Briarcliff Manor High School Class of 1960

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k4kyv:
I am a graduate of the class of 1960.  Those songs download very quickly, so I am saving the whole collection because that site probably won't be around for ever.  The quality isn't great, but probably at least as good as it sounded on the crappy radios and 45 rpm record players we listened to in 1956-60.

Note how SHORT most of those old songs were.  Most cuts run between 2 and 3 minutes.  I recall in 1965 what a radical concept it was that Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone was the first big hit that lasted over 5 minutes!

Jim, W5JO:
Quote from: k4kyv on August 19, 2006, 11:24:34 PM

Note how SHORT most of those old songs were.  Most cuts run between 2 and 3 minutes.  I recall in 1965 what a radical concept it was that Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone was the first big hit that lasted over 5 minutes!


If you are interested, the radio stations drove the trend of short songs.  If you look back to the days of the 30s and early 40s, you will note many of the old 78 RPM records would go for over 3 minutes.  They would record the music that the artist played.

Radio, by the 1940 have become very commercial and they watched every penny. so music cuts that were shorter were favored by stations because they could get more advertising time with them.  An example of this is the Marty Robbins song El Paso.  The first recorded version ran well over 4 minutes.  Someone liked it and thought it would make a hit but was too long.  So they had Marty record the short version that is just over 2.5 minutes.  Result a hit.

Frank Sinatra always had trouble because of the crooner type tunes tended to be well over 4 minutes and he re-recorded several versions that were shortened so they would receive air play.  Diisk Jockeys loved the 4 minute songs and called them John Songs, which would give them time to run down the hall to the bathroom, especailly at night when they were alone. 

By 1955 stations would not play a song over 2 minutes unless it was real popular, so artists would only record very short selections.  I would bet if you timed some of those songs on that site, you will see many of them are just over 1.5 minutes.

wa2zdy:
Nice sites, great music.  Almost all of it before my generation but I've always enjoyed the doowop of the 50s.

Thanks!

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