Gil Brady and his wife Nicki (1933-89) were jitterbug and West Coast Swing champions in the 1940s and 1950s. They together and separately danced in many movies such as ‘Don’t Knock the Rock’, ‘The Benny Goodman Story’ and ‘Rock Around the Clock’. They won numerous awards and swing dance championship titles against such swing dance notables […]
Music/Dance/Reads
Cat talk
‘Cat talk’ (or ‘bop talk’, or ‘hep talk’, and even ‘jive talk’ or simply ‘jive’) emerged in the later 1930s as the kind of ‘in’ way of talking adopted by jazz musicians and aficionados. In the post-1945 it started to become popular among the Americans masses. An individual who had much to do with the […]
1956 Steve Allen’s ‘be-bop-a-lula’ skit
On the 2 September 1956 on the ‘Steve Allen Show’ the host decided to read out a poem from the new rock’n’roll idiom Peter Sellers came up with a similar skit on the Beatles ‘a hard day’s night’ declaimed as Richard III from the Granada TV special ‘The Music of Lennon and McCartney’ broadcast in the […]
50s performances of original pieces by ‘unknowns’
‘don’t come barkin’ up my tree’ by the Starliters on the ‘Amateur Hour’, August 1956 ‘I wanna rock now’ by the Blockbusters from the film ‘Rock All Night’, 1957 ‘rock guitar’ by the Blockbusters from the film ‘Rock All Night’, 1957 ‘mean, mean woman’ & ‘Johnny B Goode’ & ‘rebels’ inn’ ‘by the Flairs on […]
50s performances of Fats Domino
‘when my dreamboat comes home’ & ‘I’m in love again’ on the ‘Steve Allen Show’, September 1956 ‘blueberry Hill’ on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’, November 1956 ‘honey chile’, from the film ‘Shake, Rattle and Rock!’, November 1956 ‘ain’t that a shame’, from the film ‘Shake, Rattle and Rock!’, November 1956 ‘blue Monday’ from the film […]
50s performances of Jerry Lee Lewis
‘whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on’ on the ‘Steve Allen Show’, July 1957 ‘whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on’ on ?, 1957 ‘whole lotta shakin’ goin on’ on the Steve Allen Show’, 1957 ‘great balls of fire’, 1957 ‘you win again’on ?, 1957 ‘great balls of fire’ from the film ‘Jamboree’, November 1957 ‘great balls of fire’ […]