The cover of this single-disc compilation shows three Nat King Coles loitering side by side in a parking garage in various dapper poses: one looking just past his shoulder, a yellow overcoat on his arm; the center with hat in hand a la Sinatra; the third walking — model perfect, sans hat or coat — [...]

The mention of Glen Campbell is likely to evoke either a shrug or a snicker. For those under 20, he doesn’t exist, and to 40-year-olds, he endures largely as a caricature: clad in a white leisure suit, waving his good-guy white hat from atop a horse on the Rhinestone Cowboy album cover. Like most views [...]

About halfway through a 1959 set at Jordan Hall in Boston, Merle Travis introduces his best-known composition, “Sixteen Tons”: “I would love to impose on you to do a little tune that I made up way back yonder when the world was new — before Elvis developed his pelvis.” Only a dozen years had passed [...]

Thirty-five years ago, pop music was simply that — singles that had broken out to a mass audience. To call music “pop” didn’t designate a genre; a pop hit was proof that a record’s popularity had transcended genres. It was everybody’s favorite song. And pop radio was the result — AM stations playing Henry Mancini [...]