Getting lost in the ‘50s (and ’60s …)

In 1950, as an 18-year-old commuting daily from Long Beach to USC in downtown L.A. in a 1947 Oldsmobile station wagon woody before moving onto campus, I listened raptly over radio KMPC to Teresa Brewer sing "Music, Music, Music." And Billie Eckstine sing My Foolish Heart. And the four Ames Brothers sing Rag Mop. KMPC because Dick Whittinghill was the morning DJ and he'd sung with the Pied Pipers quartet during the fabled Tommy Dorsey/Sinatra years ("I'll Be Seeing You", "I'll Never Smile Again", "There Are Such Things"). I loved Sinatra partnering with the Pied Pipers. But in 1942 Frankie, just 26, said "I've been hosed by that trombone once too often" and quit Dorsey to start singing solo. And Tommy said, "I hope he falls on his ass."

We current-day codgers fortunate enough to have had a mom who collected pop recordings grew up to a soundtrack of Pearl Bailey, the Ink Spots, the King Cole Trio, Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, Harry Belafonte, early Peggy Lee, The Mills Brothers, Rosy Clooney, Glenn Miller, Jo Stafford, Harry James, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday. Ah, those were the days.

But wait! Lostin the '50s is coming. So, naturally, downtown Sandpoint will be reverberating to rock 'n' roll. I mean, that was the ’50s, right? Post Elvis — '56 to 1960, right? Well, half right.

In Albany, Georgia, where the great Ray Charles was born, as a USAF journalist in 1951 (Korean War), I briefly hosted a military news/music show over a downtown radio station. I played Satchmo's "All In The Game", Johnny Ray's "Little White Cloud That Cried", Nat Cole's "Too Young", folk hits by The Weavers (progenitors of Peter Paul and Mary, The Kingston Trio, Simon & Garfunkel and others), and Ethel Merman belting out songs from Broadway's "Call Me Madam". About that same time, in blue basic airman uniform, I hitch-hiked via highway and military aircraft from Albany to Long Beach, California, on my first "leave" home. A long, lonely night was spent snuggled next to a Wurlitzer jukebox at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama, listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford's "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" while awaiting a free Air Force lift to Arizona. In Phoenix I said the hell with hitchhiking and hopped on a Greyhound to L.A.

In the Continental Room of an Albany Hotel in late 1952, a Dixieland school teacher named Coota and I jitterbugged vigorously and often to The Mills Brothers' "Glow-worm". (Coota's Georgia Wesleyan College roommate was 1953 Miss America, Neva Jane Langley, but I never jitterbugged with her). Kay Starr's "Side By Side", "I Love Paris", and "Bonaparte's Retreat" were on the jukebox, along with Patti Page's huge hit, "Tennessee Waltz" and, unfortunately, Patti's "How Much is That Doggie in the Window" — replete with faux arf, arf, arfs. As luck would have it, "Memories Are Made Of This", sung by suave rat packer Dean Martin, was a pop hit in 1955, a year before Elvis burst upon the national psyche with "Hound Dog," "Heartbreak Hotel", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Don't Be Cruel", and "Love Me Tender" — all at once. Rock 'n' roll then proceeded to replace the pop genre that we few remaining curmudgeons knew and loved. Yet Dino sang that song in 1955 — proof enough that many 1950s musical memories were made pre-Presley. And after.

Although relegated since 1956 to playing second-fiddle to rock stars, that year, like those just proceeding it, produced great memory makers for non-Elvis renegades. Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison singing hits like "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" from the 1956 Broadway blockbuster, "My Fair Lady"; Doris Day chirping "Que Sera, Sera"; "Moments to Remember" by The Four Lads, a revival of "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino, "Fever" by Miss Peggy Lee and Bobby Darin's epic "Mack The Knife". Not to mention, although we will, "My Prayer" and "Twilight Time" by The Platters, "Tom Dooley" by The Kingston Trio, "Hey There" by Rosemary Clooney, and "Who's Sorry Now" by Connie Francis. (We need not laud Connie's "Stupid Cupid" or David Seville's "The Chipmunk Song".)

Back in sunny SoCal as a randy collegian, record players featured The Four Freshman harmonizing "It's A Blue World" and "It Happened Once Before" at parties where fake scholars like me fell in and out of love with slow-dancing coeds. And so it went. Today, if I put my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone, I could probably round up six, seven, maybe 10 ancient Sandpoint "Guys and Dolls" (Broadway — November, 1950) who would applaud pre-Presley and post-Presley ’50s memory joggers if played over downtown loudspeakers during Lost in the ’50s. But the odds are not in our favor. And that's OK. Truth is, we oldsters dig The Everly Brothers, Bill Haley and The Comets, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry (e.g. "My Ding-A-Ling").

Just don't tell our kids. Or grandkids. Or their kids.

TIM H. HENNEY

Sandpoint