His Master's Voice: After Thomas Edison invented
the phonograph, Little Nipper became an icon after
starring in RCA ads for decades.
Remember When
Hit Tunes: A Musical Diary of our Lives
American music is a pop-cultural timeline of modern history
By Cookie Curci-Wright
As a little girl, I'd root myself in the warmth and coziness of grandma's bosom while the strains of a scratchy 1910 recording of "Ramona" echoed from her Victrola.
The song, recorded by Italian tenor Roberto Rossini, was grandma's most beloved recording. To keep her favorite record spinning, grandma intermittently gave the machine's crank a generous turn.
Today, whenever I play that same old victrola and set the needle onto the record's timeless grooves, warm and pleasant memories are instantly rekindled.
That's how it is with music. Our favorite tunes help revive memories of old friends, youthful romances and loved ones.
When America went to war in 1941, music helped keep the home fires burning. Jukeboxes played patriotic, emotional songs, such as: "We'll meet again," "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" and "When the lights go on again all over the world." Husbands and wives, separated by the war, were reunited in spirit with songs, such as "It's been a long, long time," "I'll get by," and "I'll walk alone."
In 1944, the romantic wartime favorite "I'll be seeing you" was recorded by America's No. 1 crooner of the day, Frank Sinatra. The song appeared on radio's Your Hit Parade for 24 straight weeks.
Those of us born in the early 1940s experienced the unique joy of growing up in a postwar America, a time of patriotism and prosperity. It was a time when romantic music inspired affairs of the heart and the ballad singer was king of the airwaves.
The Broadway musical was at a creative peak in 1948. The musical collaboration of Rogers and Hammerstein created legendary musicals: Oklahoma, Carousel and South Pacific. Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun played to standing room only. Broadway became the main source of America's hit tunes. In 1949, crooner Perry Como's recording of Rogers and Hammerstein's "Some Enchanted Evening" was at the top of Your Hit Parade for 10 consecutive weeks and was the No. 1 romantic song of the year.
In 1949, the movie house sing-a-long was growing in popularity across the country. In between movie features, theater patrons were invited to follow a bouncing ball as it ricocheted across a screen of musical lyrics. The most popular of these sing-a-longs were "Deep in the heart of Texas," "Clementine," "Home on the range" and "You are my sunshine."
Music set the romantic mood for lovers and sweethearts. A 78 RPM recording by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra or Vaughn Monroe placed on the phonograph could generate an amorous evening. The lyrics to these songs spoke for a generation of romantics who found it difficult to put their feelings into words. Many young lovers were engaged to the musical strains of the big band sounds: Glen Miller's "Moonlight Serenade," Les Brown's "I've got my love to keep me warm" and the soulful "You made me love you" by band leader and trumpeter Harry James.
By the 1950s, the big band sound was fading, but Katherine and Arthur Murray kept the music alive with such dance crazes as the Mambo, the Conga, the Bunny Hop and the Jitterbug. Latin mambo king Perez Prado inspired a Cha Cha craze with his hit song, "Cheery Pink and Apple Blossom White."
In 1950, after 10 years on radio, Your Hit Parade came to television. Audiences across the country watched with bated breath to see if their favorite song made it to the No. 1 spot of the week. Regulars on the show were Gisele Mackenzie, Russell Arms, Dorothy Collins and Snooky Lanson. They did a good job of singing songs like " Goodnight, Irene" and "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."
And when pop turned to bop, the hit parade singers did an equally good job of crooning tunes such as "Misty," "This ol' house" and "Mr. Sandman." However, when bop turned into rock & roll, teens began buying hit singles by new sensations Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Fats Domino.
These younger viewers wanted to see the new songs performed in the same wild, gyrating way of their favorite rock & roll stars. Though Snooky Lanson tried his best to give a close rendition of Elvis' hit song "Hound Dog" his reserved version was so square it had become almost laughable to a new, hipper generation. By 1959, when the old Lucky Strike singers swayed back and forth and sang "So long for a while... that's all the songs for a while," it would be their swan song.
During this musical heyday, every Christmas season inspired a new holiday hit song. Few of us can hear a recording of Vaughn Monroe's "Let it snow," Nat King Cole's rendition of "The Christmas song" or Bing Crosby's signature version of "White Christmas" without thinking of the holidays.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the musical generation gap was bridged by pop singers such as: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Doris Day and Johnny Mathis. Teens, as well as their parents, were buying records by these recording artists with such songs as "That's Amore," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," "Secret Love," "Strangers In The night" and "Misty."
For many of us raised in a postwar America, the songs we listened to as young adults are now on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. The romantic crooner, as we once knew him, no longer exists. A spark of light burned for him in the 1970s when an occasional hit from Sinatra, Perry Como and Tony Bennett made it to the top 10. But the arrival of MTV soon displaced any hope I had of their return.
The new music belongs to a generation of music lovers who watch cleverly edited pop videos and listen to rap artists, techno-pop and the popular hip-hop sound.
But as long as there are singers around like Celine Dion, Barbara Streisand and Tony Bennent, hope springs eternal that they and other singers will add new, meaningful and lasting songs to America's diary of popular tunes.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
