On March 14, 1958, the RIAA awards its first official Gold Record to Perry Como for his smash-hit single “Catch A Falling Star.”
For as long as most people have been buying popular music on records, tapes and compact discs, the records, tapes and disks they’ve bought have carried labels like “Certified Gold!” and “Double Platinum!!” Those labels have been in use since the early days of the rock-and-roll era when a young trade organization called the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) created and trademarked its precious metals-based scale for measuring music sales.
Those who’ve been conditioned to believe that rock and roll wiped out everything in its path on its way toward dominating late 20th-century pop music may be surprised to hear that Perry Como was such a viable commercial artist fully two years after the arrival of Elvis Presley. Como, a 50-something holdover in a cozy cardigan sweater, stood for everything that youthful rock and roll did not, after all. Where rock and roll promised sex, excitement and social change, Como’s act evoked much more staid pursuits. Yet “Catch A Falling Star” was not the only hit record for Perry Como in the early years of the rock-and-roll “revolution.” Songs like “Hot Diggity” and “Round And Round” more than held their own against more rebellious fare, and while they might not have been “cool,” they didn’t need to be in order to find an audience in late 1950s America.
