Antedating of _doo(-)wop_

[Wilson Gray]

Yes, I got that the reviewer was referring specifically to Blue Moon,
by The Marcels - I was still in the Army when that was new, but
American black music, *all* on the Decca label, hit Army towns about
as quickly as they were released in the States. You noted the
reference to "like those of many years ago," right? IMO, that means
"genre" and not a given example of it.

I refuse to accept your argument. Different strokes... If you choose
to believe that you somehow are better able to understand this better
I can, just because you choose to interpret a line from a newspaper in
a different way, knock yourself out. I tried to make it as obvious as
I could why I chose my interpretation. But, if you'd rather make some
other claim, based on the fact that the reviewer is clearly referring
to what he considers to be a current example of what he specifically
states is an older genre, what can I tell you? "To each their own," to
quote the annoying slogan of a Boston-area second-hand store.

You also might try reading this book and others on the topic. It might
give you a better picture of what the history of this style of music
is.

OTOH, as any fool can plainly hear, The Marcels' version of "Blue
Moon" is hardly an example of the doo-wop that I grew up with, which
was pretty much killed by "The Twist" and the Motown Sound. If the
reviewer believes that it is, he's clearly several years younger than
I am.

-Wilson

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of _doo(-)wop_
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> HDAS:
>>
>> doo-wop. 1969 In OED2 ...
>>
>> Gribbin, Anthony J., PhD, and Matthew M. Schiff, MD. Doo-Wop. Iola, WI, c1992.
>>
>> Quoting the Chicago Defender. March 18, 1961: "... A real doo-wop,
>> *like those of many years ago* [emphasis supplied], is making the
>> scene but big in Chi-town ..."
>
> Very interesting. I can't seem to pull up the relevant article in the
> Defender (I think the version of ProQuest I'm accessing only has the
> national edition, not the local edition, for that date). But another
> forum says this was by Chuck Davis, Jr. (who wrote the Defender's
> "Platters" column), referring to "Blue Moon" by the Marcels. So
> "doo-wop" here is evidently referring to a song, rather than the whole
> genre.
>
> The earliest cite I've found for "doo-wop" as a genre is also from the Defender:
>
> ---
> 1965 _Chicago Defender_ 13 Nov. 26A/3 People who hate rock and roll,
> rhythm and blues, The Beatles, and doo~wop singing groups, go wild
> about Ray Charles.
> ---
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org