1956-1959

1956-1959

                There’s really good stuff in here.  As a jazz fan, I knew that already.  As a rock & roll fan, I think I always underestimated the 50s stuff as historically important and interesting to hear revived later on, but that’s hardly fair.  This early stuff is at least as good as a lot of what came after.  Getting used to the thin clean production takes some getting used to.  Also, it’s still very close to what’s going on in country & blues at this point.  My Sun Records comp, for instance, has one disc of “country” and one disc of “rock & roll,” but the line is pretty arbitrary.  Johnny Cash, for instance, goes on the country disc, but that’s probably only because of what he did after.  Otherwise he sounds at least as rock & roll as anything Elvis was doing at the same time, at least on things like “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” 

                My ‘real’ country diminishes substantially in this period, which is of course more to do with my collection than what was really going on then.  I missed all the Hank Williams from the early 1950s, though.  The blues stuff keeps being very good, and fits well alongside the rockabilly.  Chuck Berry, though, much better at playing rock & roll than the blues.

                Overall, a period with a very clear pop/jazz – blues/rock & roll split.  Good stuff on both sides, but it doesn’t sound right all mixed together.  Still, I expected the late 1950s to be of more academic interest, and less fun in its own right.  So that was pretty exciting.

Song of the “Year”:  Dave Brubeck – “Take Five”  One of my favorite songs for years and years, and one of the best examples of how to fuse progressive intelligent composition into a catchy pop song.

Album of the Year: Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners.  When I explain to people why I hate the Animal Collective, this is my go-to example.  You need to master the rules before you can deconstruct them.  If you do, you get masterpieces like this (or, more modernly, things like Kid A).  If you don’t, it just sounds like you’re using intellectualization as a fig leaf to cover your incompetence.

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Hard to say.  Really a genre as a whole.  That early rockabilly is pretty amazing.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Buddy Holly, surprisingly enough.  He’s still very very good, but sounds a lot tamer than many of his contemporaries.  Also, his later, more orchestrated stuff points toward the safer, mellower stuff of the next couple of years.