Art & Inspiration Car Show Music-What Are Your Top 5 Songs?

Please "No Sissy Oldies" Try some of these long forgotten tunes, Pedal Pushin' Papa, 24 Hrs, White Cliffs of Dover, It ain't the Meat it's the Motion, Gee, Whats the word Thunderbird, Any Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Jewels, or Spiders songs, Oh Ya Dina Washington's "Long Sliddin Thing" , Todd Rhodes Rocket 69. Some of my favorites.

 

The cars are the entertainment at a car show. If you go to a car show to be entertained by music then your priorities are messed up, go to a concert instead....

 

Most of the time the music at swedish shows are decent.
Its mostly good old rockabilly but sometimes a bit to loud.
My list of 5 favorite songs would look something like this.



Not pre 65 but still good.

 

#1 Live honky-tonk music
#2 Live Rockabilly music
#3 Live Outlaw Country Music
#4 Live Classic County Music
#5 Silence

 

I agree with your first paragraph. Now, who is going to tell the boss his OG Gangsta rap isn't going to cut it anymore? I happen to like it, my wife plays it all the time.

 

I like'em both.....

 

Surf

 

After numbers 1 through 4 I'd be begging for #5.

 

Sorry, I deleted my previous response-too harsh. Perhaps you and X38 are really curious.
There is a lot written about the history of rock and roll-you should look it up. Rock and roll didn't become DooWop, it was the other way around. And, rock-a-billy was big at the same time as moonshine and hot cars became romanticized. You could argue that rock and roll started in 1946 (That's All Right, Mama) or maybe Good Rockin' Tonight in 1948.

There's also an undeniable back gound from poor white, black, Jewish and Italian-American groups-R and R is truly an American sound. Too bad you all couldn't have come home from school and watched Bandstand live from Philadelphia in the 1950s with me.

 

Music is subjective and emotion driven, might as well argue about sports teams and the other usual taboo subjects...
book some may want to check out:

 

Thanks for turning me onto this tune. I've never heard of Bertha Tillman before.

 

That sounds like Death to me. Larry King said "I never learned anything by talking". "You could look it up." ( Casey Stengle)

 

n….n….oooo…n….n…eeee
nn..n…o….o….nn..n…e……
n.n.n…o….o….n.n.n…eee…
n..nn…o....o….n..nn….e……
n….n…oooo…n…..n….eeee

 

Well, I was gonna suggest that famous Ronnie Milsap song about the "Fifties" but it wasn't released till 1980s...........So then I thought the famous Johnny Cash song about building a Cadillac from parts would be appropriate, but it wasn't released until 1976. Dang, this is harder than I thought. I do enjoy the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" though.

 

Do you think folks arrive late so they miss the SSB like over in Great Britain where they leave early to miss God Save the Queen?

 

It seems that most people in this thread hate music so much that they cant even list 5 songs that they like to hear.

 

Why are you here, making statements like this, the page is about music at car shows, not the cars? The Music is 50's that can't be found at a concert, all the artists are dead. Unless the car show plays them they won't be heard. Cars and music are integral to the car scene.

 

i enjoy music. but when it’s overplayed at over volume and distorted it can get over annoying. i don’t mind it so much if it is background music. but most dj’s tend to crank it up way too much. i like the idea of the ‘radio broadcast’ at a meet. so we can play the music on our own car radio. (at a comfortable level!) and i prefer nat king cole, frank sinatra, dean martin and similar artists… and tijuana brass!

 

By Jimi Hendrix or Jose Feliciano? I can listen to both. Wait, both were recorded
after 1965. Never mind.

 

Just about every one of us with a sound system in our enthusiast car that will play recorded music has music that we carry with us often 50's or 60's stuff. Some even have enough stored on a SD card, stick or on our phones to go for several days on a road trip and never hear the same song twice. That isn't the issue. The issue is that while we like to hear the music most of us would rather be able to talk to each other anywhere on the grounds of an event except right in front of a live band stage in a normal voice level and not have to talk over loud music played over less than stellar speakers. I'm like a lot of others in that in the past 49 years of being a rod run participant I have never once decided to go to an event because a certain band was playing there, I have never gone to an event because a certain DJ who played oldies was there. I have parked clear to hell and gone out in the corner of the grounds to get away from the loud music over crappy speakers more than once.

 

I see that you list your occupation in your profile as "musician". This may indicate that you have a somewhat slanted view of the situation. This may also be the case with the OP, who is obviuosly a DJ. I would say that, if you ask for opinions on a subject, you should be open to the answers you get. If you have already formed a preconceived mindset, why did you ask at all ???

My view? A lot of the time the "background music" is far too loud and overpowering.

 

Music and car shows can coexist but the DJ needs to have some common
sense. He won't be able to reach everyone at the show, so why try? I've
seen people pull up lawn chairs to be near the DJ and wile those long
days away digging tunes. I used to go to shows to win trophies, see cars
and run into people I know. Once in a while a tune made my ears perk up,
but not often. I like music (if it's rock based and not ear splitting) and
trivia contests. Hey we need something to break up the boredom. A good
DJ could easily put together a well rounded show of instrumentals that
could cover the age range of the crowd and simply act as background
music.

Car shows don't have to feature car tunes, especially since most of
us have heard most of them repeatedly. These are artists that are good
to hear and none are offensive in any way:

Gene Pitney
Bobby Vee
Eddie Cochran
Beach Boys
Johnny Maestro & the Crests

I love surf, doo-wop, folk, jazz and especially blues but other
than some of the surf tunes, that line-up would have people
grumbling all day instead of enjoying themselves. So what then,
back to no music at all?

 

Hate to break it to some of y'all, but the big hit of Kansas City was done by Wilbert Harrison. I did find an obscure album cut by The Fat Man but I'm sure only a few here ever heard it. Not I. ;-)

 

Thanks for the thread.
At our events, I would write a playlist for my DJ ,trying to pull up great songs that were never played on the oldies stations..This way, when a guy would come up to me and say..huh? I want to hear Beach Boys, ..I'd say..Didn't you hear Wild Honey? ;-)
Moving on...Not suggesting you add this one, if not there already, but I'm sure, after watching this, no one will ever here it the same way again LOL

 

Yup...and don't EVER play HAMB era music while you're driving your vintage machine ;-)

 

You're not breaking any great news flash. Kansas City has been covered many
times and sometimes it's almost unrecognizable. It never hurts to stretch out
a bit. I'm sure Mr. Harrison would understand, he's basically got a lock on the
tune.

 

Anything Sonics of course!

 

I often listen to Bob Luman while driving the 40, because of its Mass heritage, hahaha

 

Dualing banjos

 

Personally, the music should be at a level thats enjoyable over a certain area of the site. I have always enjoyed the music at the streetrod nationals and don't think its overbearing............it adds a little ambiance to the event and helps to create a nostalgic mood. I enjoy it when I'm sitting and watching cars pass by. When I'm up and about, it kinda fades from my mind because I'm concentrating on the cars that I'm looking at. Most of us have gone thru stages in our life as to what music we enjoy. Personally I like older country music as well as the fifties stuff. There are plenty of entertainers that people enjoy and are pre 1990. I don't think most people who enjoy having background music really care that its fifties oriented, but rather that its just something they have enjoyed as they grew thru life. If you play songs that people liked earlier in their life, they really don't think about what year it was released. The important thing is that it helps remember not just their youth, but when they were younger.