Forgotten Music: My Mother's 45s from the '50s

When I was just a few years old -- maybe 1974-75 -- I used to hang out in my older sister's room so we could listen to records together on her record player. I didn't have one. We were about four (me) and seven (sister) years old. We didn't have a lot of things to choose from. We had a few odd kids records, like Donnie & Marie and Roger Miller doing Disney's Robin Hood (which fortunately provided us with the background music for the great internet meme, Hampsterdance.com). There was also a handful of things that people who didn't know what to buy for kids would give us, like the Babes in Toyland movie soundtrack LP. We also had a cardboard box with about 30-40 of my mother's 45s from when she was a teenager in the late '50s and early '60s, and often we'd play those.

I didn't really know much about what we were playing back then. I remember sometimes picking a record because it had a pretty label -- one of them reminded me of a pack of Chuckles, and what kid doesn't like candy? My sister and I also had a few faves, most of which were among the better known titles in the box, like the great Beach Boys disc with "I Get Around" backed with "Don't Worry Baby" and Elvis doing "All Shook Up." "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" by Frankie Lymon was another fave. I remember happily listening to Danny & the Juniors' "At the Hop" even though the 45 was warped and occasionally skipped.

But not all of those records were songs you've heard of. We did listen to at least some of the rest too, albeit not as much, and lots of them were artists that even by the mid-70s ranged from vaguely familiar to obscure: The Crests, The Cleftones, The Skyliners, The Genies, etc. Major and minor league R&B and doo-wop. Stuff that doesn't even make it on mainstream oldies radio these days.

Not surprisingly, as my sister and I got older, we started listening to other things. I actually didn't even have a turntable and listened to my music on cassette tape -- a topic for another nostalgic post. My sister did have a turntable, so the 45s lived in her room, but I don't think either of us ever really played them. For one thing, they were pretty scuffed by then, having been kept in the box without sleeves and in the possession of a couple of meddling kids.

Eventually, my sister, like many others, abandoned vinyl as well. But late in college, I got my hands on a turntable and started buying records again, mostly for value. At some point, I took possession of the 45s, but they stayed in the box. Finally, one day, I pulled some out and recorded a mixed cassette for my mother with those crackling 45s. I only picked a few, probably just for one side of the tape. Even though the quality was poor, she smiled listening to some of the long-forgotten tunes. But the cassette soon went the way of the record, and mom moved on to CDs.  The mixtape likely got buried in some box in her cellar.

Well, here we are in 2011. Thanks to the wonders of technology, there are things like Grooveshark out there that allow you to type in the name of any old song and be listening to it seconds later. For some reason, the song "Come Softly to Me" by The Fleetwoods got stuck in my head, so I 'sharked it. (You might not recognize the title, but the song is pretty familiar and has been in a few big movies over the years.) Listening to the song -- Dahm dahm, dahm do dahm, dooby do -- my mind suddenly focused in on the forgotten box of 45s. It took me a few moments to remember where the things were, but I soon remembered and pulled the box out and flipped through.

Four of the 45s (clockwise from top R): "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" - Frankie Lymon; "You Cheated" - The Shields; "This is My Love" - The Passions; "Buzz-Buzz-Buzz" - Hollywood Flames

I plugged a few more names into Grooveshark, mostly forgotten songs that I vaguely remembered listening to with my sister in her room, like "Buzz-Buzz-Buzz" by The Hollywood Flames. It's a pretty kicking early rock song, complete with honky saxes and lots of vocal harmonies. This doo-wop and formative rock-n-roll music though, so much of it is almost forgotten. There were some memorable sounds made in the 50s and early 60s, but most of what your typical retro-music fan nowadays would be hunting down from that era would be jazz or blues or maybe R&B. And let's face it, the original fan base is dwindling. Without modern technology, this stuff would be even more endangered. Sites like eBay let people hunt down just about any 45, Grooveshark and other services lets you listen to songs that have been out of print for years, and blogs let us share our discoveries. I even found a couple of blog posts extolling the virtues of a B-side of one of the 45s from my mom's box that my sister and I definitely used to listen to, "Stella Got a Fella" by The Fireflies. By hanging on just long enough into the digital and interconnected age, a good portion of the music from that era will be preserved, and hopefully the worthwhile material will continue to find new fans.

Is the music worth remembering? That's a good question, but I think so. To me, some of the songs sounded awful, some were obviously great, and most fell along various points in the vast space between. That's one man's taste, though, and I'd bet that others would fall in love with something I overlooked.

While I listened to a bunch of the songs from the box of 45 from online services like YouTube and Spotify, it struck me that it would be fun to put together a playlist. My mother, for one, will enjoy, but give it a whirl and you might like it too, or at least some of it. In compiling the list, I mixed in the popular tunes as well. Still, I'm certain lots of these are new to most of you unless you were born before the Korean War broke out. Some of those more obscure songs are actually great. "You Cheated" by The Shields has been stuck in my head much of today. It's a smooth little R&B number recorded and released in 1958 by a short-lived L.A. group that had no other big hits. A young Johnny "Guitar" Watson was one of the members, as was a talented songwriter/singer/pianist named Jesse Belvin. Belvin went solo shortly after, and his career showed promise. As a musician, he filled the gap between Nat King Cole, who he styled himself after, and Sam Cooke, who Belvin became a model for. Tragically, in 1960, Jesse Belvin and his wife were killed in a head-on car crash after a performance on a bill with Cooke and Jackie Wilson, among others. After hearing is story, it is easy to imagine Belvin right up there with Wilson and Cooke had he not been so unfortunate.

(Quick aside: If you're looking for an Austin tie-in somewhere in this article, here you go: The first version of "You Cheated" was also released in 1958 but was distributed more narrowly and was a lesser hit by a band called The Slades out of Austin. Blogger Joe Troiano notes: "'You Cheated' climbed the Top 100 and reached #42 just missing the Top 40, it remained on the chart for 12 weeks. The 'B' side of their hit was a tune entitled 'THE WADDLE,' it did not chart. The Slades would not have another charted hit record as many follow-up recordings sold as well as their hit. Domino Records was a small label that didn’t have the distribution of the larger labels, making it hard to get their records to DJ’s for radio rotation and to record shops for retail sales.")

Jesse Belvin (credit: Concord Music Group)

Another cool place to find a few gems is on the B-sides, which often capture the same buttoned-up groups that sound so clean on the A-sides cutting loose a bit. "Stella" is a prime example. For 1959, the truly formative years of rock-n-roll, this song is pretty raw. The drummer locks into a hard Ringo, the guitars buzz and jangle, and the group begins and ends the song hooting and hollering and sounding like they're having a blast. No wonder these hipster garage-rock preservationists gush when they discover this long forgotten recording.

And the rest? Sure, there's also a little bit of schlock mixed in. Honestly though, most of it is pretty decent music. It would never appeal to 90+ percent of today's youth, but well-sung sweet pop songs can only be so offensive, at least to my ears.

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" - Frankie Lymon (Gee Records, 1956)

So here's the playlist. Spend a little time getting beyond the familiar Elvis and co. and you might find something new stuck in your head too. One last bit of good news? In that same box of 45s is also a stack of 20 or so promo 45s that one of my father's relatives at Warner Bros. sent him in 1974. So if you're lucky, there's a future post coming about "Biggest Part of Me" by Ambrosia and "You're as Right as Rain" by Nancy Wilson, et al.