Frank Sinatra
Nancy (Withe the Laughing Face); Theme from New York, New York
Eddy Arnold
Make the World Go Away
Louis Jordan
Choo Choo Ch’Boogie
Muddy Waters
I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man
Fats Domino
Tuttie Frutti; I’m Walking; Blueberry Hill
“Big Mama” Thornton
Hound Dog
Connie Frances
Who’s Sorry Now?
Crystals
Uptown (Phil Spector Production)
Elvis Presley
Don’t Be Cruel; Hound Dog
The Dominoes
Sixty Minute Man; Have Mercy Baby
The Rolling Stones
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass
The Lonely Bull; A Taste of Honey
Charles Brown
Black Night
Buddy Holly
Peggy Sue; That’ll Be the Day
Ray Barretto
El Watusi
Ruth Brown
Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean
The Beach Boys
Surfin’ USA; Good Vibrations
Ramon Santamaria
Watermelon Man
Ritchie Valens
La Bamba
The Weavers
Goodnight Irene
Bill Haley
Rock Around the Clock
Kitty Wells
It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels
Wanda Jackson
Lets Have a Party
Hank Williams
I’m so Lonesome, I Could Cry; Hey, Good Lookin’
Joao Gilberto
The Girl from Ipanema
Ike Turner
Rocket 88 (First rock song)
The Coasters
Charlie Brown
Nat “King” Cole
Unforgettable; Mona Lisa
Chuck Berry
Maybellene; Johhny B. Goode
The Beatles
Please Please Me; A Hard Days Night; Yesterday; Eleanor Rigby
Bill Monroe
It’s Mighty Dark to Travel
Perez Prado
Mambo No. 5
The Supremes
You Can’t Hurry Love (Motown)
Little Richard
Long Tall Sally
Ronettes
Be My Baby (Phil Spector Production)
Chubby Checker
The Twist
The Temptations
My Girl (Motown)
“Top 40” Radio Programming
another attempt to control the uncertainty of the marketplace. Developed in the early 1950s by Todd Storz, a disc jockey in Omaha, Nebraska.
Payola
record companies paid DJs to put their records into “heavy rotation”
New Technology
identity
Magnetic tape
used in recording studios that made higher quality sound
FM Radio
frequency modulation, great sounding radio better than AM
LPs
long playing records. 12 inch disks. 20-25 minutes of recordings on each side of record
45s
revolution per minute. Could be stacked and automatically went to next one
Television
helped artists gain national popularity
Bobby soxers
thousands of teenage girl fans of Sinatra and the Goodman band
Billboard: A music trade journal
an advertisement that appeared in the music trade journal. First ratings of songs like the top 40
“Rhythm & Blues” and “Country & Western”
new terms used by Billboard as more dignified and up-to-date replacements for “Race” and “Hillbilly,” respectively.
WDIA, Memphis
first radio station dedicated exclusively to playing music for a black audience. Featuring the popular blues musician and disk jockey B.B. King.
“covering” a song or “cover version”
crucial to the increasing crossover success of black music during the 1950’s
jump blues
the first commercially successful category of rhythm and blues, flourished during and just after WWII.
Rock’n’Roll
first used for commercial and generational purposes by disk jockey Alan Freed. Derived from rocking and rollin. Used to describe records.
Alan Freed
was an EJ. Got caught up in the payola scandals. Was accepting bribes for playing records on the radio station. First guy to popularize the term, “Rock and Roll.”
cover version
two versions of the same song sang by two different artists. (Usually white artist covering a black artists song)(whites sold more)
solid-body electric guitar
the first commercially produced was the Fender Broadcaster (soon renamed the Telecaster), a brainchild of Leo Fender and George Fullerton. Was released in 1948, featured two electronic pickups, knobs to control volume and tone (timbre), and a switch that allowed the two pickups to be used alone or together
the twist
irst popular non partner dance. Teen-oriented rock ‘n’ roll song sin a twelve-bar blues structure; it celebrated a simple, hip-swiveling dance step that was gaining some popularity among young African Americans.
Chubby Checker
second artist to come out with the twist. Made it very popular. Covered it. Real name was Ernest Evans.
American Bandstand
young people had opportunity to observe dance and songs on it.
Phil Spector
had a Number One record as a member of a vocal group, the Teddy Bears, whose hit song “To Know Him Is to Love Him” was also composed and produced by Spector. Record producer who came out with Philles Records and who brought depth of meaning to the phrase “in charge.” The wall of sound.
Phillies Records
helped establish a new and important model for the production and marketing of pop records. Phil Spector’s recording company.
“Wall of Sound”
the characteristic Phillies sound was remarkably dense and remarkably clear, and it became known as this. Spector achieved this effect by having multiple instruments- pianos, guitars, and so forth–doubling each individual part in the arrangement, and by using a huge amount of echo, while carefully controlling the overall balance of the record so that the vocals were pushed clearly to the front.
teenage symphonies
it was at this point that what you bought on a record from a store was much different than what you heard live. Very popular. Recordings varied from concerts to studio, did more in studio (more instruments)
Gold Star Studios
Spector’s own preferred recording venue in Los Angeles. The studio musicians with whom Spector worked regularly with at Gold Star Studios came to be known as the “wrecking crew”
“wrecking crew”
the studio musicians with whom Spector worked with regularly at Gold Stat Studios. individually and collectively they made essential contributions to a remarkable number of hit records from the 1960s on. Among the best known of these musicians are Hal Blaine, drummer; Carol Kaye, bassist; and Jack Nitzsche, arranger and percussionist.
Berry Gordy
created his own songwriting/producing/marketing organization alined lines directly analogous to Philles Records. Created Motown.
Motown
songwriting/producing/marketing organization that came to be a success story that surpassed even that of Philles; more importantly it came to be the most stunning success story in the entire history of African American businesses in this country.
Funk Brothers
Motown’s sterling house band. The assured that the highest level of instrumental musicianship was always present to back up and inspire the vocal performers. Bass player James Jamerson, drummer Benny Benjamin, and keyboardist Earl Van Dyke were among the most important contributors to the Motown sound.
Brian Wilson
formed the Beach Boys with his two brothers, a cousin, and a friend in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. He was the songwriter, arranger, producer, and performer, he was the guiding spirit of the Beach Boys during the first decade of the group’s existence, when their artistic and commercial importance and influence were at a peak.
The Beach Boys
band achieved notational chart hits within a year and thrived right through the period of the “British Invasion” to become not only the bestselling American group of the 1960s but probably the most nationally and internationally celebrated American rock group ever–certainly the one with the longest history of chart success.
second generation rock’n’roller
Brian wilson was the first second-generation rock ‘n’ roller. He made new group by deliberately moving the lyrics and music of his own songs beyond the territory carved for him. Other second-generation rock ‘n’ rollers included the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and other bands)
The Beatles
achieved a stable lineup by 1962 consisting of John Lennon and George Harrison (lead and rhythm guitars and vocals), Paul McCartney (bass and vocals), and Ringo Starr (drums and occasional vocals).
British Invasion bands
included the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Who, the Kinks, and Eric Clapton all remained closer to these roots, on the whole, during their careers than did the Beatles.
concept album
an album conceived as an integrated whole, with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence (The listening sequence was easier to mandate, obviously, in the days of long-playing records with two numbered sides, played on phonographs without remote controls, than in today’s world of single-sided compacted discs and iPods.)
Latin soul
this music pushed its way onto the pop charts in 1963. The biggest hit was “Watermelon Man,” recorded by Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria.
bassa nova
the Brazilian genre which gave rise to mass popularity in the early 1960’s. Was a blend of samba rhythms, a sophisticated Brazilian tradition of song composition, and the west coast style of modern jazz, which emphasized relaxed tempos, sophisticated harmonies, and a cool, cerebral emotional atmosphere.
ameriachi
Latin-American stream music. Very popular in the 60’s. “The Lonely Bull” is an instructive example of the Tijuana Brass’ “Ameriachi” sound. The recordings open with crowd sounds recorded at a bullfight, an audio vert experience meant to temporarily relocate the listener to Mexico.