The rise of rock & roll in the 1950s was directly due to the increased buying power of American teenagers, and if those teenagers sometimes bought records based more on the face of the singer than on any musical innovation in the grooves, the door was opened to a new kind of music. By 1959, the year covered by this fun collection, the original volley by rockers like
Elvis Presley (who had gone into the Army),
Chuck Berry (in jail),
Jerry Lee Lewis (keeping a low profile because of a controversial marriage), and
Little Richard (who had become a preacher) had muted and abated and the void was filled by dozens of teenaged crooners like
Bobby Rydell, who watered down rock & roll’s ragged, raw intensity until it fit neatly on American Bandstand. But the teen songs that hit the charts that year also painted a kind of innocent, puppy love approach to intimacy and relationships that let everyone -- adults and kids alike -- to sort of catch their collective breath. Of course, a quartet from Liverpool, England was just around the corner, and the times would soon change again. This package, though, freezes the moment between rock’s early years and its dominant refinement in the 1960s. It was a brief world dominated by singing Barbies and Kens, but fear not, now and then someone like
the Big Bopper wades in here with a song like “Chantilly Lace” and everything balances. ~ Steve Leggett