Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Eisenhower as an American Army general and statesman who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was a five-star general in the United States Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe.
He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front.
He was also the first American President to be bound by the 22nd Amendment, which limits the number of times one can be elected to the office of President of the United States.
Born David Dwight Eisenhower in Denison, Texas, he was raised in Kansas in a large family of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry; his parents had a strong religious background. His mother was born a Lutheran, married as a River Brethren, and later became a Jehovah’s Witness. Eisenhower did not belong to any organized church until 1952. He cited constant relocation during his military career as one reason. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, with whom he had two sons. During World War I, he was denied a request to serve in Europe and instead commanded a unit that trained tank crews. Following the war, he served under various generals and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1941. After the U.S. entered World War II, Eisenhower oversaw the successful invasions of North Africa and Sicily before supervising the invasions of France and Germany. After the war, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff and then took on the uncomfortable role as president of Columbia University. In 1951–52, he served as the first Supreme Commander of NATO.
In 1952, Eisenhower entered the presidential race as a Republican in order to block the foreign policies of Senator Robert A. Taft. He won that election and the 1956 election in landslides, both times defeating Adlai Stevenson II. He became the first Republican elected President since 1928. Eisenhower’s main goals in office were to contain the expansion of the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. In 1953, he threatened the use of nuclear weapons until China agreed to terms regarding POWs in the Korean War. An armistice ended the stalemated conflict. His New Look policy of nuclear deterrence prioritized inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing funding for expensive Army divisions. He continued Harry S. Truman’s policy of recognizing the Republic of China as the legitimate government of China, and he won congressional approval of the Formosa Resolution. His administration provided major aid to help the French fight off Vietnamese Communists in the First Indochina War. After the French left he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. He supported local military coups against governments in Iran and Guatemala. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt, and he forced them to withdraw. He also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. During the Syrian Crisis of 1957 he approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria’s pro-Western neighbours. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the Space Race. He deployed 15,000 soldiers during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets collapsed when an American spy plane was shot down over Russia. He approved the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was left to his successor to carry out.
On the domestic front, Eisenhower was a moderate conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. He covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent Army troops to enforce federal court orders that integrated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. His largest program was the Interstate Highway System. He promoted the establishment of strong science education via the National Defense Education Act. Eisenhower’s two terms saw widespread economic prosperity except for a minor recession in 1958. In his farewell address to the nation, Eisenhower expressed his concerns about the dangers of massive military spending, particularly deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers. He was voted Gallup’s most admired man twelve times and also achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office. Historical evaluations of his presidency place him among the upper tier of U.S. presidents.
Hula Hoops
Wham-O Toy Company introduced hula hoops, 100 million were sold.
Explorer I
First American satellite, Explorer I, launched in orbit from Cape Canaveral on January 31, 1958.
The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 and 2, beginning the Cold War Space Race between the two nations.
Peace Symbol
Peace Symbol was deigned and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by the campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
Elvis Presley
King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley reported for duty with the US Army on March 24, 1958.
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)
On March 27th, 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union.
Van Cliburn (1934-2013)
Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for pianists in Moscow, breaking Cold War tensions.
Ricky Nelson (1940-1985)
was an American rock and roll star, musician, and singer-songwriter. From age eight he starred alongside his family in the radio and television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
In 1957 he began a long and successful career as a popular recording artist. As one of the top “teen idols” of the 1950s his fame led to a motion picture role co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in Howard Hawks’s western feature film Rio Bravo (1959).
He placed 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1957 and 1973 including “Poor Little Fool” in 1958, which holds the distinction of being the first #1 song on Billboard magazine’s then-newly created Hot 100 chart. He recorded 19 additional Top 10 hits and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987.
NORAD
NORAD (North American Air Defense Command was established by the US, Canada for their mutual protection.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
Charles de Gualle was a French general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France (1940–1944) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946). In 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the President of France, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era and his memory continues to influence French politics.
Born in Lille, he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1912. He was a decorated officer of the First World War, wounded several times, and later taken prisoner at Verdun. During the interwar period, he advocated mobile armored divisions. During the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armored division which counterattacked the invaders; he was then appointed Under-Secretary for War.
Refusing to accept his government’s armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle exhorted the French population to resist occupation and to continue the fight in his Appeal of 18 June. He led a government in exile and the Free French Forces against the Axis. Despite frosty relations with Britain and especially the United States, he emerged as the undisputed leader of the French resistance. He became head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, the interim government of France following its Liberation. As early as 1944, de Gaulle introduced a dirigiste economic policy, which included substantial state-directed control over a capitalist economy which was followed by 30 years of unprecedented growth, known as Les Trente Glorieuses (“the glorious thirty”).
Frustrated by the return of petty partisanship in the new Fourth Republic, he resigned in early-1946 but continued to be politically active as founder of the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) (“Rally of the French People”) party. He retired in the early-1950s and wrote a book about his experience in the war titled War Memoirs, which quickly became a staple of modern French literature. When the Algerian War was ripping apart the unstable Fourth Republic, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. He founded the Fifth Republic with a strong presidency, and he was elected to continue in that role. He managed to keep France together while taking steps to end the war, much to the anger of the Pieds-Noirs (settler population originating from European France) and the military; both previously had supported his return to power to maintain colonial rule. He granted independence to Algeria and progressively to other French colonies.
In the context of the Cold War, de Gaulle initiated his “politics of grandeur,” asserting that France as a major power should not rely on other countries, such as the United States, for its national security and prosperity. To this end, de Gaulle pursued a policy of “national independence” which led him to withdraw from NATO’s military integrated command and to launch an independent nuclear development program that made France the fourth nuclear power. He restored cordial Franco-German relations to create a European counterweight between the Anglo-American and Soviet spheres of influence through the signing of the Élysée Treaty on 22 January 1963. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe, favouring a Europe of sovereign nations. De Gaulle openly criticised the United States intervention in Vietnam and the “exorbitant privilege” of the US dollar. In his later years, his support for the slogan “Vive le Québec libre” (“Long live free Quebec!”) and his two vetoes of Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community generated considerable controversy.
Although reelected President in 1965, in May 1968 he appeared likely to lose power amid widespread protests by students and workers, but survived the crisis with backing from the army and won an election with an increased majority in the assembly. De Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization. He died a year later at his residence in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, leaving his presidential memoirs unfinished.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed by a black woman Izola Curry, while signing copies of his new book Stride Toward Freedom at a Harlem department store.
Hope Diamond
November 10, 1958, New York Jeweler Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, which became one of the most popular and enduring exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.
NASA
Nasa is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.
Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the Space Launch System and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches.
Gigi
Gigi Is a 1958 American musical-romance film directed by Vincente Minnelli processed using MGM’s Metrocolor.
The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette.
The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn.
Weary of the conventions of Parisian society, a rich playboy and a youthful courtesan-in-training enjoy a platonic friendship, but it may not stay platonic for long.
The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the middle-class housewife Donna Stone.
Carl Betz co-stars as her pediatrician husband Dr. Alex Stone, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children, Mary and Jeff.
The show originally aired on ABC from September 24, 1958 to March 19, 1966. When Fabares left the show in 1963, Petersen’s younger sister, Patty Petersen, joined the cast as adopted daughter Trisha. Patty Petersen had first appeared in the episode, “A Way of Her Own”, on January 31, 1963. Janet Landgard was a series regular from 1963-1965 as Karen Holmby.
Bob Crane and Ann McCrea appeared in the last seasons as Dr. Dave Kelsey and his wife, Midge, friends of the Stones, and Darryl Richard became a near regular in thirty-two episodes as Smitty, Jeff’s best buddy. The show featured a variety of celebrity guests including Esther Williams as a famous dress designer, baseball superstars Don Drysdale and Willie Mays as themselves, teen heartthrob James Darren as a pop singer with the measles, canine superstar Lassie, and young Jay North of CBS’s Dennis the Menace.
T
he series was created by William S. Roberts and developed by Reed and her then husband, producer Tony Owen. Episodes revolved around typical family problems of the period such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children. Then-daring themes such as women’s rights and freedom of the press were occasionally explored.
The show had an uncertain start in the ratings and was almost cancelled, but fared better when it was moved from Wednesday to Thursday nights. In the show’s middle seasons, Fabares sang what became a #1 teen pop hit “Johnny Angel”, and Petersen had above average success with the song “My Dad”, also introduced during the course of the series.
The Donna Reed Show was one of television’s top 25 shows in 1963-1964. Reed was repeatedly nominated for Emmy Awards between 1959 and 1962, and won a Golden Globe as Best Female TV Star in 1963. She eventually grew tired of the work-a-day grind involved in the program, and it was cancelled in 1966 after 275 episodes.
Vertigo
is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.
The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin’s wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely.
The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California, and at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scottie’s acrophobia. As a result of its use in this film, the effect is often referred to as “the Vertigo effect”.
The Rifleman
Was an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1870s and 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series on American television to show a widowed parent raising a child.
The program was titled to reflect McCain’s use of a Winchester rifle, customized to allow repeated firing by cycling its lever action. He demonstrated this technique in the opening credits of every episode, as well as a second modification that allowed him to cycle the action with one hand.
The Everly Brothers
were an American country-influenced rock and roll duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Isaac Donald “Don” Everly (born February 1, 1937) and Phillip “Phil” Everly (January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014) were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Family and education
Don was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, in 1937, and Phil two years later in Chicago, Illinois. Their parents were Isaac Milford “Ike” Everly, Jr. (1908–1975), a guitar player, and Margaret Embry Everly. Actor James Best (born Jules Guy), also from Muhlenberg County, was the son of Ike’s sister. Margaret was 15 when she married Ike, who was 26. Ike worked in coal mines from age 14, but his father encouraged him to pursue his love of music. Ike and Margaret began singing together. The Everly brothers spent most of their childhood in Shenandoah, Iowa. They attended Longfellow Elementary School in Waterloo, Iowa, for a year, but then moved to Shenandoah in 1944, where they remained through early high school.
Ike Everly had a show on KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah in the mid-1940s, first with his wife and then with their sons. The brothers sang on the radio as “Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil.” The family sang as the Everly Family. Ike, with guitarists Merle Travis, Mose Rager, and Kennedy Jones, was honored in 1992 by the construction of the Four Legends Fountain in Drakesboro, Kentucky.
The family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1953, where the brothers attended West High School. In 1955, the family moved to Madison, Tennessee, while the brothers moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Don had graduated from high school in 1955, and Phil attended Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville, from which he graduated in 1957. Both could now focus on recording.
1950s
While in Knoxville, the brothers caught the attention of family friend Chet Atkins, manager of RCA Victor’s studio in Nashville. The brothers became a duo and moved to Nashville. Despite affiliation with RCA, Atkins arranged for the Everly Brothers to record for Columbia Records in early 1956. Their “Keep a-Lovin’ Me,” which Don wrote and composed, flopped, and they were dropped from the Columbia label.
Atkins introduced them to Wesley Rose, of Acuff-Rose music publishers. Rose told them he would get them a recording deal if they signed to Acuff-Rose as songwriters. They duly signed in late 1956, and in 1957 Rose introduced them to Archie Bleyer, who was looking for artists for his Cadence Records. The Everlys signed and made a recording in February 1957. “Bye Bye Love” had been rejected by 30 other acts. Their record reached No. 2 on the pop charts, behind Elvis Presley’s “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” and No. 1 on the country and No. 5 on the R&B charts. The song, by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, became the Everly Brothers’s first million-seller.
Working with the Bryants, they had hits in the United States and the United Kingdom, the biggest being “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Bird Dog,” and “Problems.” The Everlys, though they were largely interpretive artists, also succeeded as songwriters, especially with Don’s “(Till) I Kissed You,” which hit No. 4 on the United States pop charts.
The brothers toured with Buddy Holly in 1957 and 1958. According to Holly’s biographer Philip Norman, they were responsible for persuading Holly and the Crickets to change their outfits from Levi’s and T-shirts to the Everlys’ Ivy League suits. Don said Holly wrote and composed “Wishing” for them. “We were all from the South,” Phil observed of their commonalities. “We’d started in country music.” Although some sources say Phil Everly was one of Holly’s pallbearers in February 1959, Phil said in 1986 that he attended the funeral and sat with Holly’s family, but was not a pallbearer. Don did not attend, saying, “I couldn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t go anywhere. I just took to my bed.”
1960s/1970s
Ather successful Warner Brothers singles followed in the United States, such as “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)” (1960, pop No. 7), “Walk Right Back” (1961, pop No. 7), “Crying in the Rain” (1962, pop No. 6), and “That’s Old Fashioned” (1962, pop No. 9, their last top 10 hit). From 1960 to 1962, Cadence Records released Everly Brothers singles from the vaults, including “When Will I Be Loved” (pop No. 8), written and composed by Phil, and “Like Strangers.”
In the UK, they had top 10 hits until 1965, including “Lucille”/”So Sad” (1960, No. 4), “Walk Right Back”/”Ebony Eyes” (1961, No. 1), “Temptation” (1961, No. 1), “Cryin’ in the Rain” (1962, No. 6) and “The Price of Love” (1965, No. 2). They had 18 singles into the UK top 40 with Warner Brothers in the 1960s. By 1962, the brothers had earned $35 million from record sales.
In 1961, the brothers fell out with Wesley Rose during the recording of “Temptation.” Rose was reportedly upset that the Everlys were recording a song which he had not published and, hence, for which he would not receive any publishing royalties, and he made strenuous efforts to block the single’s release. The Everlys held firm to their position, and as a result, in the early 1960s, they were shut off from Acuff-Rose songwriters. These included Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who had written and composed most of their hits, as well as Don and Phil Everly themselves, who were still contracted to Acuff-Rose as songwriters and had written several of their own hits. Nevertheless, from 1961 through early 1964, the Everlys recorded songs by other writers to avoid paying royalties to Acuff-Rose. They used the pseudonym “Jimmy Howard” as writer or arranger on two selections they wrote and recorded during this time — this ruse, however, was ultimately unsuccessful, as Acuff-Rose gained legal possession of the copyrights once the name substitution was discovered.
At this approximate time, the brothers also set up their own record label, Calliope Records, for solo projects. Using the pseudonym “Adrian Kimberly,” Don recorded a big-band instrumental version of Edward Elgar’s first “Pomp and Circumstance” March, which Neal Hefti arranged and which charted in the United States top 40 in mid-1961. Further instrumental singles credited to Kimberly followed, but none of those charted. Phil formed the Keestone Family Singers, which featured Glen Campbell and Carole King. Their lone single, “Melodrama,” failed to chart, and by the end of 1962, Calliope Records had gone out of business.
They never stopped working as a duo, but their last United States top 10 hit was 1962’s “That’s Old Fashioned (That’s The Way Love Should Be),” a song recorded but unreleased by the Chordettes and given to the brothers by their old mentor, Archie Bleyer.
Succeeding years saw the Everly Brothers sell fewer records in the United States. Their enlistments in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in October 1961 took them out of the spotlight. One of their few performances during their Marine service was on The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 18, 1962, when they performed “Jezebel” and “Crying in the Rain” while outfitted in their respective Marine Corps uniforms.
Following their discharges from active duty, the Everlys resumed their career, but with little success in the United States. Of their 27 singles on Warner Brothers from 1963 through 1970, only three made the Hot 100, and none peaked higher than No. 31. Album sales were also down. The Everlys’ first two albums for Warner (in 1960 and 1961) peaked at No. 9 U.S., but after that, of a dozen more LPs for Warner Brothers, only one made the top 200–1965’s “Beat & Soul,” which peaked at No. 141.
The brothers’ dispute with Acuff-Rose lasted till 1964, whereupon they resumed writing and composing as well as working with the Bryant spouses. By then, however, both of the brothers were addicted to amphetamines. Don’s condition was worse; he was taking Ritalin, which led to deeper trouble. Don’s addiction lasted three years, until he was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown and to treat his addiction. (The mainstream media of that time did not report that either brother was addicted. When Don collapsed in England in mid-October 1962, reporters were told he had food poisoning; when the tabloids suggested he had taken an overdose of pills, his wife and his brother insisted he was suffering physical and nervous exhaustion. It was years later that the story came out.) Don’s poor health ended their British tour; he returned to the United States, leaving Phil to carry on, with Joey Page, their bass player, taking his place.
Though their U.S. stardom had begun to wane two years before the British Invasion in 1964, their appeal was still strong in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. The Everlys remained successful in the UK and Canada for most of the 1960s, reaching the top 40 in the United Kingdom through 1968 and the top 10 in Canada as late as 1967. The 1966 album Two Yanks in England was recorded in England with the Hollies, who also wrote and composed many of the album’s songs. The Everlys’ final U.S. top 40 hit, “Bowling Green,” was released in 1967.
By the end of the 1960s, the brothers had returned to country rock, and their 1968 album, Roots, was hailed by some critics as “one of the finest early country-rock albums.” However, by the end of the 1960s, the Everly Brothers had ceased to be hitmakers in either North America or the United Kingdom, and in 1970, following an unsuccessful live album (The Everly Brothers Show), their contract with Warner Brothers lapsed after ten years. In 1970, they were the summer replacement hosts for Johnny Cash’s television show; their variety program, Johnny Cash Presents the Everly Brothers, was on ABC-TV and featured Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Wonder.
In 1970, Don released his first solo album, which was not a success. The brothers resumed performing in 1971, and with RCA Victor Records they issued two albums in 1972 and 1973. Lindsey Buckingham joined them in 1972 and toured with them. They said their final performance would be on July 14, 1973, at Knott’s Berry Farm, in California, but tensions between the two surfaced, and Don told a reporter he was tired of being an Everly Brother. During the show, Phil smashed his guitar and walked off while Don finished the show, ending their collaboration. The two would not rejoin forces musically for just over ten more years.
Fabian Forte
An American singer and actor.
Forte rose to national prominence after performing several times on American Bandstand.
He became a teen idol of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Eleven of his songs reached the Billboard Hot 100 listing.
Fabian Forte is the son of Josephine and Dominic Forte; his father was a Philadelphia police officer. He is the oldest of three brothers.
Discovery
Forte was discovered in 1957 by Bob Marcucci and Peter DeAngelis, owners of Chancellor Records. At the time, record producers were looking to the South Philadelphia neighborhoods in search of teenage talents with good looks.
Marcucci was a friend of Fabian’s next door neighbor. One day, Fabian’s father had a heart attack, and, while he was being taken away in an ambulance, Marcucci spotted Fabian. Fabian later recalled, “He kept staring at me and looking at me. I had a crew cut, but this was the day of Rick Nelson and Elvis. He comes up and says to me, ‘So if you’re ever interested in the rock and roll business… and hands me his card. I looked at the guy like he was out of his mind. I told him, “leave me alone. I’m worried about my dad’.”
When Fabian’s father returned from hospital he was unable to work, so when Marcucci persisted, Fabian and his family were amenable and he agreed to record a single. Frankie Avalon, also of South Philadelphia, suggested Forte as a possibility. “They gave me a pompadour and some clothes and those goddamned white bucks”, recalled Fabian, “and out I went.” “He was the right look and right for what we were going for”, wrote Marcucci later.
Singing stardom
Fabian was given an allowance from the record company of $30 a week. He also kept working part-time at a pharmacy as well as studying at South Philadelphia High School, while practicing his singing. Fabian later said “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew my goal, to try to make extra money. That meant a lot to our family. I rehearsed and rehearsed, and I really felt like a fish out of water. And we made a record. And it was horrible. Yet it got on he legendary Philadelphia rhythm and blues radio program] Georgie Woods. For some reason, Georgie Woods played it.”
The song was “Shivers”, which was a local hit in Chicago. This helped Fabian meet Dick Clark, who eventually put the young singer on American Bandstand where he sang “I’m in Love”. Fabian later admitted this song “was not very good either” but “the response – they told me – was overwhelming. I had no idea. All during that period, I was doing record hops. Not getting paid for it, but for the record company promotions. Just lip synching to my records. The response was really good.
Marcucci then gave Fabian a song written by Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus, “I’m a Man” (not the Bo Diddley hit), which Fabian later said he “liked a lot and was very comfortable with, was giving me more experience, but I still felt like a fish out of water.” The song made the top 40.
Marcucci heavily promoted Fabian’s next single, “Turn Me Loose”, using a series of advertisements saying “Fabian Is Coming”, then “Who is Fabian?” then finally “Fabian is Here”. It worked and “Turn Me Loose” went into the Top Ten, peaking at number 9. This was later followed by “Hound Dog Man”, (US #9; UK #46), and his biggest hit, “Tiger”, which reached #3 on the US charts. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. Other singles that charted included “String Along”, “About This Thing Called Love” and “This Friendly World”, which reached #12 on the US charts. At age 15, he won the Silver Award as “The Promising Male Vocalist of 1958.” His first album, Hold That Tiger reached the top 15 within two weeks.
Dion and The Belmonts
were a leading American vocal group of the late 1950s. All of its members were from the Bronx, New York City. In late 1957 Dion DiMucci joined The Belmonts with singers Carlo Mastrangelo, Fred Mila he name the Belmonts was derived from the fact that two of the four singers lived on Belmont Avenue in the Bronx, and the other two lived near Belmont Avenue.
After unsuccessful singles on Mohawk Records in 1957 and then on Jubilee Records (“The Chosen Few” Dion & the Timberlanes not the Belmonts), Dion was paired with The Belmonts. The group signed with Laurie Records in early 1958. The breakthrough came when their very first Laurie release, “I Wonder Why”, reached No. 22 on the Billboard Top 100 charts, and they appeared for the first time on the nationally televised American Bandstand show, hosted by Dick Clark. Dion said of the Belmonts, “I’d give ’em sounds. I’d give ’em parts and stuff. That’s what ‘I Wonder Why’ was about. We kind of invented this percussive rhythmic sound. If you listen to that song, everybody was doing something different. It was totally amazing. When I listen to it today, often times I think, ‘Man, those kids are talented’.” Dion and the Belmonts were the sound of the city. Their roots were doo-wop groups like the Flamingos, the Five Satins, the Dells, acts who developed their sound in urban settings on street corners, mimicking instruments with their voices, even complex jazz arrangements.
They followed the hit with the ballads “No One Knows” (No. 19) and “Don’t Pity Me” (No. 40), which they also performed on Bandstand. This early success brought them their first major tour in late 1958, with the Coasters, Buddy Holly and Bobby Darin, followed by the historic and tragic Winter Dance Party tour featuring Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. On February 2, 1959, after playing the Surf Ballroom, Holly arranged to charter a plane. Dion decided he couldn’t afford the $36 cost to fly to the next venue. According to Dion, $36 was the same price his parents paid for monthly rent. He told Holly no. Shortly after midnight, on February 3rd 1959, the plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, with Holly, Valens, The Big Bopper, and the pilot, Roger Peterson, all being killed. Bobby Vee, then an unknown artist, performed in Holly’s place at the very next concert. Later, Jimmy Clanton, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian were hired to finish the tour in place of the three deceased headliners. As of January 11, 2017 with the death of Holly’s tour guitarist Tommy Allsup, Dion is the lone surviving member of the original Winter Dance Party lineup (The lone surviving Belmont, Angelo D’Aleo, was not on the tour as he was in the Army at the time).
In March 1959 Dion and the Belmonts’ next single, “A Teenager in Love”, broke the Top Ten, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 28 on the UK Singles Charts. Written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, it’s considered one of the greatest songs in Rock and Roll history. It was followed by their first album, “Presenting Dion and the Belmonts”. Their biggest hit, “Where or When”, was released in November 1959, and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the group making another national appearance on American Bandstand. The flip side, “That’s My Desire”, although never charting nationally, is as well known in many areas, especially New York City.
Other singles released for the group that year continued to chart Billboard, but were less successful. In early 1960, Dion checked into a hospital for heroin addiction, a problem he had since his mid-teens. At the height of the group’s success his drug dependency worsened. When, “Where or When”, peaked, he was in a hospital detoxifying. In addition, there were financial and musical differences between Dion and members of the Belmonts. “They wanted to get into their harmony thing, and I wanted to rock and roll,” said Dion. “The label wanted me doing standards. I got bored with it quickly. I said, I can’t do this. I gotta play my guitar. So we split up and I did “Runaround Sue”, “The Wanderer”, and “Ruby Baby”. In October 1960, DiMucci decided to quit for a solo career. Now simply known as “Dion”, his first major hit, “Lonely Teenager” was backed by a female chorus. He eventually chose to work with The Del-Satins, who backed him (uncredited) on all his early Laurie and Columbia Records hits, which, besides the three aforementioned hits Dion quoted, also included “Donna the Prima Donna” ,”Drip Drop” , “Lovers Who Wander” , and “Little Diane” . Later reissues of these songs would often be erroneously attributed to Dion and the Belmonts. The Belmonts also continued to release records on their own label, Sabina Records, but with less success, although songs like “Such a Long Way”, “Tell Me Why”, “I Need Someone”, “I Confess”, and “Come On Little Angel” all got significant radio play in the New York City area.
Bobby Darin (1936-1973)
was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor in film and television. He performed jazz, pop, rock and roll, folk, swing, and country music.
He started his career as a songwriter for Connie Francis. He recorded his first million-selling single, “Splish Splash”, in 1958. This was followed by “Dream Lover”, “Mack the Knife”, and “Beyond the Sea”, which brought him worldwide fame. In 1962 he won a Golden Globe Award for his first film, Come September, co-starring his first wife, Sandra Dee.
During the 1960s he became more politically active and worked on Robert F. Kennedy’s Democratic presidential campaign. He was present on the night of June 4/5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the time of Kennedy’s assassination. During the same year, he discovered he had been raised by his grandmother, not his mother, and that the girl he thought was his sister was actually his mother. These events deeply affected Darin and sent him into a long period of seclusion.
Although he made a successful comeback (in television) his health was beginning to fail, as he had always expected, following bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood. This knowledge of his vulnerability had always spurred him on to use his musical talent while still young. He died at the age of 37 following a heart operation in Los Angeles.
New Products
New products for the US consumer on television for the first time, including Cocoa Krispies, Cocoa Puffs, Sweet ‘n’ Low, and Tater Tots, also featured Jolly Green Giant.
