Who are your favorite singers from the '50s?

Agree with all of these but would add:

Dion
Roy Orbison
Buddy Holly
Ricky Nelson
Bobby Darin
Frank Sinatra

 

Eddie Cochran (he was a pretty good guitar player too).

 

In order of preference...

1.Ray Charles
2.Muddy Waters
3.Clyde McPhatter
4.Johnny Ace
5.BB King
6.Little Junior Parker
7.Wynonie Harris
8.Roy Brown
9.Richard Berry
10.ELVIS

 

Frank Sinztra
Elvis Presley

 

I've been listening to a lot of 50s music the last 2 or 3 years. There's some wonderful sounding records from that era too. It seems that you had to be able to really sing to make a record then, more so than any era since.

Some favourites:

Little Richard
Elvis Presley
Ray Charles
Chuck Berry
Jerry Lee Lewis
John Lee Booker
Bo Diddley
Gene Vincent
Howlin' Wolf
Muddy Waters
Sonny Boy Williamson
Peggy Lee
June Christy
Julie London
Mary Ford
Sarah Vaughan
Ella Fitzgerald
Sam Cooke
Buddy Holly
The Everly Brothers
The Louvin Brothers

All pure magic!

 

I put a lot of time into the 50’s selections in this thread pulling info from the forum.

Essential 50's R&R Library - feedback wanted

 

Phil and Don for sure.

 

Julie London...

 

Peggy Lee, of course...

 

Just about all my favorites there!

 

A fine pianist as well...



And this is The House That Nat Built...

 

Buddy Holly
Elvis Presley
Howlin Wolf
Eddie Cochran
Fats Domino
B.B.King
Ray Charles

 

Cool decade for American music, 'likes' all round.

Don Gibson - I Can't Stop Loving You.



Classic!

 

This is one of my favorite recordings from the 50s.

 

Armstrong

Ray Charles
Julie London
Mahalia Jackson
Ella Fitzgerald
Elvis
Clyde McPhatter

 

One of the greatest.

 

Gene Vincent

 

Janis Martin

 

Some from my collection...

Chuck Berry
Buddy Holly
Ricky Nelson
Eddie Cochran
Everly Brothers Carl Perkins
Drifters
Les Paul & Mary Ford

Darryl

 

Teresa Brewer. I am old enough to have seen her live at a Las Vegas dinner show in the 50’s. And somewhere in this house there is a photo of me and my sisters taken by my Grandmother outside a shop in Downtown Las Vegas the next day. A great show and a great memory. But in terms of what I still listen to - Sam Cooke, Ella and Sarah Vaughn.

 

I think he was BETTER with the Soul Stirrers than as a solo artists, at least once he got over his "imitating RH Harris" bag and found his voice. Not that there aren't lots of great secular Sam Cooke performances (including on the under appreciated standards albums like My Kind of Blues and Mr. Soul), but for my money this is the greatest performance Sam ever waxed, and pretty much the greatest soul ballad singing I've ever heard. Sam was good with all kinds of music, but he was magnificent with a ballad:




I also love Elvis' '50s stuff.

Sarah Vaughan is one my my favorite singers, but I actually think her records got better as the years progress so I prefer her '60s and '70s output to her '40s and '50s output, but I'd put her in there. Like Cooke, she's one of the few singers who had it all -- great storytelling, great originality, great musical inventiveness, beautiful timbre. Also, where most singers eschewed verses altogether and went straight to the choruses, no one sang a verse like Sarah Vaughan (I'm thinking in particular of her performances of "Poor Butterfly").

Sinatra in his early Capitol era kind of towers over singers of the '50s. Love all that stuff, and talk about story-telling singers.

Archie Brownlee, the lead with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi was one of the great singers of the '50s -- he could go from sweet smooth and beautiful tenor to the gruffest rawest squalling. Half the male soul singers of the '60s sound like half of what Brownlee did, and the other half sound like the other half of what Brownlee did.

Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson for sure, though a lot of Wilson's hits came in the '60s.

Ray Charles for sure. He was country and urban, hot and cold, smooth and raw all at once.

Another guy who was more of a creature of the '60s but who had some great early singles in the '50s whose singing I love is George Jones.

Mahalia Jackson. Her Columbia sides in the '60s really capture her at the end of her career catering to a non-gospel audience often with questionable material. But her Apollo sides of the late '40s and 1950s are treasures, especially the two sided ones -- it was hard to capture Mahalia's style of slow-burn building a performance on record in the 78 era.

I love Billie Holiday, but I'm more of a fan of her '30s and '40s material than her '50s stuff.

 

Elvis

Gene Vincent

Dean Martin

Nat King Cole

Sinatra

Howlin' Wolf

Muddy Waters

Dinah Washington

Sarah Vaughan

Julie London
.

 

Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong

Both were in their prime vocally during this period.

 

Rock'n'roll - Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers

Country - Reno and Smiley, The Stanley Brothers and Jim & Jesse