Year: 2015
Time: 30:07
Size: 69,2 MB
Label: Self Released
Styles: Pop/50's Pop
Art: Front
Tracks Listing:
1. So Much In Love - 2:55
2. Lonely Way - 2:05
3. All of a Sudden (My Heart Sings) - 2:52
4. To Be Loved - 3:19
5. Shu Bop - 4:17
6. Can I Come Over Tonight - 2:22
7. Only You - 2:44
8. I'm a Fool to Want You - 3:55
9. A Cottage for Sale - 5:34
A tribute album to Doo Wop and popular music of the 1950s.
I was just a kid when Rock ‘n’ Roll emerged in the 1950s. At the age of seven my older sister Rona was a teen screaming her head off in front of our black & white Emerson television when Elvis Presley made his debut on Ed Sullivan. I realized at that moment that there was something extraordinary happening, even if I didn’t understand it.
America was going through a major cultural and musical revolution and the generation gap that was unprecedented, created tremendous tension and conflicts nation wide. After WWII, the big band popularity diminished as returning veterans settled into their new lives as husbands, wives and parents. Musicians formed smaller ensembles and created a very expressive form of jazz called be-bop. Radio, for the most part, was segregated and the biggest stations leaned towards an easy listening format that catered primarily to an older, white audience.
At its best easy listening included many of my greatest influences — Sinatra, Bennett, Ella, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Vic Damone, Billy Eckstine — a glorified tip of an otherwise huge iceberg. And at its worst, you had the likes of Sing-Along-With-Mitch Miller.
In stark contrast to this favorable genre of popular music, Rock ‘n’ Roll was radical. It was threatening to the establishment and had a new vibrancy and passion never before heard or experienced. It took very brave visionaries like Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records and DJ Alan Freed to cross the racial barrier and bring Rock ‘n’ Roll and Rhythm & Blues to the masses.
With the outing and ultimate popularization of such a risque genre came the rise of many other forms of music that reined in popularity during the 50s and 60s. One such byproduct of Rhythm and Blues was doo-wop. I didn’t really get into doo-wop until I was in high school. A friend of mine Terry Forer was a serious record collector of doo-wop groups and I’d go over to his house with a couple of other guys and we’d do our best to replicate the harmonies we heard. Terry turned me on to a lot of esoteric groups like The Dells, The Paragons, Nolan Strong and The Diablos, The Valentines and The Cadillacs, but the singers and groups that I resonated most with were more mainstream like Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, Dion and The Belmonts, Jimmy Beaumont and The Skyliners, The Platters and the great Jackie Wilson. I believe having these influences helped me to get cast as Teenangel in original Broadway production of Grease. I auditioned with The Platters Only You, which is one of the cuts on this CD.
From Rock ‘n’ Roll to easy listening crooners, R&B and undoubtedly doo-wop, I had the opportunity during these formative years to take it all in with open and unbiased ears. My preferences narrowed solely by that which I felt was good from that which was obviously not. The link that tied the different musical genres together for me coalesced in the artistry, the craft and the soulfulness expressed.
This album has been a labor of love and a long time coming. It is my homage to music that I grew up on and pays honor to some of the singers, vocal groups, arrangers and producers that inspired and impacted me from the 1950’s.
Alan
Shu Bop
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