50s Meet 70s: The Rock and Roll Revivals

"Grease," "Happy Days," "The Lords of Flatbush," Sha-Na-Na. And the Rock and Roll Revivals at Madison Square Garden. So much of 70s pop culture in our town was actually nostalgia for the 1950s - or at least the way people thought the 50s were. You know: Greasers, hot rods, James Dean, Doo-Wop.

Rock and Roll Revivals were concerts featuring acts from the 50s and early (pre-Beatles) 60s. Typically they would feature a large number of acts who would each do a handful of their hits, and often the groups would feature substitute members, as the originals either quit or died off. If you listened to WCBS FM, which at that time had an all "Oldies" format, you'd hear the ads for these events.

Besides the Revivals, the Seventies also saw a huge interest in all sorts of 50s nostalgia. We had 50s theme dances and parties. Guys dressed up like The Fonz (Henry Winkler) from "Happy Days." And "Grease" was the longest-running show on Broadway. Why? The music? Well, to some extent. But that fails to explain the whole phenomenon, in my humble opinion.

The Seventies was an era when nobody quite knew what was expected of them. The old norms were out, or so we thought, especially in regards to gender roles. Women were making headway into business, government and academia, and men were supposed to become more, well.... Actually, men didn't know what they were supposed to be. Remember, this was the Seventies. We didn't even have Robert Bly and his Mytho-Poetic movement. At the same time, traditional values had been challenged, but there were no generally-accepted alternatives. Our culture reflected these conflicts. Performers like Bowie began to fool around with gender images, and John Lennon asked us to imagine a world without all the stuff our parents thought was so important.

But, ah, the Fifties! A time when guys acted like Guys! They worked on cars, acted tough and certainly didn't wear their hair like the women! You knew what was expected of you, and, at least for some guys, it was kind of fun! Something about this seemed to appeal to a lot of folks at a deep level.

There was an ugly side to the whole nostalgia thing. People who gathered to hear the old stuff could turn nasty if presented with new material, as Ricky Nelson learned. I'll talk about that later.