***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle And Roll

 

 

 …she had been through it all before, six or seven times now at least,  been through the part about what happened to her when she heard the new music on the radio, some called it rhythm and blues, some called it rockabilly, some, more recently, had begun to call it rock and roll after some DJ from New York City called it that and it was starting to catch on as the way to describe the beat, the dancing, and the feeling of freedom just being around the scene. Her parents, her know-nothing parents, called it the “devil’s music” but what did they know, what could they know about what she felt, what she felt in certain private places when the beat got strong. How could they know never having been young, never having those feelings. She was not exactly sure why she felt that way, why she felt warm in what all the girls in the before school “lav” called their “sweet spot” whenever she heard the local radio station or the kids at Doc Drugstore on the juke-box endlessly playing Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle, and Roll or Warren Smith on Rock and Roll Ruby but she did. (Some of the rougher girls, the girls who smoked, drank and did “it,” so they said, called it other things which she did not find out until later, much later, guys called it too but she then still preferred the more modest “sweet spot.”) All she knew was that when the beat began to pick she would start swaying, maybe dancing by herself, maybe with a girlfriend and get that feeling like she was not in Olde Saco but New York City getting checked out by all the cute boys whose leers when she swayed told her they were interested in some of her.

Someone, Betty, she thought, a girl that she had grown up and gone to school with,  said it was just her coming into “her time,” although she did not know what to make of that idea since she had that same feeling before and after she came into her time. Got her “friend.”   Betty, or whoever it was who had said it said she did not mean that, that thing every girl had, but the time when everything was confused and when a teenager did, or did not, know which way to jump. Somebody on the news programs called it alienation but she was not sure what that meant. All she knew was that the old songs on the jukebox or radio, the ones that she loved to listen to the previous  year, Frank, Bing, Patti, Rosemary, did not make her feel that way anymore. Didn’t make her feel that she wanted to jump out of her skin.

Tommy from school might have had a better handle on it, have had a better sense of what turbulence was going on inside her when he told the whole class in Current Events that there were some new songs coming out of the radio, some stuff from down south, some negro sound from down in Memphis somewhere, some white hillbilly sound from around that same town, that he would listen to late at night on WJKA from Chicago when the air was just right. Sounds that made him want to jump right out of his skin. (She never dared to ask whether it made him feel warm in his “sweet spot” since she didn’t know much then about whether boys had sweet spots, or got warm).

When Tommy had said that, said it was about the music, she knew that she was not alone, not alone in feeling that a fresh breeze was coming over the land, although she, confused as she was would not have articulated it that way (that would come later). And so she asked Tommy about it after class, asked him about what it felt like for him to jump out of his skin when he heard the beat beginning. He explained to her his feelings, feelings that she said she shared with him and he smiled. She agreed to let him walk her home after school and they had talked for a couple of hours on her front porch before he left. This went on for a while since neither one was assertive enough to ask for a date for a long time. Then both of them saw the announcement in the newspaper for the next dance around town and one night called each other to see if, ah, they might go together. And so they had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down in Olde Saco and listen to some guys, a band, the Ready Rollers, play the new music. She wondered to herself (she could not speak of such things to Tommy) as she prepared for that night whether she would feel warm again in her sweet spot when they danced, she hoped so…         

 
… things were different now, different from a few months ago when he was all balled up and thought he was the only kid, guy or female, aged fifteen, who was confused, uncomprehending, misbegotten about how he felt, about his place in the universe and about how he felt so very sorry himself because he didn’t understand what was happening to him, and what spoke to him now that he was no longer a kid. He, Tommy Murphy, could hardly wait until the weekend, wait to hear the new sounds coming out of the south, rhythm and blues stuff, rockabilly stuff, that he kept hearing on his transistor radio up in his room on clear nights out of WJKA in Chicago, stuff called that because some hip DJ in New York City called it that was starting to catch on under the name rock and roll. (Funny he could get Chicago on good nights but not New York City to hear that DJ call out to all the cats to swing to the beat of rock and roll.)

He couldn’t get WJKA clear every week, damn, but when it did come in Tommy would start snapping his fingers to the beat, the swinging beat that “spoke” to him somehow. He could not explain it but it made him feel good when he was down, was all confused about life, okay, okay, about girls, school, and that getting ahead in the world that his parents, his mother especially kept harping on. Made him think that maybe he would be a musician and play that stuff, play and make all the girls wet. Yeah, he knew all about that part about girls, about how this rock and roll music was making them get warm, warm in all the right places according to George his older brother who knew all about girls. Had them hanging off of him even though he wasn’t a musician but just a hep cat. Make that new girl of his, Susie, warm too. He hoped.

Funny how he had met Susie, how they had met, or not really met but started out, started out in school of all places, in class. Jesus. He had noticed her before but before she was just part of that all balled up stuff he was feeling, although he had taken a few peeks at her and he thought she might have peeked back once but he was not sure. Then in Current Events one week it was his turn to make a presentation and he chose to talk about that radio station out in Chicago and about the sounds he heard that made him want to jump out of his skin. He couldn’t exactly explain why and blushed a bright red when the teacher, a cool guy, Mr. Merritt asked him point blank about why he felt that way except to say that it made him feel good, made him less angry, less confused. A couple of people in the class nodded and he thought Susie had too (although she later said no she hadn’t she just was thinking how brave he was to talk like that about his reactions to the music and while looking at him found out something she had not noticed before, he was cute).  

After class Susie had come up to him and practically begged him to tell her more about his feelings, about how the music made him feel,  because she said when she heard Big Joe Turner coming all snapping fingers on the radio on Shake, Rattle and Roll, she felt funny inside. (Of course nobody, not even Tommy, who was keen on such knowledge knew that Big Joe was a Negro then, Christ their parents would have fits if they knew that.)  Tommy knew what kind of funny Susie was talking about, her “sweet spot” funny but he knew, knew because George had told him, not to say that to girls. Not modest girls like Susie and maybe not to any girl if you wanted to get past first base with them. That conversation had started their thing and she had asked him to walk home with her so they could talk which they did until they got to her house and just stood there talking for a couple of hours before he left.

He had walked her home a few times and he found that she was easy to talk to but they both seemed to back off on talking about a first date. Then both of them saw an announcement in the newspaper for the next dance around town and one night called each other to see if, ah, they might go together. And so they had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down in Olde Saco and listen to some guys, a band, the Ready Rollers, play the new music. Tommy  didn’t know what would happen as he prepared that night to pick her up at her house but he hoped the music would calm him down and that he would get that funny feeling inside when they danced, he sure hoped so…