Let’s repeat a lesson. If you had even a remotely sounding foreign name in the 1950’s, stardom was a hurdle, hence why Guy Mitchell became a star and Al Cernick and his Croatian ancestry did not.[1]
I don’t know if Guy Mitchell was meant to be a star, but his family certainly gave it a really good shot as at an early age after the family moved from Detroit to Los Angeles and young Al Cernick was signed by Warner Brothers Records by a talent scout as a potential child star. It didn’t happen, but it did expose him to music and give him a taste for stardom.
After a stint in the military he returned to take another crack at the music industry and in 1947 he would become the lead vocalist for the Carmen Carvallo Orchestra. A bout with food poisoning caused him to drop out, but he would win the Arthur Godfrey Talent Search contest on radio, which led to his first record deal with Columbia Records. This was where he first met Mitch Miller, the head of A&R for the label.[2]
Mitch Miller is a man who has to be discussed, as he was one of the powerful men of music in the 1950’s. A trained musician himself in the oboe and English horn, Miller had a lot of recordings in the classical genre and he would work his way to Mercury Records as the Classical Music Producer and would later serve as the A&R head a bit before he would claim that position with Columbia in their pop division.
This position can’t be understated, as this was the decision maker for the label as to who was recording what songs and whom the label was going to get behind from a marketing standpoint. Not only that, along with Decca and RCA Victor, Columbia was one of the “big three” labels and with the music industry changing to 45s and longer lasting playing records (this replaced shellac discs that were easy to break), his power was so hard to quantify as the music industry was set to boom.
Miller understood what the public wanted in the very early 50’s, and that was light pop sounding novelty-like tunes, though he had difficulty convincing the label’s biggest name, Frank Sinatra, that this is the direction that he should be going. With the “Chairman of the Board” refusing the songs that Miller believed to be a hit, he turned his attention to Cernick, who he rechristened as Guy Mitchell and made him a pet project, and a man he was going to make a star.
Mitchell would have two top five hits in 1950 (“My Heart Cries For You” & “The Roving Kind”) and would have a few more hits in the early 50’s but it was not until his version of “Singing the Blues” became his biggest hit, though not necessarily his iconic song.
Remember, this was the 1950’s, and it was very common for the same song to be on the charts from different artists, and slightly prior to Williams rendition, country star, Marty Robbins went to number one on the Country and Western Chart and seventeen on the Pop Chart with that song.
I have to confess a serious bias, as Marty Robbins, who I will confess is one of my favorite old country singers, and like so many of his kind he could evoke empathy and you wanted to take Marty to the bar, buy him a drink and watch him drown his sorrows and let him tell you the entire story.
However when Williams sang the song it felt hollow and insincere, and almost like he missed the point of the whole song entirely. Maybe it didn’t help that he had the looks of a matinee idol and when he performed it live on television he did so with such a wide eyed grin that implied that he wasn’t feeling blue at all. This wasn’t Williams fault, he could sing just fine, and he recorded it in the way that Miller wanted, and since Miller had a great track record, why wouldn’t Mitchell do what Mitch Miller asked him to do?
It worked and catered to the masses and sold records and if you are a record executive, that is the most important thing, and not necessarily putting out good music, which is what we can never forget about pop culture: it is pretty hard, though not impossible, to exist in a wide scope if you are not turning a profit.[3]
Am I saying that this was a bad song then? Not exactly, just a little on the generic side and one that was recorded for the purpose of being a hit and not one to push the musical envelope. As for Guy Mitchell, he was a far better studio performer than he was as a live one, and also an artist who needed direction to succeed, though can’t you off the top of your head rattle a dozen acts who fit the same profile?
Guy Mitchell would continue to have a good run in entertainment over the next five years. He hosted his own variety show in 1957 and later had a television role alongside Audie Murphy in a Western called “Whispering Smith” in 1961.
Here is what we can take from this from this number one hit. For a song to get to number one, it does not necessarily have to be everyone’s favorite, but when it has broad appeal, and is enough people’s “twentieth favorite at the time”, you can generate a lot of record sales; a truth as much in 2016 as it was in 1956.
This is how a Guy Williams can have as big a hit in a calendar year as Elvis Presley; a pattern you will see repeat itself every year, and for that matter in this anthology.
It’s a lot easier to cater to the masses if you appeal to the most common dominator; chicken noodle soup is not the best tasting but is the best selling.
Other Notable Songs that charted but did not go to number one in this time period: December 8, 1956 – February 8, 1957
12/15/56: Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams) by Jesse Belvin did not go to the Top 100 but did peak at #7 on the R&B Chart.
12/29/56: Since I Met You Baby by Ivory Joe Hunter went to #12 and to #1 on the R&B Chart.
1/5/57: Love Me by Elvis Presley peaked at #2 on the Top 100 and to #7 on the R&B Chart.
1/5/57: Thousand Miles Away by the Heartbeats peaked at #53 on the Top 100 and to #5 on the R&B Chart.
1/19/57: Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino went to #2 on the Top 100 and #1 on the R&B Chart.
2/2/57: The Banana Boat Song by Harry Belafonte went to #5 on the Top 100 and to #7 on the R&B Chart.
[1] I couldn’t be the only one who immediately thought of Al Czervik from Caddyshack when I saw this name, could I? Now say it loud with me… “Hey, Everybody! We’re all going to get laid!”
[2] A&R stands for Artists and Repertoire.
[3] Isn’t that true about everything really?
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