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3Young people could still be called up for Armed services, Elvis Presley had not yet started his run of less-well-received films and future young punks and glam stars were still in nappies.
The Fifties are thought of today as monochrome, but nothing could be further from the colourful truth. The 23 tracks on this compilation, all of them Big Hits, have soul, melody and excitement that new generations should make time to discover.
Two tracks apiece from crooners Mario Lanza, Frankie Laine and Tony Bennett (as of 2012 still performing to captivated audiences in concert halls around the world) are masterful performances of vocal technique that pervaded the decade.
Frankie’s dramatic number two hit ‘Jezebel’ (“If ever a pair of eyes promised me paradise..Leaving me blue, it was you!”) has been covered by Anna Calvi and Tom Jones sixty years after Frankie’s version sold a million copies; the latter’s ‘Rags to Riches’ is also sixty, in 2013, but people still want to rise to riches and dream impossible dreams. With strong brass resounding, Bennett raises his voice to the heavens, or to the face of a girl: “My fate is up to you”.
Metal of a different kind chimes on Ella Mae Morse’s ‘The Blacksmith Blues’, an anvil beating out a 4/4 rhythm as Ella Mae fights to get through. Perry Como (‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes’), Johnnie Ray hymning ‘The Little White Cloud that Cried’ (where the cloud advises a sad Johnnie that “The dark clouds pass with time”) and Guy Mitchell (‘My Truly, Truly Fair’) also feature on songs where vocals come to the fore in the way that these days the cooing vocals of Harry Connick, Jr and Michael Buble dominate their own music. For more soulful sounds, turn your attention to Billy Eckstine’s baritone on ‘I Apologise’ (“Give me back romance, give me one more chance”) and Nat ‘King’ Cole’s ‘Too Young’.
The gorgeous strings on Rosemary Clooney’s gorgeous ‘Half As Much’ make it the sort of song people used to slow-dance to, this despite being about unequal love where “you only build me up to let me down”, a reverse of Bruno Mars’ recent hit ‘Grenade’. Fans of ‘Half As Much’ should turn to Joni James’ ‘Why Don’t You Believe Me’, the sort of song Celine Dion would have tackled if it were written for her forty years later.
Close harmony singing, popular in the 1950s, is paramount on the Patti Page song ‘With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming’, which is as good as its title. The Mills Brothers’ ‘Glow Worm’, co-written by Johnny Mercer, is a cute tale which makes the toe tap and the mouth smile (“Light up, you little old bug of lightnin'”). Other groups whose sounds feature here at The Ames Brothers (‘Undecided’) and The Four Aces (‘It’s Not a Sin’). People don’t make this kind of music any more, where trumpets or organs, in the fairground-bandstand vibe of the latter, play off harmony-soaked vocals with jazzy suspended chords!
For something quicker to dance to, the closing track ‘Jambalaya (On the Bayou)’ is perfect, with a campfire or sea-shore chorus, and a neat change of key. After the crawfish, dessert: Eileen Barton’s clap-along If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked A Cake (“Grab a chair and fill your platter!”) is a feelgood tune that evokes the bygone era that today’s music seems to replicate artificially. Listen out for the vocal flourish at the very end, like a piece of cake being swallowed satisfyingly!
Please enjoy swaying, bopping and applauding the Fifties collection of big hit singles!