Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Teen Dance Club Night-Sonny James’ Young
Love
They say for every boy and
girl,
There's just one love in this old world,
And I, I kn-ow, I, I, I've found mine.
The heavenly touch of your embrace,
Tells me no one will take your place,
A, A, A, A, ever in my heart.
Chorus:
Young love, first love,
Filled with true devotion,
Young love, our love,
We share with deep emotion.
Just one kiss from your sweet lips,
Will tell me that your love is real,
And I, I, I can fe-el that it's true.
We will vow to one another,
There will never be another,
Lo-ve for you, or for me.
Chorus:
Young love, first love,
Filled with true devotion,
Young love, our love,
We share with deep emotion.
There's just one love in this old world,
And I, I kn-ow, I, I, I've found mine.
The heavenly touch of your embrace,
Tells me no one will take your place,
A, A, A, A, ever in my heart.
Chorus:
Young love, first love,
Filled with true devotion,
Young love, our love,
We share with deep emotion.
Just one kiss from your sweet lips,
Will tell me that your love is real,
And I, I, I can fe-el that it's true.
We will vow to one another,
There will never be another,
Lo-ve for you, or for me.
Chorus:
Young love, first love,
Filled with true devotion,
Young love, our love,
We share with deep emotion.
I have always been intrigued by the
different little social gatherings that dominated our teen-age lives back in
the late 1950s and early 1960s. To a certain extent every generation of
teen-agers since they invented the category as enough kids in a family made it
to that age and had enough free time on their hands to form a distinct segment
of society has had some of the same institutions, you know school, sports,
special day parties and periodic dances stuff like that. Although I am not as familiar
with the inner workings of today’s millennial generation I do not believe that
I have heard much about an institution that was mainstay while I was growing
up, the teen dance club. The place where you were allowed to go and have fun
and of which parents approved which should have made us suspect, and would have
later but while we were dealing with trying to fit the fixture into our lives
we looked forward to its weekly charms.
The teen dance club memory just did not
suddenly come up and hit me out of the blue but was a result of some work I
have been doing of late that brought it to the fore. I, seemingly, have
endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations
of a classic rock series that goes under the general title Rock ‘n’ Roll
Will Never Die. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of
the lesser tunes, tunes that our local jukeboxes devoured many a
hard-earned father nickel and dime it still seems obvious that those
years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my
generation. The generation of ’68, the generation that slogged through the red
scare cold war night, survived and, for a minute, were ready to turn the world
upside down in the mid to late 1960s before the wave ebbed and we wound up
fighting something like a forty plus year rearguard action to maintain some semblance
of dignity, and who had just started to tune into rock music as some sort
of harbinger of things to come, that jailbreak previously
mentioned.
And we, we small-time punk (in the
old-fashioned sense of that word, not the derogatory sense), we hardly wet-behind-the-ears
elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who would
now claim otherwise, claiming some form of amnesia about when that beat hit
them square in the eyes, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed
in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, stuff parents did not have a
handle on and stuff we saw as our way out of the box that was being fit around
us. Kid’s stuff, sure, but still stuff like a friend of mine, my elementary
school best friend “wild man” Billie who I will talk about more some other
time, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he, all ten years
old of him, was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one?
Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that
it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out
night when Elvis (and us, us too) were young and hungry.
Well, this I know, boy and girl alike
tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could
put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will and we owe a
lot to whoever put that idea together especially for poor ass projects boys
with too little space as it was) to listen to music that from about day one, at
least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young
pious you’ll-never get-to-heaven-listening-to-that-devil's- music and you had
better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears.
Yeah right, Ma, Pa like Patti Page or Bob Crosby and The Bobcats (not Bing, not
the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway. I would come to know
that song more closely, too closely later but that is another story) were
supposed to satisfy our jail-break cravings.
And we had our own little world, or as
some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say,
our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11
mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted,
engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, of course) hanging from the lips,
Coke, big-sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And
about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, hold the onions I might get
lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. And, of course, the
soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing. Needless
to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including
hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in
the working-class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to
know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them).
But the crème de la crème to
beat all was the teen night club. Easy concept, and something that could only
have been thought up by someone in cahoots with our parents (or maybe it was
them alone, although could they have been that smart). Open a “ballroom” (in
reality some old VFW, Knight of Columbus, Elks, etc. hall that was either going
to waste or was ready for the demolition ball), bring in live music on Friday
and Saturday night with some rocking band, ours the Ready Rockers who did good
covers on all but Elvis since they lacked his implicit sexual energy (but not too rocking, not Elvis swiveling at
the hips to the gates of hell rocking, no way), serve the kids drinks…, oops,
sodas (Coke Pepsi, Grape and Orange Nehi, Hires Root Beer, etc.), and have them
out of there by midnight, no later, unscathed. All supervised, and make no
mistake these things were supervised, by something like the equivalent of the
elite troops of the 101st Airborne Rangers. Usually some maiden teachers
dragged in to volunteer and keep an eye, a first name eye on things, or some
refugees from the sporadic church-sponsored dances who some priest or minister
dragooned into volunteering with heaven held out as a reward but eagle-eyed for
any unauthorized hand-holding, dancing too close or off-hand kissing.
And we bought it, and bought into it
hard. And, if you had that set-up where you lived, you bought it too. And why?
Come on now, have you been paying attention? Girls, tons of girls (or boys, as
the case may be). See, even doubting Thomas-type parents gave their okay on
this one because of that elite troops of the 101st Airborne factor. Those
hardened surrogate parents with the beady eyes and tart tongues. So, some down
at the heels, tee-shirted, engineer- booted Jimmy or Johnny Speedo from the wrong
side of the tracks, all boozed up and ready to “hot rod” with that ‘boss”’57
Chevy that he just painted to spec, was no going to blow into the joint and
carry Mary Lou or Peggy Sue away, never to be seen again. No way. That stuff
happened, sure, but that was on the side. This is not what drove that scene for
the few years while we were still getting wise to the ways of the world. The
girls (and guys) were plentiful and friendly in that guarded, backed up by
101st Airborne way (damn it). And we had our …sodas (I won’t list the brands
again, okay). But, and know this true, we blasted on the music. The music that
was on the compilations I have reviewed, no question. And I will tell you some
of the stick outs that made my pray for dance card:
Save The Last Dance
For Me, The Drifters (oh, sweet baby, that I
have had my eye on all night, please, please, James Brown, please save that
last one for me, and on too few occasions she did, or her kindred did later
when I had other roving eyes so I came out about even); Only The Lonely,
Roy Orbison (for some reason the girls loved Ready Rockers’ covers of this one,
especially one night, not a teen club night but a night the Rockers were
playing a church hall teen dance Friday night when a certain she planted a big
kiss on my face, well, on my lips after I sang, really more like
lip-synched that one along with the
band. Unfortunately she soon had a boyfriend and I was strictly past history
but the memory of that kiss lasted lots longer); Alley Oop, The
Hollywood Argyles (a good goofy song to break up the sexual tension that always
filled the air, early and late, at these things as the mating ritual worked its
mysterious ways and despite prying prudent eyes hand-holding, dancing too close
and off-hand kissing got done, got done much more than our parents would ever
know); Handy Man, Jimmy Jones( a personal favorite which dove-tailed
into my “style” then, as I kept telling
every girl, and maybe a few guys as well just to keep them away from the ones I
was seriously eyeing, that I was that very handy man that those
self-same gals had been waiting, waiting up on those lonely weekend nights
for. Egad! Did I really use that line?); Stay, Maurice Williams and The
Zodiacs (nice harmonics and good feeling, and excellent for dancing too close
on); New Orleans, Joe Jones (great dance number as the twist and other
exotic dances started to break into the early 1960s consciousness and great too
because awkward self-conscious dancers like me could “fake it” with juke moves
since we were basically dancing by ourselves on the fast ones); and, Let The
Little Girl Dance, Billy Bland (yes, let her dance, hesitant, saying no at
first mother, please, please, no I will not invoke James Brown on this one,
please). Oh yeah, and Sonny James’ Young
Love that got the girls all juiced and happy to dance close even with guys
like me with sweaty hands and unsure feet.
So you can see where the combination of
the dance club, the companionship, and that be-bop rock beat that we could not
get enough of would carry us along for a while. Naturally the thing could not
go on forever, our forever, once we got older, once we tasted cigarettes and
liquor (okay, okay beer) and once parents took fright when too many down at the
heels, tee-shirted, engineer- booted Jimmy or Johnny Speedos from the wrong
side of the tracks, all boozed up and ready to “hot rod” with that ‘boss”’57
Chevy that they just painted to spec, started blowing into the joint to carry
Mary Lou or Peggy Sue away, carry them away gladly never to be seen again.
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