At a Miami Beach press conference, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison bug a fisheye camera.

It was 50 years ago that the Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios in London to begin a marathon recording session. Out of the 10 songs they recorded, they immediately released “Please Please Me.” Sales in the U.S. were so poor, the song didn’t even appear on the music charts. Yet one year after the recording session, the Beatles arrived at New York’s Kennedy International Airport to be greeted by 3,000 screaming fans.

Even now, it’s hard to understand how the Beatles managed to rise to such stardom in so short a time. For three years, they had been playing dockyard bars in Liverpool, England, and Hamburg, Germany. Then, in the space of few months, they started appealing to the American imagination and built an army of screaming, adoring fans.

This sudden fame surprised the world. It also surprised the Beatles. (Asked what he thought about their sudden popularity, John Lennon replied, “I think everyone has gone daft.”) But it didn’t surprise America’s pundits and commentators, most of who were ready with a quick explanation; the Beatles were just a passing fad, another teenage craze like the one inspired by Elvis. The only thing that distinguished this group was their haircuts, which seemed to elicit endless criticism from adults.

Among the critics was Vance Packard, who wrote “Building the Beatle Image” for a March 21, 1964, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Packard was an investigative journalist who had written best-sellers about status, conformity, and advertising in America. Like many critics, he attributed the popularity of the Beatles’ music to its ability to set parents’ teeth on edge. But Packard saw something other commentators missed: the Beatles had an “exciting sense of freshness. … Surliness is out, exuberance is in. … Pomposity is out, humor is in.”

The humor came through repeatedly in the Beatles press conferences, where John, Paul, George, and Ringo turned the question-and-answer sessions into spontaneous comedy routines.

Q: How did you ever decide on a name like The Beatles for the group?
John: Well, I had a vision when I was 12, and I saw a man on a flaming pie, and he said, ‘You are Beatles with an A.’ And we are.

Q: What’s the rudest question you’ve been asked?
Ringo: The rudest was, someone said to me, ‘How are you doing, John?’
John: That’s not rude.
Ringo: (jokingly) Well, it was an insult.

Q: The airport police were quite concerned about some oversized roughnecks who tried to infiltrate the crowd.
Paul: That was us!

Q: A psychiatrist at one of your concerts in Seattle said the effect on the children—14,000 kids in there—he called it unhealthy, and he said you had a neurotic effect. How do you feel about this?
John: It was probably him that was unhealthy, watching it.

Q: John, how would you describe yourself in one word?
John: I don’t know.
Paul: ’John.’
John: ’John,’ yeah. Thank you.

Q: What do you think about the criticism that you are a bad influence?
Paul: I dunno, you know. I don’t feel like a bad influence. (to John) Do you?
John: Nah, I think you’re a good influence, Paul.
Paul: Thank you, John.

Q: As you’re confined to your room all day, what do you do?
George: Oh! Tennis and water polo.

Q: Have you been heckled at all? Have you ever had …
Paul: Oh, yeah! We used to have it in—especially in the early days! But John—John had a perfect answer! What was it …? ‘Shut up!’

Q: I must tell you, by the way, that Detroit University have got a ‘Stamp Out The Beatles’ movement.
George: I know, yeah.
John: Yeah, we heard something about that.
Paul: We’ve got a ‘Stamp Out Detroit!’
Q: They think your haircuts are un-American.
John: Well, it was very observant of them because we aren’t American, actually.
Paul: (laughs) True, that.

Q: How long do you think Beatlemania will last?
John: As long as you all keep comin’.

While the Beatles could charm reporters, their comic improvisations wouldn’t have made them so popular. It was their music—a bright sound with fresh melody lines, interesting harmonies, and a strong beat (so strong, Packard noted, that you could still follow it amid the screams of their fans.)

They also had a healthy borrowing of several American musicians. Years later, John recalled that he wrote “Please Please Me” after hearing Roy Orbison singing “Only The Lonely.” He was suddenly motivated to write an “Orbison song.” For lyrics, he recalled an old Bing Crosby song he’d heard as a child, “Please, lend your little ear to my pleas.”

When he performed it the recording studio, he sang the descending melody line—“Last night I said these words to my girl”—while Paul sang a high note in harmony. It was an effect he freely admitted he’d borrowed from the Everly Brothers.

Before flying to America where the Beatles were so noisily received, Paul McCartney worried that the group had nothing to offer. Americans already had their own groups. “What are we going to give them that they don’t already have?” The answer was talent, hard work, imagination, and the intelligence to musically borrow from the best.

50 Years Ago: Beatles Invasion! The Saturday Evening Post

Community members singing Handel's Messiah at the Middlebury Congregational Church. Photo by Ernest Longey.

Chattering madly with friends and neighbors, they’ll pour into the church, unwrap their mufflers, grab a score of Handel’s Messiah from a pile stacked by the door, and slide into a pew.

Everyone in the community is welcome to come and sing or bring their instruments and join the orchestra. There are no rehearsals, only a couple of carols to warm up. Soloists will include community members like tenor François Clemmons, who played “Officer Clemmons” for decades on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when we were kids.
(Read more in “The 12 Blessings of Christmas,” Nov/Dec 2012 issue.)

Get in the holiday spirit with these videos from Middlebury Congregational Church’s 2009 Messiah Sing.

The Blessing of Music The Saturday Evening Post

The Beatles
Photo by John Zimmerman
March 21, 1964

There was no place to escape The Beatles in the early ’60s. Radio stations across the country were continually playing “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” They were also airing the swarm of criticism aroused by these four young musicians. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion about The Beatles.

A February 1964 editorial in The New York World-Telegram described their music as “a haunting combination of rock ‘n’ roll, the shimmy, a hungry cat riot, and Fidel Castro on a harangue.”

From Newsweek: “Musically they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony, and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah!’) are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments.”

Even the mythical James Bond weighed in, telling a love interest in one of his movies, “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done. Such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above a temperature of 38 degrees Farenheit. That’s as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs.”

But what was The Saturday Evening Post saying about The Beatles? Read the cover story, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Music’s Gold Bugs: The Beatles,” by Alfred G. Aronowitz from March 21, 1964.

Beatlemania: No Passing Fad The Saturday Evening Post

And, of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also share her interpretation of the Star Trek theme — certainly the first time we’ve heard the famed Alexander Courage piece on a carpenter’s hand saw.

To learn more about Natalia, “Hey, Saw Lady!” is currently available in print and coming soon online.

Play it Again, Saw Lady The Saturday Evening Post

“String Quartet”

"String Quartet"
from January 20, 1923

As with many illustrators of the 1920s and ’30s, we were unable to unearth much information about Alan Foster. But we were able to find some of his irresistible covers!

“Sweet Adeline”

"Sweet Adeline"
from October 11, 1924

“Sweet Adeline” was a barbershop standard by the time of this 1924 cover -– and remains so. The song was written back in 1903, so if this hearty quartet wanted to try something trendier, they could belt out Al Jolson’s “California, Here I Come,” “It Had to be You,” or “Charleston” -– all top songs of 1924. It is intriguing the way the artist captured each face as the singer struck just the right note.

“Faithful Friends”

"Faithful Friends"
from September 14, 1929

Outside “Dist. School No. 4” these dogs wait for their best pals. Foster must have grown accustomed to drawing canines: For three years in the 40s he did a cartoon series for Collier’s called “Mr. Fala of the White House.” Fala, of course, was Franklin Roosevelt’s dog and something of a celebrity in his own right. Foster’s cartoons might show the little black terrier traveling with his master or running off with a senator’s hat.

“Traffic Cop”

"Traffic Cop"
from June 5, 1926

This 1926 cover shows us a side of commuting we just don’t think much about these days: early traffic signals, manually operated by the local traffic cop. The signal is called a semaphore, and a version of it first appeared in London in 1868. Foster’s traffic official is apparently set for the day, with his lunch and water supply at the ready.

“Hot Tamale 5”

"Hot Tamale 5"
from August 22, 1925

This rockin’ drummer from 1925 is bringing the house down. Grandma would be shocked…actually, even her photo is appalled! Well, it’s to be expected with a band named the “Hot Tamale Five.” The meager biographical information we were able to glean indicates that Foster illustrated for several magazines of the ’20s, including The New Yorker, and, in addition to painting great illustrations and cartooning, even had a brief acting career.

“I Was Tardy”

"I Was Tardy"
from September 27, 1930

Many of Foster’s nearly 30 Post covers were Rockwellian in nature: kids playing sports, or, in this example, getting in trouble in school. But there were style differences, such as the way kids are dressed. We don’t see the holes in the sweaters and patches in the knees we often see on Rockwell’s children. Props, too, seem neater. Again, what we don’t see is a well-worn broom handle or piece of broken crockery. Even the boy’s writing is perfect!

Illustrator Alan Foster passed away in 1969 at the age of 76.

Classic Covers: Alan Foster The Saturday Evening Post

I looked at his hair. It was thick. It had a tendency to curl. It was exactly the right length — not too long, not too short. It wasn’t a butch through which his scalp showed pinkly. I envied him his hair and his even tan, every inch of which was exactly the same degree of darkness. There were no freckles, no peeling spots, I thought, figures that his hair should look right. He should know about such things. After all, fit’s the most famous barber since Delilah, although he abandoned his tonsorial trade about twenty-five years ago to sing for his living.

“I understand you’re a big man in the icechomping field,” I said to Perry Como. “I’m an ice eater myself, and it drives my wife to distraction. She says she can hear the echo of my molars all over the house. Does your dentist tell you it’s bad for your teeth when you crack a whole cube with one bite?”

Como looked cautiously around his office as if he were afraid it was bugged. “I’ve never told him,” he said in a low, conspiratorial voice.

“You mean he can’t tell by just looking into your mouth?” I asked.

“He’s preoccupied with some other dental problems of mine,” Como explained. “For eighteen years I’ve had a small space between my two front teeth. That was my Number One problem. It was a minor one. I acquired a major one many years ago when they drilled why you should know this, but once your teeth are ground and capped, they’re tender afterward. If you get a little cavity or decay on the uncapped part of the tooth, the dentist has to take the cap off, drill a little higher and put on another cap. Dentically speaking, I’ve been going through hell for eighteen years. In all honesty, I guess if I had laid off my ice-breaker bit, my teeth would be in pretty good shape.”

I said, “I’m curious about how you go about crunching ice with caps on.”

“Obviously my caps are made of concrete,” Como said, “I can polish off a whole bowl of ice in no time at all.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I’ll tell you why I think I’m an ice craver. When I play a lot of golf, as I frequently do, and it’s very hot, I perspire bucketfuls. I get dehydrated and I have to push that lost water back into my body, I’m not very big, but in one round of golf I can ooze between five and seven pounds.”

“On just an ordinary, peaceful, quiet day of golf?” I asked.

“It’s actually water. It’s bloat that vanishes.”

I said, “I understand that you play a very leisurely game of golf, a lazy game. So why all the perspiration?”

He smiled, confessing, “I can sweat like a herd of wild animals. My pores are wide open and ready to go any time. I’ll tell you a secret,” he went on, “I know your spies have told you that my rounds of golf aren’t strenuous, that I keep my eyes and ears open to the crunch of grass underfoot and the sound of birdsong as I journey around eighteen holes. They doubtless tell you also that I seem to relish these things so greatly that I play very slowly. Well, to use a sweet word instead of a crude one, that’s a lot of hooey. I may appear to loiter, but honestly I’m just as fast as anybody else on a golf course.” He thought of something and added, “With the exception of England. I really had a problem there. For some reason, British players hit the ball and run. Their wives may find them something less than volcanic at home, but put them down on a golf course, and it’s Balaklava and The Charge of the Light Brigade all over again. They charge at you like wild boars — polite wild boars, mind you, but if they want to play through you, if you’re smart, you let them play.”

I said, “The only English golf match I’ve ever seen was one played between Bob Hope and Bing Crosby for the Playing Fields of England Fund, They had to call it off on the fourth hole because they were driving their balls right down the spectators’ throats. Twelve or fifteen thousand people crowded onto the fairways until there weren’t any fairways; there were just masses of people.”

“I played in a few of those things myself,” Como said. “They’re fun until they start leaving you no room to play in. After that they’re murder.”

I said, “I helped Bob Hope write his story for The Saturday Evening Post. There are those who say he’s no good without his writers around him, but I can testify that there were many times when he said sidesplitting things to me on his own, without his writers thinking them up for him.”

“He’s a swifty with an ad lib,” Como agreed. “Hope’s played a lot of golf exhibitions for charity, and I’ve played with him on some of them. You gather together three or four characters like Hope, and ten or twenty thousand people are apt to turn out. When the galleries start lining up on the fairways until they leave only a long, narrow slit for you to drive through, it scares the hell out of you. You could kill a spectator if you hit him in the wrong spot.

“Most of the benefits I’ve played,” he went on, “have been for boys’ clubs or for such things as cerebral-palsy funds. I remember one day in Washington, D.C, when there were five of us—Hope and I, Ben Hogan, Ed Sullivan and Jimmy Demaret. Most of the people who’d come out to see us play weren’t golfers and knew no golf etiquette. They didn’t even have enough gumption to know they were in danger and get out of the way when Hope and Sullivan and I were shooting. Hogan and Demaret knew where their shots were going, but you can’t stand in front of Hope or me when we’re shooting without running a good chance of having a slice or a hook slam into you.

“That was the maddest day I can remember. Bob was flying in from somewhere with Jim Demaret. They were supposed to be there at one o’clock, but when they didn’t show up, Hogan gave the crowd a golf clinic.
He showed them how to hit some balls, then he explained his shots over a microphone to kill time. People were milling and trampling around out of hand, and I was hiding in the locker room. I wasn’t about to go out there and get flattened. Finally there was the sound of police-motorcycle sirens, and in came Hope.

“From the moment we teed off on the first hole, trying to play golf was ridiculous. By the time we got to where a ball had landed, it was gone, and we never saw it again. I didn’t see the same ball twice all day. There were supposed to be marshals to protect us — they were really to protect the crowd —but they didn’t. So the people gathered in the middle of the fairways and grabbed the balls as fast as we hit them. We kept trying anyhow and finally got to the fifth hole, which was a well-trapped par three. I’ll never forget what Bob did then. It showed a softer and kinder side of this man who seems so cocky on the outside. He told the rest of us, ‘I’m going to hit it in the trap,’ and sure enough, that’s where he hit it.

“I wish I had a movie of the action for the next fifteen minutes. Bob deliberately hit that ball from one trap to another, dealing out stale jokes for the crowd every second of the time. He was giving the crowd a show for their money, and it was hilariously funny. He’d hit under the ball so it would go straight up in the air, or he’d top it and bury it in the sand. You know, people consistently underestimate Bob. He’s much more than just a funny man; he’s a very kind man too.

“We played four more holes because we thought we ought to play at least nine, after which we dropped everything and ran for the clubhouse like rabbits. I simply couldn’t have stood another nine holes. We’d be there yet. It had taken us four and a half hours to play the holes we did play. When we saw a ball, we hit it. The rest of the time we were signing autographs and walking. A couple of times I even walked in the wrong direction because I couldn’t see the fairway.”

From Our Archives: I Call On Perry Como The Saturday Evening Post

Como died a few months later at the age of 88 on May 12th, 2001—and a few days later, I received the photo back with his signature on it. So I probably have the last autograph of Perry Como’s life—not that anyone cares. I recently bought a signed Perry Como record contract for $48 on eBay, and the people who know me know to buy me Perry Como stuff for my birthday: both because I love him and because it’s a really, really affordable gift.

2012 marks the hundredth anniversary of Como’s birth, and I would bet anything that this piece might be the only mention of it in the media. But it’s high time for a re-examination of his legacy—and a rediscovery of one of the greatest and certainly the most underrated male singers of the Great American Songbook.

Indeed it was Perry Como’s success with the Ted Weems Orchestra that played a key role in inspiring Frank Sinatra to leave the Tommy Dorsey orchestra in 1942 and embark on a solo career. “Mr. Como was with Ted Weems, a then-popular orchestra leader, and he is still such a wonderful singer,” Sinatra said. “I thought if I don’t make a move out of this band and try to do it on my own soon, one of these guys will do it, and I’ll have to fight.”

If Frank Sinatra, a man known for many things—the ease with which he was intimidated not among them, felt threatened by the prospect of a Perry Como solo career, it’s worth a second look at his work.

That is where problems begin: the greatest enemy of Como’s legacy has been, paradoxically, his greatest successes. His biggest hits mainly consisted of faddish novelty songs: “Hot Diggity Dog (Ziggity Boom),” “Papa Loves Mambo,” “Hoop-De-Doo,” and “Kewpie Doll,” and melodramatic septuagenarian pabulum ballads like “Temptation,” “Prisoner of Love,” and “If,” and his improbable 1971 comeback “It’s Impossible.”

It’s tempting to blame Como for his willingness to sing poor material, but the truth is that nearly every popular vocalist of the era did the same thing. No one talks about “Mama Will Bark”—a duet that featured Sinatra singing with Dagmar and the sound effects of a dog—because it flopped and most disc jockeys played the B-side, “I’m a Fool to Want You,” instead. But the public responded best to Como’s worst songs, and his legacy has suffered for it.

But even on his worst songs—and especially on his better album cuts, the artistry and genius of the Perry Como style is evident. It is so smooth, not in the slick, self-conscious way that Dean Martin sang but in the understated, too confident to show off manner of a true pro. Como is the dancer who is so talented and practiced that it looks effortless, while lesser performers grunt, sweat and wail their way through shows.

But one of the best parts of the Perry Como experience is that you can listen knowing that he lived his life with the same mellow warmth of his music.

He was married to one woman, Roselle Como until her death in 1998. They were together for 65 years and adopted several children together. Como did no club appearances for 26 years—the prime of his career. Instead, he focused on his TV show, recordings, and family. A 1957 Look magazine cover story asked the question: “Perry Como: Is He Really Mr. Nice Guy?”

“It is pointed out that Como is the only TV performer with a price tag of more than a million dollars a year who has no enemies and no embarrassing eccentricities and whose personal life has always been unblemished by gossip,” reporter Joe McCarthy noted.

“I’m not relaxed, I’m just tired,” Como told him.

Como was one of 13 children born to Italian immigrants in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a laborer at a tin-plate factory for $35 per week. By the time Perry was 10 years old, he was getting up at 6:00 each day to sweep the floor at a barber shop on his way to school; after class, he returned to shine shoes, heat towels, and sharpen razors. He had his own chair as a barber by the age of 13, and was a major contributor to his family’s finances.

He left the hair business to embark on a singing career. When not making progress, he returned to the barbershop for several years before he was lured back into show business with the offer of his own radio show. When a reporter suspected that the “singing barber” story was an invention of a record-company marketing department, Como responded by giving the reporter a free haircut.

In the 1950s, Como hit his stride as one of the most popular television show hosts of his era. The Perry Como Show ran in various incarnations into the 1960s, while he continued to record occasional specials.

It was during The Perry Como Show period that he recorded a series of albums for RCA/Victor. With the TV show providing Como with a built-in audience and rock and roll bumping the traditional pop vocalists off the radio, there was less pressure to focus on hit singles, and the best-recorded work of Perry Como’s career emerged.

While Sinatra was recording the concept albums that marked the rebirth of his career, Como was scoring steady sellers with titles such as So Smooth, We Get Letters (1957), Saturday Night With Mr. C (1958), Como Swings (1959), and 1961’s Young at Heart. Como’s albums provide the laidback counterpart to Sinatra’s hip Las Vegas sound.

If I could pick one song that epitomizes the Perry Como style at its best, it would be “Gypsy in My Soul,” the eighth track on Saturday Night with Mr. C. With light orchestration, Como just rolls through the song: “If I am fancy-free and love to wander, it’s just a gypsy in my soul,” he sings, letting the last word drift off into two syllables. The enunciation is understated and lilting, and the result is a song that is almost impossible to listen to without smiling.

The almost completely forgotten ballad “Toselli’s Serenade” is another of Como’s best recordings, this one from 1966. It’s a sad song (Dreams and memories/Are all that you’ve left me/Only lonely thoughts/About the one I worship and adore) out dreams and regrets is the perfect treatment for it. Mario Lanza, generally regarded as a superior vocalist, belts it into a dramatic power ballad. But Como’s version is both more enjoyable and more in sync with the lyrics.

In a business where leaving a distinct mark on each song is seen as a key to success, Como’s understated, unselfconscious performances set him apart. Ironically, it may explain why he’s forgotten; his style has been supplanted by belters. “Once you know a song too well, you start to fool around with it.” he said. “At the session, when the band’s working on the arrangement, I learn the tune right there.”

Como’s onscreen presence matched his vocals. Though his movie career at MGM was unsuccessful (his most well-known film being 1945’s Doll Face with co-stars Vivian Blaine and Carmen Miranda), his laidback manner could not have been better suited to the early days of television. With a sound and presence inoffensive and warm, Como was exactly what people wanted in their living rooms.

A 1954 12-city poll of 20-year-old women by Life magazine found that Perry Como was the most popular choice for a potential spouse even though the magazine noted, he “does not fit all the requirements nor all of the personal characteristics girls rate high. He is 5 feet 9 1/2 inches tall instead of 6 feet. His eyes are brown instead of blue and he is not 23. He almost never washes dishes.”

“I was always relaxed on camera when I sang, mainly because I’m not very high-strung or animated by nature.” he told Good Housekeeping in a 1990 profile. “Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn’t look as if I’m doing that.”

One of the more interesting The Perry Como Show clips available on YouTube is a 1961 duet with 13-year-old Brenda Lee, who had recently had a major hit with “I’m Sorry.” In the video, they sing a medley including “Teach Me Tonight” and “An Apple for the Teacher”—a hit for Bing Crosby, who was Como’s biggest influence along with the long forgotten Russ Columbo. Ms. Lee appears nervous and flubs several lyrics. Como then flubs one, too, something he was not known for doing and this was, perhaps, an effort to put her at ease. Como’s posture is slightly stooped, and his manner is paternal.

When he died, RCA Records took out a full-page ad in Billboard that said simply this: “50 years of music and a life well lived. An example to all.”

Ultimately, Como’s unpretentious, warm, and light style was replaced, in some cases literally, by a more self-conscious, egocentric style of music and life: the building where he spent parts of two decades recording The Perry Como Show became Studio 54 and to the extent that he still gets any airplay at all, it comes during the holidays.

His recording of “Home for the Holidays” is still one of the more popular Christmas songs, although the less remarkable Andy Williams seems to be the crooner of choice for radio these days; Williams and Elvis Presley were the only artists to have two of the 25 Christmas songs with the most radio play in 2010, according to data from the monitoring service Mediaguide.

But Como likely wouldn’t care. An unabashed popular entertainer, he greeted his declining popularity the same way he greeted his rise to success. “I’ve done nothing that I can call exciting,” Como once said. “I was a barber. Since then I’ve been a singer. That’s it.”

On the 100th anniversary of Como’s birth, with the Great American Songbook enjoying a comeback thanks to singers like Michael Bublé and Rod Stewart, it’s time for fans of classic pop to give the best and nicest singer of the era another listen.

Why Perry Como Matters The Saturday Evening Post

This advertisement from an 1899 issue of the Post features Washburn Guitars. After finding it, I wanted to learn in what year Washburns went out of business. This is what I found: http://www.washburn.com/. Still producing guitars and banjos, 113 years later.

All first-class music dealers keep them. The Saturday Evening Post

"The dog is coming along nicely."
from October 22, 1960

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the Flight of the Bumblebee"
from October 8, 1960

from November 21, 1942

from September/October 1994

"Perhaps we can persuade him to play something."
from November 23, 1957

"Play something expensive."
from November 23, 1957

Cartoons: Musical Interlude The Saturday Evening Post

The King of Rock 'n Roll, Elvis Presley.

The recent passing of Dick Clark reminded us of the early days of rock music—back when it was alternately called “rock and roll” and The End of Civilization.

Though we remember Clark as a perennially nice, inoffensive guy, he was a force for change in the ’50s. Not only did he play the teen music that parents disliked so much, he insisted on welcoming black teens into his studio audience, and traveling through the South in a racially mixed tour. His “Caravan of the Stars” bus was often denied service and even threatened by armed segregationists.

Just as significant, though, was his promoting of rock ‘n’ roll, which helped integrate black and white traditions and audiences.

When it emerged unexpected in the 1950s, many Americans were shocked and suspicious of this strange, energetic new sound.They were accustomed to “pop” music. But rock ‘n’ roll was, in fact, true “pop” music if the word is meant as an abbreviation of “popular.”

Up to that time, the musical tastes of Americans had been largely shaped by a big industry with a few record labels, which determined much of the music America heard.

As a 1959 article reported, however, the predominance of these companies fell when a few small, independent studios, with little budget and no advertising, produced enormous hit records.

Up until a few years ago there was a fairly orderly sequence that took place in the launching of a new “pop” record. Everything was done big. Whenever one of the major recording companies came across a catchy tune, the company assigned it to a big-name singer, backed him up with a big-name band, then unleashed a barrage of publicity.

Today the popular-record business… is dominated by the smalls and the unknowns.

Knowledgeable men in the field agree … the record revolution started on a hot day in 1953 when a slim high-school boy, with his hair nearly down to his shoulders, fidgeted with a beat-up guitar below the windows of the newly opened Sun Recording Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

The boy, who had taken time off from his after-school job at the Crown Electric Company, spent an hour of indecision out on the sidewalk before he got his courage up and walked one flight up to the small one-room studio. When Sam Phillips, [Sun’s] owner, approached, the boy gulped and said, “Please, mister, I’d like to make a record for my mother.”

“Sure, buddy, just relax and we’ll give it a try,” Phillips said encouragingly.

Phillips was impressed, “the boy was just a raw kid with no training, but he had an interesting sound.” Phillips eventually found the “right song” for Presley —“Without Love.” As Phillips told the reporters, they “had to work hard to get the best out of his style”.

And even when we got something that sounded right, we had a terrible time getting any disc jockey to play it. The only place we got his records played at first was in the Negro sections of Chicago and Detroit and in California.”

Buddy Holly.

But the sound eventually drifted into the hearing of America’s teenagers, where it struck a resounding chord.

After Presley’s overwhelming success [selling 35 million records by that year], unknown studios and artists were eager to try their luck, completely bypassing the big record labels.

Buddy Holly was another star-out-of-nowhere. Throwing together a few songs with a combo he’d assembled in Lubbock, Texas, he drove with his band—The Crickets—out to a tiny recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico—as far from the heart of the recording industry as you can get in the lower 48 states. By the time of his death, 30 months later, he had sold 6 million records—most of which had been recorded in the shadow of the big grain elevator in ‘downtown’ Clovis.

[Inspired by these successes,] youngsters with dreams of glory and gold pooled their talents. A singer would write his own song, hunt up a couple of instrumentalists, and they’d bang out tunes in rumpus rooms, living rooms or basements until they had something they thought was worth recording. Then they’d try to peddle their tapes. If a producer thought they had a “sound,” some unusual quality, either instrumental or vocal, that might drive the teen-agers wild, he’d take a gamble and make records.

This pattern, repeated over and over, revolutionized the popular-record field.

Today 70 to 80 per cent of the hits are being turned out by youngsters you never heard of a month or two ago, and who may disappear from the public scene just as abruptly as they came.

The major companies [are]… still turning out many records, but their hits don’t come as easily as they used to.

The biggest [obstacle] is the inflexibility of the major record companies. The independents are able to adapt quickly to any shift in teen-age tastes; the big organizations, saddled with protocol and chains of command, can’t move as fast.

Many record companies have found, too, that it’s a risky business to buy a new hit and re-record it with big-name singers and musicians. The teen-agers almost always prefer the original recording… [they] refuse to be impressed by the big-name approach.

The Everly Brothers.

As the early sounds of rock music poured out of teenager’s radios and record players, adults who were accustomed to ‘big name talent’ (Tony Martin, Jo Stafford, Kay Starr) created their own ‘new sound’: a strident, continual chorus of complaints about that ‘gawdawful music.’

As the Post authors noted, their criticism could actually ensure the survival of rock ‘n’ roll.

According to many teenagers, rock ‘n’ roll never would have got as popular as it is if their elders didn’t hate it so violently. It’s something to think about. The young parents of today compose the generation that went all out for swing against the noisy objections of their parents; and their parents used to get all giggly over ragtime. And so on and so on, back to the day some Neanderthal father listened in outrage as his son got off some hot licks with matched dinosaur-bone drumsticks on the family tom-tom. It must have seemed to that early man that the kids were going absolutely to the dogs.

Today the budding Elvis or Buddy doesn’t even need a small-town recording studio. They can put together their own hit in front of their computer, launch it on YouTube, then sit back and wait for the agents and record companies to show up.

The no-studio viral-marketing approach might have given us Justin Bieber, or any number of other rising artists you don’t like, but if the music industry was still controlled by a few record labels, we might still be listening to Frankie Laine and Rosemary Clooney.

The Rock Revolution in the Dick Clark Days The Saturday Evening Post

Rock’s greatest defender in those days was Dick Clark — a young (29), polite, well-groomed spokesman who was successfully defending the future of popular music.

As we say goodbye to him today, here are excerpts from his interview with Post writer, Pete Martin.

He firmly and continuously defends that amorphous group known as “teen-agers.”

He is quiet, smooth-voiced, neat in appearance. Obviously he has been brought up to be polite.

In spite of his mannerly attitude, he has had applied to him such titles as The Czar of the Switchblade Set and The Kingpin of the Teen-age Mafia

He has also been labeled The Elder Statesman of the Young People.

“Unfortunately,” he told me, “as we grow older our minds close in certain areas, music among them. The real truth is that adults are more preoccupied with rock ‘n’ roll than the teen-agers.”

“To [adults], short hair means cleanliness, neatness and honesty— obviously the right kind of young man for a bank to hire. The minds of older people are inclined to run in grooves. One of those grooves is that a ducktail haircut means its wearer is a potential juvenile delinquent; a crew cut means that a young man is likable, dependable, bound to succeed.

“As far as the kids are concerned, rock ‘n’ roll is just a portion of their musical knowledge. Youngsters today have a widely varied musical background. Someday they’ll sift some things and be more discriminating. In the meantime they’re having a little bit of everything. I think it’s a very healthy situation.

“A teenager can turn on a phonograph and listen to any kind of sound he wants during one sitting. You can have a Fats Domino record, a Perry Como record, a Frank Sinatra record, or he can listen to the Chordettes, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis, Ricky Nelson, a Tony Martin or a Dean Martin record.

Dick Clark. July, 1995.

“[American Bandstand] originated locally at an ABC station, WFIL in Philadelphia. It was invented to use up some afternoon time. Somebody asked, ‘What can we do to fill a couple of afternoon hours?’ Two guys in the studio got together and decided to play games, show short films of musical stars and persuade people to telephone in and request their favorite recordings. They also thought it would be a good idea to invite an audience in to watch them. The only audience conveniently located were highschool kids on their way home from school. They discovered that when they played recordings, the kids got up and danced. It became apparent that the show’s future lay in getting on with the dancing. That’s how the Bandstand was born.

“Shortly after I took over it started climbing und soon achieved ratings it had never reached before. That helped make me solid with the studio.

“In about a year’s time the station executives and I persuaded the American Broadcasting Company, who was affiliated with our Philadelphia studio, to let the Bandstand go national on a network basis. The ABC had been running old English movies during that afternoon time slot, but, being young and impetuous, I told them, ‘Put us on for four weeks and if we don’t better those ancient British films, toss us into the ash can.’

“They said O.K., but they made it clear that the only way I could fill that time satisfactorily was by not costing more than the old English movies. Fortunately I met their qualifications.

“I’ve never been able to understand why people who’ve never met me write unkind things about me in their columns or in their newspaper or magazine stories. I’ve tried to get used to criticism, although it’s not the easiest thing in the world to bear, but I am always puzzled as to why anybody should dislike me apparently because I am associated with young people, and because I defend teen-agers’ musical likes and dislikes. The only way I can explain it is that controversial writing, which is usually destructive, must have more newsstand appeal than constructive writing.”

Dick Clark: Rock’s Clean-Cut Champion The Saturday Evening Post

The Fat Lady Sings by Dick Sargent

The Fat Lady Sings
Dick Sargent
December 16, 1961

American Idol wannabes, take note: When everyone is wincing, get a clue. Everybody but the pretty blond at the piano, that is, who still has fun even if the lady in blue is drowning everyone out. The male quartet is not happy. Make that a quintet – Beethoven is apparently in pain.

The Trumpeter by Norman Rockwell

The Trumpeter
Norman Rockwell
November 18, 1950

This is not the musician’s posture a teacher would demand. The idea for the painting came when Post editor Ben Hibbs talked to Norman Rockwell about the contortionistic body positions of his son playing the instrument. The dog’s expression is either terror at the strange sounds emitting from that thing or concern that the instrument is somehow hurting the kid (or vice versa).

Rockwell’s incredible eye for detail certainly shows in the chair’s slipcover. Does the charming pattern look familiar? Rockwell fashioned the fabric from a painting done by Grandma Moses, a good friend of his. Oh, and love the socks!

Making Music by Alfred E. Orr

Making Music
Alfred E. Orr
June 25, 1921

Everyone’s a critic! This dog has a definite opinion about the clarinet. Artist Alfred E. Orr did six Saturday Evening Post covers, including this delight from 1921.

Offkey Harpist by E.M. Jackson

Offkey Harpist
E.M. Jackson
April 4, 1925

It’s bad enough when the bust of Beethoven winces, but when the instrument itself covers its ears, you are really off-key. Artist E.M. Jackson did 58 covers for the Post and her sister publication, Country Gentleman with subjects from sad to glamorous to downright whimsical, like this one.

Jamming with Dad by John Falter

Jamming with Dad
John Falter
December 1, 1956

Jazz greats like Louie Armstrong adorn the walls and pops is sure getting into it, but the tunes just don’t click with the teens. This 1956 generation gap cover was by one of our most beloved artists, John Falter.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions on cover features, like “could you show us some covers people often mistake for Rockwells?” We’ll be glad to do it in the next installment.

Classic Covers: Music Critics The Saturday Evening Post

The Beatles – photo by John Zimmerman

The BeatlesPhoto by John ZimmermanMarch 21, 1964

Photographer John Zimmerman was one of the best. His lens caught famous politicians and newsmakers, and even strange new groups from Britain. But this 1964 photo of the Fab Four is a classic. The cover promised “a probing analysis of their incredible power to evoke frenzied emotions among the young.” Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. What do you expect from stuffy old editors who worked Eight Days a Week? To simplify: the Beatles just made us feel Glad All Over. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Sonny and Cher – photo by Jerry Schatzberg

Sonny and CherPhoto by Jerry SchatzbergApril 23, 1966

Another classic! Cher is looking hot and Sonny is looking, well, not the least bit Republican. Always up-to-date on the latest lingo, the editors informed us that Sonny and Cher were “what’s happening, baby”. Cher was known for her mod fashions, but here’s a description of Sonny backstage at the Hollywood Palladium: “Although the musicians were wearing tuxedos, Sonny had on a yellow turtleneck sweater, a white, double-breasted pirates’ jacket with wide lapels, epaulets and yellow puffs for buttons. His trousers were white, tight, and ornamented with a wide, silver-buckled, brown-leather belt, and black boots completed the outfit.” You can’t get more hip than that. That description, by the way, was from the author of the article, Peter Bogdanovich.

Roger Miller – photo by Maurie Rosen

Roger MillerPhoto by Maurie RosenFebruary 12, 1966

It wasn’t just rock and roll. There was a “big boom in country music”. Anybody over fifty remembers the “King of the Road”. From “Engine Engine No. 9” to wishing you had a “Do Wacka Do” (okay, you had to be there), Roger Miller was big time. What is country music? “It’s soul in a rhinestone suit”, the article said, “honesty with amplifiers, a new ‘uptown’ sound that city folks like—and it’s back in the big time again.” Remember “A White Sport Coat” by Marty Robbins? The Carter Family? Sonny James? This was “that new sound from Nashville”. But no one could do “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd” like Roger Miller.

The Mamas and the Papas – photo by Dan Wynn

Mamas and the PapasPhoto by Don WynnMarch 25, 1967

“Monday, Monday,” “Calfornia Dreamin’,” “I Saw Her Again” – the hits just kept coming for the Mamas and the Papas, proving they weren’t just hippies – they were hippies with talent. But they were on the wild side. A guy in one audience stood up and shouted, “Cass, Cass, I love you.” Cass “peered into the audience from the footlights. ‘Dynamite! Where are you staying?’” The article by William Kloman stated that once “the Mamas and the Papas instigated a riot, mainly to test their theory that it could be done scientifically. John got a black eye for his efforts, and they have since tried to keep their audiences under control.” Mama Cass (whose voice on “Dream a Little Dream of Me” I will always remember) died of a heart attack in 1974, John passed away in 2001 and Denny in 2007. Happily, lovely Michelle is still with us.

Frank and Nancy Sinatra – Supremes photo

Frank and Nancy SinatraSupremes PhotoJuly 15, 1967

“It has been 15 years now since rock ‘n roll was laughed off as just another fad,” the Alfred G. Aronowitz article states. “Frank Sinatra called it ‘the martial music of every sideburned deliquent on the face of the earth.’ The police in Atlanta, Ga., ruled that teen-agers couldn’t dance to it without written parental consent. Roman Catholic leaders in Boston called for a boycott of it, to be enforced by a censor. And the head of the White Citizens Coucil in Alabama saw it as part of a Negro plot to ‘mongrelize America.’” Welcome to the 60’s, folks. The diversity in music was a sign of the jumbled times: Herb Alpert, The Supremes, The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Petula Clark. 27-year-old Nancy Sinatra, “has already collected three gold singles, which is two more than Frank Sinatra ever got in his entire 26-year career.” And then Frank and his little girl have a smash love duet, “Something Stupid.” Something Crazy was going on.

Bob Dylan – photo by Elliott Landy

Bob DylanPhoto by Elliot LandyNovember 2, 1968

Okay, I confess: once, hearing a guy on a radio program dedicate a Bob Dylan song to our troops, my response was “haven’t they suffered enough?” Not a fan of the voice – sorry. This 1968 article covered “the royal family” of pop. From Hendrix to Buck Owens, Joplin to Merle Haggard, B.B. King to the Beach Boys. And oh yes, the Stones, Simon & Garfunkel and Johnny Cash. Then, “Enter the King, Bob Dylan”. Author Alfred G. Aronowitz makes Dylan’s lyrics sound almost biblical, “….the mysterious Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” he says, is “a parable of friendship and temptation.” And “the moral of one of his songs, he recites, is that no man should be where he does not belong, that each man should help his neighbor, that no one should envy his neighbor’s lot.” But I can’t argue about the unending beauty of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which became something of a civil rights anthem. Indeed, how many roads must a man walk down…

Classic Covers: Music of the Sixties The Saturday Evening Post

There are differences, of course; America was a vastly different country in the late 1800s. But the one difference that stood out in Sousa’s articles was the opportunities for musicians. When all music was ‘live,’ there was a constant need for musicians in theaters, vaudeville houses, concert halls, ballrooms, banquet halls, and eventually movie theaters. Sousa seems to walk from one engagement into another with little unemployed time between.

He began his career while still a teenager. By age 26, he was conducting the Marine Corps band. By 46 he was conducting the band that represented America at the Paris World Exposition. Such opportunities weren’t open for just any musician. He entered the world with natural talent, perfect pitch, a musical family, and ambition. But he also happened to arrive when the country seemed to have a never-ending demand for musicians. If he didn’t think there was enough opportunity in one position, he could find another quickly enough — an enviable position for any musician today.

Consider this: in the census of 1910, just as the recording industry was beginning, 92 million people lived in America, and 139,000 made their living as “musicians and composers.” Today, the population is 308 million, but the number of employed musicians has barely changed. Assuming the percentage of aspiring musicians has remained constant, struggling performers/composers have a third of the opportunities today that they had a century ago.

Sousa benefited from working in a music market where demand exceeded supply. But as his autobiography shows, supply exceeded talent. There were more people calling themselves “musician” than could actually play. In this excerpt, for example, he leaves Washington after his girlfriend’s father rejects him as an unsuitable son-in-law. He travels to Illinois to join an old associate who managed a theater.

I reported to him and the first question he asked was, “Have you had any experi­ence in engaging musicians?”

“No,” I said, “except at home, a little dance orchestra or something like that.”

“You go down to the theater,” he said, “and find out who the leader of the or­chestra is, then go out and engage not over ten men at the best price you can, have a thorough rehearsal, because they’ll need it, and then report conditions to me.”

I found the local leader in a paint shop, and after ascertaining that he was the man with whom to do business, I told him that I was the leader of the traveling company, which was to perform that night and asked if he could supply ten men for the orchestra.

He took his cigar from his mouth and said, “Can supply you as many as you want.”

“How much,” I asked, “do you charge a man?”

“Two dollars a skull,” was his reply.

“Well,” I said, falling into his mode of expression, “I want ten skulls—one first skull, one second skull, viola, cello and bass skulls for the strings, and flute, clarinet, cornet and trombone skulls for the wind, and a drum skull besides.”

“Anything else you want?” he asked.

“Yes, I would like them at the theater for rehearsal at two o’clock sharp,” I said.

He looked at me with a half-sorry-for-you expression and said: “Stranger, there are just two things that you don’t want here. One is that you don’t want any first fid [fiddle], and you don’t want any viola or ‘celly’ and you don’t want no flute, ’cause we ain’t got them. The second thing you don’t want is a rehearsal at two o’clock or any other time.”

“But,” I said, “we must have a re­hearsal.”

“Rehearsal be blowed,” he said. “We never rehearse here.”

“But,” I persisted, “my music is diffi­cult and a rehearsal is absolutely neces­sary. Several numbers must be transposed. Can your orchestra transpose?”

With a wave of his hand, he disdainfully said, “Transpose? Don’t worry. We trans­pose anything.”

No argument could budge him; and he finally stopped any further discussion by saying that I could take his orchestra or leave it, just as I liked.

It was Hobson’s choice with me, so I said, ” Well, I’ll take your orchestra, and I do hope everything will go all right to­night.”

“Don’t you lose any sleep over us. We’re all right,” he called to me as I was leaving his store.

Opening Night

John Philip Sousa in 1900.Photo by Elmer Chickering. (Wikimedia Commons)

Shortly after seven I went to the theater and found the orchestra in the music room under the stage. The leader said, “You might as well know the boys, and I’ll just introduce you. What is your name?”

“My name,” I answered, “is Sousa.”

“Well, Sousa,” this with an awkward bow, “allow me to introduce Professor Smith, our second fid; and, Sousa, this is Professor Brown, our clarinet player; and, Sousa, this is Professor Perkins, our bull fid; and this,” pointing to a cadaverous­-looking fellow, “is Professor Jones, who agitates the ivories on our pipe organ. Sousa, these are Professors Jim and Bill Simpson, solo and first cornet; this is Pro­fessor Reed, who whacks the bun drum, and yours truly, solo trombone. Now that all of us know each other, what is your overture? ”

I explained that the overture we used I had written myself and it had met with great favor.

“I ain’t sayin’ that’s so or not, but it won’t go here. Will it, boys?”

A unanimous “No” from the orchestra dispelled any doubt as to their feelings. I expostulated with warmth and injured pride, “But you have never heard my over­ture, you know nothing about it, and I can assure you it is all right.”

“It may be all right in Chicago or Boston, but I tell you it won’t go here. I got the overture that our people want and that’s the one we are going to play to­night.”

“But I think __ ”

“Don’t think”, said the leader, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Just make up your mind that you are going to play our overture. Do you read first fid at sight?”

I mildly admitted that I could do so. “Well, just take a look at this thing,” and he held up the first violin part of his “overture.”

“Now, I want to explain this piece to you. When we open up on her we go along quietly, not making any fuss, almost sneaking like,” and he pantomimed the tempo. “When you are playin’ that first strain you do it just as if you didn’t have no train to ketch but when we get here”, he pointed at the next strain marked allegro, “just go as fast as hell! You’ll have to chase your fingers all over the fiddle.”

I sighed and answered, “All right, I think I understand.”

After we were seated in the orchestra box I rapped for attention and we began the overture. I noticed immediately that all of them were wretched players, and when I started into the movement which the local man told me was to be taken “fast as hell,” they began playing the strain with a rapid­ity evidently unknown to the orchestra, and pandemonium reigned. But curiously enough each man felt that it was his duty to play the notes to the end regardless of what the rest did, and they finished one after the other, stretched out like a bunch of horses in a race. I had no time to express my disgust as the curtain was raised imme­diately and the first number was to be sung. It was “Come Back to Erin,” in E flat. When we began the introduction of the song, every member of the orchestra was blowing a note either in a different time or different key.

I shouted, “It’s in E flat.”

The louder I shouted, the louder they played. The singer sang on, trying to ap­pear oblivious to the cacophony that reigned. As soon as the song was finished, I turned to the leader, and said, “This is the rottenest orchestra I have ever heard. You do not know one note from another.”

He looked at me calmly, and said, “You are too particular. If you don’t like our style of playin’, pay us and we’ll go.”

“Pay you?” I cried. “You have not earned a cent.”

“Well, if you don’t like us, give us our money and we will go.”

I was very much excited, and I shouted, “Give you your money? Not under any circumstances. Pack up your instruments and get out of this theater.”

“We’ll go when we are paid, and not be­fore,” said the leader.

“I’ll see about that,” I said, jumping up and walking through the center aisle of the theater; and going to the box office, I ex­plained the situation to my manager. He called the manager of the theater over and told him, and he said, “All right, just call in the constable and put them out as usual.”

As the constable walked in to drive out the orchestra, I said to the local manager, “Just think, these men told me they could read anything, and when I wanted them to come to rehearsal they said they never re­hearsed in this town.”

“Yes,” said the local manager, “that is true; they never have a rehearsal because, if they did, they would be discharged before the performance.”

Young Sousa And The Musician Shortage The Saturday Evening Post

In the century that followed, Americans eagerly embraced the steady stream of new inventions, but rarely were they content to used them as originally intended. The phonograph is a good example.

Like television, the record player was meant for serious business. TV was intended to be an educational tool and the phonograph was invented to take dictation. In fact, it captured the human voice remarkably well. It was far less efficient for capturing music. But it was music the public wanted, not dictation. Entrepreneurs soon set up the first nickelodeons in major cities, where Americans could pay to hear recordings through stethoscope-like headphones. What they listened to most often was not speeches, or vaudeville routines, but music — square dances, hymns, banjo virtuousos, and brass bands.

Suddenly Edison had several competitors who were eager to satisfy America’s musical hunger. They recorded all types of music, and sold it for less than Edison. They even dropped the price of record players into a range that middle-income Americans could afford. Record sales kept climbing until 1921, when they reached an annual total of 100 million records.

Then came radio. To insiders in the recording industry, it looked like certain doom. Record sales were already dropping. Who, they reasoned, would be foolish enough to buy music when he could hear it for free? Yet, the end was not quite nigh. As the Post observed:

By the late 1920’s, when all else flourished, the phonograph industry was given up for dead. Actually, it continued to sell records in the millions, if fewer and fewer machines. The low mark, reached in 1933, was equal to what had seemed a booming business in 1907. [“Comeback,” Jan. 28, 1939]

By 1939, it continued, the record companies were surprisingly spry and cheerful for being dead.

Last year, about 35,000,000 records were sold, equal to 1912, and all makers were far behind their orders. The three best-selling Christmas gifts nationally in December were records, motion-picture cameras and projectors, and electric razors, in that order. The fourth quarter’s business more than doubled the fourth quarter of 1937. The sales curve rose from 1933 through 1938 identically with the rising curve 1907-12.

Part of the reason for the resurgence was the arrival of portable phonographs and combination radio-phonograph. Another reason, though, was the phonograph’s arch enemy.

On the one hand, the radio created a wider appreciation of the best music. On the other, it roused a rebellion with its overlong and blatant commercials.

The Post also observed that Americans had created an additional market within the recording industry.  Even as early as the 1930s, there was a booming business in record collecting. Not content to own a few records, collectors were hunting down and buying up obscure labels and forgotten artists. They were also sampling genres they’d never heard before — particularly classical music.

The negative of this very early and unidentified recording scene was found in the Edison laboratories. The long horn piped the sound to a wax-grooving machine on the balcony.

Neither Alexander Graham Bell nor Thomas A. Edison could foresee the fifty different kinds of record collectors who are the most picturesque proof of the way Americans have recently taken to the music that goes round and round on a platter. ["Meet the Platterbug," May 27, 1939]

Any kind of collector is usually a mystery to the outsider, to whom the accumulation of stamps, ivory elephants, old dental tools or hourglasses necessarily pointless. The possessor of a fine lot of antique dueling pistols, for instance, can only purr over them — firing them off would be too risky. Although usually literate, the august bibliophile seldom reads his folio Shakespeare, and, unless books are to be read, what were they for? But the record collector does make a good deal of sense to the uninitiated because, with a few screwball exceptions, he actually plays as well as loves his crowds. Each playing wears an irreplaceable disk down a little father. But he puts it on the turntable anyway, because it isn’t he record as such that he wants; it’s the music on it.

It is more difficult to understand why record collecting should be largely a man’s activity. Women led in supporting music in America. Yet only three or four women are at all conspicuous in any department of the record mania. Perhaps that is because the collector’s favorite spot for his record racks is in clothes closets—and no woman could bring herself to spoil good closet space for any purpose whatever. In any case, this is undeniably a stag affair. High-hat record shops report that most of their sales are classical and, of classical disks sold, men buy 90 per cent.

From the business point of view, all this is just another symptom of the way records have boomed since the bottom of the depression. A hundred million discs were sold at the glorious high point in 1921, when popular radio was still little more than a gleam in the engineer’s eye. By 1933, after radio had gradually relegated the phonograph to cobweb gathering in the cellar, only 10,000,000 sold — a 90 per cent drop. Record and phonograph makers were bitterly asking themselves why they were staying in business. Now and again the sheriff raised the same question. But then the cure of record sales suddenly jerked skyward, doing 35,000,000 last year, well on the way to 55,000,000 this year. Still groggy with delight, the platter industry is going giddily to town, riding a huge wave of phonograph-consciousness of which collectors are the seething foam on top.

The paradoxical theory that radio produced this unexpected boom is pretty plausible. While smothering the phonograph with fresh, free entertainment, radio was also educating its public into listening to music, classical stuff as well as popular, and liking it more and more. A public that really like something presently begins to want what it wants when it wants it, and there the phonograph has the bulge.

Radio musical fare is necessarily table-d’hote, confining the listener to what program departments see fit to give him. To get his music a la carte, to hear Wagner or Bob Crosby or a ‘mother-o’-mine’ tenor when the mood is on him, the new music fan turned to records. Simultaneously, radio was encouraging him to do so by developing techniques that accomplished great improvements on both disks and phonographs— things like electrical recording and devices for playing records through the sensitive amplifying radio mechanism. Resulting combination radio-phonographs sold more than 200,000 last year at high prices, and those detachable turntables that make a phonograph out of any radio have swept the country.

Others trying to account for the record boom, point to the huge recent increase in nickel-in-the-slot phonographs in taverns and dog wagons, each steadily wearing out disks day and night, with the proprietor making a profit from the nickels and the record companies falling over themselves to supply up-to-the-minute replacements.

Others lay a lot of it to the swing-jitterbug craze… As new and frantic dances replaced the old bored attitude on the dance floor and reintroduced the vibrating chandelier to American life, the phonograph became the same necessity it was back in the days of the toddle and the camel walk. If you wanna cut a rug, you wanna cut a rug, and the radio gives out the appropriate swing only after midnight.

Radio, like the recording industry, has been slated for extinction several times, yet it, too, has missed every appointment. In the 1950s, television was going to kill radio, as well as motion pictures. The VCR, and then the DVD, was going to kill television. And now, the internet has come along, and it’s going to kill radio, television, newspapers, books, conversation, and all social life. It’s also going to finish off the recording industry. Again.

Read “Meet the Platterbug”, originally published May 27, 1939.

The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Recording Industry The Saturday Evening Post