"A nice girl is a nice girl anywhere. And a bum is a bum." -Frank Sinatra as Joey Evans, Pal Joey (1957), Dir: George Sidney

Joe Turner was the father figure for all of the 1940s and 1950s rhythm & blues shouters. He honed his craft in the bars and night clubs of Kansas City during the late 1920s and early 1930s, and by the time he appeared in the 1938 "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall and made his first records with pianist Pete Johnson, he was already at the peak of his powers.

Turner achieved his greatest commercial success in the 1950s when he joined the roster of Atlantic Records and recorded a lot of contemporary material penned by writers like Jesse Stone, Doc Pomus and Leiber & Stoller. Although he was already in his forties, he became an unlikely rock'n'roll star and recorded a a few teen-oriented songs. But like just about all of his Atlantic releases, even these were excellent records.

Turner's wife, Lou Willie Turner (real name: Luella Brown) was credited as the writer of "Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop" (1953). As the song was released on the flip side of "TV Mama", one of Turner's major hits, it did not make the R&B charts on its own, but it is still a very entertaining record, with Turner fully in charge even in this live video version from 1954:

Joe Turner: "Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop" (1954)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnytNEuw3VE

Amos Milburn was one of the major rhythm & blues stars of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

"Bad, Bad Whiskey" was a #1 R&B hit for Milburn in 1950. Credited to the profilic arranger/producer Maxwell Davis, it was the first in a series of drinking songs recorded by him. Many of these were hits, including "Thinking and Drinking", "Let Me Go Home, Whiskey", "Good Good Whiskey" and the original version of "One Scotch, One Bourbon and One Beer".

There is a wonderful video of Milburn playing the song in 1954, backed by an orchestra led by saxophonist Paul Williams. As you can see in the video, Milburn was an excellent singer and pianist, and obviously a charismatic performer as well:

Amos Milburn: "Bad, Bad Whiskey" (1954)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCX--0wJQkQ

This is only one of several very nice live video performances by Milburn captured around this time.These were apparently filmed by a company called Studio Films in New York (although not at the Apollo Theater as was claimed). Together with other similar three-minute videos, they were shown on TV channels and included in low-budget movies.

There is an extensive review of these videos (with lots of impressive background information) in these two blog posts:

http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-amos-milburn.html
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-rhythm-blues-review.html

Modern audiences may remember Ruth Brown as Motormouth Maybelle in the original John Waters' version of "Hairspray" (1988). But she was also one of the biggest rhythm & blues stars of the 1950s, and the first major artist in the roster of the fledgling Atlantic Records, founded by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson in 1947.

By the time Brown recorded her #1 R&B hit "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" in 1952, Atlantic had become one of the leading record labels in the R&B market, to a large extent thanks to her record sales. In the UK, the future soul music guru Dave Godin found a bar which had a jukebox stocked with current American R&B singles (I wonder if they were still 78s?), and he later cited this Ruth Brown classic as the record that changed his life.

Amazingly enough, there is a great live video recorded in 1954, which captures Ruth Brown in her prime, performing this song.

Ruth Brown: "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" (1954)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqmGZRGvKC8

#cars #car #plymouth #american #uk #belvedere #fury #PlymouthBelvedere #PlymouthFury #vintage #auto #retro #Vintagecar #1950s #americana #auto #automobile #automobiles #vehicles #motorvehicles #motorvehicle
You don’t see many of these in the UK. A 57 Plymouth I believe, but with harsh sodium street lights I’m not sure if it was yellow or white. I’m sure I remember reading most left the factory in white, but thankfully it wasn’t red and driving itself…

Z #NowPlaying At the top of the hour on The Global Voice it's a new 78 Decades with Mike G. vintage recorded #music of all #genres from the #1890s to the #1950s. https://theglobalvoice.info:8443/broadband #vinyl #20s #30s #40s #78rpmcommunity #78rpm

Juliette Gréco - Chanson pour l’auvergnat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL-FrqN54oQ

The BEVERLY SISTERS - Green fields (1959) UK Columbia

https://youtu.be/OIH4Vc0LiGI

#musicselection #1950s
#pop #vocal

Rosemary Clooney - Tenderly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbQjDxA7g-M

images from 'No Down Payment' (1957)

Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myRc-3oF1d0

1950s toy advertisement.

During a performance for a Shriners convention, a Sky Dancer aerialist skips rope on a small platform high above the streets of downtown, Chicago, Illinois, July 13, 1955. Photos by Life Magazine Photographer John Dominis.

Billie Holiday, Songs for Distingué Lovers, 1958 on Verve

Great set of recordings, with liner notes by Norman Granz. No real detail on the sessions on the record itself, but apparently recorded during sessions in January 1957 in Hollywood – the same sessions that yielded All or Nothing at All and Body and Soul.

Wonderful versions of “Stars Fell on Alabama” and “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)” in particular.

Granz writes on the liner notes:

. . . quite possibly the best liner notes ever written about Miss Holiday singing songs would be simply to say to the listener ‘this is a fact: Miss Holiday has happened to some songs’ and to the discriminating listener that ought to suffice.

My copy is a 2024 Barnes & Noble exclusive pressing on yellow vinyl, pressed at GZ Media. May be from a digital source (no credit for mastering – though it is a licensed recording, not a grey market one) but sounds great.

#1950s #1958 #barnesNoble #BillieHoliday #jazz #NormanGranz #Verve #vinyl #vinylcollection #vinylfinds

Z #NowPlaying At the top of the hour on The Global Voice it's a new 78 Decades with Mike G. vintage recorded #music of all #genres from the #1890s to the #1950s. https://theglobalvoice.info:8443/broadband #vinyl #20s #30s #40s #78rpmcommunity #78rpm

♬〜 Chuck Berry - Roll over Beethoven Berry Is On Top
#RockAndRoll #50s #Rock #RockNRoll #1950s #NowPlaying

Another puppy photo:

Girl with Happy Dog (British 1910s)

Just for fun:

Dog Sitting Up (American 1950s)