THE 1950'S ARE DISAPPEARING

I today received this video clip of the 1950's.  This is Sunday, click on that and reminisce a bit.  Of course, you need to be really old to appreciate those days.

I don't remember much of my years from zero to 9.  I am what I am today because of my experiences from 10 to 19. That's a period from 1950-1959.  Those days are disappearing.  Really.

To begin, on my cable system there are 50 Music Choice channels.  Starts with 800 Hawaiian.  Then from 801, too too much noise of today, with three even for toddlers.  Then 826 has music from 2000 to the present, followed by 90's, 80's, 70's, solid gold (essentially 95% 60's), into four country stations, a mix of stuff through jazz and swing (meaning 1940's) and classical into #850.  There is nothing from 1950-59.  Of course zero from 1939 backwards, but most of those people are long gone anyway or can't hear too well.

Was that just accidental?  Nope.  As  you know, I now have Echo with Alexa.  I ask her to play all kinds of music.  60's?  Sure, a whole Prime channel for those.  50's?  Initially, she got confused, and asked me to purchase the full Prime package first.  

However, today, I tried again, and something has changed:

• I asked her, please play music from the year 1950, and she did Beethoven's Fifth.  Hmmm.
• Then what about 1951, and some country song came on.
• 1952?  She played Elvis.  Needs some work here, for he was 18 in 1953 when he released My Happiness.
• 1949?  Came on songs of that year.
• So Amazon is actually expanding their offerings, for free.

For those still alive, there was the Spanish Flu and intolerance of the '20's, while the '30's were economically difficult, for the Great Depression was still ongoing, and the '40's had World War II, so were even more terrible.   But our Greatest Generation was created.  All settting the stage for the wonderful '50's.

1950 began with the Korean War, saw the start of the early Vietnam War, suffered through nuclear testing, and saw the U.S. appearing to drop behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War, especially in space.  There was the Suez Crisis, Cuban Revolution and the Mau Mau in Kenya.  However, African de-colonization began to occur, the European Common Market formed, the U.S. ended our occupation of Japan, the Nationalists escaped to Taiwan, Alaska and Hawaii became states, success of the Marshall Plan (Berlin), inflation only ranged from 1-3%, the transistor was developed, television took over, photovoltaic cells were invented, the double-helix was discovered, polio was cured, first nuclear power plant opened in the Soviet Union, NASA was organized, and here were the top ten films (half are foreign and half came from 1957):

1. 
   Seven Samurai (1954), Rotten Tomatoes 100 reviewers / 97 audiences
2. Rear Window (1954), RT 99/95
3. Paths of Glory (1957), RT 95/95
4. Ikiru (1956), RT 98/97
5. 12 Angry Men (1957), RT 100/97
6. Witness for the Prosecution (1957), RT 100/95
7. Wild Strawberries (1957), RT 95/94
8. The 400 Blows (1959), RT 100/94
9. Sunset Boulevard (1950), RT 99/95
10. The Cranes are Flying (1957), RT 96/94

From Wikipedia, the music of those days:

Popular music in the early 1950s was essentially a continuation of the crooner sound of the previous decade, with less emphasis on the jazz-influenced big band style and more emphasis on a conservative, operatic, symphonic style of music. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Patti Page, Judy Garland, Johnnie Ray, Kay Starr, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, Georgia Gibbs, Eddie Fisher, Teresa Brewer, Dinah Shore, Kitty Kallen, Joni James, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Toni Arden, June Valli, Doris Day, Arthur Godfrey, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Guy Mitchell, Nat King Cole, and vocal groups like the Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, The Four Lads, The Four Aces, The Chordettes, The Fontane Sisters, The Hilltoppers and the Ames Brothers. Jo Stafford's "You Belong To Me" was the #1 song of 1952on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

Radio stations don't play their songs anymore.  Save for PBS, TV ignores them. Then from mid-decade:

Rock-n-roll emerged in the mid-1950s with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochran, Brenda Lee, Bobby Vee, Connie Francis, Johnny Mathis, Neil Sedaka, Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson being notable exponents. In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. Chuck Berry, with "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.^[12] Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Johnny Horton, and Marty Robbins were Rockabilly musicians.

You also don't hear them anymore.  Here are the top 65 songs of the 50's, in ten minutes.  Every #1 Billboard #1 hit of the 1950's, in nine minutes.

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