Plethora of Pop’s Rate-A-Record

1955: Rate-A-Record Conceives Me

That might be a stretch but…

Photo by Rod Flores on Unsplash

Since I was a full-term baby, born in July, 1956, no doubt I was conceived in 1955, likely around the time of my parents’ anniversary in October. Not that I want to zero in on that eventful pocket of time.

And yet, as romance goes, I wonder if during any of their attempts to create me my parents were listening to their bedside radio? The house was small, worn and old, and my mother’s mother owned it and dwelled in the bedroom across the hall.

If it were me, that radio would have been tuned in, turned on and up, and focused on something moody and moving. But this was my dad and mom, and so if they had the radio on, more likely they were listening to either pop standards or sentimental dives into the small combos that birthed the sound of Dad’s favorite, Benny Goodman.

While I don’t know all the Birmingham stations of those days and what format they wandered to, I do know that segregation was enforced, and so while certain pop stations might play Nat King Cole or The Platters — or Tennessee Ernie Ford and Fess Parker (actually, the Top 30 Pop songs of 1955 included three different versions of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett”) — the R&B charts were definitely color-coded and had nothing to say…