This top-ten charts book offers both the authoritative music industry data compiled by Billboard magazine and the American Tobacco Company's Your Hit Parade selections for the years 1935-1958 (pre-dating the Billboard charts by nearly two decades). The book has been compiled by Bruce Elrod, owner of not only the Your Hit Parade listings but also the rights to reproduce the original broadcasts of the shows. Other features include all-time hits listings by musical style (country and western, blues, etc), contributions written by music personalities, and many illustrations. Performer and song title indexes are also included.

This is a chronology of the most famous songs from the years before rock 'n' roll. The top hits for each year are described, including vital information such as song origin, artist(s), and chart information. For many songs, the author includes any web or library holdings of sheet music covers, musical scores, and free audio files. An extensive collection of biographical sketches follows, providing performing credits, relevant professional awards, and brief biographies for hundreds of the era's most popular performers, lyricists, and composers. Includes an alphabetical song index and bibliography.

Arthur Schwartz (1900-1984), a premier composer of American Popular Song during the mid-20th century, has been overlooked by historians. This first full-length biography covers his work on Broadway and in Hollywood, where he was known as the "master of the intimate revue" for his songs in the 1930s with Howard Dietz. Schwartz wrote music for films in the 1940s--with Academy Award nominations for They're Either Too Young or Too Old and A Gal in Calico--produced two popular movie musicals--Cover Girl and Night and Day--and was among the first songwriters to work in the new medium of television. The author describes his creative process and includes behind-the-scenes stories of each of his major musicals.

This informative two-volume set provides readers with an understanding of the fads and crazes that have taken America by storm from colonial times to the present. Entries cover a range of topics, including food, entertainment, fashion, music, and language. Why could hula hoops and TV westerns only have been found in every household in the 1950s? What murdered Russian princess can be seen in one of the first documented selfies, taken in 1914? This book answers those questions and more in its documentation of all of the most captivating trends that have defined American popular culture since before the country began. Entries are well-researched and alphabetized by decade. At the start of every section is an insightful historical overview of the decade, and the set uniquely illustrates what today's readers have in common with the past. It also contains a Glossary of Slang for each decade as well as a bibliography, plus suggestions for further reading for each entry. Students and readers interested in history will enjoy discovering trends through the years in such areas as fashion, movies, music, and sports.

Have the 1950s been overly romanticized? Beneath the calm, conformist exterior, new ideas and attitudes were percolating. This was the decade of McCarthyism, Levittowns, and men in gray flannel suits, but the 1950s also saw bold architectural styles, the rise of paperback novels and the Beat writers, Cinema Scope and film noir, television variety shows, the Golden Age of the automobile, subliminal advertising, fast food, Frisbees, and silly putty. Meanwhile, teens attained a more prominent role in American culture with hot rods, rock 'n' roll, preppies and greasers, and—gasp—juvenile delinquency. At the same time, a new technological threat, the atom bomb, lurked beneath the surface of the postwar decade. This volume presents a nuanced look at a surprisingly complex time in American popular culture.

At the end of WWII, themes in music shifted from soldiers' experiences at war to coming home, marrying their sweethearts, and returning to civilian life. The music itself also shifted, with crooners such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra replacing the Big Bands of years past. Country music, jazz, and gospel continued to evolve, and rhythm and blues and the new rock and roll were also popular during this time. Music is not created without being influenced by the political events and societal changes of its time, and the Music of the Postwar Era is no exception. *includes combined musical charts for the years 1945-1959 *approximately 20 black and white images of the singers and musicians who represent the era's music

Providing a fresh reevaluation of a specific era in popular music, the book contextualizes the era in terms of both radio history and cultural analysis. >