1950's
Martin Denny: "Quiet Village" from Webley Edwards' "Hawaii Calls"- 1950's
Here's a rare clip of Martin Denny and his group playing their most popular tune, "Quiet Village", on Webley Edwards "Hawaii Calls."
Martin Denny was an American piano-player and composer best known as the "father of exotica." In a long career that saw him performing well into his 80s, he toured the world popularizing his brand of lounge music which included exotic percussion, imaginative rearrangements of popular songs, and original songs that celebrated Tiki culture.
His combo spawned two successful offshoots: Julius Wechter (of Baja Marimba Band fame) and exotica vibist Arthur Lyman.
Hawaii Calls was a radio program that ran from 1935 through 1975 that featured live Hawaiian music. It was broadcast each week, usually from the courtyard of the Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach but occasionally from other locations, and hosted by Webley Edwards for almost the entire run. The first show reached the West Coast of the continental United States through shortwave radio. At its height, it was heard on over 750 stations around the world. However, when it went off the air in 1975, only 10 stations were airing the show. Because of its positive portrayal of Hawaii, the show received a subsidy for many years—first from the government of the Territory of Hawaii, and then from the State of Hawaii. The termination of the subsidy was one of the reasons that the show went off the air.
ShareThisBob Wills: Blue Prelude - 1950's
Joe "Frank" Ferguson on lead vocal, he switched off playing bass and singing with Joe Andrews, no idle time on the Bob Wills bandstand you know/Outstanding Bobby Koefer, Skeeter Elkin, Cotton Whittington
Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!...We didn't call it rock and roll back when we introduced it as our style back in 1928, and we don't call it rock and roll the way we play it now. But it's just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It's the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm's what's important.
- BOB WILLS
Bob Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by many music authorities one of the fathers of Western swing and called the King of Western Swing by his fans.
ShareThisFeatured Film (full movie): Attack Of The Giant Leeches - 1959
From murky underwater caverns ooze monstrous aqua-beasts! Hungering for human victims! "Attack of the Giant Leeches."
Then, out of the swamp's depths, again appears horrifying, mysterious creatures thirsting for lovers' blood. What are these giant mutations whose attack on people sends the whole countryside on an endless search?
And then, brings them back to life to gratify their distorted desires.
Fear will pierce your flesh ... Until every nerve in your body ... Explodes!
Watch the trailer - click here
ShareThisBob Wills: Ida Red - 1951
Another song that Bob recorded many times. IT's said that Chuck Berry based Maybelline on this old song. Bob first heard it by Jimmie Davis according to an interview from 1958.
"Ida Red" is an American traditional song of unknown origins. It is chiefly identified by variations of the chorus:
Ida Red, Ida Red, I'm a plumb fool 'bout Ida Red.
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