‘Sentimental Journey’ Surveys Pre-Rock Pop Hits

What was pop music like in the years before rock ‘n’ roll?

Rhino Records’ four-volume “Sentimental Journey: Pop Vocal Classics” series offers an interesting glimpse of the pulse of ‘40s and ‘50s pop.

With Will Friedwald, author of “Jazz Singers,” as our sometimes provocative host, the liner notes offer reflections on the cultural sidelights (where appropriate) on the various hits.

Generally speaking, the music in the four volumes (which are sold separately) documents the rise of pop vocalists in the years between the end of the big-band era and start of the rock revolution.

Where many of the 71 selections stand as well-crafted and affecting pop, lots of the records have a stiff, artificial feel, which helps explain why mainstream pop was so easily overthrown by the more spirited and openly emotional strains of rock.

Among the selections in Vol. 1 (1942-46): Bing Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star” (which spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the pop charts in 1944), the Mills Brothers’ “Paper Moon” (a 1943 single that was the biggest non-holiday hit of the decade), Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather” (a classic recording though it only reached No. 21 on the charts in 1943) and Frank Sinatra’s “Night and Day” (a Top 20 hit in 1942 and again when reissued in 1944).

From Vol. 2 (1947-50): Crosby’s “Far Away Places” (a Top 10 hit in 1949), Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz” (13 weeks at No. 1 in 1950 and 1951), Mel Torme’s “Again” (a Top 10 single in 1949) and Eileen Barton’s “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d Have Baked a Cake” (a novelty that spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in 1950).

The hits featured in Vol. 3 (1950-54) include Tony Bennett’s “Because of You” (No. 1 for 10 weeks in 1951), Johnnie Ray’s “Cry” (one of the most frequently overlooked steps in the early evolution of rock, this single spent 11 weeks at No. 1 in 1951) and Les Paul & Mary Ford’s “How High the Moon” (one of the most inventive singles in postwar pop, this record spent nine weeks at No. 1 in 1951).

Among the hits in Vol. 4 (1954-59): Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” (a landmark single that spent nine weeks at No. 1 in 1959), Peggy Lee’s “Fever” (another classic record though it only reached No. 8 on the pop charts in 1959), Guy Mitchell’s “Singing the Blues” (this remake of a country hit was No. 1 for 10 weeks in 1956) and Johnny Mathis’ “Chances Are” (one week at No. 1 in 1957).

Noting the end of an era, Friedwald writes in the booklet contained in Vol. 4: “It would only be a matter of time before the (record) business would gradually abandon the genre of adult-oriented pop for something they could sell in even larger quantities--namely sounds directed at a substantially more sizable audience: the teen-age Baby Boomer.

“The popular music that was still being made for grown-ups in the late ‘50s owes surprisingly little to the classic pop of just a few years earlier. . . . Aside from the last major hits of long-established chartsters like Patti Page and Doris Day, there’s very little here that sounds like anything that could have been recorded as late as 1952.”

But the best sign that the adult pop of the ‘40s and ‘50s was being washed away was the vitality of the rock records that began competing for space on the charts and airwaves by the time the music in Vol. 4 was on the market: hits like Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel,” Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” and Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.”

And the Beatles were on the way.