Whether in Ella Fitzgerald’s big-band phase of the late '30s and early '40s, her bebop scat explorations that dominated the '40s and early '50s, or in her long, universalist reign that began with her landmark "Songbook" recordings of pop standards, Fitzgerald's voice flowed around rhythms with uncanny precision and subtlety. The 1940 recording of "San Antonio Rose" makes Bob Wills a national music figure. Dizzy Gillespie begins an innovative style of trumpet performance that would come to be called BeBop. Thelonious Monk was a member of the adventurous musicians who liked to gather at Mintons in Harlem and contributed to the birth of Bebop. Sonny Boy Williamson was one of the most influential harmonica players in blues history. He was the blues first radio star on "The King Biscuit Time" in Helena, Arkansas. Louis Jordan ,"Father of Rhythm and Blues", had his first million-seller in 1944 with "Is You Is or Is You Ain't Ma Baby?" Nashville was beginning to emerge as a center for country recording. Chet Atkins plays a major role in the development of the Nashville music industry. June 11, 1949, Hank Williams makes his debut on the Grand Ole Opry, one of the most memorable in the Opry's history. A prodigiously talented composer, pianist, conductor and teacher, Leonard Bernstein did more to validate America's position in the musical world than virtually any other musician in history. More importantly, he contributed a galaxy of superlative compositions and recorded performances to our culture, and redefined the boundaries between classical music and other recently-derived popular styles. He was the leading light of 20th century American music, and no contemporary musician of any instrument or specialty pursues his craft without first acknowledging a debt to Bernstein. As a charismatic ambassador of music, he remains without peer. Music of the 1950’s
Fats Domino began making the charts in the early 1950s, first in R & B then in Pop. Nat King Cole's records were topping the best-seller list. "Too young" held the top place on Your Hit Parade for four consecutive weeks in 1951. From 1951 to 1960 Muddy Waters assembled the greatest collection of electric blues recordings ever made. Composer, producer, arranger, bass player, recording artist, session musician, talent scout, and bandleader for Chess records in the 1950s and early 1960s, Willie Dixon did more to shape postwar Chicago blues than perhaps any other artist save Muddy Waters. In 1952 Sam Phillips began Sun Records. In his Sun Studios at 706 Union Ave. in Memphis, he recorded future blues greats B.B.King and Howlin' Wolf. He also discovered Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and, in the mid 1950s, Phillips and Elvis Presley changed the course of popular music forever.