Editing 1950s (section)

===Music===
{{Further|1950s in music|Rock and roll|Timeline of musical events#1950s|First rock and roll record|List of acts who appeared on American Bandstand}}
[[File:Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock2.jpg|200px|thumb|[[Elvis Presley]] was the best-selling musical artist of the decade. He is considered as the leading figure of the [[rock and roll]] and [[rockabilly]] movement of the 1950s.]]

[[Popular music]] in the early 1950s was essentially a continuation of the crooner sound of the previous decade, with less emphasis on the jazz-influenced big band style and more emphasis on a conservative, operatic, symphonic style of music. [[Frank Sinatra]], [[Tony Bennett]], [[Frankie Laine]], [[Patti Page]], [[Judy Garland]], [[Johnnie Ray]], [[Kay Starr]], [[Perry Como]], [[Bing Crosby]], [[Rosemary Clooney]], [[Dean Martin]], [[Georgia Gibbs]], [[Eddie Fisher]], [[Teresa Brewer]], [[Dinah Shore]], [[Kitty Kallen]], [[Joni James]], [[Peggy Lee]], [[Julie London]], [[Toni Arden]], [[June Valli]], [[Doris Day]], [[Arthur Godfrey]], [[Tennessee Ernie Ford]], [[Guy Mitchell]], [[Nat King Cole]], and vocal groups like the [[Mills Brothers]], [[The Ink Spots]], [[The Four Lads]], [[The Four Aces]], [[The Chordettes]], [[The Fontane Sisters]], [[The Hilltoppers (band)|The Hilltoppers]] and the [[Ames Brothers]]. [[Jo Stafford]]'s "[[You Belong to Me (1952 song)|You Belong To Me]]" was the #1 song of 1952 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

The middle of the decade saw a change in the popular music landscape as [[classic pop]] was swept off the charts by rock-and-roll. 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.<ref>R. S. Denisoff, W. L. Schurk, ''Tarnished gold: the record industry revisited'' (Transaction Publishers, 3rd edn., 1986), p. 13.</ref>
[[Doo-wop]] entered the pop charts in the 1950s. Its popularity soon spawns the parody "[[Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)]]".

[[Rock-n-roll]] emerged in the mid-1950s with [[Little Richard]], [[Elvis Presley]], [[Chuck Berry]], [[Sam Cooke]], [[Jackie Wilson]], [[Gene Vincent]], [[Fats Domino]], [[James Brown]], [[Bo Diddley]], [[Buddy Holly]], [[Bobby Darin]], [[Ritchie Valens]], [[Duane Eddy]], [[Eddie Cochran]], [[Brenda Lee]], [[Bobby Vee]], [[Connie Francis]], [[Neil Sedaka]], [[Pat Boone]], [[Ricky Nelson]], [[Tommy Steele]], [[Billy Fury]], [[Marty Wilde]] and [[Cliff Richard]] being notable exponents. In the mid-1950s, [[Elvis Presley]] became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of [[rock and roll]] with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. [[Chuck Berry]], with "[[Maybellene]]" (1955), "[[Roll Over Beethoven]]" (1956), "[[Rock and Roll Music (song)|Rock and Roll Music]]" (1957) and "[[Johnny B. Goode]]" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing [[guitar solo]]s and [[Guitar showmanship|showmanship]] that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.<ref name="Campbell2008p168">M. Campbell, ed., ''Popular Music in America: And the Beat Goes on'' (Cengage Learning, 3rd edn., 2008), pp. 168–9.</ref> [[Bill Haley (musician)|Bill Haley]], Presley, [[Jerry Lee Lewis]], [[The Everly Brothers]], [[Carl Perkins]], [[Johnny Cash]], [[Conway Twitty]], [[Johnny Horton]], and [[Marty Robbins]] were [[Rockabilly]] musicians. [[Doo-wop]] was another popular genre at the time. Popular Doo Wop and Rock-n-Roll bands of the mid to late 1950s include [[The Platters]], [[The Flamingos]], [[The Dells]], [[The Silhouettes]], [[Frankie Lymon]] and [[The Teenagers]], [[Little Anthony and The Imperials]], [[Danny & the Juniors]], [[The Coasters]], [[The Drifters]], [[The Del-Vikings]] and [[Dion and the Belmonts]].

[[File:Harry Belafonte singing 1954.jpg|thumb|left|155px|[[Harry Belafonte]] in 1954, whose breakthrough album ''[[Calypso (album)|Calypso]]'' (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.]]
The new music differed from previous styles in that it was primarily targeted at the teenager market, which became a distinct entity for the first time in the 1950s as growing prosperity meant that young people did not have to grow up as quickly or be expected to support a family. Rock-and-roll proved to be a difficult phenomenon for older Americans to accept and there were widespread accusations of its being a communist-orchestrated scheme to corrupt the youth, although rock and roll was extremely market-based and capitalistic.

[[Jazz]] stars in the 1950s who came into prominence in their genres called [[bebop]], [[hard bop]], [[cool jazz]] and the [[blues]], at this time 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]], [[Jerry 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]].

The [[American folk music revival]] became a phenomenon in the [[United States in the 1950s]] to mid-1960s with the initial success of [[The Weavers]] who popularized the genre. Their sound, and their broad repertoire of traditional folk material and [[topical song]]s inspired other groups such as [[the Kingston Trio]], the [[Chad Mitchell Trio]], [[The New Christy Minstrels]], and the "collegiate folk" groups such as [[The Brothers Four]], [[The Four Freshmen]], [[The Four Preps]], and [[The Highwaymen (folk band)|The Highwaymen]]. All featured tight vocal harmonies and a repertoire at least initially rooted in folk music and topical songs.

On 3 February 1959, a chartered plane transporting the three American [[rock and roll]] musicians [[Buddy Holly]], [[Ritchie Valens]] and [[The Big Bopper|J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson]] goes down in foggy conditions near [[Clear Lake, Iowa]], killing all four occupants on board, including pilot [[Roger Peterson (pilot)|Roger Peterson]]. The tragedy is later termed "[[The Day the Music Died]]", popularized in [[Don McLean]]'s 1971 song "[[American Pie (song)|American Pie]]". This event, combined with the conscription of Presley into the US Army, is often taken to mark the point where the era of 1950s rock-and-roll ended.

In late 1950s also emerged [[surf rock]], which became more popular in early 1960s.