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1950s EASY-POP Songs and Singers...on the verge of Rock 'n Roll

The term ‘cover recording’ referred to a record company practice in the fifties of utilizing a popular singer to record a version of a song that was very similar to an original recording from a less-well-known singer.

Fifties 'Cover' Recordings:

       Song                                 Record Label                    Artist                Year     Highest Chart Position

Ain’t That A Shame    
DOT    cover by     Pat Boone            1955    #1
        IMPERIAL    original by     Fats Domino    1955  #10

Bo Weevil    
CORAL    cover by     Teresa Brewer    1956  #17
        IMPERIAL    original by     Fats Domino    1956  #35

Butterfly    
CADENCE    cover by     Andy Williams     1957    #1
        CAMEO    original by     Charlie Grace    1957    #1

Cindy, Oh Cindy    
RCA     cover by     Eddie Fisher            1956  #10
        GLORY  original by  Vince Martin & the Tarriers   1956    #9
                               

Crying in the Chapel    
RCA    cover by     June Valli            1953    #4
        JUBILEE    cover by     the Orioles    1953  #11
        VALLEY    original by     Darrell Glenn    1953   n/a

Dance with Me Henry  (the Wallflower) (Work with Me Annie)   
DOT    cover by     Georgia Gibbs            1955    #1
    (The Wallflower)  MODERN    original by     Etta James  1954   n/a
    (Work with Me Annie)   FEDERAL original by  Hank Ballard & the Midnighters  1954   n/a

Dark Moon    
DOT    cover by     Gale Storm          1957    #4
        DOT    original by     Bonnie Guitar    1957    #6

Earth Angel    
MERCURY    cover by     the Crew-Cuts    1955    #3
        SOUND    cover by     Gloria Mann    1955  #18
        DOOTONE    original by     the Penguins    1955    #8

Eddie My Love    
DOT    cover by     the Fontane Sisters     1956  #11
        CADENCE    cover by     the Chordettes    1956  #14
        RPM    original by     the Teen Queens    1956  #14

Empty Arms    
CORAL    cover by     Teresa Brewer            1957  #13
        ATLANTIC    original by     Ivory Joe Hunter    1956  #43

Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight   
CORAL   cover by   the McGuire Sisters     1954    #7
        RCA    cover by     Sunny Gale    1954  #26
       VEE-JAY    original by     the Spaniels    1954  #24

Hearts of Stone  
 DOT    cover by     the Fontane Sisters      1954    #1
        DE LUXE original by Otis Williams & the Charms  1954  #15
                       
I Hear You Knockin’  (But You Can't Come In)
  DOT    cover by     Gale Storm      1955    #2
        IMPERIAL    cover by     Fats Domino    1961  #67
        IMPERIAL    original by     Smiley Lewis    1955   n/a

I Understand (Just How You Feel)  
RCA    cover by     June Valli            1954    #6
        JUBILEE    original by     the Four Tunes    1954    #8

I’m in Love Again   
DOT    cover by     the Fontane Sisters    1956  #38
        IMPERIAL    original by     Fats Domino    1956    #3

I’m Walkin’   
VERVE    cover by     Ricky Nelson       1957  #17
        IMPERIAL    original by     Fats Domino    1957    #4

Ivory Tower   
FRATERNITY     cover by     Cathy Carr            1956    #2
        DOT    cover by     Gale Storm            1956    #6
        DE LUXE  original by Otis Williams & the Charms  1956   #11

Just Walking in the Rain   
COLUMBIA    cover by     Johnnie Ray     1956    #2
    SUN    original by     the Prisonaires    1953   n/a


Ko Ko Mo (I Love You So)   
RCA    cover by     Perry Como          1955    #2
       MERCURY    cover by     the Crew-Cuts      1955    #6
        COMBO    original by     Gene & Eunice    1954   n/a

Little Darlin’   
MERCURY    cover by     the Diamonds     1957    #2
        EXCELLO    original by     the Gladiolas    1957  #41

Long Tall Sally   
DOT    cover by     Pat Boone            1956    #8
        SPECIALTY    original by     Little Richard    1956    #6

Lucky Lips   
DOT    cover by     Gale Storm        1957  #77
        ATLANTIC    original by     Ruth Brown    1957  #25

Pledging My Love   
CORAL    cover by     Teresa Brewer   1955    #3
        DUKE    original by     Johnny Ace    1955  #17

Rollin’ Stone    
DOT    cover by     the Fontane Sisters   1955  #13
        EXCELLO    original by     the Marigolds    1955   n/a

Seventeen    
DOT   cover by   the Fontane Sisters     1955    #3
        MERCURY    cover by     Rusty Draper     1955  #18
        KING   original by   Boyd Bennett & his Rockets  1956    #5

Sh—Boom    
MERCURY    cover by   the Crew-Cuts     1954    #1
        CAT        original by     the Chords    1954    #5

Shake Rattle & Roll   
DECCA   cover by    Bill Haley & his Comets    1954    #7
        ATLANTIC      original by     Joe Turner       1954  #22

Silhouettes   
MERCURY    cover by     the Diamonds      1957  #10
        ABC-PARAMOUNT cover by     Steve Gibson      1957  #63
        CAMEO      original by       the Rays       1957    #3

Sincerely   
CORAL    cover by  the McGuire Sisters     1955    #1
        CHESS        original by     the Moonglows      1954  #20

A Tear Fell   
CORAL    cover by     Teresa Brewer       1956    #5
        ATLANTIC    original by     Ivory Joe Hunter    1956   n/a

Tutti’ Frutti   
DOT        cover by     Pat Boone            1956  #12
        SPECIALTY    original by     Little Richard    1956  #17

Tweedle Dee   
MERCURY    cover by     Georgia Gibbs      1955    #2
        ATLANTIC    original by     LaVern Baker    1955  #14

Two Hearts, Two Kisses   
DOT        cover by     Pat Boone            1955  #16
      COLUMBIA    cover by     Doris Day            1955   n/a
        DE LUXE  original by  Otis Williams & the Charms  1955   n/a

Why Do Fools Fall in Love    
DOT        cover by     Gale Storm      1956    #9
     MERCURY    cover by    the Diamonds    1956  #12
        DECCA    cover by     Gloria Mann    1956  #59
        GEE  original by  Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers  1956    #6

Young Love    
DOT        cover by     Tab Hunter        1957    #1
         MERCURY  cover by     the Crew-Cuts     1957  #17
        CAPITOL   original by     Sonny James    1957    #1
        RCA   earlier by   co-writer Ric Cartey    1956   n/a
The Controversy over 'Cover' Records

     The decade of the fifties saw a transition in popular music. During the forties there were three distinctive types of recordings—‘pop,’ ‘race,’ and ‘hillbilly’—and the success of each of these types of recordings was measured by its own popularity chart. Rhythm & blues recordings and country & western songs did not enter into mainstream popular music until the mid-fifties, and the timing coincided with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.

     ‘Pop’ music records were usually released by one of the six major labels: Capitol, Columbia, Decca, MGM, Mercury, and RCA Victor. The large majority of popular vocalists were under contract to one of these major recording companies or their subsidiaries. ‘Race’ and ‘hillbilly’ records were usually the province of one of the specialty recording companies. These independent labels were scattered all over the country: CHESS in Chicago, KING in Cincinnati, PEACOCK in Houston, SAVOY in Newark, MODERN in Los Angeles, SPECIALITY in Hollywood, and the largest, ATLANTIC in New York. In the fifties, ‘race’ music became known as ‘rhythm & blues,’ and the success of its recordings was measured on the R&B chart. ‘Hillbilly’ music became ‘country & western’ and was measured on the C&W chart.

     Rhythm and blues artists had difficulty getting their records played on white-dominated radio. Instead, mainstream artists recorded their own versions of R&B hits. The term ‘cover recordings’ referred to the record company practice of utilizing a popular singer to record a version of a song that was very similar to an original recording from a less-well-known singer, released by a small independent record label.

     Black musicians found themselves isolated from the dominant recording companies and thus separated from the majority of the record-buying public.  Worse yet,  when a black artist developed an original,  potentiallysuccessful tune through a small independent recording outfit, white artists, including Pat Boone, the Crew-Cuts, Gale Storm, and the Fontane Sisters, hurriedly supplied the white-record-purchasing-audience with an acceptable ‘cover’ version of the same tune. Popular fifties singers, Perry Como, Teresa Brewer, Eddie Fisher, and the McGuire Sisters, all recorded ‘safe’ sanitized cover recordings of material from black and R&B artists. The major record companies would use their influence to promote their cover versions to the exclusion of the work of the original performers.

     The major record labels started recording covers in the early 1950s to deal with the threat of ‘cross-over’ songs from the rhythm and blues and country artists. The major labels didn’t want the specialized country, R&B, and black musicians to threaten the dominance the major studios enjoyed in the mainstream POP music market. Sometimes the covers of the original songs kept the same lyrics but re-orchestrated the music with arrangements that would burr off the rough edges and turn the raw, driving beat and the fast tempo of the originals into the familiar, mellow, and non-threatening style of white popular music. Covers of R&B songs might include the feelings of guitars and drums, but not emphasize them. Independent recording companies, Dot and Cadence, were formed in the fifties and specialized in producing cover recordings.

     Perry Como covered Gene and Eunice’s Ko Ko Mo while the Crew Cuts covered the Chords’ Sh-Boom and the Penguins’ Earth Angel. The list of covers is long and most of the covers were the hit versions. Pat Boone covered Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame as well as Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally and Tutti’ Frutti. June Valli had a hit with her cover of the Four Tunes’ recording of I Understand Just How You Feel in 1954.

Promotion man, Mickey Addy, at Dot Records in Gallatin, Tennessee, had a reputation for, and made a lot of money producing, cover recordings. Crooner Pat Boone, screen star Tab Hunter, and TV star Gale Storm performed with Billy Vaughn and his Orchestra often imitating an R&B record note for note, with a bit of cleaning and tightening and dressing it with saxes in rippling thirds. Mickey Addy also revived old songs and two of them, Love Letters in the Sand and Melody of Love, are in the all-time top ten of the fifties decade. (Whitcomb, 1974, p.222) Pat Boone had a number one hit with Love Letters in the Sand in 1957 but it had been a top ten hit for Ted Black twenty-five years earlier. The song was loosely based on The Spanish Cavalier written in 1881.  Billy Vaughn’s 1955 instrumental hit Melody of Love was written in 1903.

Lavern Baker, whose Tweedle Dee was covered by Georgia Gibbs right down to the crucial arrangement, tried to get a law passed which gave copyright protection to arrangements—but her attempt was unsuccessful. In fairness it must be said that sometimes the cover versions sounded very different than the R&B original. Bill Haley’s Shake Rattle and Roll cover record was very different from Joe Turner’s original. Haley’s record was a hybrid and his was the hit.

Johnny Ace originally recorded Pledging My Love, but before it reached the top of the R&B charts, Johnny Ace had lost his life in a failed game of Russian roulette. Teresa Brewer recorded this beautiful song and it became a top-twenty hit for her. Most often the cover artist was white and the original artist was black but that was not always the case. Eddie Fisher had a hit with his cover of the Tarriers’ version of Cindy, Oh Cindy in 1956. Tab Hunter covered Sonny James’ Young Love and Gale Storm covered Bonnie Guitar’s Dark Moon.

Why did the ‘covers’ sell? Was it race prejudice, better distribution, or public taste? In many ways, the original was a rougher gem and the cover a more polished stone. Today, rock purists prefer the raw, rough, gritty original versions. Fans of fifties EASY-POP often prefer the softer, more professional ‘covers.’ The singers on the ‘covers’ almost always provided a recognizable sparkle in their voice, a more trained sound in their delivery, and the accompaniment was softer and more mellow.



Daniel Niemeyer's books "1950s American Style" and "Remembering 1950s EASY-POP Songs and Singers"
are thoughtful gifts for parents,  grandparents, history buffs, and class reunions.
You can contact Daniel Niemeyer at:  Dr.Daniel.Niemeyer@gmail.com