NRR Project: 'Happy Trails' (1952)

NRR Project: “Happy Trails”

Composed by Dale Evans

Performed by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Released 1952

1:40

This delightful and instantly memorable little ditty became the theme song for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, cowboy stars of movies, TV, and radio in the middle of the 20^th century. Rogers and Evans were married in real life. Evans penned this herself.

Roy Rogers (1911-1998) was a phenomenon. Born Leonard Slye, he knocked around show biz in California while working many different menial jobs. In 1933, he helped to form a singing group that soon became known as the Sons of the Pioneers. The group scored hits such as “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Cool Water.”

Then, in 1938, cowboy star Gene Autry wanted more money for his film work. The studio decided to create their own singing cowboy, whom they could pay less. Leonard won the job. He was quickly rechristened Roy Rogers, and he made Under Western Stars. He was an instant hit, and was soon to be known as the King of the Cowboys.

In 1944, he met Dale Evans (1912-2001), who up to that point had a successful career as a jazz singer. They married on New Year’s Eve, 1947 and immediately began performing together. In 1952, Evans created this song as the closing theme for the radio and TV incarnations of The Roy Rogers Show.

The lyrics are upbeat:

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

The song has become part of the collective consciousness.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Kitty Wells sings “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

NRR Project: Chopin, Polonaise Op. 40 no. 1; Arthur Rubenstein, piano (1952)

NRR Project: Polonaise, Op. 40, no. 1

Composed by Frederic Chopin

Performed by Arthur Rubenstein

Recorded 1952

5:31

This stirring performance gives just an indication of the brilliance of pianist Arthur Rubenstein (1887-1982). Read Annik LaFarge’s excellent essayon Chopin and Rubenstein at the National Recording Registry here!

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Happy Trails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NRR Project: 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' (1952)

 

NRR Project: ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’

Written and recited by Dylan Thomas

Released 1952

21:22

This mellifluous recording was the first offered by the spoken-word record label Caedmon. Read Nerys Williams’ excellent essay on it here.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was a dramatic and engaging Welsh poet, whose stentorian voice chanted out his verse powerfully. While his private life was chaotic, he turned out many assured works. He gained fame through his reading of his works. A Child’s Christmas in Wales is a prose work, but it is beautiful and potent.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Chopin’s Polonaise, op. 40, no. 1, performed by Arthur Rubenstein.

NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music (1951)

 

NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music

Collected and curated by Harry Smith

Released 1951

4 hrs., 15 min.

Oh my God. First, just go and listen to the thing. Take the time to do it. You’ll thank me.

It’s most extraordinary compendium of what Greil Marcus referred to as the music of “the old, weird America.” It covers folk music. It includes the blues. There are spirituals. There’s early country music here. The 84 songs were selected from genius scholar and filmmaker Harry Smith’s 78 rpm collection, recordings ranging from 1926 to 1933. The meticulous Smith classified them as three themed albums: ballads, “social music,” and songs.

It was not particularly noted at the time of its release. However, it inspired a whole generation of fans, first, folk singers, then rock bands, and rapidly evolving genres such as bluegrass and country. It created the American folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It inspired Baez and Dylan. Its impact and value cannot be overstated. Do I make myself clear?

It’s epic. It’s bizarre. It’s a revelation, The songs are ghosts from the primeval past, the American past.

And it was created by a bizarre individual. Harry Smith was an amateur anthropologist, an experimental filmmaker, a committed drug user, and a collector of all sorts of oddities, including 20,000 78 rpm records. It was from this collection that he culled the Anthology. Read about him here in Ian Nasgoski’s excellent essay at the National Recording Registry.

Smith plumbed the depths of American song, and its nooks and crannies, within the parameters he set for himself. He created the Anthology as a magnificent gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of sound, picture, and text that came neatly packaged together. Smith’s illustrated commentaries on each selection, released as a booklet along with the collection, are penetrating, pithy, and apt. (A fourth volume of vintage Americana in the Anthology series, encompassing 28 more songs released between 1928 and 1940, was released on Ravenant Records in 2000.)

The result of all this hard work is a document that illuminates the American musical psyche of the past. The largely ignored genres and little-heard tunes that are ironically now immortalized by Smith are, of a body, haunting: this is music made by real people, not mainstream groups nor mainstream genres. Thanks to Smith, those otherwise lost voices come back to haunt us. He gave us an X-ray of America’s soul.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dylan Thomas recites his A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

NRR Project: 'Rocket '88'' (March 3 or 5, 1951)

 

NRR Project: “Rocket ‘88’”

Composed by Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner

Performed by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm)

Recorded March 3 or 5, 1951

2:48

To really define “Rocket ‘88’” as the first rock and roll song is pretty arbitrary. Much of this approach dwelt in R’n’B, and precursors such as Johnny Otis, Louis Prima, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Louis Jordan set the tone for what was coming.

Still, there is something new, something driven and assured taking place. There is an urgency not present before. Read Steve Propes’ excellent essay about it here at the National Recording Registry. Propes proposes that it’s the accidentally fuzzed-out sound of Willie Kizart that makes it rock and roll.

It was an inspired setup that came together quite casually, a happy constellation of talent that drove this vibrant song into hitland, and changed the course of music. Legendary music producer Sam Phillips recorded it in his studio in Memphis. Jackie Brenston was Ike Turner’s saxophonist. The real genius behind this is the unacknowledged genius/villain Turner, backed by his Kings of Rhythm.  

It was a good-time, celebratory song. It was ostensibly about the singer’s new Oldsmobile 88, but it yaks along at breakneck pace about good times. It was upbeat and youthful, a new sound.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

NRR Project: Giants-Dodgers National League tiebreaker (Oct. 3, 1951)

 

NRR Project: National League tiebreaker, Oct. 3, 1951

Broadcast via the Liberty Radio Network

2:11:05

It’s simply one of the most exciting baseball games ever played.

Read Barry Petcheskey’s essay on it at the National Recording Registry here.

This was back in the days when the Giants and the Dodgers still operated out of New York. Their rivalry was intense. The Giants were 13 ½ games back with 50 games left to play in the regular season. They then won 16 in a row . . . and in the frantic final days, tied the Giants for the best record in the National League at the end of the season, both tallying 96 wins and 58 losses.

The solution? A three-game tiebreaker. The first game was played at the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field, which the Giants won, 2-1. The next game, played at the Polo Grounds, the home of the Giants, saw the Dodgers win 10-0. The series was tied with one game to go.

The game was televised (the first coast-to-coast telecast of a Major League game), and millions more listened in on the radio. Russ Hodges called the game on WMCA for the Liberty Broadcast System, and it is his memorable description of what happened that has come down to us.

What a great lineup! For the Dodgers, there was Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Carl Furillo. For the Giants, there was Willie Mays, Alvin Dark – and the hero of the game, Bobby Thomson.

Meeting again at the Polo Grounds, the game featured Sal “The Barber” Maglie leading off as pitcher for the Giants, while Don Newcombe pitched for the Dodgers. The game stayed close until the 8^th, when the Dodgers scored three runs. It looked like they were going to the World Series.

Down 4-1, the Giants worked magic in the bottom half of the inning. Well-placed hits advanced the runners, and drove in a run. Ralph Branca replaced Newcombe on the mound.

Now, with two outs and two men on base, Thomson came to the plate. He laid into the second pitch and sent it screaming into the left-field stands. The Giants won with his walk-off homer, 5-4. The crowd went wild, and Hodges’ excited call became instantly memorable. Thomson's homer became known aas the "Shot Heard 'Round the World."

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rocket ‘88’.

NRR Project: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' soundtrack (1951)

 

NRR Project: “A Streetcar Named Desire” film soundtrack

Composed by Alex North

Recorded 1951

46:46

No one could do more justice to this subject than Jonathan Rhodes Lee, a musicologist whose insights are informed and comprehensive. You shouldread him at the National Recording Registry.

I can only add that I find it odd that this was the first film to really incorporate jazz into its soundtrack. But I guess that it is so. Early jazz in sound film was overwhelmingly diegetic – that is, it came from a source you could see on the screen. Alex North took it and shaped it into the narrative quite elegantly – so much so that the Catholic Legion of Decency censored the film, as a passage of his music in the score was deemed lascivious. North had to rewrite the cue.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: the National League tiebreaker, Oct. 3, 1951.