We have been looking into the "Hit Parade" for the Swing and Rock'n'Roll Era (i.e. 1935-1959). Guess what: You would be TOTALLY WRONG if you believed that:

• In 1935, Duke Ellington was selling a lot of copies A-Train or
• In 1937, Cab Calloway was playing to SRO crowds at the Cotton Club. He MUST have had a blockbuster hit with Minnie the Moocher
• In 1938, Benny Goodman played the legendary Carnegie Hall Concert. He DEFINITELY was on the charts big time with Sing, Sing, Sing
• During the War, everybody was jitterbugging to In the Mood
• Louis Jordan must have had a whole long string of mega hits with Choo Choo Ch'Boogie,Saturday Night Fish Fry,or Caldonia
• Louis Prima and Keely Smith must have been regularly in the top ten, especially with Jump, Jive, and Wail
• Chuck Berry must have had at least one big hit (maybe Johnny B. Goode?)

All of those statements are TOTALLY FALSE! Virtually NONE of the songs that we love to dance to ever got anywhere near the top of the Pop Charts!!! In fact, from 1950 through 1959, only 8 Lindy-danceable songs made the Overall Top Ten for these years (that's 8 out of 100!). For a week or two, some of the songs that we love may have come close to the top, but when sales are considered for the whole year, generally uptempo killer-dillers lose out.

In Case you are interested, they are:

1. Mona Lisa, Nat King Cole, 1950, #5
2. How High the Moon,Les Paul, 1951, #2
3. Sh-Boom,Crew Cuts, 1954, #5
4. Rock Around the Clock,Bill Haley, 1955, #1
5. Don't be Cruel,Elvis Presley, 1956, #1
6. All Shook Up,Elvis Presley, 1959, #9
7. At The Hop,Danny and the Juniors,1958, #10
8. Mack the Knife,Bobby Darin, 1959, #1

People had a taste for nostalgia (Yellow Rose of Texas), sentiment (Oh My Papa), movie themes (Tammy), and outright schlock (Witch Doctor).

Hot numbers and "edge" didn't sell records. Elvis had only three Yearly Top Ten hits during 1955-1959. The Platters had four , and the Everley Brothers and Johnny Mathis had two, as did Latin star Perez Prado.

There are actually four Big Band hits during 1955-1959 (Lisbon Antigua, Canadian Sunset, Moonglow/Picnic, and So Rare) I think that Jimmy Dorsey's So Rare which was #9 for 1957 was the last major hit for a Swing Era big band.

Haven't People Come to Learn What is Good?

Several years ago, the now defunct Oldies 100 (WBIG-FM) produced a brochure that contained their "Big 500 Oldies of All Time" -- that would be from the time that they were released to about 1999. For what it's worth, very few Lindy-danceable songs made this list. Of 500 songs, I count only 15 that are even marginally danceable! Here they are:

• #2 American Pie, Don Mclean, 1972 (marginal)
• #9 Mack the Knife, Bobby Darin, 1959
• #26 Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry, 1958
• #34 Rock Around the Clock,Bill Haley, 1955
• #81 Don't Be Cruel, Elvis Presley, 1956
• #116 Peggy Sue, Buddy Holly, 1958
• #146 Maybelline, Chuck Berry, 1958
• #258 Rockin' Pneumonia, Johnny Rivers, 1973
• #327 Rave On, Buddy Holly, 1958
• #338 Jail House Rock, Elvis Presley, 1957
• #392 Yakety Yak, The Coasters, 1958
• #422 Green Onions, Booker T and the MGs,1962 (marginal)
• #427 Devil with a Blue Dress, Mitch Ryder, 1966
• #445 That'll be the Day, Buddy Holly, 1957
• #490 Your Mama Don't Dance, Loggins & Messina, 1973 (marginal)

So, What Is a "Hit Parade", anyway?

Your Hit Parade was a popular American radio and television program, sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes and broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and 1950 to 1959 on television.

Each Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and best selling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and other favorite songs from the past were known as "Lucky Strike Extras." During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups.

Listeners were informed that:

The survey checks the best sellers on sheet music and phonograph records, the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines, an accurate, authentic tabulation of America's taste in popular music.

As far as sheet music is concerned, Who would think of buying the sheet music for Sing,Sing, Sing? As far as airplay goes, most jive records were kept off the air -- black artists were discriminated against, Rock and Roll was the tool of the devil, etc. In other words, the "survey" had a lot of flaws.

Another source of information about popular musical tastes was a magazine called Hit Parader that was issued on a monthly basis. The magazine contained the lyrics to popular songs and various articles about personalities in the music industry. Copies of Hit Parader are somewhat collectible, especially if the star featured on the cover has a cult following. The magazine was first published in 1942 and survives to this day, but is largely unrecognizable from its former incarntation, now embellished with the sort of Doom and Gloom graphics favored by teenage boys who eat too many cheez curls.

Here are some representative magazines that I have collected. You can click to enlarge each cover to have a look at the songs that were popular that month:

        

The Early 1940s
Feb, 1943, Dec 1943,March 1944, Sept. 1944

        

The Late 1940s
March 1945, October 1947, August 1948, December 1949

        

The Early 1950s
April 1951, April 1952,December 1952, October 1953

        

The Mid 1950s
July, 1954, December 1956,February, 1958 April, 1958

     

The Late 1950s
May 1958, November 1958, July 1959
Click to Enlarge

Here are sources for Hit Parade information from the past.

• For the yearly best from the Your Hit Parade Radio and TV Show, 1935-1955 click here. This site also has a stunning amount of information about Big Bands.
• For the yearly best from Billboard Magazine, 1962-1972, click here. This site actually lists the Top 100 AND has lyrics for all the songs. If a particular song was an "instrumental", the site has a downloadable MP3 soundbite)

I guess that you have noted that the websites listed above have a "gap" between 1955 and 1962. We found a source for some of the missing years:

The Good Old Days, Time Life Books,1996, ISBN 0-7835-4845-1, especially p 186

Without further ado, here are the years, 1955 - 1959. We have included one overlap year (1955) so you can compare the results with those from " Your Hit Parade" Table entries are the overall best sellers for the calendar year as tabulated by Cash Box magazine

1955

1. Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley
2. Ballad of Davy Crockett, Bill Hayes (See below...)
3. Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, Perez Prado
4. Melody of Love, Billy Vaughn
5. Yellow Rose of Texas, Mitch Miller
6. Aint That a Shame, Pat Boone
7. Sincerely, The McGure Sisters
8. Unchained Melody, Les Baxter
9. Crazy Otto Rag, Crazy Otto
10. Mister Sandman, The Chordettes

1956

1. Don't be Cruel,Elvis Presley
2. Great Pretender, The Platters
3. My Prayer, The Platters
4. Wayward Wind, Gogi Grant
5. Whatever Will Be, Will Be, Doris Day
6. Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis Presley
7. Lisbon Antigua, Nelson Riddle
8. Canadian Sunset, Hugo Winterhalter
9. Moonglow/Theme from "Picnic", Morris Stoloff
10. Honky Tonk, Bill Doggett (Benny Hill's theme song...)

1957

1. Tammy, Debbie Reynolds
2. Love Letters in the Sand, Pat Boone
3. It's Not for Me to Say, Johnny Mathis
4. Young Love,Tab Hunter
5. Chances Are, Johnny Mathis
6. Little Darlin, The Diamonds
7. Bye Bye Love, Everly Brothers
8. All Shook Up, Elvis Presley
9. So Rare, Jimmy Dorsey
10. Round and Round, Perry Como

1958

1. Volare, Domenico Modugno
2. It's All in the Game, Tommy Edwards
3. Patricia, Perez Prado
4. All I Have to Do is Dream, Everly Brothers
5. Bird Dog, Everly Brothers
6. Little Star, The Elegants
7. Witch Doctor, David Seville ("Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang")
8. Twilight Time, The Platters
9. Tequilla, The Champs
10. At the Hop, Danny and the Juniors

1959

1. Mack the Knife, Bobby Darin
2. Battle of New Orleans, Johnny Horton
3. Venus, Frankie Avalon
4. Lonely Boy, Paul Anka
5. There Goes My Baby, The Drifters
6. Personality, Lloyd Price
7. Three Bells, The Browns
8. Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Paul Anka
9. Sleep Walk, Santo and Johnny
10. Come Softly to Me, The Fleetwoods

AND, just in case you were not around in 1955, here is the scoop on "Davy Crockett" --- I was 11 then and believe me, the following is DEFINITELY true:

• ABC-TV's first episode of the Davy Crockett trilogy debuted on Dec. 15, 1954.
• By the time the second episode, Davy Crockett Goes to Congress, was broadcast on Jan. 26, 1955, the country was in a Crockett frenzy.

• The last episode, Davy Crockett at the Alamo, was shown a month later and kids nationwide were sleeping in Crockett pajamas and singing The Ballad of Davy Crockett on every playground

The immortal words are:

Seven million copies of the song were sold in the first six months of 1955.

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