock & Roll Collection.” At the time of the accident, I had no idea that Dion & the Belmonts were even on the tour. It could have been mentioned on some newscast, but I don’t recall it.

I wouldn’t become aware of just how significant of a contribution Buddy Holly would leave on American popular music until the British Invasion. I knew most of his hits; but it didn’t occur to me that Holly was as important to the history Rock & Roll as he would turn out to be. I had no idea how good Richie Valens was either, not to mention the talent of one Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson aka The Big Bopper. All of this would change as I grew older and wiser.
Don McLean would call February 3rd, 1959, “the day the music died.” I’m not going to dispute that here. In fact, I just might add to the mystique of this fateful day when these three stars fell from the sky outside of Mason City Iowa. I will say this, Charles Hardin Holley, may be the most underrated Rock & Roll performer of all time. Buddy Holly had talent. Buddy Holly could play the guitar and he could write songs and better yet, he was starting to become quite a producer. I often wonder what the Rock & Roll music scene would look like today had Holly not lost his life that night. Just how far would he have gone in the business. I wonder if the events following his death would have happened in the way they did, especially the British invasion. Many British acts, including The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, and The Rolling Stones were heavily influenced by Buddy’s music.

So I guess I could go on and on about the great loss on February 3rd, 1959. Sufficient to say, the music world lost a potential rising star in Valens, a fine entertainer in the Big Bopper, and a major Rock & Roller in Buddy Holly. Let their music live on, and on, and on.

I envite you all to check out The Mystery Train Wreck; there's a link in the blogs I follow section to the right of this page. Ed has assembled some nice videos of these stars.

Way to go Chief!

One of my First 45's

The Flying Saucers Pts. 1 & 2 by Buchanan & Goodman came out in August of 1957. This was one of my brother and I's first 45's.



Enjoy.

The Passions

This is one of those groups that I actually do not remember from the time their songs were popular. Larry Miller, who did the original KADI Oldies show, told me back in 1972, that this group was quite popular in the New York area back in the late 50's and early 60's. The first time I came in contact with this song was on Laurie's "Greatest Golden Goodies" LP that I bought back in 1971. I came across this YouTube clip and thought I'd share it with all of you.



An interesting thingg about "Just to Be With You" is that the demo version of the song was sung by Carole King and Paul Simon.

Enjoy.

The Day the Music Lived

Back in late 1986 I received a package from Columbia House with a CD that I was eagerly awaiting. I hurriedly put the disc into my CD player and was stunned. I immediately called my friend Bob and shouted out, 'listen to this, Buddy Holly is alive and singing in my living room.'

The disc was "Buddy Holly, From the Original Master Tapes on MCA. At the time I had not heard a lot of music on CD. And while a lot of people were complaining about the coldness of digital reproduction, I was taking a different approach. This technology was allowing me to hear things I'd never heard before on vinyl records. This would continue over time with other CDs that I have in my collection; some of them I will mention from time to time. And while I know there has been another Buddy Holly CD set that actually improved on the sound quality of this CD, I have a warm spot in my heart for this disc.

So, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper, I like to remember that day the music lived in my living room.

Our Record Players

I was talking the other day about the record players we had back in the day. My buddy reminded me that record companies made record players under their name. What more likely happened is a few companies made the players and put more familiar names on the outside of the outfit. Even Lionel made record players in the early 60's. Here's a picture of an RCA 45 only record player from the 50's. The guts of the machine look very much like the Decca record player my family had. Of course, after a while we had to put a bottle opener on the tone arm in order to play the records without scratching them. Sure wish I still had the old Decca.

Decca also made guitars back in the 50's.

A Teenager in Love

I thought this might be a goodie for this New Years Eve.



Enjoy.