THOSE NEW INDEPENDENTS

In the mid-fifties the first generation of the 45 was slowly transforming the American record industry, partly due an unexpected wave of independent teens demanding their own music. 1953 through 1955 would witness new labels created in all parts of the nation. Most were producing some truly bad music, songs that would never hear the sound of day on any radio. Unless the record company was in a large metropolitan area with a good talent pool to draw from, chances are that the performers were those high school favorites who could not cut it professionally, and there were plenty of unscrupulous operators to lure those hopefuls into a recording studio for which these kids parents would pay big bucks to satisfy their vanity. Radio stations received hundreds of 45s each month and most wound up in the trash when program directors, who'd  been raised in an era of big band singers, failed to see any potential in these new artists. To them it sounded as if these kids were off key, stuck with meaningless lyrics or just blithely making noise. Some major labels were buying up the competition or financing new upstarts while demanding distribution and publishing rights. The record and radio industry was beginning to feel growth pains and looking for ways to ease into profit as the music continued to accelerate on 45.

It was Country Music that started the 45 revolution

Hi Ya'all, Did you know that it could be said that it was country music fans who first got the chance to make the 45 popular? RCA Victor, in 1949, released Eddy Arnold's "Boquet Of Roses" as the first commercial 45 available to the public. Other labels parlayed the early popularity of 'hillbilly' music into success at Mercury, MGM, Goldband and King record labels with many releases by other artists like Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Eddie Shuler and Curley Fox & Texas Ruby. Not only did hillbilly music include Country, Blue Grass and Western. but also Rock-a-billy and Swampbilly. Eventually it was just labeled Country and Western or C & W for short. In the early formative years of the 45 markets, a few labels specialized in C & W and over time found it in their best interest to include a wider variety of artists. Most C & W labels picked up on gospel music, but some began to include other southern regional genres like Zydeko, Blues and Rhythm music. The major labels during the reign of the 78 had set up specific groupings and labels to handle their hillbilly artists as well as what was termed 'race' music, classical music and international popular music. The 45 would slowly blur the lines and begin to eliminate the need to separate artists onto separate labels. Soon, race music became Rhythm and Blues and the performers were R & B artists equal to C & W  or popular artists in terms of promotion and sales. Classical and specialty music would still be treated as separate. As this evolution progressed, the lines almost disappeared for a while before becoming more distinct in future years. The music was alive and so was the 45.