1960 in music. • Page 3

oh god. rudolph! those royalty checks!!

 

Pat, with all due respect and camaraderie, if you keep posting album title first, artist second, I’m going to have to assume you’re a sociopath. Haha

 

Dude he was gonna play with the singin’ cowboy/California Angels owner Gene Autry?! So cool

 

Holy shit @stars143 thanks for the kick in the ass to finally hear that Ella album. So, so good. Her improvisational skills make her so thrilling because you can tell she hasn’t over rehearsed and memorized the way she’s going to sing it. She just feels it. Which is why she makes genius out of forgetting how the song goes

 

okay yea fair

 

yyyep. Though actually I think back then he wouldn’t have been getting shit, RCA and all those record companies basically owned everything. Like I don’t think our family gets any royalties for any of the songs he played on as the session musician hah.

Yep I’m pretty sure that was the implication. And the timeline matches up too because they weren’t “established” yet in 1949, so getting invited to studio time and record for an artist would have been a huge deal worthy of celebration to them at the time hah.

If I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure Gene Autry played at the music/theme park my grandfather ran in the 60s and 70s. But if not, they at least definitely knew each other/were friendly. He was friends with all the big country stars back then. We def have pictures of OG Hank Williams performing there (or maybe it was jr?) , and I know they knew Dolly Parton, but they were good friends with Sally Starr. Just did some internet sleuthing and see pictures of Johnny Cash and June Carter from the first year my grandfather owned it.

There is of course a darkside to this all, considering they were white people in the 50s and 60s. Definitely have seen pictures of people dressed in blackface/minstrel as part of the shows they would put on. And others where it almost looks like half black face, almost like it’s supposed to be a beard/look like a carpetbagger. Not sure what year that stopped lol. Most of the pics are in black and white but still. Feel pretty confident that lasted at least into the 70s.

He has a bunch of other songs floating around on YouTube, including one that I think is kind of a tongue in cheek anti-draft song about the Vietnam War lol

 

Here’s the Ed Sullivan clip. It’s wild to me that there’s stuff like this with my grandfather on YouTube lol

 

my great uncle was in OG second city and his dad played for the st. cardinals AAA team but that’s all i got lol

 

Count me in starting with 1963! I will gladly check out the songs and albums posted from these first few years, but admittedly I know very very little about the pop music landscape prior to The Beatles crashing onto the scene.

I actually spent a few months during quarantine compiling yearly playlists starting in 1963 and going all the way to 2020 (catered mostly to my tastes, but also open to critically acclaimed classics that I may have never heard before), so once we hit '63 I will definitely share links to those and contribute my top 3-5 or more albums per year.

Great idea everyone!

 

The Wiki articles as well as Google searches for "top albums from YYYY" were mainly what I used to remember what came out what year.

 

My grandmother toured Europe and South America with a production of West Side Story on bass and was part of the pit orchestra at a theater in the Boston area for a ton of musicals. Probably most notably a production of Fiddler on the Roof with Leonard Nimoy as Tevye

Not famous, but always very impressive to me

Oh and my uncle is a fairly accomplished composer. You can hear his “Lake George Overture” on Spotify

 

My grandfather built the machine that first allowed Nabisco to make Oreo's double stuffed and then my mom's uncle was the most in-demand masseuse in New York. Clients included all of that era's New York Yankees, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. We have personalized autographs from both Sinatra and Whitey Ford.

On another note, listening to Swing Dat Hammer and am absolutely blown away.

 

Honestly I've been chewing the inside off my cheek trying to decide if I picked the right Belafonte or if Swing Dat Hammer should have been the pick. I'm so glad you love it. It's really a one-of-a-kind album.

I checked out Bo Diddley's Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger and it's a bit of a grab-bag as far as sequencing, but it's also an absolute blast.

 

It's a really special brand of cool. I have an NWSL game on and keep finding myself closing my eyes just to sink into the album. Hard to want to do anything other than pay close attention

 

@David87 a real miracle I don't say that constantly as a bit

 

Louis Armstrong came to my grandparents' house for dinner once; my mom was very young at the time and was sleeping upstairs when he was there.

 

Listening to At Last! for the first time in a minute and it's so incredible that "At Last" is on Etta James' debut and not a song that came a little further down the line.

 

I'm excited for this thread! I went on a big 60s kick at the end of last year, and the last week or two I've been listening pretty much exclusively to Bob Dylan, so I'm definitely ready to dive in more.

I don't know much from 1960 itself, but I did listen to Joan Baez's debut for the first time last week and it was very good. That's the only album from the year that I've heard (at least that I know of), so I guess by default it's my favorite.

I've also heard a couple songs from Ella Live in Berlin, I'm pretty sure, but I'm going to listen to the full thing, and then check out The Ventures: Walk Don't Run, Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain, and Etta James: At Last. Also was just thinking recently I need to check out Muddy Waters, so I'll add that to the list.

 

Like the idea of these threads. Will probably be more active as it gets into the mid 60's as there's not much outside some jazz classics that I listen to from the early 60's.

Saying that, Giant Steps came out in 1960 and that's one of Coltrane's best. Sketches of Spain is obviously great too.

 

Just seen Portrait in Jazz by the Bill Evans Trio came out in 1960 too. Need to give that a listen.

 

it’s great

 

Btw if you're not the most initiated jazz fan, Cool Velvet by Stan Getz is a great 1960 entry point. Legitimate jazz legend, but very melodic and on this album (and the even better Focus) is doing the whole Third Stream thing where he's backed by gorgeous strings.

 

On spotify you can search “year: xxxx”

Not super comprehensive because folks tend to put the the upload year instead of release year, but it’s a start.

you can also do stuff like “label:”, “genre:” or i guess “isrc:” if yr into that sort of thing

 

Not much to add to all these killin picks, but some blues to check out:

Lightnin’ Hopkins - Autobiography In Blue

Elmore James - The Sky Is Cryin’ (i dunno if there’s an album too, but the song is a must hear)

Also, it’s 1959, but if you haven’t dialed in on Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City”, that record is like lightning in a bottle. Pure vibes

also this song is a ripper and really has a 2020 mood to it:

(also i put this record out so you should probably buy 5-25 copies of it)