S

Though it marked the middle of the twentieth century and the beginning of what would turn out to be the century’s decade of greatest change in popular music, 1950 seemed in some ways a throwback to past trends rather than a harbinger of new ones. According to Joel Whitburn’s analysis of the Billboard Best-Selling Pop Singles chart, the year’s number-one recording artist was Bing Crosby, a forty-sixyear-old who had made his first recording in 1926 and ranked as the leading record seller of the first half of the century. (While Whitburn’s statistical analyses have not been broken down by year for the 1930s, he does rank Crosby at the top for that decade as well as the 1940s, when the singer consistently figured in the top ten and was the top-selling artist of 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946.)

Crosby’s big hits for 1950 included “Dear Hearts and Gentle People”; “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” a pop cover of a country hit originally recorded by Red Foley (the year’s number-one country artist), whose version for Decca was a million-selling, number-one pop hit as well; and two songs Crosby recorded as duets with his eldest son Gary, a revival of the 1914 Irving Berlin song “Play a Simple Melody” and “Sam’s Song (The Happy Tune),” both clever novelties featuring countermelodies. Typically, Crosby triumphed by employing varied material, old and new, mainstream and genre-inspired. In his appropriation of Foley’s country song for the pop market, he was looking ahead. But as popular music became increasingly diverse and balkanized, there would be less room for a generalist like Crosby. In 1951, he tumbled to eleventh place among recording artists, and that was the last time he figured in the top twenty.