Lamby's History of Rock, Pop & Soul

A Wise Lamb's Silly-Serious Tour
of American Music from 1950s - 2010s

What Happened During All Them Years?

In Lamby's Words...

At this point the world was beginning to recover from the Second World War. During the early 1950s in the United States, manufacturing and home construction was on the rise as the American economy was on the upswing. The Korean War and the beginning of the Cold War created a politically conservative climate. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States played out through the entire decade. The Red Scare, fear of communism, caused public Congressional hearings by both houses in Congress and Anti-Communism was the prevailing sentiment in the United States throughout the decade(hence the need to intervene the Vietnamese War and the Korean War). Conformity and conservatism characterized the social mores of the time.

The 1950s in the developed western world are generally considered both socially conservative and highly materialistic in nature.[citation needed] The beginning of decolonization in Africa and Asia occurred in this decade and accelerated in the following decade of the 1960s. The 1950 congressional seminar gave way to the new focus of contention between communist and democratic ideology. Through which multiple instances of terminal interests, but never became an open conflict. President Kennedy had asserted himself in a position that left the United States effective in seeing out peaceful resolutions to previously violent tactics.

Rock-n-Roll

Rock-n-Roll emerged in the mid-50s as the teen music of choice with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochrane, Brenda Lee, Bobby Vee, Connie Frances, Johnny Mathis, Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson being notable exponents.

Elvis Presley In the mid-1950s Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. Chuck Berry, with "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Johnny Horton, and Marty Robbins were Rockabilly musicians. Doo Wop was another popular genre at the time. Popular Doo Wop and Rock-n-Roll bands of the mid to late 1950s include The Platters, The Flamingos, The Dells, The Silhouettes, Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Danny and the Juniors, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Del-Vikings and Dion and the Belmonts.

Jazz stars in the 1950s who came into prominence in their genres called Bebop, Hard bop, Cool jazz and the Blues, at this time included Lester Young, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Gil Evans, Jerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey, Max Roach, the Miles Davis Quintet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday.

The American folk music revival became a phenomenon in the United States in the 1950s to mid-1960s with the initial success of the Weavers who popularized the genre. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and topical songs inspired other groups such as the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, New Christy Minstrels, and the "collegiate folk" groups such as The Brothers Four, The Four Freshmen, The Four Preps, and The Highwaymen. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and topical songs.

On 3 February 1959, a chartered plane transporting the three American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four occupants on board, including pilot Roger Peterson. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1972 song "American Pie".

More Information about the Musicians of the 1950s

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