1956 Songs: Be-Bop-A-Lula

Tweet

No foolin’, we’re in 1956 with this half of the countdown that continues to celebrate my birthday. This is going back 70 years, before I was even born. Some of you don’t even have grandparents that old. As you’ll see as we go through the month, though, it was an important year in the advent of rock and roll. Take, for instance, this song. Be-Bop-A-Lula - Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps Gene Vincent was a fellow sailor, so salute! He started this song while he was laid up at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in 1955 (where I was also incarcerated, I mean, a patient after surgery in 1983). It seems to be a take on the jazz/bop phrase “hey ba-ba-re-bop,” which was the title of a Lionel Hampton hit in the 40s. I’ve mentioned before how one person got popular in music and the next day you have 50 copies of them. If you think this song that sounds a whole lot like Elvis, you’re catching on. Capitol Records heard a recording of Vincent doing this song on a Norfolk radio station and signed him. It was an attempt to get “another Elvis,” but what they got was one of the most influential numbers in the early days of rock and roll. Paul McCartney cited it as the first record he ever bought (the Beatles did the song live in their early, pre-success days, and John Lennon covered it on his Rock ‘n’ Roll album). It’s been covered a million times and referenced in other songs (“Here comes Johnny singing oldies goldies, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula,’ ‘Baby, What’d I Say’” in Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life”). It’s in the Grammy Hall of Fame and one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.” It’s still a stronghold in music. Be-Bop-A-Lula Written by Gene Vincent and Donald Graves (credited to Vincent, Graves, and Bill “Sheriff Tex” Davis Recorded by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps Released as a single, 1956 She’s the queen of all the teens: