WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN APRIL 1950:
 
 

The #1 song on the Pop Charts is the appropriately named Music! Music! Music!.

The record is the first hit for Teresa Brewer who was signed the previous fall to London Records. The bouncy novelty-esque song about old fashioned nickelodeons was to be nothing but a B-side to a serious jazz standard but New York radio host Gene Rayburn, who initially had pushed Brewer to record the song, promoted it heavily on the air, breaking it nationally for her on its way to becoming a million seller and establishing her as a star.

Brewer would follow it up with another even more juvenile record, “Choon’n Gum” that become one of thirty six Top 100 hits in her career including a number of pop cover versions of mid-1950’s rock hits for which her long-term reputation understandably suffered. Brewer herself would update Music! Music! Music! multiple times, with a rock version just missing the Top 100 in 1973.
 

 
Speaking of music, music, music… the New York Times named its Top Ten Songs Of The First Half Of The Twentieth Century and to no one’s surprise there were no rock songs in their selections… but more indefensible than that was the fact there was absolutely no jazz and just one blues song.

The full list in chronological order based on the year of their publication:

Sweet Adeline (1903)
School Days (1907)
Shine On Harvest Moon (1908)
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1910)
Down By The Old Mill Stream (1910)
I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad (1911)
St. Louis Blues (1914)
Smiles (1917)
Stardust (1929)
God Bless America (1939)

The list was compiled by music pundit Sigmund Spaeth who claimed it was based on popularity yet he provided no actual objective criteria to determine how popular they were, nor did he seem interested in taking into account the drastically different means with which these songs reached the public’s ears… as it was sheet music sales that dominated the first two decades of the 1900’s before that was overtaken by record sales and radio play.

Not surprisingly most of his choices coincide with what he heard in his own formative years. Spaeth was born in 1885 and more than half of the songs first appeared on the scene when he was between the ages of 18 and 26 and only two songs were released after he turned 40.

It’s no different today as the nominating committee for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame (average age 65) overwhelmingly selects artists from their own youth while paying just cursory attention to recently eligible, far younger, artists. That’s why the saying goes don’t trust anyone over thirty… especially when it comes to music.
 
 
 
 
 
 
How does one listen to all this music, music, music, you ask? Well, if you’re driving in your automobile you can have a new Motorola Auto Radio installed.

These devices are the highest quality shock-free, precision engineered models on the market, able to pull in distant stations whenever you’re out for a drive.

Choose from among three styles to fit your car and your price range… The All-In-One 400 budget line model has a built in speaker and retails for $39.95… The Compact 500 model features high efficiency miniature tubes and matched control head with an self-contained external speaker and sells for a very reasonable $49.95…

Or, for those of you who take their music seriously, there’s the Golden Voice Model 800, proudly billing itself as The Aristocrat Of Auto Radios featuring automatic push button tuning and unmatched power and tone, all of which can be yours for $79.95.

Better performance and unmatched dependability “Turns miles into smiles!” and have made Motorola America’s favorite Auto Radio!
 
 
 
 
 
If you happen to be driving along aimlessly through the countryside listening to your snazzy new radio on April 18th and tune in to a ballgame you may hear Vin Scully making his debut as an announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Scully was just 22 years old and still living at home with his parents when he was hired by the Dodgers after appearing on network radio doing a college football game the previous fall following his stint as a student broadcaster at Fordham University where he majored in English.

With a preternaturally calm and casual voice and speaking style Scully quickly became a fixture of one of the most storied franchises in baseball who advanced to the World Series in eight of his first seventeen years on the mic, including calling the first – and only – Brooklyn World Series victory in 1955.

When the team moved to Los Angeles for the 1958 season it was Scully who became the franchise’s most iconic figure and during games at Dodger Stadium his voice could be heard reverberating throughout the stands as fans were listening to him call the game on transistor radios while they watched the action unfold from their seats.

After thirty-two years as the sport’s most acclaimed announcer Scully was elected to Baseball’s Hall Of Fame in 1982 and then went on to call games for another thirty four years after that!

Vin Scully retired following the 2016 season, calling his final game a month shy of 89 years old, ending a career which saw him put in an astonishing sixty seven years at the microphone for the same team, a record that may last forever.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Chuck Cooper becomes the first African-American drafted by an NBA franchise as the Boston Celtics select him with the first pick of the second round (fourteenth overall).

Cooper had been an All-American at Duquesne where he set the school record for career points, captained the team as a senior when the team finished the season ranked sixth in the nation and along the way he became the first African-American to play in a college basketball game south of Mason-Dixon line.

Celtics owner Walter Brown was strongly urged by other league owners not to draft him because of his race to which Brown defiantly stated upon making the team’s selection: “I don’t give a damn if he’s striped, plaid or polka dot. Boston takes Charles Cooper of Duquesne”.

After his groundbreaking moment however Cooper had a somewhat undistinguished NBA career, playing for three teams and was frustrated with his lack of opportunity to do more than be just a role player without much on court responsibility.

His post-playing career was more fruitful as Cooper earned a Masters Degree in 1960 and went on to become the first black department head for the city of Pittsburgh before dying at the age of 57 in 1984.

Three years after Cooper last played for the Celtics the team drafted Bill Russell, the greatest player in NBA history who would go on to lead the franchise to 11 World Titles in 13 seasons. However when he was elected to Basketball’s Hall Of Fame in 1975 Russell refused the accept the honor “for personal reasons” that he never disclosed.

In 2018 Russell ended his self-imposed exile from the Hall when it was announced that Chuck Cooper had finally been elected to the Hall Of Fame as a pioneer. It was Russell who inducted him at the ceremony that September and in doing so revealed that it had been Cooper’s omission from the Hall – despite paving the road for all black players that came after him – that was behind his decision all along.

It’s hard to believe it took this long to come up with such a thing, but Kraft now brings you the miracle of individually sliced cheese!

No more taking chances buying cheese that’s sliced in your local deli… no more having to deal with uneven slices when you cut it yourself… now Kraft will do the hard work for you in their spic and span factory right after pasteurization, giving you eight slices uniformly cut and protected in a sealed wrapper.

This “never before cheese” is truly ”an amazing new invention”.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
RECORDS REVIEWED FOR APRIL 1950:

PANAMA FRANCIS: Peach Tree Shuffle
PANAMA FRANCIS: The Crackerjack
CLARENCE SAMUELS: Lost My Head
CLARENCE SAMUELS: Low Top Inn
RUTH BROWN: Sentimental Journey
IVORY JOE HUNTER: I Got Your Water On
ARCHIBALD: Stack-A-Lee (Pt. 1 & 2)
ROY BROWN: I Feel That Young Man’s Rhythm
ROY BROWN: End Of My Journey
HARRY CRAFTON: Get Off Mama
JOE HOUSTON: Jumpin’ The Blues
JOE HOUSTON: Your Little Girl Is Gone
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Walk Your Blues Away
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Professor Longhair’s Blues
BILLY WRIGHT: After Dark Blues
BILLY WRIGHT: Heavy Hearted Blues
TINY BRADSHAW: Well Oh Well
STICK McGHEE: Venus Blues
STICK McGHEE: My Baby’s Comin’ Back
JIMMY PRESTON: Early Morning Blues
JIMMY PRESTON: Hay Ride
THE RAVENS: Count Every Star
THE RAVENS: I’m Gonna Paper All My Walls With Your Love Letters
BIG JOHN GREER: I’ll Never Do That Again
GOREE CARTER: Come On Let’s Boogie
GOREE CARTER: Serenade
CARL CAMPBELL (as KING TUT): You’ve Been Fiddlin’ Around
AMOS MILBURN: Square Dance Boogie
AMOS MILBURN: Anybody’s Blues
DAVE BARTHOLOMEW: Ain’t Gonna Do It
DAVE BARTHOLOMEW: Country Boy Goes Home
FLOYD DIXON: Shuffle Boogie
FLOYD DIXON: People Like Me
KITTY STEVENSON (with TODD RHODES): It Ain’t Right
THE STRIDERS: Cool Saturday Night
THE STRIDERS: Five O’Clock Blues
WILD BILL MOORE: Neck Bones And Collard Greens
WILD BILL MOORE: Rock Bottom
LITTLE ESTHER (WITH JOHNNY OTIS): Mean Ole Gal
JOHNNY OTIS: Good Old Blues
AL SEARS: 125th Street, New York
THE DIXIAIRES: Don’t Let That Worry You
ANNIE LAURIE & PAUL GAYTEN: I’ll Never Be Free
PAUL GAYTEN: You Ought To Know
THE ORIOLES: Moonlight
THE ORIOLES: I Wonder When
LITTLE WILLIE LITTLEFIELD: Tell Me Baby
LITTLE WILLIE LITTLEFIELD: Why Leave Me All Alone
FREDDIE MITCHELL: Rockin’ With Coop
FREDDIE MITCHELL: Boogie Blues

 
 
 
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