Any Major Hits From 1947
We had our fix of Any Major Christmas last week, with the multi-lingual festive mix. Today, there’s a chance to get a nice Christmas present for your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, friend, patient etc over 80, who may enjoy a nostalgia trip with hits from 1947 — 75 years ago. Of course, younger people and you might enjoy it, too. I’m enjoying this compilation tremendously.
1947 was just a short seven years before rock & roll exploded on the scene. In some of the featured songs, the rumblings of the nascent genre can be heard, like distant thunder before the lightning. Those tracks must have sounded quite startling 75 years ago.
Other songs are, of course, of their time. But, hell, you can feel how the jumpin’ boogie of the opening songs must have electrified the USA’s youngsters, and horrified their elders. The biggest juke box star of 1947 was Louis Jordan, a black musician to whose music white kids danced, much as their nieces and nephews would dance to Little Richard and Chuck Berry a decade later.
So this mix isn’t necessarily representative of the hits of 1947, though all were US hits. In compiling this collection, I tried to imagine what music I might have listened to, had I been a youngster in 1947 — and filtered out the many boring crooning ballads by tenors who come in only halfway slow big band tootlings. I certainly would have enjoyed the humour in several of these songs; Tex Williams’ Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! especially still makes me laugh. And if the squares thought that libertine attitudes arrived only with rock & roll, let them hear Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends talk about S-E-X.
I don’t know if I would have been able to swerve between genres; I’d be quite interested to know if such boundaries existed, or whether it was natural to hear jump one minute and country the next. For our purposes, let’s assume that it was possible.
This mix is a good companion piece to the Any Major Hits from 1944 collection I posted three years ago. And if you dig your music in black & white, there’s more, including several Christmas mixes. There’s
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major Doo Wop X-Mas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major ABCs: 1950s
New York in Black & White
Germany’s Hit Parade 1930-37
Germany’s Hit Parade 1938-45
Saved Vol. 1
Saved Vol. 4
And, of course, there are more recent Any Major Hits mixes: 1961, 1970, 1971, 1972 Vol. 1 and 1972 Vol. 2.

Beach-goers in California in December 1947.
As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-rationed covers. The text above is included in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.
And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
1. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five – Let The Good Times Roll
2. The Five Blazes – Chicago Boogie
3. Bull Moose Jackson and His Buffalo Bearcats – I Love You, Yes I Do
4. Ella Fitzgerald & Delta Rhythm Boys – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
5. Margaret Whiting – Old Devil Moon
6. Annie Laurie with Paul Gayten and His Trio – Since I Fell For You
7. Frank Sinatra – I Believe
8. Dorothy Shay – Feudin’ And Fightin’
9. Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)
10. Merle Travis – So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
11. Hank Williams – Move It On Over
12. Peggy Lee – It’s A Good Day
13. The Mills Brothers – Across The Alley From The Alamo
14. Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers – Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
15. Hoagy Carmichael – Old Buttermilk Sky
16. Tony Pastor and His Orchestra – The Lady From 29 Palms
17. The Andrews Sisters – Near You
18. Art Lund – And Mimi
19. Dinah Shore – How Soon (Will I Be Seeing You)
20. Buddy Clark – Peg O’ My Heart
21. Savannah Churchill and The Sentimentalists – I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)
22. King Cole Trio – Meet Me At No Special Place (And I’ll Be There At No Particular Time)
23. Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends – Snatch And Grab It
24. The Ink Spots – Ask Anyone Who Knows
25. Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra – Hawk’s Boogie
26. Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra – Babalu’
27. Count Basie and His Orchestra – Open The Door, Richard!
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