April 27, 2009: The 15 Greatest Singles of 1959

Rock & Roll’s first boom was pretty brief. Although it sent American teens into frenzy and inspired countless future British Invaders; parents, religious types, and other squares saw to it that Rock & Roll didn’t get the radio-time it deserved. As every rock doc ever made has already stated, a slew of controversies and deaths helped hip-check R&R from the spotlight by the end of the ‘50s: the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens; Elvis’s stint in the army; Little Richard’s shunning Rock & Roll in favor of religion; Jerry Lee Lewis getting hitched to his 13-year old cousin; Chuck Berry getting arrested at the end of 1959; and on and on. Regardless, there were still some red hot singles hitting record shop shelves 50 years ago. Here are my 15 favorites:

15. “I’m Ready”- Fats Domino

Fats Domino is one of the few original Rock & Rollers who made it through the ‘50s unscathed, although his hits certainly dried up when the decade was over. “I’m Ready” is one of his last big ones, but its relentless rhythm, good-natured boasting, and breezy piano fills suggest that Fat Man didn’t have a worry in the world.


14. “Forty Days”- Ronnie Hawkins

Rockabilly meets gospel on Ronnie Hawkins’s hit version of Chuck Berry’s “Forty Days” (basically a rewrite of the Berry hit “Thirty Days”). The fiery performance arrives special delivery from Hawkins’s backing band, the Hawks, who would achieve stardom a decade later as the Band.


13. “Mr. Blue”- The Fleetwoods