Plethora of Pop’s Rate-A-Record

Searchin’ for 1957’s Best Song

And trying not to be all shook up over the results

Photo by Jessica Christian on Unsplash

I was approaching my first birthday in the summer of 1957, not that I was aware of my birthday or anyone else’s for that matter. Would it be a good idea if we had memories of days like these when we had little, or perhaps nothing, to worry about? When, for most of us, all our needs were met and quickly, too, lest we disrupt someone’s sleep or a vital program on TV?

Leaving everything else out of 1957 — the politics, the Red Scare, the still-lack of equality, the Atomic showdown, and Alabama football’s battle with mediocrity — this was a year I would have enjoyed being older than I really was so that I could have appreciated the legends and milestones of popular music.

Try as they might to hold Rock and Roll back, or to keep “race records” keenly in their place, or to divide America into hillbillies and everyone else, the music defied easy listening categories. That doesn’t mean the Pat Boones and Patti Pages, Perry Comos and Debbie Reynolds, and even the Harry Belafontes weren’t still making Top Ten songs. But they were being pushed hard by The Crickets and Sam Cooke, Little Richard, The Everlys, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, by