The Hottest Hit On The Planet:
“Little Things Mean A Lot“
by Kitty Kallen
Not only the Hottest Hit On The Planet in April: “Little Things Mean A Lot” was The Biggest Hit Of 1954!!!
Which means that it was…
The Biggest Hit Before The Rock’n’Roll Curtain Came Down!
So it’s only appropriate that “Little Things Mean A Lot” was performed by a woman who, although certainly not the biggest nor brightest nor most iconic pre-rock’n’roll female pop star – that would probably be Patti Page, of whom more below – was certainly one of the more typical female pop stars of her time; her career arc much the same as… pretty much every other pre-rock’n’roll female pop star you could name.
Kitty Kallen had broken into the recording industry as the featured vocalist on hit records for the big swing bands. Or as they called them at the time, Big Bands.
Kitty’s name may have not been the most prominent on the labels of those hit records. It may not have been printed in the largest and boldest font. But her name was there, in small print, boasting “Vocal Chorus By Kitty Kallen.”
Kitty had a sultry tone that was perfect for slightly saucy, but still sentimental, slow dances, of which “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” – for Harry James, whose Big Band got the big font – was her biggest hit.
“It’s Been A Long, Long, Time” is a cute song, but it was mostly a hit because World War Two was coming to a close, and millions of American soldiers were finally returning home after a long, long time.
If “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” wasn’t written specifically to capitalize on this momentous event, it may as well have.
And capitalize on the momentous event it did! “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” was so popular that not only did Kitty and Harry’s version go to Number One, but it was replaced at Number One by another version of the same song! This time by Bing Crosby and Les Paul!
But the Big Band days were over. And by the early 50s Kitty was struggling. A newspaper article in 1954 makes a mysterious reference to “’that’ time, the one all artists fear” when they make a record so bad that “those that bought the records no longer ask for Kitty Kallen anymore.”
What? Was this one the especially terrible Kitty Kallen record that destroyed her career? Was it her version of “Choo’n Gum”? It certainly sounds like a career destroyer.
So much had Kitty’s career been destroyed, that not only did she no longer have a recording contract, but Decca refused to give her one unless she paid for the recording session upfront! It cost $5,000 dollars. Which is about $50,000 now.
Good thing it became a hit, then!
That $5,000 budget included marketing costs, but presumedly didn’t include the fee for a decent photographer.
This is actually the album cover, but that’s no excuse. Who signed off on this? Weren’t they worried she’d scare children?
“Little Things Mean A Lot” is another cute song. A song written by… no one famous.
Or at least no-one famous outside of Richmond, Virginia:
Where the lyricist – and Grandma – Edith Lindeman wrote movie reviews for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
She had also previously written Jewish children’s books based on the Bible. And “Little Things Mean A Lot” is precisely the kind of simple and wholesome love song that you’d expect a Grandma who wrote Biblical children’s songs to pen. Meanwhile, the music was written by a local radio DJ.
Kitty’s phrasing on “Little Things Mean A Lot” is perfect, particularly whenever she’s rhyming with “a lot.” “Say I look nice… when I’m nooooot” “Call me at 6… on the doooot.” I like the way she stretches her vowels. It’s sweet. It’s charming. It’s a 7.
Rock’n’roll wouldn’t kill off the soppy ballad, of course. But it did kill off the female torch singer. Not to mention the pop-star-who-looked-like-a-housewife scene (see below). Just look at the Billboard charts. There had been female voices at Number One for 26 of the 52 weeks of 1954. That’s exactly half! Equality of the sexes had been accomplished! In 1954!!
By 1956 that number had tumbled to just six.
To put it another way, there were four times as many weeks when the Number One record in America was recorded by men whose name began with a single letter – that letter being E – than there were of women whose name began with any letter at all!
Meanwhile, in Countdown Showdown Land:
“Changing Partners” by Patti Page… and Kay Starr
So, The Hottest Hit On The Planet – and the Biggest Hit Of 1954! – was a quaint little song in an era filled to the brim with quaint little songs. But there really wasn’t much to say about it.
That’s not going to be a problem with “Changing Partners.” There’s a lot to say about “Changing Partners.”
It’s not that “Changing Partners” is that great of a song. Or that interesting a song.
But it ties together so many of the trends that were criss-crossing the pop music landscape in the couple of years prior to the explosion of rock’n’roll.
For one thing, it was a good old fashioned Countdown Showdown! With multiple versions of the same song racing up the charts!
In one corner:
We had Patti Page: the Main Pop Girl of the Early 50s, a pop queen so wholesome that she also gave the impression she was the ultimate 50s housewife!
Capable of scoring hits such as “I Went To Your Wedding” and “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?” and still have time to make dinner for her husband. She probably was capable of that, but during the period we are dealing with, Patti Page was between husbands.
Patti Page was born in Oklahoma. Probably Claremore. Possibly Muskogee. Patti Page may have been an Okie From Muskogee!
And in the other corner we had Kay Starr:
Real name Catherine Starks, so she didn’t really have to strain her brain to come up with a stage name – who was also born in Oklahoma, but raised in Texas. So we have two country girls in this contest. Which makes sense because “Changing Partners” is a country song.
Although she was a country lass, Kay – like Kitty Kallen – came up through the 1940s Big Band system, singing with Bob Crosby – Bing’s talentless brother – and Glen Miller.
When she had her early 50s run of hits, her sound would constantly swing between the glamor-puss pop of “Wheel Of Fortune” – which included the sound of a roulette wheel spinning and so presumedly inspired “Wheel Of Fortune” the TV Show which would have its debut later that year – and the hillbilly-fiddling tune, “Bonaparte’s Retreat.”
Dinah Shore – from Tennessee! Another country lass!! – also had a version out. And it too was a hit. But things are getting too complicated. Let’s keep this a simple two-horse race.
This sort of thing happened all the time back then.
Opening up a purely random copy of Billboard…
…let’s see, from June 1945… the Top Ten features three different version of “Sentimental Journey” – one by Les Brown featuring Doris Day, another by Hal McIntyre and yet another by the Merry Macs – and another three versions of “Bell Bottom Trousers” – by Tony Pastor, Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo!
And you think you’ve got it tough hearing the same songs everywhere you go. Imagine multiple versions of the same song everywhere you go! It was almost as though Roosevelt was rationing out pop tunes to help the war effort!!!
But back to 1954: At the very same time that Patti and Kay were fighting it out on the charts, several other similar races were also taking place!
Record buyers could choose between the classic crooning of Tony Bennett’s version of “Stranger In Paradise” or the Four Aces barbershop quartet version of “Stranger In Paradise.”
Or they could puzzle over which was the less vaguely irritating; the Hilltoppers version of “From The Vine Came The Grape” or the partially-Italian Gaylords version of “From The Vine Came The Grape”?
But back to “Changing Partners.”
“Changing Partners” was not only a good old-fashioned chart race at the height of good-old fashioned chart-races, but a good old-fashioned country song, at a time when pop versions of good old-fashioned country songs were constantly barnstorming the charts.
It had all started with Tony Bennett’s covers of Hank Williams songs a couple of years earlier. Covers that had become absolute monster hits. Naturally other pop stars followed suit and had monster hits with other Hank songs.
Hank himself wouldn’t really become a pop star in his own right – his highest charting single, “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” only reached No.20 – and he would soon die in the backseat of a car in West Virginia.
Despite each year boasting at least a couple of Number Ones that had originally been country tunes, few country singers would become mainstream pop stars themselves, with one glaring and largely forgotten exception: Pee Wee King.
Pee Wee managed to grab a Number One – not a Country Number One, but a Pop Number One! – with the charmingly lackadaisical “Slow Poke.” (“Slow Poke” is a 7)
That mild mannered man singing is not Pee Wee by the way. That’s Redd Stewart. Pee Wee was one of the fiddlers in the background. Which suggests that he even more mild mannered.
Pee Wee didn’t write “Slow Poke,” either. It was written by one of his friends, a Kentucky girl called Chilton Price.
Chilton would soon write “You Belong To Me” – the “see the pyramids along the Nile” song – the Jo Stafford version of which is quite possibly the definitive pre-rock’n’roll 50s pop ballad. (“You Belong To Me” is a 9)
The definitive pre-rock’n’roll 50s pop ballad was basically a country song.
Pee Wee may not have written “Slow Poke,” but he did write another definitive monster hit of the early 50s, a song that – like “Changing Partners” – was a barnyard dance rejection ballad. A barnyard dance rejection ballad by the name of “Tennessee Waltz,” which would become an enormous hit for… guess who?
Patti Page!
It’s all beginning to come together, isn’t it?
“Tennessee Waltz” – which hit Number One at the end of 1950 and held the spot all the way through winter – began with Patti dancing happily with her sweetheart. But then she introduced her sweetheart to her friend from long-ago. This turned out to be a terrible idea, for Patti’s “friend stole” Patti’s “sweetheart from” Patti.
Which is basically the plot of “Changing Partners.”
Except that: “Changing Partners” doesn’t involve an old-friend, just the insensitivity of a barn-yard dance announcer declaring that it’s time for your dance partner – who you’ve only just met – to dance with someone else. At which point you feel absolutely crushed.
Pee Wee also had a version of “Changing Partners” out – although he didn’t write it, his version was the first on the market – suggesting that he too considered the two songs to be a complimentary pair.
So Patti had a bit of an unfair advantage in this bout. She was already known as the girl who loses her man at barnyard dances. It was a key part of her brand.
Patti also got to sing it on the Ed Sullivan Show, which was increasingly becoming a big deal.
And she was the Main Pop Girl. In the all-important chart contest, Patti wiped with floor with Kay Starr: No.3 to No.13.
This is only right since Patti’s version is far superior. She keeps it simple. Despite feeling devastated, Patti remains poised. Kay, on the other hand, doesn’t only have to compete with Patti, but with her own backing vocalists from the cheesiest corner of the 50s.
Patti’s version of “Changing Partners” is a 7. Kay’s is a 4.
Meanwhile, in Birdland Land:
“A Night In Tunisia” by Art Blakey
“Ladies and Gentlemen, as you know we have something special down here at Birdland this evening… a recording… for Blue Note records.”
That was Pee Wee Marquette, so called because he was three and a half feet tall. The Master Of Ceremonies at Birdland, he was reputedly a terrible person, constantly mispronouncing the musicians names unless they paid him to get it right. But in that one sentence, we are transported right into the middle of the New York bee-bop jazz world.
Like “Changing Partners”, “A Night In Tunisia”, exists at the cross section of a whole bunch of trends. A whole lot of legendary figures. And a legendary record label. And a legendary nightclub. The primary difference is that – unlike “Changing Partners” – “A Night In Tunisia” is sizzling hot!
Birdland was a jazz club on Broadway.
Since the traditional place to open a jazz club was either in Harlem or Greenwich Village, having one in Broadway – right in the centre of showbiz! – showed they meant business.
Having a radio show broadcast from there in 1952, also showed they meant business. Commissioning a theme song for said radio show, and calling it “Lullaby Of Birdland” showed they meant business. Naming the venue after Charlie Parker aka Bird – a good way to ensure that he’d turn up to play on opening night– showed they meant business.
That opening night was a one-off though. Bird rarely played there afterwards.
He asked for too much money. Heroin is an expensive habit, you know.
But if anybody complained that the lack of Bird meant that Birdland was false advertising… well, management could simply refer them to all the finches they kept in cages hanging from the ceiling. Although they didn’t last very long either. Turns out finches don’t really like smoke. Or jazz.
“A Night At Birdland” – the name of the album that Pee Wee was introducing – wasn’t the first live album to be recorded at Birdland, but it was the big one.
It was also a big album for Blue Note Records, a jazz label founded by a communist about a decade and a half earlier. By 1954 they were probably the coolest jazz label in the world, releasing records by everyone from piano plunker Thelonious Monk, to vibraphone wizard Milt Jackson, to ill-tempered trumpeting genius Miles Davis, to pianist – and victim of police bashing and consequent electro-shock therapy – Bud Powell. And Art Blakey, the drummer whose band was being recorded that night.
“A Night At Birdland” was also the first big Blue Note album to be engineered by Rudy Van Gelder.
The only jazz recording engineer to become close to a household name – in households that listened to jazz anyway – so much so that if you look up every second classic jazz album of the 50s and 60s on Spotify it will boast that it’s the “
”
Another mad scientist type, Rudy owned his own studio, built a lot of his own audio equipment, and lied about his techniques so that no-one could copy him. It’s only appropriate that Rudy’s first classic album for Blue Note would be a live album, since that’s how his approach – whether for a live or a studio recording – is usually described:
“Rudy moved you from sitting somewhere in the middle to the front row” (source: the Rudy Van Gelder website, so of course they’d say that!).
He was particularly good at capturing drums. An instrument which had previously sounded muffled, on those occasions that you could hear it at all. This is not a problem for Art Blakey’s “A Night At Birdland.”
“A Night At Birdland” – including “A Night In Tunisia” – is very clearly recorded by a drummer-led band.
Art Blakey was originally a pianist. Legend has it that he didn’t play the drums until a club owner convinced him to, by waving a pistol at him.
Another legend has it that Art learnt drums – or at least his signature drumming technique – on a trip to Africa in the late 40s.
Art disputes this. He says he went there to learn about religion. There’s a lot of debate therefore about the extent to which Art’s drumming is influenced by African techniques.
Also some debate on whether he converted to Islam whilst over there, or beforehand, since he was already leading a band called the 17 Messengers before he left. They wore turbans whilst they read the Quran.
Art seemed to like calling his band the (something) Messengers. His band for “A Night At Birdland” would soon become the Jazz Messengers.
They’d put the late 50s hard bop scene in a chokehold.
Just to be clear, Art didn’t go to Tunisia as part of his African tour. He stuck to Nigeria and Ghana.
The “A Night At Birdland” version of “A Night In Tunisia” may not be the definitive version of “A Night In Tunisia.”
That honour goes to a live version from the year before. One that featured its composer Dizzy Gillespie, who Art claims wrote the tune on the bottom of a garbage can. Although Art seems rather insistent about this point, I’m not entirely sure how it would work. Dizzy was, after all, a trumpet player.
Whilst it’s true that Dizzy’s trumpets were typically broken – with the spout bent upwards at a 45 degrees angle – after he broke it by accident one night and liked the sound it made, it’s not as though he played literal garbage can lids! That would make no sense!!!
The definitive version of “A Night Is Tunisia” didn’t only feature Dizzy Gillespie. Charlie Parker was also in attendance. And Bud Powell on piano. And Max Roach on the drums. And legendary double-bass player – and even more legendary asshole – Charles Mingus.
They all went up to Toronto for the “Massey Hall Concert”, a concert that I am bound by convention to refer to as “The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever”, despite there being virtually no one in the audience.
There was a good reason for no-one being in the audience.
There was a big boxing bout happening on the same night. At the very same time.
Even Dizzy himself seemed more interested in the bout than his own concert. He kept on disappearing from the stage to check up on the action. He was able to do this because improvisational jazz solos are so damn long.
Rudy didn’t produce these sessions. You can tell because the drums are all muffled. The drums – and the bass – are so muffled that Charles and Max rerecorded them when they got back to New York.
Both the Birdland and the Massey Hall versions of “A Night In Tunisia” are 9s.
Meanwhile, in Blues Land:
“I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” by Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters came from Mississippi. The Mississippi Delta, to be precise. A very short distance from the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil.
So close to that sacred place did Muddy live that his first recording session took place because Alan Lomax was wandering around the Delta trying to track Robert down, only to find out that he’d died and gone – presumedly – to Hell, a few years earlier. So he recorded Muddy instead.
But before all of that, before Muddy was even born, a gypsy woman visited his mother, and told her that she had a boy child coming. And that boy-child, he was going to be a son-of-a-gun.
That’s the kind of world that Muddy Waters grew up in.
A land of gypsy women. A land where Satanic transactions were made. A land filled with black magic. A land filled with voodoo. With mojo. With black cat bones… they make for a great lucky charm, don’t you know?
And John The Conqueror Root? That stuff protects you from slaveowners. Some of this magic goes back a long way.
As for hoochie coochie? That used to be a sexy dance – sort of like belly-dancing – back at the turn of the century. But I think Muddy is just telling us he’s a good root.
A John The Conqueror Root? No, this is a different sort of root. A verb not a herb.
Muddy Waters wasn’t shy about talking about his hoodoo voodoo hoochie coochie roots. He called his band the Headhunters.
They would go from bar to bar, competing with whatever band they found there, and “cut off their heads.” With a name like the Headhunters they must have been intimidating, but that’s not necessarily why they always won.
They were also quite a bit louder than your average 1940s blues band, the result of an investment Muddy had made in an electric guitar when he first arrived in Chicago.
But the real genius here was Willie Dixon.
Also from Mississippi, who wrote “Hoochie Cooche Man”, and other hits steeped in voodoo! Such as “Evil Is Goin’ On.”
That one he gave to another incredibly named bluesman, Howlin’ Wolf. An understandable decision given that Howlin’ was arguably even badder than Muddy. Howlin’ sounds like a witchdoctor casting a spell… “EVVVIIILLLLL!!!”
Naturally the two incredibly named bluesmen had to have a feud. Over who was going to get the best Willie Dixon songs. Was it going to be Howlin’ Wolf, who sounded all evil and unsettled, but was actually quite professional and businesslike when you met him off-stage? Or would it be Muddy Waters, who didn’t sound quite as evil, and wasn’t businesslike at all?
How unbusinesslike was Muddy Waters?
Well, some people called Muddy’s band the Muddy Waters Drunken Ass Band. Which, to be fair, is probably what you’d expect from such a self-proclaimed hoochie cooche man.
“Hoochie Coochie Man” is a 9.
“Evil Is Goin’ On” is a 10.
Meanwhile, in This Song Could Not Possibly Come From 1954 Land:
And yet, apparently it does:
“Space Guitar” by Johnny “Guitar” Watson
I’m not going to research this. It’ll just ruin the mystery of how a record like this could possibly exist in 1954.
“Space Guitar” is a 10.
What a crazy-man-crazy time to have been alive!
To hear these and other 50s hits, tune into DJ Professor Dan’s Twitch stream on Tuesday nights Melbourne time…which is about lunch time London time, and breakfast time New York time! It’s the DJ Professor Dan Breakfast Show!
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Views: 69
Good music! These female vocalists may not be my favorite music, but I am perfectly satisfied if they’re playing in the background as I’m occupied with other activities. Kay Starr has such a brassy, big voice…I’ve always kind of liked her. But then, you’ve gotta love Patti Page, too.
Those raw blues tunes…I guess I like my blues a little more watered down. They aren’t what I would normally seek out. But I do like the novelty of “Space Guitar”. That was pretty fun!
Are you just being silly calling Bob Crosby talentless? I don’t know much, but I thought he was a legit bandleader. He had a couple #1 songs in the 40s, if I remember correctly.
Thanks for the good tunes!
I read somewhere once – I had a quick look through my Kindle but it doesn’t seem to be there – that Bob basically got hired for his name and was actively discouraged from doing much more than wave his baton. And I get the feeling the band was advised to completely ignore that baton waving whenever he did so.
Also–I was intrigued by the song “Choo’n Gum”. It’s very similar to a camp song that I remember my kids singing, “Bazooka-Zooka Bubble Gum”. I wonder which song came first?
I guess little things do mean a lot, because the lost syllable in “Choo’n Gum” really bothers me.
“Space Guitar” is the greatest song I never heard. Phenomenal!
And nice to see that the delta between your blues coverage and my recent post is small enough to feel some sin-ergy.
Keep em coming!
Little Things Mean A Lot is pretty classy, it’s got a great feel to it and the story behind it, being written by Grandma Edith adds extra colour. What was the last number one written by a Grandma??
As for Choo’n Gum, it sounds like a jingle in need of a commercial.
When it comes to the showdown between Patti and Kay, I prefer Kay’s voice. It’s just unfortunate that it’s got all those other voices rooting it firmly to it’s place in time.
Compare and contrast them with Muddy Waters and music really is a broad church. From the title onwards it feels like Muddy has something filthy in mind. Gloriously sinful.
And as for Space Guitar….just wild man.
Thank you for not dwelling primarily in pop music from 1954 — that’s some rough territory to cover. But the jazz, blues, and freakadelic guitar all made the journey worthwhile!
Was not expecting to see Art Blakey here. Very pleased.
I have loved Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf for a very long time. Love hearing them in their primes. More recently I have been more receptive to jazz, so the Art Blakey song was especially welcome. But “Space Guitar”? Where did that come from, and how could I have missed it for so long? Just…wow. Thanks for tracking this one down and sharing it with us.
Great stuff, Professor!