these groups or individual artist had only one song to make it to billboards top forty, in the 1950′s. the billboard chart list started at one hundred and went to number one. your record got in the charts if it was in the top one hundred play list. however, your song wasn’t a hit unless it made it to the top forty. the top forty play list of the fifties was not like the top forty play list of today. in the fifties you could hear r&b, country, pop, and rock n roll on the same radio station. if a song sounded good, the station played it. new artist and new record companies big and small all had an equal chance to get a hit recording that is why the fifties was the most exciting time for music trends in america, as an example, independent record companies sun, chess, and imperial could compete with rca, capitol and decca. jerry lee lewis, chuck berry, ricky nelson, and elvis all had million selling records. this happened because the major record companies weren’t interested in these small label artist. elvis being the one major exception. there were hundreds of independent record labels in the fifties. in business today, out of business tomorrow. when one label folded another label took it’s place. the small labels had the latest sounds and styles and the teenagers couldn’t get enough of it. the small labels were imaginative, creative, uninhibited and gave the artist complete control over their recordings, that would be unheard of today, a producer would handled the entire project. if the teenager could buy the record they heard on they radio, they bought it. small record companies were always in a rush to get their latest hit recording in the record stores before the teens forgot about it for another hit record already in stock. all record companies kept the recordings to less than three minutes, due to limited play on junk boxes and radio stations. if a recording was a hit, an album was put out immediately. you could cut an album with new material in less than a week or fill it with unreleased material. studio time was cheap. there was little risk involved and the owner of a record company could make millions if all went well, and many times it did. all radio stations had a production room that could be used as a recording studio. the radio station engineer could set the system up with a microphone, hi-fi mono two track tape recorder and the record company could be on the way to a hit recording. the record company many times was an empty room in the radio station, however, many smart businessmen owned these places of music magic and just for good measure to stay out of the way of a comprised situation the record company might be down the street a block or two. as richard nixon used to say, “let me make one thing perfectly clear.” small record labels did sell some of their recordings to larger record companies this was usually when the recording was sure to become a hit dot records probably bought more small label recordings than any other record company. the del vikings hit recording “come go with me” was bought by dot records from a small record label. one important aspect of small record label business was publishing and you could rake in millions of dollars for years to come by owning the copy rights and publishing rights of a recording. many, many recording artist of the fifties signed away their publishing rights of a song they wrote for as little as twenty-five dollars. most recording artist were teenagers or in their early twenties and the record company owner was a clever businessman in his forties. many of the young artist had no idea what publishing was about. an artist was probably told they would get a royalty of two or there percent on the amount of records sold. by the time you take out promotion cost, studio time, studio musician time, cost of dj copies to hundreds of radio stations, shipping the record to the distributor, and the freebees the distributor always got, add taxes to the list. if an artist had a million seller after the manager took his ten to fifteen percent and the booking agent took their fifteen percent, the artist was lucky if they earned fifteen thousand dollars. usually, after all the deductions were added up the artist got nothing and to add insult to injury if your next recording was a flop, you were most likely dropped from the record label. however, the artist did get to keep the money they made from personnel appearance while on tour. if you did manage to keep your writing royalty it wasn’t unusual to see the owner of the record companies name beside your name as co-writer of the recording. billboard began reporting hit songs in l940. a hit is any song usually a forty-five rpm that made it to the billboards top forty hit list. our believe it or not list are those artist whose record make it to the top forty hit list just one time!!

johnny ace – “pledging my love,” #19, duke records, march 1955
the penguins – “earth angel,” #8, doo tone records, february l955
lenny dee – “plantation boogie,” #19, decca records, may l955
chuck miller – “house of blue lights,” #9, mercury records, august l955
the eldorados – “at my font door,” #17, veejay records, july l955
bonne lou – “daddy-o,” #14, king records, december l955
julie london – “cry me a river,” #9, liberty records, december l955
barry gordon – “nuttin for christmas,” #6, mgm records, december l955
the teen queens – “eddie my love,” #2, rpm records, may l956
carl perkins – “blue suede shoes,” #1, sun records, may l956
the cadets – “stranded in the jungle, #15, modern records, june l956
sanford clark – “the fool” #6, dot records, september l956
eddie cooley and the dimples – “priscilla,” #20, royal roost records, nov l956
ivory joe hunter – “since i met you baby,” #12, atlantic records, dec l956
mickey and sylvia – “love is strange,” #11, groove records, march l957
marvin rainwater – “gonna find me a bluebird,” #18, mgm records, june l957
joe bennett and the sparkletones – “black slacks,” #17, abc-paramount october l957
tune weavers – “happy, happy birthday baby,” #5, “checker records, october l957
thurston harris – “little bitty pretty one,” #6, aladdin records, november l957
hollywood flames – “buzz, buzz, buzz, #11, ebb records, january l958
jody reynolds – “endless sleep,” #5, demon records, june l958
frankie ford – “sea cruise,” #14, ace records, april l959

this is not the complete list of just one hit there were many others.

~ Widmarc Clark