The 1950s. The dawning of a new era in popular music. The birth of rock & roll. James Brown and Chuck Berry. Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. In 1958, Billboard released its first newly consolidated ranking of all pop music, and the number spot was held by Ricky Nelson’s "Poor Little Fool.” It was guitar-based. James Burton was playing.
The Jordanaires, who sang background for Elvis, were echoing Nelson’s easy, casual delivery. As if rock needed a formal declaration of its newfound dominance, Ricky Nelson and Billboard provided it.
It's easy to look back at those years in the latter half of the 1950s and forget that there were dozens and dozens of outstanding musical acts that would help the new genre mature very rapidly. It wasn’t just Elvis and Buddy and Chuck and James who introduced traditional African American R&B into the cultural bloodstream. It wasn’t just a handful of iconic performers who prepared the way for the British Invasion that would change everything a decade later. There were plenty lots of them.
These original songs from the 1950s deserve so much more love
Since there are far too many outstanding, mostly forgotten songs from the era, we’ll carve them up into some bite-sized pieces. Today, we’ll begin with five original recordings that would lead to better-known covers by rock & rollers in the years that followed. These songs were by no means unknown in their day, but they would eventually be overshadowed.
I recently wrote a tribute piece to the multi-talented musician Leon Russell, who cut his teeth playing on some records like the ones we will be discussing in the 1950s. Russell would go on to have a successful career as a recording artist himself, but by the end of the millennium, he had been forgotten by a great many music fans.
His reputation was resurrected by Elton John, who considered Russell a giant. Elton said that as much as he loved soul singer Donny Hathaway, he had grown tired of people assuming that “A Song For You” was a Hathaway original just because he had success with it. “A Song For You” was a Leon Russell song, and Elton wanted everyone to remember that.
I’m not claiming the five songs that follow are better than the more famous covers. I just want fans to know that these were outstanding in their own right – and that these came first.
“I Hear You Knocking” by Smiley Lewis (1955)
New Orleans bandleader Dave Bartholomew wrote this song about an ex-lover who is trying to make a return, only to be rebuffed. New Orleans guitarist Smiley Lewis gave the song a wonderfully defiant, languid rendition in 1955. Lewis’ guitar is barely a presence, but there are some strong jazzy horns and a great jump piano played by a musician who you might just be hearing from in a few minutes.
Lewis’ vocal sells the hell out of this song, especially on the chorus when he easily reaches into his upper register to tell his pursuer to “go back where you have been.”
Fifteen years later, when Britpop rocker Dave Edmunds needed a single, he turned back to Dave Bartholomew and Smiley Lewis. His electric rock & blues guitar kicks off a new version of an old song. In addition to singing, Edmunds plays all the instruments.
The song became his biggest hit, getting to Number One in the UK and Ireland and landing in the top five throughout much of the rest of the world, including in the USA. Gentleman that he is, Edmunds gives a shout-out to Lewis in the middle, placing him in between legends Fats Domino and Chuck Berry.
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