SWe turn our attention to the Steel City, where the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio Rivers meet, and go visit radio station WJAS, which by 1957 was part of the NBC Radio Network. Except for a brief period in the mid- and late-1970’s, it’s always been known as WJAS. They’re now broadcasting news and talk, like so many other radio stations these days. I chose a survey from July 13, 1957, and discovered that there wasn’t a whole lot of information on the songs or the artists, leading me to believe that they were from the Pittsburgh area. Anyway, that explains why the notes are a bit sparse this week.
- Eileen Rodgers, “Third Finger Left Hand”: Hometown girl Eileen Rodgers was better known for her appearances on Broadway and for the many television performances, but she had a couple of hits.
- Victor Young, “Around The World”: From the movie Around The World In Eighty Days. He won a posthumous Oscar for the score.
- Malcolm Dodds & The Tunedrops, “It Took A Long Time”: I checked Wikipedia, Discogs, and Allmusic and wasn’t able to find anything on them.
- The Premiers with LeRoy, “Run Along Baby”: Found a little more about these guys: The group was formerly known as The Orlandos. And that’s all I could find.
- The Del Vikings, “Cool Shake”: Also from Pittsburgh, the Del Vikings were one of the few racially-mixed groups during this period in history. This readched #12 on the Hot 100 and #9 on the R&B chart natonally.
- Dick Vale and The Three Vales, “Sure Nuff”: Again, was unable to find much on Dick or the rest of the Vales. The record does show up in Allmusic, but that’s pretty much all it does.
- Patti Page, “Old Cape Cod”: The lovely Ms. Page took this lovely song to #3 on the Hot 100.
- Johnny Mathis, “It’s Not For Me To Say”: The lovely Mr. Mathis took this lovely song to #5 on the Hot 100 (Cash Box has it at #2).
- Four Coins, “Shangri La”: The Four Coins hailed from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, as did Perry Como, Bobby Vinton, and our own Dan Antion. They had a #11 hit with this.
- Elvis Presley, “Teddy Bear”: We find the formidable Elvis Presley where we usually found him in the ’50’s, at the top of the charts. He took this to #1 nationally as well.
And that’s Top Ten Tuesday for July 14, 2020, which would have been Grandma Holton’s 120th birthday…
I really enjoyed Eileen Rogers, what a strong voice. I love the theme music from Around the World in 80 Days but I have ye5 to see the movie. The rest of them are so nice to listen to but I am just not a Mathis fan. I don’t like his voice much at all
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Eileen Rodgers has one of those “stage” voices, doesn’t she? I’ve never seen “Around The World,” either, and there’s a good chace I won’t be seeing it anytime soon.
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I found Malcolm and the Turnedrops using duckduckgo, which indicated the site is not secure. However, they are a doo-wop group that recorded a lot of songs in the late 50s and early 60s. The site name is under Tunedrops (Malcolm Dodds & The) if you want to go for it.
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They apparently also did “Fools Rush In,” which Ricky Nelson covered. Thanks for letting me know!
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I was working my way to the big number 3 in 1957, John. I don’t remember many of the local bands. I was probably familiar with Perry” Como, as he was one of my mother’s favorite singers. Thanks for the mention.
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Sure! Canonsburg seems to have been a hotbed of musical activity. There are just some places, you know?
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