Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Roque - 1950s Performance

Throughout my music listening last week, I realized that a lot of the artists we were learning about and listening to were male lead bands and solo acts. On a day to day basis, I don't really listen to male artists, so I automatically started searching for female rock and roll artists from the 1950s. Though the 1960s was the golden era of girl groups, I found that there were a few girl groups producing music in the late 50s. The earliest songs I found were produced in 1955, which is when the Honeytones released the song "False Alarm" which I linked below. I liked this song a lot because it had a similar sound to the music that was on the Spotify playlist. I found the song incredibly catchy and I thought the song had killer harmonies that you can only create with female voices. I tried to do some more research about the Honeytones and I found it really interesting that there was almost no information about them aside from their music. I know that the 60s was the girl group era, but it made me sad to know that there were very few successful female musicians before the '60s, even though they were producing the same type of music that male musicians were producing at the time.




3 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more, Hannah. Female singers in the 1950s were largely of the pop ballad/Connie Francis variety, though a few singers had some rock hits, notably Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson and Brenda Lee, who at 13 sang the immortal 1958 classic, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." Hang in there. One of the great legacies of punk is the essential voice of female artists and innovators. For now, enjoy the below 1958 hit by Wanda Jackson (who dated Elvis at one point):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8ga7-6qNek

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  2. Hannah, I think your research is very intriguing, I never thought that during the girl group era there would be minimal information on them. I began to research more girl groups during this time period, specifically The Shirelles. Even with that girl group there was not much information on them at all, I am very curious as to why that is.

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  3. If you're interested, there are two fabulous boxed sets on the girl groups: Growin' Up Too Fast (on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Growin-Up-Too-Fast-Anthology/dp/B000001EGK/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_15_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V7WTWMERV8XNZHB5Y446) and Girl Group Sounds (on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/album/381RiX1sEngjqKK9GGNLQf?si=_zJ1ptGcRviCZRMredP5Og).

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