On which label did Chuck Berry record in the 1950s and 1960s?
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Chuck Berry 1950s in music Chess Records
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter and is one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and music featuring guitar solos and showmanship that were a major influence on subsequent rock music.Campbell, M. (ed.) (2008). Popular Music in America: And the Beat Goes On. 3rd ed. Cengage Learning. pp. 168–169.

Born into a middle-class African-American family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high-school student he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio. His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand. But in January 1962, he was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines. 

After his release in 1963, Berry had more hits in the mid-1960s, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine". By the mid-1970s, he was more in demand as a live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of variable quality. In 1979 he served 120 days in prison for tax evasion.

Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986; he was cited for having "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."  Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berry's: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".  Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record. 

Biography and career

Early life and apprenticeship with Johnnie Johnson (1926–1954)

Born in St. Louis, Missouri,  Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as The Ville, an area where many middle-class people lived at the time. His father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church; his mother, Martha, was a certified public-school principal. His middle-class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age. He gave his first public performance in 1941 while still a student at Sumner High School. 

In 1944, while still a student at Sumner High School, he was arrested for armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City, Missouri, and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.  Berry's account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a nonfunctional pistol.  He was convicted and sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri, where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing. The singing group became competent enough that the authorities allowed it to perform outside the detention facility.  Berry was released from the reformatory on his 21st birthday in 1947.

Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs on October 28, 1948, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.  Berry supported his family by taking various jobs in St. Louis, working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants and as a janitor in the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone.Pegg, pp. 20–22. He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" on Whittier Street,  which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places. 

By the early 1950s, Berry was working with local bands in clubs in St. Louis as an extra source of income. He had been playing blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from the blues musician T-Bone Walker.  He also took guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris, which laid the foundation for his guitar style. 

By early 1953 Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.  The band played mostly blues and ballads, but the most popular music among whites in the area was country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."

Berry's calculated showmanship, along with a mix of country tunes and R&B tunes, sung in the style of Nat King Cole set to the music of Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people. 

Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On" (1955–1962)

In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues music would be of more interest to Chess, but to his surprise it was a traditional country fiddle tune, "Ida Red", as recorded by Bob Wills, that got Chess's attention. Chess had seen the rhythm and blues market shrink and was looking to move beyond it, and he thought Berry might be the artist for that purpose. On May 21, 1955, Berry recorded an adaptation of the "Ida Red", under the title "Maybellene", with Johnnie Johnson on the piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass. "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart and number five on its Best Sellers in Stores chart for September 10, 1955. 

At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached number 29 on the Billboards Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great." As they toured, Perkins discovered that Berry not only liked country music but also knew about as many songs as he did. Jimmie Rodgers was one of his favorites. "Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most of Bill Monroe's songs as well," Perkins remembered. "He told me about how he was raised very poor, very tough. He had a hard life. He was a good guy. I really liked him." 

In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", touring the United States with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.  He was a guest on ABC's Guy Mitchell Show, singing his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the US Top 10 hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music,", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock-and-roll movies: Rock Rock Rock (1956), in which he sang "You Can't Catch Me", and Go, Johnny, Go! (1959), in which he had a speaking role as himself and performed "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", and "Little Queenie". His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 was captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day. 

By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a high-profile established star with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had opened a racially integrated St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand, and invested in real estate.  But in December 1959, he was arrested under the Mann Act after questionable allegations that he had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old Apache waitress, Janice Escalante,  whom he had transported across state lines to work as a hatcheck girl at his club.  After a two-week trial in March 1960, he was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.  He appealed the decision, arguing that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him. The appeal was upheld,  and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,  resulting in another conviction and a three-year prison sentence.  After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one-half years in prison, from February 1962 to October 1963.  He had continued recording and performing during the trials, but his output had slowed as his popularity declined; his final single released before he was imprisoned was "Come On". 

"Nadine" and move to Mercury (1963–1969)

When Berry was released from prison in 1963, his return to recording and performing was made easier because British invasion bands—notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—had sustained interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs,   and other bands had reworked some of them, such as the Beach Boys' 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A.", which used the melody of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".  In 1964 and 1965 Berry released eight singles, including three that were commercially succesful, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100: "No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days", concerning the introduction of seat belts in cars),Pegg, p. 168. "You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "Nadine".  Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums for Mercury Records, including his first live album, Live at Fillmore Auditorium, in which he was backed by the Steve Miller Band. 

While this was not a successful period for studio work,  Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he had made a successful tour of the UK, but when he returned in January 1965 his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict nonnegotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a difficult and unexciting performer.  He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival, in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in October. 

Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concert (1970–1979)

Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, but in 1972 Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song which he had recorded in a different version as "My Tambourine" on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco.  The track became his only number-one single. A live recording of "Reelin' and Rockin'", issued as a followup single in the same year, was his last Top 40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were included on the part-live, part-studio album The London Chuck Berry Sessions (other albums of London sessions were recorded by Chess's mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf). Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, after which he did not make a studio record until Rock It for Atco Records in 1979, his last studio album to date. 

In the 1970s Berry toured on the strength of his earlier successes. He was on the road for many years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. AllMusic said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic, ... working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike.  Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Berry were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. Springsteen related in the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not give the band a set list and expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro. Berry neither spoke to nor thanked the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. At the request of Jimmy Carter, Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979. 

Berry's touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (often being paid in cash by local promoters) added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry had evaded paying income taxes. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pled guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service—performing benefit concerts—in 1979. 

Still on the road (1980–2014)

Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organized by Keith Richards.  Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and in the film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T, the same model that Berry used on his early recordings. 

In the late 1980s, Berry bought The Southern Air, a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri.  In 1990 he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the ladies' bathroom. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Though his guilt was never proved in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement with 59 women. His biographer, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.  During this time Berry began using Wayne T. Schoeneberg as his legal counsel. Reportedly, a police raid on his house found videotapes of women using the restroom, and one of the women was a minor. Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug and child-abuse charges were filed. In order to avoid the child-abuse charges, Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence and two years' unsupervised probation and was ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.

In November 2000, Berry again faced legal charges when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson, who claimed that he co-wrote over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written. 

In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland and Spain. In mid-2008, he played at the Virgin Festival in Baltimore, Maryland. 

During a concert on New Year's Day 2011 in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.  

Berry lives in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles west of St. Louis. 
Berry regularly performed one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood of St. Louis, from 1996 to 2014.

Legacy

A pioneer of rock and roll, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture, and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll. In addition to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs. Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive—he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Carl Hogan,  and T-Bone Walker to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitarists would acknowledge as an influence in their own style. Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitarists,  particularly his one-legged hop routine,  and the "duck walk",  which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."  

The rock critic Robert Christgau considers Berry "the greatest of the rock and rollers,"  while John Lennon said, "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."  Ted Nugent said, "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar." 

Among the honors Berry has received are the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984  and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.  He was ranked seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all time.  On May 14, 2002, Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.  In August 2014, Berry was made a laureate of the Polar Music Prize. 

Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine ranked him number 6 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".  In November his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight was ranked 21st in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  In March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth on the list of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".  In December 2004, six of his songs were included in "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "Johnny B. Goode" (#7), "Maybellene" (#18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (#97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (#272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (#374).  In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". 

The journalist Chuck Klosterman has argued that in 300 years Berry will still be remembered as the rock musician who most closely captured the essence of rock and roll. 

Discography For music from a year in the 1950s, go to 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59

This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1950s.

In the First World, rock and roll, doo-wop, pop, swing, rhythm and blues, blues, country and rockabilly dominated and defined the decade's music.

The U.S.

Rock and roll 

Rock and roll dominated popular music in the later half of the 1950s. The musical style originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world.   Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music;  with country and western and Pop.  In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. 

The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar (developed and popularized by Les Paul).  Paul's hit records like "How High the Moon", and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise", helped lead to the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing of such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore.   Chuck Berry, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Rock and roll music, refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.M. Campbell, ed., Popular Music in America: And the Beat Goes on (Cengage Learning, 3rd edn., 2008), pp. 168-9.

Artists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Big Joe Turner, and Gene Vincent released the initial rhythm and blues-influenced early rock and roll hits.  Rock and roll forerunners in the popular music field included Johnnie Ray, The Crew-Cuts, The Fontane Sisters, and Les Paul and Mary Ford.  The Rock and Roll Era is generally dated from 25 March 1955 premiere of the motion picture, "The Blackboard Jungle".  This film’s use of Bill Haley and His Comets' "(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" over its opening credits, caused a national sensation when teenagers started dancing in the aisles.

Pat Boone became one of the most successful artists of the 50s with his heavily Pop-influenced "covers" of R&B hits like "Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)", "Ain't That a Shame", and "At My Front Door (Crazy Little Mama)".  Boone's traditional pop approach to rock and roll, coupled with his All-American, clean-cut image helped bring the new sound to a much wider audience.   Elvis Presley, who began his career in the mid-1950s, soon became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances, motion pictures, and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial during that period.  Boone and Presley's styles/images represented opposite ends of the burgeoning musical form, which competed with one another throughout the remainder of the decade.

In 1957, a popular television show featuring rock and roll performers, American Bandstand, went national.  Hosted by Dick Clark, the program helped to popularize the more clean-cut, All-American brand of rock and roll.  By the end of the decade, teen idols like Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Rydell, Connie Francis, and Fabian Forte were topping the charts.  Some commentators have perceived this as the decline of rock and roll; citing the deaths of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens in a tragic plane crash in 1959 and the departure of Elvis for the army as causes.

On the other side of the spectrum, R&B-influenced acts like The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans all scored major hits, and groups like The Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955), and The Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the period.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-87930-653-X, pp. 1306–7.

Rock and roll has also been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly (see below) in the 1950s, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in the mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley.[ "Rockabilly"], Allmusic, retrieved 6 August 2009.  Another subgenre, Doo Wop, entered the pop charts in the 1950s . Its popularity soon spawns the parody "Who Put the Bomp".

Novelty songs, long a music industry staple, continued their popularity in the Rock and Roll medium with hits such as "Beep Beep".

Classic pop

Popular music dominated the charts for the first half of the decade. Vocal driven classic pop replaced big band/swing at the end of World War II, although it often used orchestras to back the vocalists. 1940s style Crooners vied with a new generation of big voiced singers, many drawing on Italian Canto Bella traditions.   Mitch Miller, A&R man at the era's most successful label, Columbia Records, set the tone for the development of popular music well into the middle of the decade. Show 1.  Miller integrated country, Western, rhythm & blues, and folk music into the musical mainstream, by having many of his label's biggest artists record them in a style that corresponded to Pop traditions.  Miller often employed novel and ear-catching arrangements featuring classical instruments (whooping french horns, harpsichord), or sound effects (whip cracks).  He approached each record as a miniature story, often "casting" the vocalist according to type.  

(Mitch) Miller and the producers who followed his model were creating a new sort of pop record.  Instead of capturing the sound of live groups, they were making three-minute musicals, matching singers to songs in the same way that movie producers matched stars to film roles.  As Miller told "Time" magazine in 1951, "Every singer has certain sounds he makes better than others. Frankie Laine is sweat and hard words—he's a guy beating the pillow, a purveyor of basic emotions.  Guy Mitchell is better with happy-go-lucky songs; he's a virile young singer, gives people a vicarious lift.  Rosemary Clooney is a barrelhouse dame, a hillbilly at heart." It was a way of thinking perfectly suited to the new market in which vocalists were creating unique identities and hit songs were performed as television skits. 

Whereas big band/swing music placed the primary emphasis on the orchestration, post-war/early 1950s era Pop focused on the song’s story and/or the emotion being expressed.  By the early 1950s, emotional delivery had reached its apex in the miniature psycho-drama songs of writer-singer Johnnie Ray.  Known as "The Cry Guy" and "The Prince of Wails", Ray's on-stage emotion wrought "breakdowns" provided a release for the pent-up angst of his predominantly teenage fans.  As Ray described it, "I make them feel, I exhaust them, I destroy them."   It was during this period that the fan hysteria, which began with Frank Sinatra during the Second World War, really began to take hold.

Although often ignored by musical historians, Pop music played a significant role in the development of rock 'n' roll as well:

[Mitch] Miller also conceived of the idea of the pop record "sound" per se: not so much an arrangement or a tune, but an aural texture (usually replete with extramusical gimmicks) that could be created in the studio and then replicated in live performance, instead of the other way around.  Miller was hardly a rock 'n' roller, yet without these ideas there could never have been rock 'n' roll.  "Mule Train", Miller's first major hit (for Frankie Laine) and the foundation of his career, set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock.  The similarities between it and, say, "Leader of the Pack," need hardly be outlined here. 

Patti Page kicked things off with what would become the decade's biggest hit, "Tennessee Waltz".  Her other hits from this period included: "Mister and Mississippi", "Mockin' Bird Hill", "Detour", "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window", and "Old Cape Cod".  Frankie Laine's 1949 hits, "That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)" and "Mule Train", were still riding high on the charts when the decade began.  He continued to score with such hits as: "Georgia on My Mind", "Cry of the Wild Goose", "Jezebel", "Rose, Rose, I Love You", "Jealousy (Jalousie)", "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)", "I Believe", "Granada", "Moonlight Gambler", and "Rawhide".  Johnnie Ray had a long run of hits in the early half of the decade, often backed by The Four Lads, including: "Cry", "The Little White Cloud That Cried", "Walking My Baby Back Home", "Please, Mr. Sun", and "Just Walkin' in the Rain".  The Four Lads racked up some hits on their own with "Who Needs You", "No, Not Much", "Standin' on the Corner", and "Moments to Remember".  Nat "King" Cole dominated the charts throughout the decade with such timeless classics as "Unforgettable", "Mona Lisa", "Too Young", "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup", "Pretend", "Smile", and "A Blossom Fell".  Perry Como was another frequent visitor to the charts with hits like: "If", "Round and Round", "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes", "Tina Marie", "Papa Loves Mambo", and "Catch a Falling Star".

Other major stars in the early 1950s included Frank Sinatra ("Young at Heart", "Three Coins in the Fountain", "Witchcraft"), Tony Bennett ("Cold, Cold Heart", "Because of You", "Rags to Riches"), Kay Starr ("Bonaparte's Retreat", "Wheel of Fortune", "Rock and Roll Waltz"), Rosemary Clooney ("Come On-a My House", "Mambo Italiano", "Half as Much", "This Ole House"), Dean Martin ("That's Amore", "Return to Me", "Sway"), Georgia Gibbs ("Kiss of Fire", "Dance With Me, Henry", "Tweedle Dee"), Eddie Fisher ("Anytime", "Wish You Were Here", "Thinking of You", "I'm Walking Behind You", "Oh! My Pa-Pa", "Fanny"), Teresa Brewer ("Music! Music! Music!", "Till I Waltz Again With You", "Ricochet(Rick-O-Shay)"), Doris Day ("Secret Love", "Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera Sera)", "Teacher's Pet"), Guy Mitchell ("My Heart Cries for You", "The Roving Kind", "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania", "Singing the Blues"), Bing Crosby ("Play a Simple Melody with son Gary Crosby, "True Love with Grace Kelly), Dinah Shore ("Lavender Blue"), Kitty Kallen ("Little Things Mean a Lot"), Joni James ("Have You Heard", "Wishing Ring", "Your Cheatin' Heart"), Peggy Lee ("Lover", "Fever"), Julie London ("Cry Me a River"), Toni Arden ("Padre"), June Valli ("Why Don't You Believe Me"), Arthur Godfrey ("Slowpoke"), Tennessee Ernie Ford ("Sixteen Tons"), Les Paul and Mary Ford ("Vaya Con Dios", "Tiger Rag"), and vocal groups like The Mills Brothers ("Glow Worm"), The Weavers "(Goodnight Irene"), The Four Aces ("Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing", "(It's No) Sin"), The Chordettes ("Mister Sandman"), Fontane Sisters ("Hearts of Stone"), The Hilltoppers ("Trying", "P.S. I Love You"), The McGuire Sisters ("Sincerely", "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite", "Sugartime") and The Ames Brothers ("Ragmop" "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane").

Classic pop declined in popularity as Rock and roll entered the mainstream and became a major force in American record sales. Crooners such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the first half of the decade, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed by the decade's end.   However,  new Pop vocalists continued to rise to prominence throughout the decade, many of whom started out singing Rock ‘n’ Roll.  These include: Pat Boone ("Don’t Forbid Me", "April Love", "Love Letters in the Sand"),  Connie Francis ("Who’s Sorry Now", "Among My Souvenirs", "My Happiness"), Gogi Grant ("Suddenly There’s a Valley", "The Wayward Wind"), Bobby Darin ("Dream Lover", "Beyond the Sea", "Mack the Knife"),  and Andy Williams ("Canadian Sunset", "Butterfly", "Hawaiian Wedding Song").  Even Rock ‘n’ Roll icon Elvis Presley spent the rest of his career alternating between Pop and Rock ("Love Me Tender", "Loving You", "I Love You Because").  Pop  would resurface on the charts in the mid-1960s as "Adult Contemporary".

R&B

In 1951, Little Richard Penniman began recording for RCA Records in the late-1940s jump blues style of Joe Brown and Billy Wright. However, it wasn't until he prepared a demo in 1954, that caught the attention of Specialty Records, that the world would start to hear his new, uptempo, funky rhythm and blues that would catapult him to fame in 1955 and help define the sound of rock and roll. A rapid succession of rhythm-and-blues hits followed, beginning with "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally", which would influence performers such as James Brown,  Elvis Presley,  and Otis Redding. 

At the urging of Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry had reworked a country fiddle tune with a long history, entitled "Ida Red". The resulting "Maybellene" was not only a #3 hit on the R&B charts in 1955, but also reached into the top 30 on the pop charts.

Stax Records was founded in 1957 as Satellite Records. The label was a major factor in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul styles.

In 1959, two black-owned record labels, one of which would become hugely successful, made their debut: Sam Cooke's Sar, and Berry Gordy's Motown Records. 

Blues

Blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music in the 1950s with the enthusiastic playing styles of popular musicians like Bo Diddley  and Chuck Berry,  departed from the melancholy aspects of blues and influenced Rock and roll music.

Ray Charles and Fats Domino help bring blues into the popular music scene. Domino provides a boogie-woogie style that heavily influences rock 'n' roll.

Big Mama Thornton records the original versions of "Hound Dog" and "Ball and Chain". 

Country music 

Country music stars in the early 1950s included Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Bill Monroe, Eddy Arnold, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Jim Reeves, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Chet Atkins and Kitty Wells.

Wells' 1952 hit "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" became the first single by a solo female artist to top the U.S. country charts. "It Wasn't God ... " was a landmark single in several ways; it began a trend of "answer" songs, or songs written and recorded in response to (or to counterpoint) a previously popular song – in this case, "The Wild Side of Life" by Hank Thompson – and for Wells, began a trend of female singers who defied the typical stereotype of being submissive to men and putting up with their oft-infidel ways, both in their personal lives and in their songs.

Early in the decade, the honky-tonk style dominated country music, with songs of heartbreak, loneliness, alcoholism and despair the overriding themes. Long regarded the master of these themes was Hank Williams, whose critically acclaimed songwriting resulted in a string of legendary hits and songs, such as "Cold, Cold Heart", "Your Cheating Heart", "Why Don't You Love Me" and many more titles. Williams also lived hard, and on January 1, 1953, died. His legacy, however, would live on in country music for decades to come, and be vastly influential to new stars including a young Saratoga, Texas native named George Jones.

Jones, just 23 when he had his first national hit -- "Why Baby Why" -- would go on to become one of country music's most iconic figures for the next 55-plus years. Although some of his early songs included rockabilly (usually recorded under the pseudonym Thumper Jones), he stayed true to the honky-tonk style for most of his career. In addition to "Why Baby Why," his biggest 1950s hits included "What Am I Worth", "Treasure of Love", "Just One More" and his first No. 1 hit, "White Lightning", and by the end of the 1990s, that number would increase to more than 100 hit songs.

Besides Williams and Jones, the most popular honky tonk-styled singers included Lefty Frizzell, Carl Smith and Webb Pierce.

In 1955, Ozark Jubilee nearly began a nearly six-year run on ABC-TV, the first national TV show to feature country's biggest stars.

By the late 1950s, the Nashville sound became country music's response to continued encroachment of genre by rock artists. This new style emphasized string sections, background vocals and crooning lead vocals in the vein of mainstream popular music, but utilizing production styles and themes seen in country music. Artists like Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves, both whom had been well established earlier in the decade, were early pioneers in this style, which went on to see its greatest success in the 1960s. One of the first major Nashville Sound hits was "Oh, Lonesome Me" by Don Gibson. Also popular was the "saga song", often a song with a historical background or having themes of violence, adultery and so forth. Songs by artists such as Johnny Horton ("The Battle of New Orleans" and "When It's Springtime in Alaska"), Stonewall Jackson ("Waterloo"), Marty Robbins ("El Paso") and Lefty Frizzell ("Long Black Veil") dominated the charts starting in 1959 and continuing into the early 1960s.

The late 1950s saw the emergence of the Lubbock sound, but by the end of the decade, backlash as well as traditional country music artists such as Ray Price, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Horton began to shift the industry away from the rock n' roll influences of the mid-1950s.

Rockabilly emerged in the early 1950s as a fusion of rock and roll and country music. Rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s. The music was propelled by catchy beats, an electric guitar and an acoustic bass which was played using the slap-back technique. Rockabilly is generally considered to have begun in the early 1950s, when musicians like Bill Haley began mixing jump blues and electric country. In 1954, however, Elvis Presley truly began the popularization of the genre with a series of recordings for Sun Records. "Rock Around the Clock" (1955, Bill Haley) was the breakthrough success for the style, and it launched the careers of several rockabilly entertainers.

During this period Elvis Presley converted over to country music. He played a huge role in the music industry during this time. The number two, three and four songs on Billboard's charts for that year were Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel;" Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line;" and Carl Perkins, "Blue Suede Shoes".  Cash and Presley placed songs in the top 5 in 1958 with No. 3 "Guess Things Happen That Way/Come In, Stranger" by Cash, and No. 5 by Presley "Don't/I Beg Of You".  Presley acknowledged the influence of rhythm and blues artists and his style, saying "The coloured folk been singin' and playin' it just the way I'm doin' it now, man for more years than I know." But he also said, "My stuff is just hopped-up country."  By 1958, many rockabilly musicians returned to a more mainstream style or had defined their own unique style and rockabilly had largely disappeared from popular music, although its influences would remain into the future.

Jazz

Bebop, Hard bop, Cool jazz and the Blues gained popularity during the 1950s while prominent Jazz musicians who came into prominence in these genres included Lester Young, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey, Max Roach, the Miles Davis Quintet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday.

Other trends

In 1956 the American musician of Jamaican descent Harry Belafonte popularized the Calypso music Caribbean musical style which became a worldwide craze with the release of his rendition traditional Jamaican folk song "Banana Boat Song" from his 1956 album Calypso. The album later became the first full-length record to sell more than a million copies, and Belafonte was dubbed the "King of Calypso".

Folk music

The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, Odetta, and several other performers were instrumental in launching the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s.

Europe 

During the 1950s European popular music give way to the influence of American forms of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop, mediated through film and records. The significant change of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and roll, which provided a new model for performance and recording, based on a youth market. Initially this was dominated by American acts, or re-creations of American forms of music, but soon distinctly European Bands and individual artists began in early attempts to produce local Rock and roll music.

Latin America 

* In 1958 the American musician Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba" popularized Spanish language rock music throughout Latin America.
* In 1958 Daniel Flores, who some call the "godfather of Latin Rock", performed his hit song "Tequila".
* Argentinian band Los Cinco Latinos released their first album Maravilloso Maravilloso, which was met with success in Latin America and the United States. 

Hispanics, young and old, could find comfort in the popular rhythmic sounds of Latin music that reminded them of home; mambo, cha-cha, merengue and salsa. Tito Puente, an American born Boricua (Puerto Rican), revolutionized the Latin music of the time. He incorporated many new percussion and woodwind instruments into the popular Latin sound. The Hispanics in the U.S. certainly were able to conform with the popular vibes.

Australia and New Zealand 

By the end of the decade, as the Rock n Roll style had spread throughout the world, it soon caught on with Australian teens. Johnny O'Keefe became perhaps the first modern rock star of the country, and began the field of Australian rock.

New Zealand was introduced to Rock n Roll by Johnny Cooper's cover of "Rock around the Clock".

After Rock n Roll had been introduced the most famous of New Zealand's cover artists were: Johnny Devlin, Max Merit and the Meteors, Ray Columbus and the Invaders and Dinah Lee. Chess Records was an American record company, founded in 1950 in Chicago and specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. Over time it expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess, Checker, Argo, and Cadet labels. The Chess catalogue is currently owned by Universal Music Group and managed by Geffen Records.

Founded and run by Polish immigrant brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, the company produced and released many singles and albums regarded as central to the rock music canon. The musician and critic Cub Koda described Chess as "America's greatest blues label."[ Allmusic ((( Chess Blues > Overview )))]

Chess was based at several different locations on the south side of Chicago, initially at two different locations on South Cottage Grove Ave.  The most famous location was 2120 S. Michigan Avenue from around 1956 to 1965, immortalized by British rock group the Rolling Stones in "2120 South Michigan Avenue", an instrumental recorded there during the group's first U.S. tour in 1964. The Stones recorded at Chess Studios on two more occasions. The building is now the home of Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation.  In the mid-1960s, Chess re-located to a much larger building, at 320 E. 21st St., the label's final Chicago home.

History

Chess brothers' company

Leonard bought a stake in a record company called Aristocrat Records in 1947; in 1950, Leonard brought his brother, Phil into the operation and they became sole owners of the company. After bringing in the third partner, Evelyn Aron, they rename it to Chess Records in the same year.

The first release on Chess was the 78 RPM single "My Foolish Heart" b/w "Bless You" by Gene Ammons, which was released as Chess 1425 in June 1950, and became the label's biggest hit of the year. 

In 1951, the Chess brothers began an association with Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service. One of the most important recordings that Phillips gave to Chess was "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner and his Delta Cats which topped Billboard magazine's R&B Records chart  and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 because of its influence as a rock and roll single.  One of the most important artists that came out of Memphis was Howlin' Wolf, who stayed with the label until his death in 1976. Many songs created by Chess artists were later reproduced by many famous Rock n' Roll bands and artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Eric Clapton. Some of the core riffs created by Bo Diddley, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and others were the basis of a wide amount of Rock n' Roll.

In 1952, the brothers also started Checker Records as an alternative label for radio play (radio stations would only play a limited number of records from any one imprint).  In December 1955, they launched a jazz and pop label called Marterry, a name created from the first names of Leonard and Phil's sons Marshall and Terry. This was quickly renamed Argo Records, but the name was changed again in 1965 to Cadet Records to end confusion with a British spoken word label.

In 1953, Leonard Chess and Gene Goodman set up Arc Music BMI, a publishing company that would publish songs by many rhythm and blues artists. 

In the mid-1950s, the Chess brothers received two doo-wop groups by Alan Freed, the Coronets and the Moonglows; the former group was not very popular but the latter achieved several crossover hits including "Sincerely", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. Several of Chess's releases gave a writing credit to Alan Freed.

During the 1950s, Leonard and Phil Chess handled most of the production. They brought in producer Ralph Bass in 1960 to handle the gospel output and some of the blues singers. Bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon was also heavily involved in organizing blues sessions for the label and is now credited retroactively as a producer on some re-releases. During the 1960s, the company's A&R manager and chief producer for soul/R&B recordings was Roquel "Billy" Davis, who had previously worked with Motown founder Berry Gordy on songs for Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Marv Johnson and on early Motown releases.

In 1958, Chess began producing their first LP records  which included such albums as The Best of Muddy Waters, Best of Little Walter, and Bo Diddley.

Chess Records was also known for its regular band of session musicians who played on most of the company's Chicago soul recordings, such as drummer Maurice White and bassist Louis Satterfield, both of whom would later shape the funk group Earth, Wind, & Fire; guitarists Pete Cosey, Gerald Sims and Phil Upchurch; pianist Leonard Caston, later a producer with Motown; and organist Sonny Thompson.  In 1962, Chess Records was sued by Peacock Records for recording their artists Reverend Robert Ballinger and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. 

In 1969, Chess Records established a subsidiary label called Middle Earth Records in the U.K., which was distributed by Pye Records.  The subsidiary specialized in Psychedelic rock and was a joint venture with the Middle Earth Club in London. The Middle Earth label released only 4 albums titles and about a dozen singles before it was closed in 1970. 

The company was briefly run by Marshall Chess, son of Leonard, in his position as vice-president between January and October 1969, and then as president following its acquisition by GRT, before he went on to found Rolling Stones Records.

Under GRT and All Platinum

In 1969, the Chess brothers sold the label to General Recorded Tape (GRT) for $6.5 million. In October 1969, Leonard Chess died and by 1972, the only part of Chess Records still operating in Chicago was the recording studio, Ter-Mar Studios. Following the sale of Chess to GRT, Phil left the label to run WVON radio station.   In the 1970s, Chess Records and its publishing arm Arc Music were successfully sued by Muddy Waters  and Willie Dixon  for non-payment of royalties owed to them.

Some of the other artists who contributed to their legacy were The Flamingos, The Moonglows, Fontella Bass, Billy Stewart, The Dells and The Ramsey Lewis Trio.

Although Chess had produced many R&B number ones and major pop hits over the years, it was in 1972 that the label finally reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with Chuck Berry's "My Ding-a-Ling", a live recording from a concert in Coventry, England. However, this became the company's 'swansong' release. GRT had moved the label to New York City, operating it as a division of Janus Records. Under GRT, Chess effectively vanished as an important force in the recording industry. In August 1975, GRT sold the remnants of Chess Records to New Jersey-based All Platinum Records.

Later incarnations

In the early 1980s, noticing that much of the Chess catalog was unavailable, Marshall Chess was able to convince Joe and Sylvia Robinson, who ran All Platinum, to re-issue the catalog themselves under his supervision (All Platinum had been licensing selected tracks out to other companies, which ultimately resulted in the disappearance of some original master tapes). The re-issued singles and LPs sold well, but by the mid-80s, All Platinum fell into financial difficulties and the Chess master recordings were acquired by MCA Records, which itself was later merged into Universal Music imprint, Geffen Records.

In February 1997, MCA started releasing eleven compilation albums for the 50th anniversary of Chess Records. 

In the 1990s, MCA Records sued Charly Records for selling CDs which contained copyrighted material by Chess artists. 

In the 2000s, Universal's limited-edition re-issue label, Hip-O Select began releasing a series of comprehensive box-sets devoted to such Chess artists as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.

Chess Records was the subject of two films produced in 2008, Cadillac Records and Who Do You Love?. In addition to the Chess brothers, both films feature portrayals of or based on Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf and Etta James. Cadillac Records was directed by Darnell Martin and features an ensemble cast including Adrien Brody, Mos Def, Beyoncé Knowles and Jeffrey Wright. Who Do You Love was directed by Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and stars Alessandro Nivola playing Leonard Chess "as a complicated, driven man, hard on both his musicians and his family, yet with a real love for some of America's greatest music." The latter film's world premiere was at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 11, 2008.
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