Rogers60

I previously mentioned late 50's musical genres other-than-rock-and-roll in these pages. It sounded as if I don't like rock 'n roll.. Not true. I actually LIKE rock 'n roll, but am surprised how much other stuff flooded KNEW while we were at Rogers in 1956 through 1960. I'm going go down this path a bit farther this month.

This is 2008, the 50^th anniversary of our sophomore year. I researched music in the top 100 for 1958. I found that there are several kinds of rankings. Among these are:

• Most sold, as reported by record stores<
• Most played by disk jockeys
• Some other hazy top 100 rankings.

I can see loopholes and potential abuses in any of these reports, but I was also there, in 1958, so the names and artists ring a bell with me. I was amazed how many of the heavy-hitters were NOT rock 'n roll tunes. I distilled a list from these lists and then crossed out what I thought were rock 'n roll,. Excuse me if I made any bad calls about what isn't rock 'n roll. For example, I don't think that Bird Dog was rock, but I'm open to correction. The Chipmunk song? I don't think so.

My subjective distilled 1958 list follows. It ranges from almost-country, through silly, to almost opera. I would not be surprised to find this stuff on any easy-listening sound track today: