Love is a Many Splendored Thing

Before we get to the song, let me establish two things as we go.

1. There will be tangents aplenty. As I delve into each song, the odds are strong that six degrees of pop culture thoughts will populate my cranium, and like a drunken uncle at a wedding, I can’t help but spew out whatever is on my mind.

2. I am not the type who has the ability to keep my own personal opinions (especially on music) as to my personal thoughts as to a song/artist’s worthiness to exist. Yes I recognize that music is supposed to be subjective, but since this is my synopsis, you will have to forgive me wearing that music snob hat proudly.

Phew…Okay, that is all out of the way.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then, we’ll begin.[1]

It would have been a lot more fun to start with Bill Haley than the Four Aces and with that in mind and even though I just spent a chunk of the introduction saying why I wouldn’t start there, I am going to start there, and then leapfrog a few months until we get to the Four Aces, who had the honor of being the first number one in the new Top 100 format.

The first time I ever became aware of “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets was in the late 70’s as a very young child watching reruns of Happy Days, as the song was the used in the opening credits.[2] For those unaware of that show, it was a Sitcom set in Milwaukee that ran from 1974 to 1983 but covered the time period from 1955 to 1965, though with each passing year, the Sitcom reflected virtually nothing retro as characters sported modern haircuts, with the exception of the Fonz, who maintained his 50’s greaser look, which would have actually made him a joke in 1965, and far from cool.[3]

Believe it or not, we are going to reference this show a lot, and indirectly this was the program that set me on this path of obsessing over television, movies and music and how it connects with our every day life, and yes this is leading into another tangent.[4]

You may have heard of term “Jumping the Shark”, but not know exactly where it came from. Nowadays, it refers to when something, and it does not even have to be pop culture related, loses its effectiveness and no longer becomes useful or relevant. I have heard it used on CNN and Fox News about political ideology, though the term’s origin stems from when Fonzie literally jumped over live sharks on water skis.[5] Nearly a decade after that occurred on television, University of Michigan student, Jon Hein coined the term “jumping the shark” specifically in reference to when television programs began to suck.

Hein would later turn that concept into a website of the same name, and this idea where he simply allowed people to vote when their favorite shows began to get stale became a million dollar idea and become part of the pop culture lexicon.[6] Long story short, when that became successful this is where I got the idea that maybe I could make a living watching television and listening to music all day.  

Back to Happy Days, the early 70’s, which gave us American Graffitti and by the decade’s latter half it gave us Animal House, Grease and Sha-Na-Na[7], all of which telling us that “retro” was cool, and as we follow along the number one songs and analyze the charts, this will be a common thread and one that still exists today.  

Basically, when the 1970’s looked back at the 1950’s, they saw the birth of Rock and Roll, thus they revered acts like Bill Haley who celebrated the origin of Rock and shunned groups like the Four Aces, who were part of a dying breed. You ever hear the term, the winner writes the history books? This applies in pop culture too. Rock and Roll lived to tell its story, while the big band, crooners and early 50’s traditional pop acts lost the ear of the younger crowd and thus the generations that followed.

Incidentally, the Four Aces were well entrenched with the pop culture of their day, though very little of it remains talked about today. An initial Google search of “The Four Aces” will tell you that their biggest song was a cover of “Three Coins in the Fountain”, a song which was from the movie of the same name. The song (done by the legendary Frank Sinatra) would win the Academy Award for Best Song in 1954, and Sinatra would go number one in the United Kingdom with it. The Four Aces would hit the top in the States with their rendition.

I have never seen that movie (nor do I intend to) but that song rung in my head somehow. What was it? Where did I hear that before? I couldn’t figure it out for a while and then, and again with a Jack and Diet Coke in my hand it then hit me…Neal Page.

Neil Page was Steve Martin’s character in “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”, and he sang that song in the film, on a bus where he tried to participate in a sing-a-long. When nobody (including me) knew what the hell he was singing, Del Griffith (John Candy) saved the day by initiating a rendition of the Flintstone’s theme, thus proving (to me anyway) the way that pop culture can “We Are the World” a bus of miscreants in Missouri.[8]

The Four Aces would have a great 1954 and in 1955 and “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” would repeat with a number one spot and an Academy Award win for Best Song for a tune that had been lifted from the same named movie, which again would see the most popular version recorded by the Four Aces.

Again, they did not record the original.

No matter.

So, who exactly were the Four Aces?

Led by Al Alberts from Philadelphia, the Four Aces were a very successful pre-rock group that may not have had significant musical range, but provided solid harmonies in a lush fashion. This was a genre that was very successful in the early 1950’s and while it was a style that would become less popular with the youth in each passing month, was still a formula that could grant groups like the Four Aces significant chart success.

“Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” may have had a lot of accolades at the time and listening back, we have a song that while beautiful, does not fit the pantheon of musical progression. In fact, this felt like a band that was hanging on to their life to remain relevant, and historically speaking that as be the case as this was the last gasp of Al Alberts and the Four Aces who would never come close to this level of success again. They would never come close to the top of the charts again, and quickly they would find themselves becoming outdated.

“White bread” harmonious music from the mid 1950’s does not exactly get you a legacy that will make you musically immortal; though how were they to know? Hell, how do you ever?[9]

I spent some time listening to the discography of the Four Aces, and while I knew I would respect their harmonies, I was looking to find maybe an ounce of rock and roll credibility, which was a search going nowhere.

Maybe this is the perfect snapshot of what 1955 music was all about, Rock and Roll struggling to reach the forefront and vocal groups that had a limited future but had the bulk of the attention at the time. The Four Aces were not a bad group, actually their harmonies were quite beautiful, but once Rock emerged to the top, and the youth of America had something they could really call their own, groups like this were in serious trouble.

Alberts would try to strike out on his own, in 1958 and for a while when they were still known, the Four Aces were billed as “The Four Aces Featuring Al Alberts”, thus stabling his own name, but by the end of the decade they were already regulated to what we would be the first version of the modern “oldies circuit”.

It didn’t take long for us to find our first Rock and Roll number one casualty did it?

Other Notable Songs that charted but did not go to number one in this time period: November 12 - December-2, 1958[10]

“Autumn Leaves” by Roger Williams went #1 on October 29 to November 25 but it was only on Best Sellers from Stores List, and not on any of the other three charts.

11/12/55: Don’t Start Me Talking by Sonny Boy Williamson did not chart on the Top 100, but did reach number 3 on the R&B chart.

11/26/55: Love and Marriage by Frank Sinatra peaked at number 5.

11/26/55: At My Front Door by the El Dorados peaked at number 17 and went to number one on the R&B chart.

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[1] Fans of Canadian New Wave know exactly there was from.

[2] It was only used in the first two seasons. It would be replaced by what now feels like a generic 70’s/80’s TV Show theme, but that song (of course called Happy Days) by Truett Platt and Jerry McClain would actually chart at #5 in 1976.

[3] This was my favorite show as a kid, and for a while it seemed like it was for everyone regardless of age. It is also the classic entry of a long running show that doesn’t age well at all. Have your kids watch it and watch them roll their eyes while you try to defend why you watched it in the first place.

[4] Get used to it. I wasn’t kidding when I said I deviate a lot. Basically, you have stumbled into Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder meeting Short Attention Spans. I wonder what pill that they have for that?

[5] Making the spectacle even more absurd was that the Fonz never took off his leather jacket.

[6] Hein would become a guest on the Howard Stern Show, and after he sold his site to TV Guide, he would become part of the Stern staff. Sadly, Jumptheshark.com only reverts back to the core TV Guide site and that project is no more. What a waste as that site was a gem!

[7] Okay, Sha-Na-Na was never cool, but they did have a very successful syndicated TV show from 1977 to 1981.

[8] I will wager that half of you as soon as you saw Planes, Trains and Automobiles are thinking the following…”Those aren’t pillows!!!”

[9] In preparation for this project, I gave up counting the amount of times I read in older music reviews about a group/artist that put out a new album to be labeled the next big thing that amounted to nothing more than a blip on the musical radar.

[10] Let’s establish right now, that I am not going to mention every song that didn’t go number one on this section. Only the ones that have been noted by music critics as relevant or those that have are very well known.