All the #1 Hits of 1950s Rock 'n Roll, Plus: We Get a Little "Misty"

John Oliver on Trump and the press, Neil Young backs The Boss, and the usual cartoons.

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Our video feature the other day—every #1 single week by week for the entire 1960s with video clips—was so popular we are going back a little bit deeper today. This one uses the same concept but for the 1950s. But we’ll jump in nearly halfway through that decade. I have it cued up just a few weeks before “Rock Around the Clock” arrived in mid-1955 (it had earlier appeared in the movie “Blackboard Jungle” setting off shock waves in theater) so you’ll appreciate some of the contrast. Then we go through more of the standard easy listening or novelty hits until we get to Elvis, and then, wow!

I was only a mere lad myself but remember all the songs and progression well, through Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, the Everlys and beyond. No Little Richard nor Chuck Berry—popular but too black for #1 slots, though Pat Boone made it… You’ll also see that a lot of the songs stayed at #1 for many weeks. Enjoy:

Now just a quick tip of the hat to one of the most popular recording artists of the 1950s and 1960s—really, ever, by the numbers. As a non-rocker, Johnny Mathis was never my cup of tea but omnipresent on AM radio and certainly a fine crooner one had to appreciate. His greatest hits albums stayed on the charts for decades and somehow he kept going, even came out as gay as one of the first popular performers to do so. Like many, I figured he had left us long ago but no—word emerged a few days ago that he would be playing his final concert last night in nearby Englewood, NJ.

Here he was just last month, at the age of 89, with a remarkable rendition of his classic “Misty.”

Switching gears, here’s John Oliver’s report last night on Trump’s mockery and manipulation of the media, including the now largely laughable White House press crew.

Loved this Paul Krugman headline today at his Substack:

Attack of the Sadistic Zombies

The GOP budget is incredibly cruel — and that’s the point

Neil Young the latest to back The Boss in his “war of words” with Trump.

From Tunes to Toons

This is actually being considered:

Steve Brodner:

The New Yorker’s Ali Fitzgerald imagines new Trump-era dolls if recession hits: