Wock and woll

Or, as they called it back in 1957, the Devil's Thumbprint.

I've had the opportunity lately to go into the iTunes library and find some oldies radio stations. No shortage of them, and while they all play generally the same thing, the scope of "the same thing" varies broadly.

You will hear the songs that were popular in the 60s or 70s, a lot of Motown, Beatles, Rolling Stones, the same over-and-over that you hear on mainstream chicken-s**t FM stations. The iTunes portfolio goes considerably deeper. You will hear songs you didn't remember or know existed. Or maybe a cover version of the original. Lots of stuff by the Platters, for example, or Perry Como.

But on much closer inspection, several facets emerge that I hadn't originally remembered.

1. Most of the music from the mid-50s on into the early 60s, or generally anything not Elvis or not Beatles, falls into three categories: do-wop, rockabilly and R&B. It can be argued that gospel, jazz, folk and big band are in the mix. In truth, it's homogenized.

2. Most of the songs from those days were only a couple of minutes long, or about a third what they are today or have been since the MTV video was introduced.

3. A lot of it was BAD. Real bad, terrible. The singers were flat with no range, many of them too young. The studios must have been someone's cannery. With do-wop, a drum is the only instrument, unless it's qualified as good music. The Drifters count here. The Belmonts do not.

4. And the lyrics to much of this stuff is astonishing. Dickie Lee talks of committing suicide in "Patches" and almost all of them plan to get married right after their parents say it's OK. Being "in love" meant so much to these young singers. It was forever, even at 16, and if you messed with her boyfriend, expect a sock in the chops. A ditty called "My Toot-Toot" explores the notion that someone's face could be broken.

Now, not all of it is terrible, but the branding for most rock 'n roll of that time is starkly on the side of the notion that not buying it is the better part of common sense. Lucky for me, the iTunes directory has 80-some stations so I can move in and out of the trauma.

I don't listen to modern music, since I don't connect to the songs or singers. There isn't much talent out there, I fear. But guess what? There never was much talent in popular music. Creative talent, plenty of that. Creative energy, no shortage.

But a lot of it was crap.

This is stuff the local radio stations wouldn't play, depending on where you lived. Most likely, you got your share of movie themes by Percy Faith or maybe even Mantovani. Or (gasp) Lawrence Welk and his orchestra. If your parents liked it, the radio station played it.

I cringe when I recall that Ferrante & Teicher were probably leading the charts ahead of "You're A Nag," by the Halos.

Then again, if you hear them both, maybe the answer should be fairly obvious.

A couple of places you can go to hear this stuff:

www.richbroradio.com
www.radiobop.com

(Image taken from amazon.com in a search for "doo-wop" music.)