ROCK & ROLL TAKE-OVER: A color-coded chart depicting the greatest musical revolution in history.
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Whether you like Rock and Rock or not, you have to admit that it's take-over of popular music in the fifties was one of the most unique phenomenon in the cultural history of man. Forget what your parents told you about the coming of the swing era and what baby-boomers say about the psychedelic and hard-rock eras. All of those styles, at their most popular, accounted for no more than half of the top hits at any time. Only Rock and Roll managed to take complete control of the charts. Fifty years later, it's still a dominant influence and is likely to be so forever.
To appreciate how great the change was, consider that it went from songs like the Chordettes hit Mr. Sandman dominating the charts in 1954:
To songs like Elvis Presley's Hound Dog dominating them less than two years later:
The following chart shows this take-over. Rock and Roll songs are in orange, everything else is in yellow. I worked with my father-in-law (Mr. Dana Patten, a professional musician during the swing era) to decide which songs qualified as being Rock and Roll. This was not an easy task considering the range of styles that qualify. The chart runs from the first year a Rock and Roll song made it into the top-ten songs for that entire year (1954) and traces the revolution through 1960 when the take-over was complete. The songs shown for each year are the top ten songs for that year listed in order with the most popular at the top. They were obtained from Joel Whitburn's Top 40 Hits, 6th edition.
1954
Little
Things Mean a Lot -
Kitty Kallen
Sh-Boom
- Crew Cuts
Wanted
- Perry Como
Oh!
My Papa - Eddie Fisher
Mr.
Sandman - Chordettes
Make
Love to Me - Jo Stafford
Hey
There - Rosemary Clooney
Secret
Love - Doris Day
This
Old House -
Rosemary Clooney
I
Need You Now -
Eddie Fisher
1955
Sincerely
- McGuire Sisters
Cherry
Pink & Apple Blossom White
- Perez Prado
Rock
Around the Clock
- Bill Haley and the Comets
Sixteen
Tons - Tennessee
Ernie Ford
The
Yellow Rose of Texas
- Mitch Miller
Love
Is a Many Splendored Thing
- Four Aces
Ballad
of Davy Crocket -
Bill Hayes
Let
Me Go Lover - Loan Weber
Autumn
Leaves - Roger Williams
Hearts
of Stone - Fontaine Sisters
1956
Singing
the Blues - Guy Mitchell
The
Wayward Wind - Gogi Grant
Heartbreak
Hotel -
Elvis Presley
Poor
People of Paris -
Les Baxter
Rock
and Roll Waltz -
Kay Starr
Memories
Are Made of This -
Dean Martin
Love
Me Tender -
Elvis Presley
Don't
Be Cruel -
Elvis Presley
Hound
Dog
- Elvis Presley
Lisbon
Antigua - Nelson Riddle
1957
Love
Letters in the Sand
- Pat Boone
Let
Me Be Your Teddy Bear
- Elvis Presley
Jailhouse
Rock - Elvis Presley
Young
Love - Tab Hunter
All
Shook Up -
Elvis Presley
April
Love - Pat Boone
Tammy
- Debbie Reynolds
Honeycomb
- Jimmie Rodgers
Too
Much - Elvis Presley
Butterfly
- Andy Williams
1958
At
the Hop - Danny
& the Juniors
The
Purple People Eater
- Sheb Wolley
It's
All in the Game -
Tommy Edwards
Volare
- Domenico Modugno
All
I Have to Do Is Dream
- Everly Brothers
Don't
- Elvis Presley
He's
Got the Whole World in His Hands
- Laurie London
Sugar
Time - McGuire Sisters
The
Chipmunk Song - The
Chipmunks (David Seville)
Witch
Doctor - David Seville
1959
Mack
the Knife - Bobby Darin
Battle
of New Orleans -
Johnny Horton
Venus
- Frankie Avalon
Stagger
Lee - Lloyd Price
Come
Softy to Me -
The Fleetwoods
Lonely
Boy - Paul Anka
The
Three Bells - The Browns
Smoke
Gets in Your Eyes
- The Platters
Kansas
City - Wilbert Harrison
Heartaches
By the Number - Guy Mitchell
1960
A
Summer Place -
Percy Faith
Are
You Lonesome Tonight
- Elvis Presley
Cathy's
Clown - Everly Brothers
It's
Now or Never -
Elvis Presley
Stuck
on You - Elvis Presley
Running
Bear - Marty Robbins
I'm
Sorry - Brenda Lee
Save
the Last Dance for Me
- The Platters
Teen
Angel - Mark Dinning
El
Paso - Marty Robbins
As you can see, the Rock and Roll revolution really only took two years, from 1956 to 1958. During this period it moved to representing more than half of the songs in the top ten. After that there was no looking back.
One of the many factors driving the revolution was the music industry's desire to increase profits by reducing costs. The big bands of the swing era were enormously expensive to maintain. The high level of virtuosity required to play in such bands took so long for the average musician to develop that by the time many of them were ready to join a band they were adults with the responsibility of a family to support. As such they justly felt they had earned and certainly required higher incomes than a much younger and less accomplished artists capable of playing the simpler music of rock and roll. Additionally, rock and roll bands are much smaller than swing bands, which greatly reduced their overhead costs. Finally, the music companies saw that the average age of the dominate music purchaser was decreasing in the 1950s and that rock and rock's faster rhythms would be more attractive to them than the more melodious pacing of swing and orchestral band music. Consequently many of the major recording studies were more than happy to embrace the rock and roll revolution.
The chart also shows why Elvis is still called The King. A strong argument can be made that he single-handedly powered the revolution. It's intersting to speculate what would have happened to Rock and Roll if he hadn't come along when he did. It's possible the entire movement would have died out and we'd still be listening to Doris Day.
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