Should DeLay resign

Oh, and rock and roll never created fans for it's music? You don't think that every Bill Haley fan liked his records the first time they heard them, did you? By getting airplay, the new style got a chance to win over listeners. Rock and roll created it's fans, by and large.

Conservatives latched onto talk radio and tied up the talk radio stations as a unit before the liberals ever took them seriously. It is only recently that liberals at last have an idea jsut how big a pehnomenon this is.

Whether the liberals will ever succeed at finding a style which appeals to their fans as well as Rush and others appeal to authoritarian fans, (Host Speaks....Listeners Obey) is open to question. But there cannot be a doubt that talk radio has swayed voters-this "swing" toward the Republicans happened just a few years after talk radio became popular as a format. You can't seriously believe that is coincidence.

kw, dunno where you were in the early '50s, but I was glued to the radio. "Race Music", "White Blues", "Boogie", "Rockabilly", and R&B were what I listened to, and what Top-40 charts and mainstream youth radio was gravitating to, and what, whith no change other than in name, became "Rock & Roll". Airplay didn't create Rock & Roll, Rock & Roll changed radio.

Listen to 1946's "Ain't That Just Like A Woman", by Louis Jordan, Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight", from 1947, Wild Bill Moore's "We're Gonna Rock We're Gonna Roll" John Lee Hooker's "Chillen" from '48, Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" , Scatman Crothers "I Want to Rock and Roll" from '49, Joe Turner's 1950 "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" and tell me that ain't Rock & Roll. In '51, Alan Freed popularized the term "Rock and Roll" by incorporating it into the name of his Cleveland-based but nationally-heard afternoon radio program. '51 also saw the release of the first record specifically marketed as "Rock & Roll", Ike Turner's "Rocket 88", and another '51 chart-topper was Gunter Carr's "We're Gonna Rock".

By '55, Rock & Roll was mainstream enough that Bill Haley & The Comets' "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock" (hastily recorded by Haley in '54 as the B-Side for "Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)" which charted moderately well -but soon was overtaken by its B-Side) , but actually first recorded in '52 by Sunnie Day & The Knights; Day's version placed moderately well in the '53 charts) was used as the Opening Credit music for the Big-Studio film Blackboard Jungle. In '56, the movie Rock Around the Clock was shot specifically to capitalize on the Hollywood success of Haley's cover of Day's song, and was itself a huge box-office hit (despite the fact the song is never actually performed in its entirety in the film). Just because '54 is when Hollywood found Rock & Roll sure as hell don't mean that's when it started.


Trust me, kid, I know my Rock & Roll. I was there. I was part of a huge market looking eagerly for product. We changed the world.



And we did it again in the '60s

kw,
Its nice to see you finally admit that conservatives on talk radio DO know what they are talking about.

Drew writes


You're probably right. I should have more of the facts. My remark re Pelosi was based on my observing that that she was so vocal objecting to recent changes in the Ethics Committee rules, and then when the media reported that the rule she had been complaining about was reverted to the original rule, she was still complaining. That coupled with the media accounts of investigations into her own ethics problems similar to what she accuses Delay of just made it look especially suspicious. But I'll say no more until something more concerete surfaces.

KW writes


I think you're looking at this all wrong. The idea that the market was not already in place before Rock & Roll flies in the face of music history for all time. The market was already there eager for a new genre of music. So it has been with all new genres of music for all time well before the time of advertising agencies.

Rock & Roll was exciting to a large segment of the population who was already eager for it, or it would have quickly and quietly fizzled out. A product is not marketed to create a market. A product is marketed to a market that is already there. You can hire the most skillful agency in the world and they won't be able to make a bad product successful over the long haul. Those who try it once and don't like it are not likely to buy it again.

Again, if Talk Radio, being mostly conservative, had the power attributed to it, Bill Clinton would never have been elected president twice; Hillary Clinton would not be a senator from New York; Ted Kennedy would not be a senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry would not have received 49% of the vote, etc. etc. That Talk Radio is conservative is why it is successful. Nobody else was providing a media outlet targeted for a huge segment of the people who were already conservative. Talk Radio didn't create the market. Talk Radio played to the one that was already there.

I said mainstream. Yes, R&B and it's variants were being played among blacks-but in those segregated times, there was little crossover to the white audience. Please note the term that you yourself used-"race music". That pretty much sums it up.

R & B is slightly different from rock and roll-rock has a quicker beat, lighter vocals. The audience groomed on Perry Como, etc, wasn't ready for growly vocals and beats too down and dirty.

For those who feel that rock and roll music was all over the mainstream radio in the early 1950's please take a look at the Top 30 songs of 1953. Patti Page. Perry Como. Percy Faith. Tony Bennett. If you can find any evidence of rock and roll breaking into the mainstream from this list, please point it out.

Note: PS I Love You had no relation to the Beatles song of the same name a decade or so later. This PS was written by Big Band leader Johnny Mercer-different lyrics, different song.

1. Song From Moulin Rouge, Percy Faith

2. You, You, You, Ames Brothers

3. Doggie In The Window, Patti Page

4. I'm Walking Behind You, Eddie Fisher

5. Vaya Con Dios, Les Paul & Mary Ford

6. Till I Waltz Again With You, Teresa Brewer

7. Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes, Perry Como

8. No Other Love, Perry Como

9. April In Portugal, Les Baxter

10. I Believe, Frankie Laine

11. Oh, Pee Wee Hunt

12. Ebb Tide, Frank Chacksfield

13. Pretend, Nat King Cole

14. Ruby, Richard Hayman

15. St. George And The Dragonet, Stan Freberg

16. Anna, Silvano Mangano

17. Tell Me You're Mine, Gaylords

18. Eh Cumpari, Julius La Rosa

19. Rags To Riches, Tony Bennett

20. P.S.: I Love You, Hilltoppers

21. Your Cheating Heart, Joni James

22. Dragnet, Ray Anthony

23. Have You Heard?, Joni James

24. Crying In The Chapel, June Valli

25. Why Don't You Believe Me, Joni James

26.Say You're Mine Again, Perry Como

27. Limelight (Terry's Theme), Frank Chacksfield

28. With These Hands, Eddie Fisher

29. C'est Si Bon, Eartha Kitt

30. Tell Me A Story, Frankie Laine & Jimmy Boyd

The top 30 hits of 1954 had Bill Haley and also ShBoom by the Crew Cuts. Only two rock and roll songs-but it was a start.

"The market" didn't even know this genre of music even existed, by and large. How can they be eager for it?

Until Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and later Elvis came along, they thought the cool records were by Percy Faith. Guys in tuxedos leading orchestras. That's what people were listening to.

You just plain miss the point, kw - listen to the music I cited. As I said, all that changed was the name. Doesn't matter what you've read, I heard it. It was Rock & Roll.

KW writes


The 'market' didn't know ballpoint pens existed before they were invented either, but they had long been frustrated by pens that ran out of ink frequently at inopportune times, by overturned inkwells, and ruined clothing and blotches on important documents when the ink ran. Now comes a miracle--a pen that outlasts a fluid ink pen by a mile, that doesn't blotch or run as badly, that doesn't try up quickly, and requires no ink well. The public snapped it up. No market was 'created' by the product. The public was eager for something better. They saw it. They liked it. They embraced it. The market was already there.

So it is with music. Each genre is received by music lovers eager to receive it. They don't have to be 'taught' to love it or there would be no profit for the producers. With Rock & Roll you already had a moderately rebellious post war generation that still remembered the austerity of wartime and the immediate postwar years, and they were ready for something new and fun. They were tired of their parents' waltzes and tangos. The beat, the lyrics, the unique styles of rock resonated with them. They had already innovated new dances for the swing that preceded rock, and rock is one of the most danceable genres that exists. The market was there and the pioneers of rock happened along at just the time that it was most ready for it.

Rock n roll may or not be a good analogy, wizard. What your jousters from the other side chose to ignore is Payola. Payola created a market.

While it is nice to hear that you listened to race music, Timberlandko, race music had very limited air play. You are looking backwards from a current perspective.

Rock music isn't as perfect a barometer as the automobile industry. GM wanted to make a small car but factions within the company pushed for power and looks. Americans didn't demand fins on cars but Harley Earl shoved them down their throats. Since internal politics kept GM from building its smaller car, there was no choice.

Then there is the fast food industry which hated teenagers who hung around the old style drive ins with cute carhops. The founders of today's fast food giants hated non conformity.

I hope none of you think the housing industry developed from consumer demand. The Levitt of Levitt town created mass market housing and made certain the market was white.

Talk radio took over AM some years ago. I think it happened around the time that "consultants" started telling stations what to play. If you think there is freedom in the land of the free, you are living in a fantasy world.

I have no idea why you have difficulty, or pretend to have difficulty, grasping this concept. There are 435 races every two years in the House, and 33 races or so every two years in the Senate.

Some of these races will be blowouts, some will have victor coming in with comfortable margins, some will be awful close.

The ability to win close races will eventually give one side dominance over the other. It's a mathematical certainty.

Now, nobody is claiming that as soon as one station in an area goes conservative talk radio, suddenly pppfffftttt!! the whole audience becomes conservative. Nobody is saying that is happening.

But the fact is that most talk radio hosts are professionals whose job it is to keep up with the latest issues, and who have all that stats, factoids, examples at the ready to expound on any issue. Most people do not have a well-worked out philosophy complete with stats, factoids, examples etc to support their own opinions on anything. They might tune in because they caught a segment of the hosts' show where they agreed with him. As they continue to listen to him, however, and new issues come down the pike on which the listener had no opinion, the talk radio host is likely to have an influence in the individual forming that opinion. And that influence will be conservative.

The idea that all these people had all these conservative ideas in place when the talk radio host first started is ridiculous. People do not spend all that time thinking out their position on every issue. Listening to someone with a well formed presentation is bound to sway a fair percentage of people.

As I stated before, this college educated woman I know listened to Rush Limbaugh for several months until she got driven away by his anti-choice stand. She was a nurse at an abortion clinic, and she realized how much in sympathy Rush was with the protestors outside on the sidewalk. But the fact is-she listened to him for several months before this one issue drove her away. Most people do not have such hot button, make-or-break issues.

People have various influences which make up their position. It can be an incident on a job, some people on the job who seem to know what they are talking about, friends, relatives, family, etc. Giving a conservative talker 15 minutes a day will, on the average, sway a certain percentage of voters, especially over time.

Yes, conservative talk radio had some listeners who already were conservative on every issue, so there really is no movement there. But much of it's audience is people who were conservative on some things, not conservative on others, and who can go either way at the polling booth. Listening to talk radio, a solidly conservative medium, is simply bound to tip the balance over time.

A swing of few percentage points gives the Democrats the Senate. Your Republican candidate for President lost the popular vote in 2000, and squeaked by with a 2% plurality in 2004. While the electoral College determines the president, most times the Electoral vote follows the popular vote. And besides, in both elections it came down to one state-and each state's electoral vote is determined by the popular vote.

A shift of a couple of percentage points gives the Democrats the Senate and the Presidency since 2000.

Wizard is right when he says most people do not have a definite political philosophy.

Yes, but the teenage audience wasn't crying out, "We want more beat. We want more bass. We want less people who look 100 years old wearing tuxedos!"

The kids didn't even know they wanted these things until some adventurous DJ's started playing records which white people were largely unfamiliar-or more correctly, some DJ's started playing records by white people which were similar to records recorded by black people, which the white audience was unfamiliar.

By the way, Bill Haley was a country/swing bandleader who had a radio show outside Philly. There was an R & B show on before his, and when he got to the station he heard those R & B songs playing as he readied himself for his own show. He eventually got his band to start playing many of those songs, but lightened up the beat and gave a "cleaner" vocal to them.

The kids listening to Percy Faith had no idea what was about to hit them, and indeed if they listened to the records that Bill Haley was copying and adapting, they probably would not have liked them, by and large.

Thank you for the kind words.

And since most people do not have a definite political philosophy, they are open to influences of all kinds.

When the town's sole radio station-the place people go for local news, etc-is given over to hour after hour of lecturing by speakers with all the stats, polls, factoids, examples, etc to support his conservative views-for that is what talk radio is-it has to have a sway of at least a few percentage points.

I also think that Talk Radio has shaped the political debate in the sense that political discussion is now about scandals instead of philosophy. Scandals, or rumors of scandals, that would simply be met with a shrug of the shoulders in past years get pumped up by talk radio motormouths seeking to make it the talk of the day. Frequently they succeeed.

Scandal is fast replacing political discourse in this country.

Nonsense. The market drove the marketing. If America had wanted small cars, the Big 3 today would be Nash, Crosley, and Studebaker.

Yes, I agree with Timber on this one. KW is making a valiant case both in his indictment of Talk Radio as a major influence in American politics and for a concept of 'creating a market'. I don't think either holds up, but I have nothing else to refute it with other than my own logic, experience, and sense of history (all brilliant of course) and any further effort will just be a circular argument.

But kudos again to you KW. You debate magnificently and, whether I agree with you or not, I admire your clarity of thought and style.

Just think of all the wonderful Rube Goldbergs we can sell to Timberlandko.

So, foxfyre thinks the quality of debate is important but Timberlandko does not.

If you have a point there, Atkins, it doesn't come across. Care to elucidate?