Sunday, January 10, 2010

Ray Conniff - Dance the Bop! (1957)


This is an album I bought a number of years ago at HPB, and it was the cover that caught my eye. I'm a major cat lover so I couldn't resist this album when I saw the Siamese cat on the cover. Of course, the fact that this is an album by Ray Conniff is a major plus, too! I don't know how to dance the bop and, unfortunately, the instruction booklet was not in the album when I bought it used. I hope the previous owner put the booklet to good use and learned to excel at the bop. A curious bit of trivia I found out is that Ray Conniff did not want to record this album. His record company came to him and told him of this "new" teenage dance rage and to come up with some songs and record them. For those of you who were teenagers in 1957, was the bop really the teenage rage? Just wondering.

Track listing for Ray Conniff - Dance the Bop!:

Side 1:
1. Walkin' the Bop
2. The Drop
3. Just Boppin'
4. Doin' the Twister
5. The Flea Hop
6. Cross Over

Side 2:
1. Walkin' the Bop Again
2. Swingin' the Bop
3. Hand Around
4. Play a Guitar Solo
5. The Spinner
6. Honky-Tonk Rock-Around

6 comments:

Ron said...

Since I has not a teenager in 1957 (I was 10), I was unaware of the dance crazes of the time. However, the Bop is mentioned in a lot of songs. Boppin the Blues - Carl Perkins, Be Bop Baby - Ricky Nelson, Queen of the Hop ("When it comes to the Chicken or the Doin the Bop") and Splish Splash ("Flip flop, they was doing the bop") - Bobby Darin, At the Hop by Danny & the Juniors was originally Do the Bop, and I'm sure the list goes on.

Thanks for this and all your shares.

Ron

Esther said...

Hi, Ron!
Thanks for the info and all the song references!

Esther

Moork said...

Thanks for the share! I specially liked the Siamiss cat in the cover :D

tomatodon said...

Esther, thanks for the shared music. I too collect celebrity lps. I was very happy to find a few that I did not have.

denyspr said...

to everyone here:
I am looking for Some Ray Conniff albums:
- The Singles Collection vol 1,2, & 3
I´d like to see them posted here,they were not released here in Brazil.
thanks in advance.
Denys P.R. ======================

Anonymous said...

Hello Esther. I've been a Ray Conniff fan since his first album, and I think I have all of his albums. In Ft. Worth in 1957, it was my first year of 37 years of broadcasting. Ray released a single from the DANCE THE BOP album called "Just Boppin'" but used the pseudo name of Jimmy Raye as the artist, and I used it as my program theme song. It got so pupular that I listed it in my top 10 in a trade magazine. Ray called me on the phone and I interviewed him on the air. I corresponded with him for several times during my broadcasting career. BTW, towards the end of the record you'll hear shouting "Bop it again, Ray." That's Mitch Miller. -- Norm in Florida