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2008/8/27 Talking about Rock and roll is here to stayThis is what I was writing about three years ago, not long after I had started this blog. So much has happened since then, but guess what! I'm still dancing!! Quote Rock and roll is here to stay 2005/12/21 One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rockBack in 1954, we learned to jitterbug to Bill Haley and The Comets' "Rock Around the Clock." This was widely regarded as the first real rock and roll song. My sister and I loved this record, one of those big vinyl 78s. We played it on the square record player in the dining room and shoved the table aside so we could dance.
Later came "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" and "See You Later Alligator." We acquired an album designed to hold 78 rpm records. Each of these huge records had only one song per side. Our record player (not a stereo, just a plain record player) didn't have the ability to hold more than one record at a time, so we had to run over after every song, lift the needle off and gently, very gently, reposition it on the record. We took such care not to scratch it! Putting records into the album was done with equal care. It was such a luxury for us to have our little collection, we sure didn't want to damage it in any way.
I was only twelve years old when that recording came out, not quite a teen, and thus was able to experience the great joy of having every minute of my teen years flavored with rock and roll. My kids once asked me if I did anything else in the '50s besides listen to R & R...because I knew (still know) the lyrics to virtually every song from that decade. My girls were raised singing and dancing to the songs I loved: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Pat Boone, Richie Valens, The Platters--and all the rest of those wonderful, wonderful artists. My daughters each had their own favorites. One loved "Short Shorts" in all its inanity. "Who loves short shorts? We love short shorts!" But you could dance to it, and as they used to say on American Bandstand, I'll give it an 8 for its strong beat.
Christina's first request, when she was about three, was for "Frozen Baby Ruth." Took me a while to figure out she was asking for "A Rose and A Baby Ruth." LOL
But, oh, the joy we had, bopping around the house to these songs, first back in the '50s when they were new and exciting; later when they, like us were becoming oldies. Heck, I still bop around the house to them.
Are you old enough to remember when rock was young? What were your favorites?
2005/8/4 Rock and roll is here to stayJust had an email from an old friend........well, he's younger than I, so maybe "long term" is a better way to state it. This friend, Chuck, gave me a wonderful gift about a year ago: a custom made CD of my favorite songs from the 50s-60s. Twenty-eight of my dream tunes are on this CD. I listen to it all the time; exercise to it; dance around the house to it; clean to it! Three songs are from the early 60s, all the others, from the 50s. What a great decade for music!
Fats Domino, Little Richard, Ray Charles, The Platters.........this was all cutting edge stuff in the 50s and how we revelled in it. Certain songs remind me of people, others, of events from that time period. "Gone" by Ferlin Husky takes me right back to a party at Joanne Halstead's house. We all danced the night away. And we are a generation that knows how to dance. When my girls were teenagers, they frequently lamented that their boyfriends couldn't dance. We 50s girls didn't have that problem, thanks to our junior high gym classes. We ALL learned the foxtrot, waltz, cha cha, etc. A huge thanks to the educational system at the time that believed gym classes were all about developing life skills, not just climbing a rope. We danced, we bowled, we had fun.
During inclement weather, our junior high held noontime dances in the gymnasium. "Be Bop a Lula" still makes me think of Potchy. What a dancer! "So Rare" plays and I'm in high school, dancing with Alan. Anything by Little Richard or Fats Domino makes me think of the Friday family. How their dad hated our music ...how we loved to torment him.
But aside from the memories they evoke, the songs themselves still have power over me. This is the music that frees my soul, as a later song proclaimed. Rock and roll can take us right out of ourselves; touch a part of us that is free and exciting (maybe just excitable??). It's the soundtrack of our lives, those of us who were teens in the 50s and 60s. Nothing since can touch it.
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