"At the Hop" is a rock and roll/doo-wop song written by Artie Singer, John Medora, and David White and originally released by Danny & the Juniors. The song was released in the fall of 1957, and reached number one on the US charts on January 6, 1958, thus becoming one of the top-selling singles of 1958. "At the Hop" also hit number one on the R&B Best Sellers list. Somewhat more surprisingly, the record reached #3 on the Music Vendor country charts.
repeat
repeat_one
shuffle
skip_previous
play_circle_filled
pause_circle_filled
skip_next
volume_up
repeat_one
shuffle
skip_previous
play_circle_filled
pause_circle_filled
skip_next
volume_up
The song became more prominent after it was performed by rock and roll revival act Sha Na Na at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and featured in the 1973 coming-of-age teen drama American Graffiti. Musically, it's notable for combining several of the most popular formulas in 1950s rock'n'roll, the twelve-bar blues, boogie-woogie piano and the 50s progression.
From The 100 Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Songs Ever by Avram Mednick:
Another big favorite of the guys in my building in the Bronx was "At The Hop", by Danny & the Juniors. Lee would sing lead, which meant he grabbed a bat or a broom or a stick or something to use as a microphone and he took the verses while the others sang back-up and chimed in with the chorus. It had all the doo-wop elements, four-part harmonies, ahs and oohs, oh babies, adolescent sensibilities, and inane lyrics. Nonetheless, a classic which defined the era as much as any '50's hit:
Mythology has it that Dick Clark advised the manager of Danny & the Juniors, a local Philadelphia doo-wop group, to change the lyric of a new song from "Do The Bop" to "At The Hop". True or not, the result was fabulous: number one on the charts for six weeks in the winter of 1958 and over a million copies sold. They followed quickly with "Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay", another huge hit, and then "Dottie", a lesser success. Other than records to capitalize on the twist and then the limbo, that was about it.
Danny & The Juniors - At The Hop
ReplyDeleteDance crazes being a pretty reliable way of drawing attention to your act, a Philadelphia doo-wop quartet called the Juvenairs sat down with their producer and a songwriter and came up with a concoction they knew would be their ticket to fame. The dance craze of the day was something called the Bop. Certain they were onto something, they demoed the tune, entitled "Do the Bop." At the behest of their label, the Juvenairs ditched their moniker—too evocative of "juvenile," as in delinquent. Danny and the Juniors shrewdly sought out the counsel of local rock & roll kingpin, the ubiquitous Dick Clark, and asked his opinion. He liked the tune, would dance to it if he could, and thought they had a potential winner on their hands, but —he cautioned them against using such a transient hook to build their name on. Once the Bop is dead, then what? Change it to "at the hop," he suggested. Bowing as they exited backward, they agreed. The release on Singular Records debuted late that autumn to less than stellar results. But Clark wasn't done with his benevolence just yet. In December, an act failed to appear for a taping of his Bandstand show; Danny and his boys being the proverbial kids down the block, they were quickly summoned, saving the day and their budding careers. "At the Hop," now picked up by a major label, went national and soon skyrocketed. Hitting number one, it remained there for five weeks, and what's more, became the best-selling record of the year. a sound-alike follow-up "Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay" would become their only other hit.
From: The 1950s' Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Rock & Roll Rebels, Cold War ...