The biggest radio hit the year you graduated high school: ’50s edition
If you graduated from high school between 1950 and 1959, you came of age during one of the most dramatic transformations in American music history. The decade opened with big band holdovers and orchestral pop and ended with rock and roll fully in charge of the charts. The song that ruled the radio on your graduation day tells you exactly where in that transformation your class landed.
The year-end number one singles below are drawn from Yahoo Entertainment and WOWK TV, cross-referenced with Billboard’s year-end chart records. Before the Hot 100 launched in August 1958, the rankings reflected Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart, the primary commercial measure of the era.
Find your year below.
Class of 1950: “Goodnight, Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers
“Goodnight, Irene” spent thirteen weeks at number one in 1950, the longest chart run of any song that year. The Weavers were a Greenwich Village folk quartet, and their commercial breakthrough with this Leadbelly song was considered unlikely until it happened. Songfacts confirms the number one run lasted 13 consecutive weeks. It was the first time folk music broke into the mainstream pop chart on that scale.
Class of 1951: “Too young” by Nat King Cole
Cole called it slightly mawkish. Radio audiences disagreed and made it the year-end No. 1 of 1951, spending twelve weeks at the top.
Class of 1952: “Blue tango” by Leroy Anderson
Leroy Anderson was a Harvard-educated composer who worked in the classical and light orchestral tradition. “Blue Tango” was a wordless instrumental that nonetheless became the year-end No. 1, spending 21 weeks on the charts and marking one of the last times a purely orchestral piece would dominate. The era of rock and roll was three years away. Anderson would later teach at Harvard and compose for the Boston Pops.
Class of 1953: “Song from Moulin Rouge” by Percy Faith
The waltz from the film Moulin Rouge spent ten weeks at number one and topped 1953. Faith would return to the year-end top in 1960 with the Theme from A Summer Place.
Class of 1954: “Little things mean a lot” by Kitty Kallen
Kallen had sung for Harry James and Jimmy Dorsey for years before this nine-week No. 1 made her a star in her own right. She nearly turned it down for being too simple. The lyrics, a list of small, intimate gestures between partners, resonated exactly with audiences.
Class of 1955: “Cherry pink and apple blossom white” by Perez Prado
Cuban-born Prado had popularized the mambo in Latin America before this crossover. Ten weeks at number one in 1955, the same year “Rock Around the Clock” introduced rock and roll to American theaters.
Class of 1956: “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley
Released in January 1956, it spent eight weeks at number one. Yahoo Entertainment confirms RCA had signed Presley from Sun Records for $35,000 in 1955. The song confirmed the investment immediately.
Class of 1957: “All shook up” by Elvis Presley
Written with Otis Blackwell, the same songwriter behind “Don’t Be Cruel,” it topped 1957 with eight weeks at number one. No solo artist had dominated two consecutive year-end rankings like this before.
Class of 1958: “Volare” by Domenico Modugno
The Hot 100 debuted, making “Volare” the first song to top its year-end ranking. It won the first Grammy Awards ever given for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1959. A foreign-language song had conquered the American chart the same year the chart was born.
Class of 1959: “The battle of new orleans” by Johnny Horton
A comedic retelling of Jackson’s 1815 victory, it topped 1959 and won the Grammy for Best Country and Western Performance. The decade that opened with a folk ballad closed with a novelty marching song.
The bottom line
Ten graduating classes, ten songs, one decade that started with orchestral pop and ended with rock and roll, rewriting the rules. Where did your class graduate?
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Related:
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- The most controversial songs of the ’60s: Do you agree?
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