The better part of a century has passed since the birth of rock 'n' roll. As the genre has
evolved, terrible details of its origin have come to light. Which executives made a fortune
off stolen songs? Who framed Billie Holiday? Keep watching for more '50s music horrors.
It's not exactly a secret that record companies have gone to great lengths to avoid paying
their artists royalties. While many big-wigs in the '50s music industry made a hefty profit
off their artists, the musicians themselves often continued to struggle financially.
One example of this exploitation is the story of Fred Parris. While he might not be a household
name, his song "In the Still of the Night" certainly is. That song alone sold somewhere
around 10 million copies, and, with a decent contract, Parris would have earned around
$100,000 in royalties. That adds up to about $1 million today. However, Parris earned just
$783 of the revenue generated by his hit, Belleville-News Democrat reports.
Race is at the heart of this gross underpayment. Radio stations and record execs felt they
needed a white face and voice to sell records, so many songs were covered by white artists,
who paid a licensing fee. Often, these fees went straight into the pockets of the record
company, rather than the songwriters. This revenue model is how Pat Boone covered Fats
Domino's song "Aint' That a Shame" and Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti". Naturally, the artists
themselves weren't thrilled with this arrangement.
Though slavery may have officially ended in the United States in 1865 with the 13th ammendment,
with the Jim Crow era came new laws meant to keep segregation in place. Jim Crow interfered
with many aspects of daily life in the '50s, and the music scene was no exception.
It's specific stories from this era that are really the most telling. Terry Johnson of
the Flamingos told Rolling Stone of a late '50s concert they gave in Birmingham, Alabama.
When they arrived, they were assigned a police escort that threatened them with punishment
if they looked at any of the white women in the crowd. It was far from the only concert
where Black and white attendees were separated, and the crowds sometimes turned violent as
a result.
When Jackie Wilson canceled a white-only show he hadn't realized was booked after a Black-only
performance he gave one night, he and his crew were run out of town at gunpoint. The
chase ended when Jesse Belvin's tires blew, killing Belvin and his wife in the ensuing
crash.
In 1959, three white women snuck into a Black-only show at the Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans. Police
found them, arrested them, and beat them so badly they were hospitalized.
Despite their fame, black performers often found themselves at the mercy of Jim Crow
laws. Terry Johnson recalled to Rolling Stone that the Flamingos were forced to sleep in
their cars while they toured, and weren't allowed in most restaurants. When they were
allowed in, they were typically served rotten food.
To this day, popular artists from the '50s and '60s can recall the effects Jim Crow laws
had on their careers. Martha Reeves told Billboard,
"We were happy, we were singing, we were joyful, we were away from home for the first time,
youngsters on a magical show. But being met with the hatred, it was alarming — especially
when the bus was being shot at."
Singer Dee Dee Sharp recounted a similar experience in Jackson, Mississippi, where the local community
actually stoned their tour bus. The Dovells, a white singing group on the same tour, had
to shield Sharp from the attack.
These issues weren't just in the South, either. Leon Hughes Sr. of the Coasters recounted
how they arrived at a tour date in Lincoln, Utah, and the promoter approached looking
for the Coasters. When they responded that they were the Coasters, the promoter grew
angry, as he'd expected the group to be white. The incident ended with the group leaving
town very quickly.
What's the difference between "borrowing" and "stealing"? If your answer is, "They're
spelled differently," then congratulations, you might just be the reincarnation of a 1950s
record executive.
There's probably no better example of theft in the music industry than the early rock
mega-hit "Hound Dog." Elvis Presley took it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1956,
but it was first recorded by the blues singer Big Mama Thornton in 1952.
According to the Library of Congress, "Hound Dog" was first performed by Thornton and Johnny
Otis. Writers Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber had seen her perform and were inspired to
write the song for her to sing.
“Johnny wanted us to write for her. And we went and saw her."
"Saw her perform?"
"Yeah, she was a knockout".
Otis was given a song-writing credit and owned half the publishing rights, but once Presley's
version topped the charts, Stoller and Lieber sued Otis and reclaimed full songwriting credit.
Thornton didn't have resources to combat this discrepancy in court, so history has largely
left her out of the "Hound Dog" legacy as well.
When 22 year-old Buddy Holly died in a frozen Iowa field in 1959, seven of his songs had
hit the Top 40 in just a year. Despite his wild success, he'd already gone through a
battle over royalties, and was planning to start his own label. At the time, Holly was
so broke he agreed to join the Winter Dance Party tour in spite of his aspirations.
The agents who booked the tour clearly had no regard for performers, and even before
the fatal plane crash that claimed the lives of some of rock's most promising young artists,
it was already known as the "Tour From Hell." Scheduled to play 11 shows in 11 days, with
hundreds of miles in between gigs, the artists were traveling in a converted school bus in
temperatures of -30 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so cold that, according to Rolling Stone,
when the bus froze in the middle of Wisconsin, members of Holly's band began showing the
early symptoms of frostbite.
They burned newspapers and took turns sharing a bottle of scotch until they were spotted
by a trucker who alerted a local sheriff's deputy. It's no wonder that when the tour's
organizers booked another show on their day off that the already flu-ridden musicians
scrambled for a hired plane.
That day became widely known as The Day the Music Died.
It should come as little surprise that the music industry gave little effort to support
artists in the '50s. The story of Billie Holiday is a perfect representation of this neglect.
As detailed by The Progressive, Holiday got the attention of Harry Anslinger, the fanatically
racist commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, when she refused to stop singing
a song that referenced lynchings. In 1947, Anslinger's men framed her for buying heroin,
and when she finished her 18-month jail sentence, she found that her "cabaret performer's license"
wasn't going to be renewed. This restriction meant she couldn't perform anywhere that served
alcohol.
"She said they wanted to see a black woman who had been in trouble for drugs.”
Unable to return to her regular performances, she fell hard into depression and heroin addiction.
Fast forward to 1959, she entered a hospital in New York. Before entering the hospital,
she warned her family that she feared the doctors would kill her.
After being admitted to the hospital, Holiday began to respond to treatment, until Anslinger
dispatched some of his cronies to prevent doctors from continuing her methadone treatment.
She died just a few days later.
When rock 'n' roll first hit airwaves, it was pretty clear that its target audience
would be teenagers. Many of the songs were ones teens could relate to, featuring coming-of-age
narratives focused on the experience of young love and infatuation. But that queued up a
horrible problem: artists and record executives leveraged their involvement with popular music
to get whatever they wanted from young fans.
22 year-old Elvis Presley had a small entourage of 14-year-old girls who traveled with him
on tour, who he would often wrestle and kiss, according to Vice. At the same time, he was
in a relationship with 15-year-old Dixie Locke. He didn't meet Priscilla until he was 24,
and she was only 14. After they split in 1972, Elvis rebounded with another 14-year-old.
"My parents were a nervous wreck. Elvis came in full uniform, which my dad liked a lot.”
Then, there's Jerry Lee Lewis. His first tour in England ended in flames when he introduced
his wife, Myra — who also happened to be his 13-year-old second cousin. According to
The Telegraph, J. W. Brown, Myra's father and Lee's bassist, wanted to kill Lewis when
he found out about the union. Sun Records founder Sam Phillips had to intervene.
The music industry is pretty much designed for record executives to profit, and many
of today's practices were started in the 1950s.
As Vice explains, Little Richard signed his first record contract when he was 19 years
old. At the time, he was financially responsible for his family, as his father had been killed
three years prior. He and his family were so poor, they had to pull wood off the exterior
of their house to keep a fire going.
He was desperate, and only got a contract in the first place after spending a year calling
one of the only studios who would even consider signing a Black artist. Finally they did sign
him, and "Tutti Frutti" was released. The song was a hit, and it should have made all
the family's money worries go away, in theory. Unfortunately, while Specialty Records' owner
Art Rupe made millions, Little Richard was only paid $50 for the recording, and half
a penny for every copy sold. Little Richard signed the contract knowing it was a bad deal
at the time, but he'd had no other choice if he wanted to continue making music.
On many '50s radio stations, DJs had little to no creative control over what they played
on the air. Instead, it was common practice to broadcast songs released by the record
companies that paid them the most, rather than the music listeners might tune into.
According to Performing Songwriter, a huge part of the musical landscape of the 1950s
was shaped by payola. Payola was a practice where record companies would offer DJs money,
vacations, free merchandise, and occasionally even proceeds from concerts in exchange for
having their songs played more often. The end result was that record companies could
pay their way to hit songs. It worked so well that by the middle of the decade, companies
that used payola had twice the hit singles as older and larger companies who were against
the business model.
It wasn't just a few bucks here and there, either. By the time the payola controversy
went before the FCC in 1960, DJs were raking in thousands. One Cleveland DJ made $12,000
between 1958 and 1959, which amounts to around $110,000 today. According to History, payola
was deemed an "abuse of public trust." While the practice was technically outlawed, the
laws put in place left plenty of loopholes, and this style of promotion is still used
today.
Dick Clark was the face of "American Bandstand," and he's synonymous with the show that brought
hit songs and legendary performers right into the homes of fans. But did you know that American
Bandstand came close to never happening?
Before Clark, "American Bandstand" was hosted by Bob Horn. Horn was in his late 30s when
the show started in 1952. It was a massive hit, but things started to go sideways when
he was arrested for a DUI in June of 1956. Within just a few hours, he'd been fired from
his hosting gig.
When people started questioning why he'd been dealt with so severely, it started to come
out that the local district attorney was in the middle of investigating incidents of "sexual
impropriety," and he'd warned the station to get rid of Horn while they could. Within
four months, Horn was arrested after it came out that he had not only been having an affair
with a 13-year-old girl, but that he'd also arranged other underrage affairs for the male
members of his entourage. Horn was acquitted, but was involved in another drunk-driving
accident and paralyzed a 5-year-old child.
Needless to say, "American Bandstand" nearly didn't continue.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
music are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss
a single one.