“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
Important Names and Brief Bios
Les Paul (1915–2009):
A guitarist and inventor, designed his own eight-track
tape recorder and began in 1948 to release a series of
popular recordings featuring his own playing,
overdubbed to sound like an ensemble of six or more
guitars.
Frank (Francis Albert)
Born in Hoboken New Jersey into a working-class Italian
Sinatra (1915–98):
family. His singing style combined the crooning style of
Bing Crosby with the bel canto technique of Italian
opera.
Nat “King” Cole (Nathaniel
The most successful black recording artist of the postwar
Coles) (1917–65):
period. A brilliant piano improviser, he exerted a strong
influence on later jazz pianists such as Oscar Peterson
and Bill Evans. His biggest commercial successes were
sentimental ballads accompanied by elaborate orchestral
arrangements.
Pete Seeger (b. 1919):
Singer, banjo player, and political activist. He led the
urban folk group The Weavers.
Damaso Perez Prado (1916–
Cuban-born pianist, organist, and bandleader who
89):
popularized the mambo throughout Latin America and
the United States. Crossed over to a non-Latin audience
with hits such as “Mambo No. 5” and “Cherry Pink and
Apple Blossom White.”
“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
Louis Jordan (1908–75):
Arkansas-born saxophone player and singer who began
making recordings for Decca Records in 1939. He led the
most successful and influential jump band, the Tympany
Five. Jordan was tremendously popular with black
listeners and was able to build an extensive white
audience during and after World War II.
Milt Gabler (b. 1911):
White record producer who worked with Louis Jordan in
the 1940s and later produced rock ‘n’ roll hits by Bill
Haley and the Comets.
Leroy Carr (1905–35):
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, developed a smooth, laidback approach to blues singing that contrasted sharply
with rough-edged rural blues. He attracted a national
black audience.
Scrapper Blackwell (1903–
Along with pianist Leroy Carr, made several race records
62):
in the late 1920s and 1930s and established the roots for
the blues crooner style.
Cecil Gant (1913–51):
A blues crooner who had a hit with a love song called “I
Wonder,” sung in a gentle, slightly nasal, bluesy style,
and accompanied only by his own piano playing.
Charles Brown (1922–99):
The most successful blues crooner of the late 1940s and
early 1950s. Brown was a soft-spoken, Texas-born
pianist who studied classical piano as a child and
graduated from college in 1942 at the age of twenty.
“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
Muddy Waters (McKinley
Often called the “Father of Chicago Blues,” he was
Morganfield) (1915–83):
discovered by Allan Lomax in 1941. Waters sang in a
country style and was a charismatic performer. He played
both acoustic and electric slide guitar and was the single
greatest influence on the British blues boom.
Willie Dixon (1915–92):
Chess Records’s house songwriter, bass player, producer,
and arranger.
Clyde McPhatter (1932–72):
A gospel singer from North Carolina and the son of a
Baptist preacher and a church organist. The lead singer
for the Dominoes. His highly inflected vocal style can be
heard on the Dominoes’ hit record “Have Mercy Baby.”
Ruth Brown (b. 1928):
Also known as “Miss Rhythm,” born in Virginia. and
began her professional career at the age of sixteen. In
1949, Brown signed with the new independent label
Atlantic Records. Chart figures suggest that Ruth Brown
was the most popular black female vocalist in America
between 1951 and 1954.
Big Mama Thornton (1926–
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, the daughter of a Baptist
84):
minister. Thornton began her professional career as a
singer, drummer, harmonica player, and comic on the
black vaudeville circuit and later settled in Houston,
Texas, working as a singer in black nightclubs. Her
imposing physique and sometimes malevolent
“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
personality helped ensure her survival in the rough-andtumble world of con artists and gangsters.
Johnnie Ray (1927–90):
Partially deaf since childhood, rose nevertheless to
become one of the biggest international pop stars of the
early 1950s. Crowned the “Prince of Wails” and parodied
as the “Guy with the Rubber Face and the Squirt Gun
Eyes,” Ray created an idiosyncratic style based partly in
African American modes of performance, and in so doing
paved the way for the rock ’n’ roll stars of the later
1950s.
Patti Page (b. 1927):
Sold more records than any other female singer of the
early 1950s. Page had success with love songs (“All My
Love,” Number One pop in 1950) and novelties like “The
Doggie in the Window” (Number One pop in 1953), but
her biggest hit was a recording of the “Tennessee Waltz.”
Eddy Arnold (b. 1918):
The most popular country crooner. Arnold not only
dominated the country charts from 1947 to 1954 but also
scored eleven Top 40 hits on the pop charts.
Ernest Tubb (1914–84):
Began his career in the 1930s as a disciple of Jimmie
Rodgers. By the 1940s, Tubb had developed into one of
the first honky-tonk performers. He was one of the first
musicians to move toward a harder-edged country sound
and to switch to amplified instruments, and he wrote
“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
some of the classic songs in the honky-tonk genre.
Bill Monroe (1911–97):
Born in Kentucky, started playing music at a young age
and was influenced by his uncle (a country fiddler) and
by a black musician and railroad worker named Arnold
Schulz. In 1938, Monroe started the Blue Grass Boys,
and the following year he joined the cast of the Grand
Ole Opry.
Hank Thompson (b. 1925):
A native of Waco, Texas, created a popular variation of
honky-tonk music by mixing it with elements of western
swing.
Kitty Wells (b. 1918):
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, as Muriel Dearson;
married the popular country entertainer Johnny Wright
and began appearing with him on the radio in 1938. Her
stage name was adopted from an old southern parlor
song, “Sweet Kitty Wells.”
Hank Williams (1923–53):
The most significant single figure to emerge in country
music during the immediate post–World War II period.
Williams wrote and sang many songs in the course of his
brief career that were enormously popular with country
audiences at the time; between 1947 and 1953, he
amassed an astounding thirty-six Top 10 records on the
country charts, including such Number One hits as
“Lovesick Blues,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Jambalaya (on
“CHOO CHOO CH’ BOOGIE”: THE POSTWAR ERA, 1946–1954
the Bayou),” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”