The Best (and Worst) of Early 1962

Early 1962
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In 1962, rock and roll (I mean real rock ‘n roll, the Little Richard/Chuck Berry/Jerry Lee variety) was on hiatus. Payola had taken its toll on the genre, increasing an already acute prejudice by staining it with the aura of illegality, while personal circumstances did even more damage – Little Richard ‘retired’ to become a minister, Jerry Lee got caught up in a scandal after marrying his fourteen year-old cousin, Chuck Berry was arrested for violating the Mann act, and Buddy Holly was dead. It was a bleak time for rock and roll, but there was still plenty of great music on the pop charts. One fantastic side effect of the rock and roll phenomenon was the way that it exposed America to music that it otherwise might have never heard. Rock and roll definitely helped to expose country-western artists to the country, and it practically performed miracles in helping black artists cross over to the mainstream. So, while rock and roll took a vacation and waited for a certain from Liverpool to jumpstart things all over again, America’s pop charts exhibited a fabulous variety of sounds unlike anything seen before.
With this show, we hope to portray the wonderfully sophisticated variety of sounds that dominated the charts at the beginning of 1962. Here, then, is a list of songs that we intend to cover for this edition of American Hit radio;

1) Smoky Places – The Corsairs
2) Turn On Your Love Light – Bobby Bland
3) Twistin’ the Night Away – Sam Cooke
4) She’s Got You – Patsy Cline
5) Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream) – Roy Orbison
6) Rock-A-Hula Baby – Elvis Presley (as a ‘Great Miss’)
7) Twistin’ Postman – The Marvellettes (as a ‘Great Miss’)
8) You Better Move On – Arthur Alexander

We also feature timely album tracks from Ray Charles’ “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” and Frank Sinatra’s “Point of No Return”. Enjoy the show!