And away, we go…
1955
The first year of my slightly ambitious project. It wasn’t an especially great year for albums needless to say. Indeed I only have fifteen albums listed this year (I’ll only have twenty for next year, meaning my first true top twenty-five will be in 1957).
Event of the year: Marilyn Monroe’s skirt blows up.
Fad: Smelly Dave Crockett coonskin caps.
Babe of the Year: Peter Pan
Scandal of the Year: There are gay men in Boise, Idaho, and Rock Hudson didn’t even know about it.
Movie or TV show to barf to: Mickey Mouse Club
What we could have done without: Duck and Cover
Pet of the year: Lassie
Other Tidbits: James Dean becomes a teen idol in death, The US capital is moved to Disneyland, Lunatics wearing coonskin caps mug Mickey Mouse, Winston Churchill takes his marbles and goes home, Johnny Cash shoots a man in Reno just to watch him die, US and China play Chicken over Formosa and Taiwan loses, Marty McFly invents rock n roll, Chuck Berry becomes a duck.
Again, things were just starting up so this is an abbreviated list. I’ll mention some highlights at the bottom of the list. So you ready, Steve? Here we go…
1) Bill Haley and the Comets- Rock Around the Clock
2) Clifford Brown and Max Roach- Study in Brown
3) Julie London- Julie is Her Name
4) Modern Jazz Quartet- Concorde
5) Louis Armstrong- Satch Plays Fats
6) Fats Domino- Rockin and Rollin With Fats Domino
7) Miles Davis- Blue Moods
8) Billie Holiday- Music For Torching
9) Frank Sinatra- In the Wee Small Hours
10) Kenny Dorham- Afro Cuban
11) Sarah Vaughan- In the Land of Hi-Fi
12) Webb Pierce- Webb Pierce
13) Dinah Washington- For Those in Love
14) Errol Garner- Contrasts
15) Thelonious Monk- Plays the Music of Duke Ellington
Highlights- As noted before this is a pretty lean year but what do you expect when record albums and rock and roll were just starting out? It was a great year for singles though as I could rave about the singles from the likes of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and all sorts of rhythm and blues artists. Album wise though, it’s mostly more of what might have been described as easy listening later. Rock Around the Clock, at number one, is obviously one of the exceptions. It’s basically a greatest hits package and certainly listenable, but the truth is, even a few years from now, it wouldn’t even get so much as a mention. Still there are some surprises such as Study in Brown (see biggest surprise), and even Julie London who, at least for this year, was the ultimate torch queen.
It gets a little tougher once I get past Billie Holiday (another great torch queen). Nine through fifteen are not great albums by any length of the imagination. They’re on here mainly because they were better than anything else I heard this year. I also notice early on that it’s hard to discern one jazz track from another without a very close listen. I find it’s best to let the jazz albums in particular flow and I’m going to be finding some surprising classics from now until 1966 and even 1970 (yeah, I did love Bitches’ Brew, Occult). Even this year has an early gem (again see biggest surprise).
Biggest Surprise- Clifford Brown and Max Roach- Study in Brown.
This album really stands out in what is a very lean year. Jazz was still trying to get into the hard bop rhythm. This album comes closest to the cool sounds I’ll be hearing from the likes of Coltrane and Mingus in particular.
Biggest Disappointment- Thelonious Monk in general.
I was hoping to like him but basically it’s just a lot of piano to me. That will only work a couple times for me.
Stinker of the Year- Gene Autry- Trusty the Rocking Horse and Bucking Bronco.
Okay, this album must be so bad I can’t even find it on YouTube so I’ll go with his wonderful holiday songs of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Peter Cottontail. He wasn’t back in the saddle with stinkers like those and I’m sure he wasn’t with this album either.
So I guess that’s it for 1955. I hope I got off to a good start. I’ll post my favorite twenty of 1956 (another lean year) later this week.