And just like that, we’ve done 7 years of our journey through musical history. As we find ourselves enjoying Easter in 2022, let’s hear how January, 1957 sounds…
The songs of January, 1957
“A Rose And A Baby Ruth” – George Hamilton Iv
“Banana Boat Song” – Fontane Sisters*
“Banana Boat Song” – Harry Belafonte*
“Banana Boat Song” – Tarriers
“Blue Monday” – Fats Domino*
“Blueberry Hill” – Fats Domino*
“Cindy Oh Cindy” – Eddie Fisher
“Cindy Oh Cindy” – Vince Martin And The Tarriers
“Confidential” – Sonny Knight
“Don’t Be Cruel” – Elvis Presley
“Don’t Forbid Me” – Pat Boone
“Friendly Persuasion” – Pat Boone
“Garden Of Eden” – Joe Valino
“Gonna Get Along Without You Now” – Patience And Prudence
“Green Door” – Jim Lowe
“Hey Jealous Lover” – Frank Sinatra
“Honky Tonk” – Bill Doggett
“I Dreamed” – Betty Johnson*
“Jamaica Farewell” – Harry Belanfonte
“Jim Dandy” – Lavern Baker*
“Just Walkin’ In The Rain” – Johnnie Ray
“Love Is Strange” – Mickey And Sylvia*
“Love Me Tender” – Elvis Presley
“Mama From A Train” – Patti Page
“Mary’s Boy Child” – Harry Belafonte
“Moonlight Gambler” – Frankie Laine
“Mutual Admiration Society” – Teresa Brewer
“Night Lights” – Nat King Cole
“On My Word Of Honour” – Platters*
“Priscilla” – Eddie Cooley And The Dimples
“Rock-A-Bye Your Baby” – Jerry Lee Lewis
“Since I Met You Baby” – Ivory Joe Hunter
“Singing The Blues” – Guy Mitchell
“Singing The Blues” – Marty Robbins
“Slow Walk” – Bill Doggett*
“Too Much” – Elvis Presley*
“True Love” – Bing Crosby And Grace Kelly
“When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again” – Elvis Presley*
“You Don’t Owe Me A Thing” – Johnnie Ray*
“Young Love” – Crew-Cuts*
“Young Love” – Sonny James*
“Young Love” – Tab Hunter*
* = New to the chart this week.
And for the first time, I have some chart data for New Zealand. According to this source, these songs were charting in NZ in 1957.
Just Walking In The Rain – Johnny Ray
Don’t Be Cruel – Elvis Presley
Canadian Sunset – Hugo Winterhalter*
True Love – Grace Kelly & Bing Crosby
Singing The Blues – Guy Mitchell
Lay Down Your Arms – Anne Shelton*
4 of them are in the US charts – 1 was previously and the Anne Shelton is the only novel song. It looks like Anne was a British singer so it made its way over from the UK versus the other American tunes.
You can listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link or embedded below:
This month in history
On January 23rd, in 1957, the Wham-O toy company issued the first Frisbee. It had taken a while to get to this point. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling “Frisbie!”. Decades and variations later and the plastic disc we know today was created.
Great footage of the first every Frisbee contest from that year:
Sadly on January 14th Humphrey Bogart, American actor dies of cancer of the esophagus at 57. Here’s looking at you kid… (spoiler alert if you’ve somehow not seen Casablanca!)
New Zealand’s permanent Antarctic research station, Scott Base, was declared open by Captain Harold Ruegg, the Administrator for the Ross Dependency, on 20 January.
What’d Sadie think?
“Singing The Blues” by Guy Mitchell continues its number 1 run for the whole month of January.
Harry Belafonte’s classic version of the “Banana Boat Song” makes it onto the charts after The Tarriers inferior version did last week. Great to hear it.
“Blue Monday” by Fats Domino was written by Dave Bartholomew and first recorded in 1953 by Smiley Lewis. But Fats made it his own and is credited as a writer on subsequent versions. Great tune.
“I Dreamed” by Betty Johnson is a jolly (roger) wee tune. Fun!
“Jim Dandy” by Lavern Baker is about a man (Jim Dandy) who rescues women from improbable or impossible predicaments. It apparently proved popular enough that Chase wrote a second song for Baker entitled “Jim Dandy Got Married”. It’s a belter for sure.
“Love Is Strange” by Mickey And Sylvia is an R&B cross-over hit written by Bo Diddley and its a nice tune. It made it onto the Dirty Dancing soundtrack decades later – which is one of those things I only discover because the Youtube version of the song tells me so in the title.
“On My Word Of Honour” is another tune that sounds like its by the Platters… because it is. Not that their songs are samey as such, but they have a definite style. This is a good ‘un.
Meanwhile, “Slow Walk” by Bill Doggett is a hella sax tune!
This Elvis chap is growing on me , but “Too Much” is the weaker of his tunes so far. But here he is performing it on the Ed Sullivan show anyway, because dang the man was a performer.
“When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again” is originally a tune from 1940 and it sounds a bit less contemporary than other Elvis tunes but its still decent.
Johnnie Ray’s “You Don’t Owe Me A Thing” also sounds a little dated though and didn’t grab us in any way.
There are 3 versions of “Young Love” in the charts suddenly. We’ve got the version by the Crew-Cuts in our playlist. From theme to sound it feels like peak-50s. Which I guess is where we are at. Not bad, not great.
Lay Down Your Arms by Anne Shelton was originally a Swedish song. It comes to us from the NZ charts but was also a No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, and stayed in the Top Twenty for 14 weeks. Apparently the BBC took a dim view of the song as it might have encouraged British troops to ‘lay down their guns’, at a difficult time of the post-Suez crisis and the conflict in Cyprus with EOKA. The ban was soon lifted when requests came in. It’s the song today’s world needs? And not bad for what it is.
Now go listen to the full playlist on Youtube via this link.
