I did not grow up in the Fifties, but being a child growing up in the SEVENTIES, it just as well may have been, what with the burgeoning 1950’s retro boom in full swing!
With movies like American Graffiti, The Lords of Flatbush and Grease on the movie screens and television shows like Happy Days and Sha-Na-Na in the homes, it’s no wonder my childhood memories seem to stretch back further than my birth!
Even the 1950s musical style was enjoying a sort of renaissance, and one outfit I particularly liked as a kid was Rita Moreno and the guys (Morgan Freeman, Luis Avalos, Jim Boyd and Skip Hinnant) as a cool vocal group doing a decidedly Fifties take on their songs, the incomparable Phyllis and The Pharaohs!
Looking at it now, I’m not sure how they intended to keep a kid’s interest in the skits, as they weren’t done for laughs per se, meaning, no juvenile humor or zany slapstick to keep the kids entertained- just sweet, catchy tunes… and guess what- that seemed to have done it- at least to THIS young musical connoisseur!
When I was a kid, my hands down favorite of the Phyllis and the Pharaohs songs was “Grease”, a tune I constantly (and irritatingly, at least to my friends and siblings within earshot) sang over and over again at various speeds and pitches, ESPECIALLY Morgan Freeman’s groovy bassman lines, but watching (and re-watching) the Electric Company as an adult, BY FAR my favorite song has to be “Is It Love?”…
Listening to it now, I can see why it was (back then) my least favorite of the bunch, as it was clearly the most “mainstream” and “normal” sounding of all of them, but SERIOUSLY FOLKS! Never mind that this was a little ditty simply written for a kids show to teach you grammar- this song was just BEAUTIFUL- with a playful Moreno lead vocal over AWESOME background harmonies by the guys, this is the song that REALLY takes me back to my childhood, and I’m inundated with those faux Fifties memories I told you about!
