50’s At The Hop

Kurt L Moore

100 million dollars of coonskin caps were bought, because Davy Crockett was our hero. We had pink bathrooms, pink clothes and of course, pink Cadillacs. We saw how many people we could get stuffed into telephone booths and Volkswagens. We ducked and tucked under our school desks during the ‘cold” war bomb scare. Our women wore poodle cut hair, after seeing Lucy’s coif, and the guys smeared a little dab on their ducktails. We used chlorophyll on our teeth, wore 3-D glasses in the movies, went to sock-hops, ate finger licking good chicken, parked under the golden arches and we gyrated and swayed with millions of hula hoops.

The fifties were here and all the gloom and doom of WWII was behind us and we were finishing up Korea. Sears was selling houses through their catalogue for around five to six thousand dollars and new communities were springing up like mushrooms. We were optimistic and the economy reflected it. The GIs were back, the baby boom was on and the age of innocence was at its peak.

“50’s At The Hop” is a synopsis of the mid to late fifties in a colorful, two hour, dancing, singing and romping show. Folks, this is their tenth year in Branson and I think they have gotten the hang of it. The Dreamdates and the Hoppettes, along with the musically dynamic Rocking Hop Band, will deliver you from a world of bills, taxes, bad news, troubles and cares. They will take you back to a black and white world that was simpler, quieter and full of hot cars, soda shops, rolled up jeans and poodle skirts, an era that we would all like to spend a little more time enjoying.

Paul Harvey was once asked if he remembered what he wore to his senior prom. He replied that he did remember, pimples. Remember your senior prom? I didn’t know if I would even have a suit to wear. My mother re-hemmed my pant legs and coat sleeves, to add length, so I could go. Compare that era to today’s senior function, with limos, tuxedos, rented motels and all night parties. I had to be home after my prom. I was expected to be up early to milk the cows.

Those were the days my friend and we thought they would never end, but they did. Now you can re-live a two hour passage of time and go back to the future. Incidentally, back to the future one and two, both went back to November 12, 1955. Little wonder, because that is where the majority of us would really like to go, at least for a short visit. I personally enjoy today’s modern conveniences and would feel lost without my cell phone, laptop computer, microwave and dishwasher.

The early 50’s music was a mixture of bubble gum lyrics and feeling good music. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney and a few Rock-a Billy newcomers were on the charts. Songs like “Dear Hearts and Gentle People,” “Mona Lisa,” “Tennessee Waltz,” “Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy” and Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” were topping the charts of a war weary and optimistic nation.

Then, in 1952, a fellow by the name of Alan Freed, virtually unknown outside of his Cleveland radio audience, held an event called the “Moondog Coronation Ball.” In 1954 Alan moved his radio show to New York, started playing rhythm and blues and later that same year spun a platter by Bill Haley and the Comets called “Rock Around the Clock.”
I know that when you see "50's At The Hop," you will be leaving the theater with a song or two going round and round in your head. It happens every time. "50's At The Hop" is addictive. The good part being that it is a great addiction to have.

Along with Marvin, the coolest saxophonist in town, and the Hoppettes, you will be doing the "Hand-Jive," swooning with Roy Orbison, stomping your feet with Ray Charles and dreaming with Shane, David and Michael's broken hearted medley.

The fifties are yours for a couple of hours, so make the best of it. Ashley, Stephanie and Wendy take you to a recording session with the Supremes, you will be Doo-Wopping with classics from Motown and you will be screaming with delight as Elvis comes into the audience to charm the ladies. You will be entertained by Gospel, Motown, Doo-Wop, Elvis and good, old time Rock and Roll.

Alan Freed gave birth to the term “Rock and Roll” at his 1952 “Moondog Coronation Ball.” It was not until 1954 that others in the industry started to recognize and appreciate what rock and roll was all about. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Bill Haley were among a handful of R&B pioneers who dared to step forth where no musician had gone before. They embraced rock and roll and then in 1953, a truck driver for Parker Machinist Company, gave Memphis Recording Service $3.98 to record two songs for his mother’s birthday. Sam Phillips, owner of the studio, was not impressed with him so he sent the lad home only to have him return again in 1955 to give it another shot. Elvis Presley then recorded “That’s Alright Mama.” This time Sam Phillips suggested that Elvis use Scotty Moore, to back him on guitar and Bill Black on bass.

Elvis went on to become, what many consider, the greatest rock and roller of all time. Scotty Moore became his first manager and played lead guitar for him another 14 years. Sam Phillips went down in history as the first to see promise in Elvis.

By 1955 and 1956 the top music charts were scattered with songs like, “Blue Suede Shoes,” by Carl Perkins, Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” “Shake Rattle and Roll,” by Bill Haley and the Comets and of course, Elvis was everywhere on the radio.

The minimum wage was 75 cents per hour but would rise by the end of the fifties to one dollar. The average American worker took home a little over $91.00 per week. We walked and talked with one another, in person. We sat with our families at meals, cruised the strip on Friday and Saturday nights, took our dates to the drive-in movies, went to church on Sundays and realized Ozzie and Harriet were a little too perfect.

The western was ruling television with about 120 different titles during the 50’s. We all loved Lucy, even when she was pregnant, and Spam sold its one-billionth can of the food that won the war. Paul Harvey started his national radio career, McCarthyism was in full swing and the communist scare was even going Hollywood.

The fifties brought us “Mad Magazine,” Barbie, Hopalong Cassidy lunchboxes, Bonanza, Ann Landers, Polio shots, Gunsmoke, Fidel Castro, Mr. Potato Head, Color Television, Baby Shampoo and American Bandstand. By the way, B.B. King was the ONLY performer on American Bandstand who DID NOT lip-sync. Now you know the truth.

Oh yes, I almost forgot that the fifties brought forth Graceland and all the King’s men.
That, dear hearts and gentle people, is what “50’s At The Hop” is all about. I saved, what I consider to be the pinnacle of the show till last. I first saw this show a little over two years ago, when it was at the 50s At The Hop Theater in the Branson Mall, you know, the one next to Wal-Mart. I was sitting in the back of the theater simply watching the show. They had a gal named Betty Lewis as a solo performer and what great performances she gave. Betty was singing “Me and Bobby McGee,” Janis Joplin style, with emphasis on each and every word. She made you not only hear the song but feel it as well, to the bottom of your soul. As she was singing the song, I got blind-sided. I had lost my wife, Esther Annie, just five months before, to cancer and when she sang the words, “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday, to be holding Bobby’s body next to mine,” I lost it. I thank my lucky stars that I was in the rear of the theater, with no one really around me, so I could grieve in solitude.

Since that time, I have become a great fan of that song. It sends a message to me every time I hear it. Thank goodness 50’s has not taken that song from the play list. The thing that has changed is the person singing it. Her name is Crystal Morrisett. Crystal came to Branson less than a year ago and I was privileged to hear her sing almost from the day she arrived. I knew then, when I first heard her, that she was destined to go far and go far quickly. All that was needed was to have the right people hear her sing and her ticket would be good for a long and fascinating trip. What I am trying to say is that her trip has started.
Crystal, with a voice that comes along about as often as Haley’s Comet, does the special solos on the show. She is the one doing “Me and Bobby McGee” now. She has already shot straight through great to stupendous. Many times the audience is on their collective feet as Crystal exits the stage. You really have to hear the quality in her voice to understand what I am saying.

I understand that Crystal is being groomed for her own show, to debut later this spring at the all new California Bar and Grill. In what was once the Mid-Town Diner, located across the street from “Dixie Stampede.”

The cast and crew of “50’s At The Hop” are looking forward to a move in 2005 to their own, 50’s At The Hop Theater, also to open across from “Dixie Stampede.” Until then, they will be playing, singing, dancing, rocking and a-rolling for your distinct pleasure at the Jim Stafford Theater.

George Burns once defined happiness by saying, “Happiness is having a large, loving, close-knit family in another city.” I would say happiness is having a couple of tickets to see “50’s At The Hop.” There it is. That song playing over and over in my head. “Rockin’ Robin, tweet, tweet, tweet, Rockin’ Robin tweet………………”

Editor’s note: Ray Anthony, who did Ritchie Valens on American Pie, has joined the cast recently. He is extremely talented and truly an asset to the show. You will want to catch his act.