So many music posts, very few dealing with the 50s music scene

Furryanimal said:
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Aha, I just posted this in the alphabetical songs thread and came here to ask a specific question about this song.

I've always read that when teenagers in the States saw The Blackboard Jungle in theaters and heard this song they went absolutely wild, tearing up chairs, etc. I've always found that hard to believe, for several reasons, but I've seen this claim repeated in many books, although it's never backed up by a formally cited source (at least, not to my knowledge, it hasn't).

Can anyone here confirm whether this is true, or at least share whether you have heard this?
 
spookycat said:
I looked it up online, several posts about it. Did cause quite a stir when it came out, both in US and UK.
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Hm. I found it online, too, but with questionable sources (e.g., Wikipedia). From what I've read it sounds like teen audiences were reacting to the movie itself and not to the song. I'll keep looking.
 
I remember seeing Blackboard Jungle (1955) in the theater when it came out. Although that great R&B early Rock 'n' Roll song "Rock Around the Clock" tended to get a rise out of teenaged audiences, I don't recall any physical audience response except a little swaying and foot tapping. After all, it's a great pounding rhythmic song with heavy double back beat rim shots every two bars. The song will get you going.

I did read reports of violence in England after a few towns had banned the movie. The film was pretty radical stuff for 1955, and there were several films in the mid-1950s that were innovative and had great response by teenaged audiences: The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause, The Man with the Golden Arm, and others. It was a great era really.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
This is one of my favorite slow songs.


And one of my favorite up tempo ones (though this may have come out in the early 60s)
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One of my dance favourites of that era: Jackie Wilson: Reet Petite. Another from the same era that always filled a dance floor was Little Richard: Girl Can't Help It.
Question: What have all these popular songs got in common?All Shook Up, Breathless, Don't Be Cruel, Fever, Great Balls of Fire, Handy Man,(which he wrote with Jimmy Jones,) Return to Sender and more that I need to look up. Old age and memory and all that.
Here's Peggy Lee singing Fever. Jerry Lee Lewis blowing away the cobwebs with Great Balls of Fire. And so many more.
The answer is that they were all penned by the musical genius Otis Blackwell, here he is singing his own version of: Don't be Cruel.
 
horseless carriage said:
One of my dance favourites of that era: Jackie Wilson: Reet Petite. Another from the same era that always filled a dance floor was Little Richard: Girl Can't Help It.
Question: What have all these popular songs got in common?All Shook Up, Breathless, Don't Be Cruel, Fever, Great Balls of Fire, Handy Man,(which he wrote with Jimmy Jones,) Return to Sender and more that I need to look up. Old age and memory and all that.
Here's Peggy Lee singing Fever. Jerry Lee Lewis blowing away the cobwebs with Great Balls of Fire. And so many more.
The answer is that they were all penned by the musical genius Otis Blackwell, here he is singing his own version of: Don't be Cruel.
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I never knew that! Great song writer!
 
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