This new book 1950s Radio in Color: The Lost Photographs of Deejay Tommy Edwards by Chris Kennedy [] looks like a fascinating historical document that captures the burgeoning rock and roll movement, a time when the country was about to change, and all that other old timey bullshit, but I like to think of it as a good opportunity to remember that our grandparents were probably pretty hip and mad fer it at some point. Also that Elvis was so smoking hot it's really not surprising that there are literally millions of people in the world today who would rather dig up his dusty old coke skeleton and cuddle with it for eternity rather than spend another night with their husbands. What? People take different lessons from things.
Kennedy emailed me to see if I'd mention the book, and he said my blog was funny, so I really had no choice but to comply. That's how journalism works. I asked him a few questions about the experience of putting it together and the photos included.
OK dude, what's the story behind the book? You found these pictures somewhere? How'd that go down?
I discovered the photograph collection in 2006 while I was looking for the Holy Grail of Rock 'n' Roll, a lost 1955 film called "The Pied Piper of Cleveland."Tommy Edwards was at the concerts that were filmed in Cleveland. He took the photo of Bill Haley and Elvis shaking hands backstage at the filming, October 20, 1955.
Tommy's photographs are the next best thing to actually finding the Pied Piper. I located Tommy's nephew in Wisconsin, who thought he only had a handful of 35mm Ektachrome slides his uncle had taken. He called me one night to say he found nearly 1,800 more stashed away in some boxes, he forgot he had them. I went to Wisconsin, saw the collection, thought the photographs were important and beautiful, and decided to do a book. I'm still looking for the Pied Piper.
What's going on in this Haley/Elvis photo up there? Were these two bros at the time? Man, Elvis was smoking hot huh? Kind of easy to forget sometimes.
Elvis Presley was dangerous back then. He had his hair permed to mimic the black r&b artists he admired. For me, that photo represents Haley's eclipse. In October 1955, Haley was God. In a few short months, Elvis would revolutionize the world.
Especially compared to this pic of the Big Bopper here. I mean, I appreciate "Chantilly Lace" as much as the next old guy, but dude looks like he's about to beat up some hippies here and send me to my room.
That's funny, and dead-on.
Who was Tommy Edwards? Was he a big deal at the time?
Yes, from 1951-59 Tommy was a very popular deejay at Cleveland's most popular station WERE-AM, along with another big deejay, Bill Randle. Tommy was responsible for booking Elvis at his first concert north of the Mason Dixon line, in February 1955, Cleveland. He was also one of the first northern deejays to play Elvis records.
Did you know that you had stumbled on a treasure trove right away?
I knew they were amazing. They're so candid and timeless, as well as dripping with beautiful Ektachrome color. I also found the only existing copies of Tommy's radio industry newsletters, called the "T.E. Newsletter." Every week in the 1950s he typed out a two page newsletter about all the radio goings on in Cleveland and around the country. The wealth of information in the newsletters is mind-blowing. The newsletters are the photograph collection's indispensable companion piece. My book gives Tommy Edwards his due recognition as the deejay responsible for perhaps the most important photographic and written documentation of twentieth-century popular music ever produced.
Tell us about the written component of the book paired with the photos.
The book covers 1955 through 1960. For each year, I wrote a bumper chapter with intimate details culled from the newsletters. For each photo, I wanted to put the reader in the moment, tell them what was going on with the artist at that moment, rather than writing a stale mini-bio. I wanted it fresh and fun, more "Tiger Beat," less biography. I also interviewed everyone I could. Pat Boone, Wanda Jackson and tons more.
This one of Roy Orbison is cool, but what's going on with him here? Do you think he kind of suspected how over-played Pretty Woman would end up being 50 years later and it bummed him out?
Orbison is just about to get dropped by Sun Records and is seeing his dreams evaporate in front of him.
This one rules. What's the story there? People were so much more polite at concerts back then, no?
That's teen rockabilly duo Glenn and Jerry, photographed at a typical Tommy Edwards record hop in March, 1959. Tommy would project his slides onto the gym wall during intermission, and all the kids would freak out, many of them never seeing their fav stars in color before.
Who's this? Yikes.
Yeah, awesome photo.
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11 comments:
lol...and perfect. Thanks. But I'm still laughing about that Russian dolphin pool fight.
They fall in SO MANY TIMES
so many times they keep falling
I love music from the 50's and I heart Elvis as well. Thanks for telling us about the book.
Flash forward 50 years, some kid digs up the old photos of like, a WBCN DJ from the early 2000s... and it's just slide after slide of semi-fatties with spiky hair, black t-shirts, and ball chain necklaces. Now sucks.
haha. I aint a queer or nothing, but I like the stuff you write on this blog better than my own.
ME TOO
jk, but I should probably learn how to use Twitter
twitter needs more people trying to sling out one liners all day.
Leonard Nimoy is pretty hot in that last pic.
pretty fucking cool
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