never banned from airplay and, at the time, everybody loved the song.
Hank Williams What a great rhyme scheme! Life was simpler then...
Somewhere arounfd 1956, my friend's Father hooked up a 75' arial to the family radio –and we discovered Memphis radio. No more white guys like Pat Boone singing Tutti Fruitti. We had discovered Little Richard and a new world of music. No more polka music!
The music was blasted north from Rosarito Beach, south of Tijuana on a nighttime clear channel 250,000 watts
The Wolfman's babble (''Dis is da Wolfman talkin' atcha'') and greasy rhythm and blues and rock-and-roll blasted into the hearts of the white middle-class teen market across the US
when traditional radio stations refused to play 'Race Music."
SAM PHILLIPS...He recorded music by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and, most famously, saw the potential in a teenage Elvis Presley when he walked through the Sun Studio doors in 1954.
Thanks to my high school friend & his Dad who rigged up a radio that coud pick up Memphis radio, Rock & Roll arrived in our little Wisconsin farm town.
Early Chuck Berry
Buddy Holly
Janis Martin -The "Female Elvis."
Bill grew up with a steady diet of country music and polkas. Then one magical day in the mid-50s, my friend's dad rigged up a 75' arial to their massive radio and we discovered something called "Rock and Roll!" It was magic! While I had once promised never to listen to another polka in my lifetime, I have discovered an alt-polka band and they are great fun-the Chardon Polka Band (Texas) is on the far right of this page and they are a hoot (in small quantities). A couple of my selections (below) are not live performances but hey, it was the 50s.
Let's face it. Bill is older than dirt! the only possible good thing about it is that it allows me to chronicle the music of my lifetime with politics, films music and hockey.
For the record, this post is not a list of "top 100' songs. What it is is a slightly quirky collection od music I have enjoyed over the years. Some, I suspect you have never heard and there will be a few selections that may prompt you to question my taste, sanity— or
both! Feel free to e-mail me at bill@mlrh.com Let me have
your best shot!
Waylon Jennins talks about the night he missed the tragic flight...
When Bill was a kid, it was a 6-team NHL
and Gordie Howe was the man...
The "Six Fat Dutchman" were rock stars in the 1950s in Watertown, Wisconsin...YIKES!
