***In The Time Of Your Parents'(Ouch, Maybe Grandparents') Folk Moment, Circa 1955

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Yes, Freddy had heard it, folk music or whatever his parents and the local DJ on Henry’s Folk Hour called it, you know the stuff that the pioneers way back in their covered wagon or somebody sang around the campfire to keep the Indians away, or to while away some mountain dew Saturday night nursing along the white lightning, or somebody’s idea of summer camp fun along with some make-do banjo or wooden guitar, wafting through the house, through the Jackson household as background music back in the early 1950s. He knew he had heard of folk music before when June Simmons ("June Bug" when they were younger back in Clintondale Elementary days and he had been, well, smitten with her, but that term no longer held sway now that they were high school juniors, and she had not been his June Bug for a while, now being Rick Roberts’ june bug) had asked him one day in class whether he had heard much folk music before Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind had hit town and had bowled all the hip kids, or those who wanted to be hip (or beat, depending on your crowd), over.

Yes, now that he thought of it, he remembered having more than one fight, well not really a fight, but an argument with either Frank Jackson, Dad, or Maria Jackson (nee Riley), Ma, whenever they turned over the local (and only local) radio station, WJDA, to listen to their latest, greatest hits of World War II, World War II, squares-ville cubed, even then when he was nothing but a music-hungry kid. You know that old time Frank Sinatra Stormy Weather, Harry James and the Orchestra’s I’ll Be Home, the Andrews Sisters doing some cutesy bugle boy thing, or the Inkspots harmonizing on I’ll Get By (which was at least passable). Yes, squaresville, cubed, no doubt. And all Freddie, and every other kid, even non-hip, non-beat kids, in Clintondale was crazy for was a rock and roll jail-break once in a while-Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Little Richard, Jerry Lee anybody under the age of a million who knew how to rock the house, how to be-bop, and if not that at least to bop-bop. He lost that fight, well, lost part of it. In the end, after hassling Frank and Maria endlessly for dough to go buy 45s, they finally, finally bought him a transistor radio with a year’s (they thought) supply of batteries down at the local (and only) Radio Shack.

But he had lost in the big event because if they weren’t listening to that old time pirate crooning World War II music they were swinging and swaying to such upbeat folk stuff provided by Henry the folk DJ on that same sole local station. Stuff, hold your nose stuff, like Lonnie Donegan goof trebling on Rock Island Line making a fool of what Lead Belly was trying to do with that song, trying bring some blood and sweat to that song, Vince Martin and friends, harmonizing on Cindy, Oh Cindy in the martini cocktail hour breezes, The Tarriers, and not Harry Belafonte who at least had some style , trying to be-bop the Banana Boat Song at the ball, Terry Gilkyson and friends making a pitch, a no-hit pitch, to Marianne, and Russ Hamilton blasting the girlfriend world to the first floor rafters withRainbow. Squaresville, cubed.

And you wonder why when rusty-throated Bob Dylan came like a hurricane onto the scene in the early 1960s with Blowin’ In The Wind andThe Times They Are A Changin’, angel-voiced Joan Baez high white note covered his With God On Our Side, or even gravelly-throated Dave Van Ronk covering House Of The Rising Sunor Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies Freddie and his crowd finally go that pardon they were fighting for all along. And, praise be, the end of folk musak. Oh yah, and now that Freddie had gone native and embraced the new wave folk message blowing in the teen alienated night Miss June Simmons seemed to be calling him up every once in a while asking whether he would like to go over to Harvard Square some night and listen to some folk stuff at one of the coffee-houses there.