History Question: Pre-Rock'n Roll Music to Vintage hot rods

THANK-U...I really enjoy the historical stories...THANX!..keep'm comin'

 

I was refering to hot rods... not the fat fendered or the shoebox variaty that were typical as drivers of the time. Yes, radios could be had in those automobiles, and I don't doubt that you knew guys that drove them and would have rather been with the girls at the sock hop. But to call them hot rods AT THE TIME would be like calling a Taurus or a Lumina a hot rod today. I'm talking about the hot rodders, greasers, hoodlums... pick your term, that discribes the fellows that drove around in the same cars that are being called "rat rods" today. How many factory radios did you see in those '23-'33 fords? How many do you see now? Sure, someone may stick an aftermarket radio in nowadays due to modern mentality (the same as people think hot rod=rock n' roll, they think car=radio) but they better hide it short of getting heckled for that monstrosity hanging off the dash. Your memory is probably quite accurate... of YOUR experiances. But what of the experiances of those that didn't care for the sockhops. Who chose their car over the girls. Who were into hot rods before sock hops even existed. I may not have been alive when you were in highschool but to ***ume that your experiences were typical, and shared by everyone else, is rediculous. I skipped the dances to work on my car. The only reason it had a radio was because it came with one. I was more concerned with making it fast than making it "cool". I ***ociated with others who had the same opinions. My Grandparents didn't get a TV until the 60's. And even I remember that big radio being around that you seem to think everyone "threw out". I'm not discounting your experiances... I just wasn't talking about them...

 

The question was about pre-rock'n roll.

 

You are correct, but you did the same thing when you said it was a fantasy, because to many of us it wasn't a fantasy. I am speaking from my experience only, and that is all that I can speak from. I drove both hotrods and customs, one had a radio and one didn't. But I can also remember trading a small T-Bird for a 34 Ford 5W Coupe and the one of the first thing that I did was put in a round dial 55 Ford radio. You are correct, I didn't have a radio in my Cadillac powered Henry J that I ran in AGas. But I had one in my 1948 Cadillac Limousine that I towed it with. Did music permeate every part of my life, No. Notice that I responded without calling your opinion ridiculous. This is just a trip down memory lane, not a debate.

 

I rather enjoy your trip down memory lane, so keep em coming. Man, Maybelline on the radio, cops looking the other way on street racing, and root beer stands - it all seems so innocent by today's standards. I can't believe I just referred to anything having to do with Chuck Berry as innocent...

 

Well in the 40's and 50's the latino zoot suiters were listening to swing and rhythm and blues.The zoot suit was not only a fashion statement but also loose and designed for dancing (jitter,lindy and jive).The Zoot suit riots took place in 1941 i believe but by the 50's an essential for any budding rock n roller (little richard and co).I would say that after ww2 the swing cats came back looking for kicks and decided to go the souper route as flying a bomber was not an option any more.But for most of us youngens alive now the cars and music go together as it is a bit of nostaligia that we never lived but the best we can do to experience now i.e driving an old car whilst listeningto old music.........it rocks..............Marq

 

zoot suiters were much more prevalent before the end of WWII. the riots occurred during early june, 1943. i think june 12th. somewhere i have a photocopy from newsweek and time detailing the story. newsweek all but called all latinos s***, and their women pros***utes in the first paragraph alone. not long after that, zoot suits were outlawed in many areas because they blamed the latinos when they themselves were victims when soldiers and sailors indiscriminantly targeted them and left white zooters alone. they were also seen as a waste of material (knee length jackets, baggy baggy pants pulled up high) and therefore against the war effort. after the war, fashion moved on for the most part, mostly jazz musicians upheld the zoot suit into the 50s and their ******** following. somewhere i've read lyrics of zoot music, though without hearing it it is hard to picture. alot of it seemed to be nihilistic, as the hispanics were fairly low on the economic totem pole in east Los, and the youth were disillusioned. very much a love for today, forget everything else but my d****s, my hina and some reefer. loosely paraphrasing from an actual song, decided to research the movement and riots in college. difficult to find much info on it in ohio, but i did find a decent amount.

 

The only memories that I have of the forties was first a boogie woogie record called "Bumble Boogie" by Jose Uturbi. This was a take off on the "flight of the bumble bee" which was a cl***ical piece. Then I worked in a restaurant peeling potatoes and the jukebox had Honk Tonk by Bill Black and the combo, he later played in the original trio with Elvis. Also Cozy Cole, a black combo group and a hit that I can't remember the name of. These are the only things that I can remember from the forties, but that was before my love affairs with cars or girls began as I wasn't quite a teenager yet. Know this is how I remember it and that doesn't guarantee it's accuracy as to names and dates.
We have a tendency to describe the decades as separate time periods as if they changed drastically when the next decade started. In actual fact we slid from one decade to the next as part of a fairly gradual change. Young people wanting to change fast and old people not wanting to change at all. Kinda like today, maybe.

 

'Viper' music-people thought they started singing about the weed in the 60's-guess again! That's one of my favorite scenes from "Back to Future", when the guys from the band come out of the car (along with a cloud of smoke) and Biff's gang runs off 'cuz they're 'reefer heads'

 

Your thinking of Topsy part 1 and 2 by Cozy Cole it was alot like the beginning of rock and roll more instrumentals then. Also the Platters , Gene Vincent and Fats Domino were mid fifties along with Carl Perkins.

 

You've lost me on that one... I don't recall discussing your fantasies.

My opinion, while different from yours, is just that, an opinion, converstation at best. Feel free to find it acceptable to contradict another persons opinion and offensive when they contradict yours, everyone needs a hobby. I think it's fun to speculate at what might have been.

This would be a pretty good question for the "Ask an Expert"....

 

I had my first car, a '34 Austin that I put flames and a ratfink style shifter on, in 1962. It did'nt have a radio, but I was listening to Elvis, Haley, Hank whenever the opportunity presented itself. I bought one of those underdash 45rpm platter spinners, but could never get the damn thing to work right. Here in New Zealand, the radio of the time was all gubmint owned, and the gubmint did'nt like rock n roll, so the only time you heard it was at 7pm every Thursday night when they presented the hit parade, and midday Sunday on the request session. It was still four years away from the first outlaw private radio station, which was on a ship moored just outside the territorial waters limit (which I think was 12 miles). Boy, talk about backward! New Zealand being an English colony meant we were all subjected to BBC style radio presentation, which yer granny loved, but drove us to distraction.

 

The music thing was called a fantasy early in the post and at no time was I offensive to you. I just was stating what was fact, not speculation, as it happened to me.

 

Hotrod1940, besides the fact that you need to attend the "Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read So Good", exactly how can you maintain your "I was there" at***ude of rodding in the 40's when you didn't even get into it until the mid 50's? By the time you got into rodding, by your own admission, it was the rock'n roll era. As the question was "What was the music of hot rodders before the rock'n roll era?", which has been pointed out to you 3 times now, I'd say the opinions you have on the subject are just as much speculation as anyone elses because you wern't into it, and you said that yourself.

Putting you... in the same boat ... as me...

...speculator

Realize that we're not talking about what kind of music hot rodders listen to in general. But what hot rodders listened to during a SPECIFIC point in time. A point that occured BEFORE you got into hot rodding. And while your experences were real and did occur, their past the time frame of the subject in question.

Back on topic I think "what" a rodder listened to would be determinded by "where" he was. Radio stations and genres were limited, and regional in nature. So what a hot rodder in So. Cal. listened to would have been different from what a hot rodder in Springfield Ill. would have listened to. Not an answer... but a thought....

 

Speculation is good, now we can arrive at a conclusion without the benefits of facts.
I speculate that the first song I ever learned about cars was just after the turn of the last century. It was written about a 1903 Olds curved dash runabout and was called, "come away with me Lucille in my merry oldsmobile".
Before that it was about bicycles and was. "a bicycle built for two"
Before that it was horses and, "the surrey with the fringe on top."
Over the ensuing decades there were songs about car including "Flivvers, Model T's, Tin Lizzies, Duessy's, Jaunty Jalopies, and many others.
Getting to the forties, there wasn't much about cars because there weren't any new cars, there was rationed gas, no tires, because of the war. It is surprising how much metal survived the war material drives that the gov. made you turn in metal for the war. Songs were about missing your loved ones in the war, and patriotism.
As the war was over and people returned to normal life, cars started entering the picture again. That brings us to the fifties and the first song of that era was "Rocket 88" which pretty much started it all for rock and roll.

We all respond to not only the first posts, buts posts that are made during the thread.
I will make this my last post, and I promise to try and learn more about reading, and especially spelling. I come hear to learn.