#popculture55: B-Side Single “Sixteen Tons” Turns Coal Into Gold

The plight of Kentucky coal miners inspired a country music song that became a smash.

by Rich Watson 

Merle Travis was a Kentucky country singer known for his unique style of picking the guitar. In 1946 he wrote a song called “Sixteen Tons,” about slaving in a coal mine for little pay.

In 1955, Tennessee Ernie Ford remade the song.

It exploded.

#popculture55: “Auntie Mame,” Marion Tanner, and 1920s Greenwich Village

This book, which might have been about the author’s aunt, captured the spirit of a time and place in New York history.

by Rich Watson 

The 1955 novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis sold over two million copies in its first print run, spent five weeks atop the New York Times bestseller chart, and inspired plays, stage musicals and films. The character became one of the most iconic literary women of the twentieth century.

She was probably based on the author’s real-life aunt. The New York neighborhood she inhabited and its unique world, though, was and is all too real.

#popculture55: Cy Young Dies, His Name Becomes a Synonym For Pitching Excellence

When this fireball-throwing pitcher from the turn of the century died, he left behind a legacy that continues today.

by Rich Watson 

Big-league baseball had changed a lot when pitcher Cy Young died in 1955. Ballparks were smaller. Home runs were more of an attraction. And players of color had entered the game, in large numbers.

Pitching—throwing the ball fast enough, and with enough movement, to make the batter miss—remained key to winning games. No one in professional baseball did it better. And that’s why, the year after he died, baseball’s highest honor for pitching was named for him.