Rhino Historic Tours: “America's Greatest Teenage Recording Stars” Hit the Road

Remember how awesome it was when the first Lollapalooza tour kicked off in 1991, with all of those great music artists playing together on the same unbelievable bill? Well, 56 years ago, legendary DJ and concert impresario Alan Freed – who, in this particular analogy, would be considered the Perry Farrell of his day – kicked off a tour which featured a lineup of artists called America’s Greatest Teenage Recording Stars. Were they really, though? Well, it really comes down to how much you know about popular music in the late 1950s, but when viewed with the eyes of a rock historian, it damned near puts Lollapalooza to shame.

Of course, they almost certainly weren’t all teenagers, but we can let that slide because it’s not like kids were really rushing out and buying tickets to the shows because they wanted to see their peers – and only their peers – onstage.

So who were these recording stars?

Try these names on for size: The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Eddie Cochran, Paul Anka, Jimmie Rodgers, Danny and the Juniors, Margie Rayburn, the Shepherd Sisters, the Rays, the Tune Weavers, the Hollywood Flames, the Mello Kings, Al Jones, Billy Brown, Jimmy Edwards, and Sam Donohue and his Orchestra.

Yeah, we realize the star power of the lineup kind of drops off a bit after you get past Jimmie Rodgers (“Honeycomb”) and Danny and the Juniors (“At the Hop”), but if you’re an aficionado of ‘50s music, then the majority of the other names will probably ring a bell if we mention their signature songs:

• Margie Rayburn: “I’m Available”
• The Shepherd Sisters: “Alone (Why Must I Be Alone)”
• The Rays, “Silhouettes”
• The Tune Weavers, “Happy, Happy Birthday Baby”
• The Hollywood Flames, “Buzz Buzz Buzz”
• The Mello-Kings, “Tonite, Tonite”
• Al Jones, “Mad, Mad World”
• Billy Brown, “Did We Have a Party”
• Jimmy Edwards, “Love Bug Crawl”

To celebrate the anniversary of this “Greatest” of tours, we’ve put together a playlist featuring songs by all of the above artists, but to flesh it out a bit, we’ve also thought a little bit outside the box and included the entirety of Foreverly, by Bille Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones. Why? Well, aside from the obvious Everly Brothers connection, it just so happens that Foreverly is a track-by-track reinterpretation of Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, the album that Don and Phil Everly were touring behind at the time.