This space is dedicated to stories, mainly about Billie from “the projects” elementary school days and Frankie from the later old working class neighborhood high school days but a few others as well. And of growing up in the time of the red scare, Cold War, be-bop jazz, beat poetry, rock ‘n’ roll, hippie break-outs of the 1950s and early 1960s in America. My remembrances, and yours as well.
Search This Blog
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Frankie Riley’s Theory- With Jody Reynolds' “Endless Sleep” In Mind –Take Two
JODY REYNOLDS "Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.
[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
**********
I want the iPhone number and e-mail address of the person who wrote this one, wrote these death-dealing lyrics above. Of course I would not touch a hair on the head of well-side-burned pretty boy Jody Reynolds since I may need to use his song sometime myself so I will reserve my fury for Delores Nance for leading Jody astray on this one. As far as getting her iPhone number and e-mail, well, okay since this song goes back a way I will give some choices just to show I am not a guy hung on being very, very up-to-date with the latest communications technology and don’t realize that not everybody has made their mark on the information superhighway. Hell I won’t be particular and will be old-fashioned enough to just request the landline number and street address of Ms. Nance. She, in any case should be made to run the gauntlet, or put on a lonely desert isle, or, and this would be real justice in this case made to follow Socrates, who also corrupted the morals of the youth of his time. Yeah, the more I think about the matter before us that latter choice seems most fitting.
Why all the hubbub? Why am I insisting on deep Socratic measures for some poor Tin Pan Alley denizen? Well read the heart-breaking teen angst lyrics printed above for your perusal on Endless Sleep. Old Jesse Lee, let’s call him that, although as in most cases with these 1950s teen lyrics, frustratingly, the parties are not named except things like Johnny Angel, teen angel, earth angel, be-bopper, him, her, she, he, they, etc. like giving names to angry anguished teens in the red scare cold war night was akin to aiding and abetting the Russkies or was some grave matter of kinky national security concerns, and his honey have had a spat, of unnamed origin so we never get to figure out who had justice on his or her side. Okay, so maybe it was a bigger one than usual but in the whole wide-world historic meaning of things still just a spat. Laura, high-strung Laura, again name made up although not the angst to give some personality to this sketch since we revealed Lee’s name and nothing much has happened to him as a result. Judging from her reaction thought whatever irked her was a world-historic dispute, and she just flat-out flipped out. Nothing new to that phenomenon as teenagers have been flipping out since they invented teenagers about a century maybe more ago although they have not always called what said teenagers did “flipping out.” And, as teenagers often will do in a moment of overreaction to some slight, Laura had gone down to the seaside to end it all. Throw her young body, whether it was shapely or not we never find out either but figure with a name like Laura she is, well, “hot,” high school hot or Jesse Lee and his big ass ’57 Chevy would have no truck with her to begin with, into the sea. Lee in desperation, once he heard from some inevitably unnamed third party, I say apparently unnamed although maybe it was from some more reliable source like Susie Darling, Laura’s best friend since elementary school, what Laura had done, frantically tried to find her out in the deep, dark, wave-splashed night. All the while the churning “sea” is relentlessly, almost sexually cone hither calling out for him to join her. Jesus what a scene.
And that last part, the part where the sea, or Laura now acting as the ocean’s agent, practically begs for a joint teen suicide pact is where every right thinking person, and not just enraged parents either, should, or should have, put his or her foot down and gone after the lyricist’s scalp, to speak nothing of the singer of such woe begotten lines (although like I say not me, not me just in case that she I am eying right now might have a crush on Jody, or actually like such deathly lyrics). Yeah, I know old Jesse Lee saved his honey from the endless sleep but still we cannot have this stuff filling the ears of impressionable teen-agers. Right?
Of course, from what I heard third-hand from a friend of a friend who claims to have scoped out what really happened, this quarrel that old Lee speaks of, and that Laura went ballistic over, was about whether they were going to go bowling with Lee’s guy friends and their girls down at old Jack Slack’s bowling alleys or whatever the name of the bowling alleys were in there town to roll a few strings Saturday or to the drive-in theater for the latest Elvis movie. (I have used Jack Slack’s bowling establishment here since that is where me and my corner boys hung out, hung out one night discussing the meaning of all of the acts in this very song so Jack Slack’s will do nicely to fill in a name for what ailed our beloved couple.) Jesse Lee, usually a mild-mannered kid despite his corner boy reputation and some things said about his style around town, reared up at that thought of going to another bogus Elvis film featuring him, the king. The king riding around in a big old car, some pink Caddy, dressed in some gaudy Hawaiian shirt and white beach pants attire, singing some lamo syrupy songs that in his Sun Records days when he was young and hungry and talking about one night of sin and jailbreak-out stuff he would have thrown out the studio door, having plenty of dough in his pocket and plenty of luscious young girls ready and waiting to help him spent that dough. Of such disputes the battle of the sexes abound, and occasionally other battles, war battles as well. However, after hearing that take on the dispute, which sounds reasonable to me, I think old Jesse Lee had much the best of it. And, also off of that same take I am not altogether sure I would have been all that frantic to go down to the seaside looking for dear, sweet Laura. Just kidding.
Okay, okay I know what everybody is going to say, or at least think now. What has this guy not at least given Laura her say, her day in court to explain he dramatic behavior. This information was harder to glean because I had to get it from a friend of Laura’s friend Susie Darling. Susie sworn on a stack of seven bibles or something that she would not reveal to anyone Laura’s motivation under penalty of death. Of course in the ethos of the times and age that swearing unto death business just meant telling only one other person, a girl person in this case, come Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talkfest. So according to this hearsay what Laura was miffed about was that Jesse Lee had not been paying enough attention to her of late, had been almost every night out with his corner boys doing wheelers with his car or whatever guys do when their honeys are not on board. So the drive-in movie idea was to get Jesse Lee to pay more serious attention to her was not about the movie, not about Elvis although Laura, like every other girl in America had her dreams about how she could tame Elvis in a flash if she could just get close to him, but about “doing the do.” See Laura a few weeks before had let Jesse Lee have his way with her but since then-no go. And she wanted to do it. But here is the kicker the place where Laura went into the sea is exactly the place where they had first made love. Jesus.
But that brings something up, something that I am not kidding about. Now I love the sea more than a little having grown up so near it that I could roll down a hill and take a splash. Love the sea and its tranquility, of the effect that those waves, splashing waves too, have on my temperament. But I also know about the power of the sea, about old Uncle Neptune’s capacity to do some very bad things to anyone, anything, any object that gets in his way. From old double-high storm-tossed seawalls that crumble at the charging sea’s touch to rain-soaked, mast-toppled boats lost down under in the briny deep whose only sin was to stir up the waves. And Laura should have too, should have known on that dark rainy night the power of the sea. So I am really ticked off, yes, ticked off, that Laura should tempt the fates, and Lee’s fate, by pulling a bone-head water's edge stunt like that.
The whole scenario once I thought about it reminded me, although I offer this observation in contrast, of the time that old flame, old hitchhike road searching for the blue-pink great American West night flame Angelica, old Indiana-bred, Mid-American naïve Angelica, who got so excited the first time she saw the Pacific Ocean, out there near Point Magoo in California never having seen the ocean before, leaped right in and was almost carried away by a sudden riptide. It took all I had, all I knew or remembered about how to ride out a riptide to pull her out. To save her from the briny deep. And that Angelica error was out of sheer ignorance. Laura had no excuse. When you look at it that way, and as much as I personally do no care a fig about bowling, would it really have been that bad to go bowl a couple of strings. Such are the ways of teen angst.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Out In The Church Hall Dance Night- With Danny and the Juniors At The Hop In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!
Well, you can rock it you can roll it You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop When the record starts spinnin' You chalypso* when you chicken at the hop Do the dance sensation that is sweepin' the nation at the hop
Ah, let's go to the hop Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop Come on, let's go to the hop
Well, you can swing it you can groove it You can really start to move it at the hop Where the jockey is the smoothest And the music is the coolest at the hop All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop Let's go!
Ah, let's go to the hop Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop Come on, let's go to the hop Let's go!
[Instrumental Interlude]
Well, you can rock it you can roll it You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop When the record starts spinnin' You chalypso* when you chicken at the hop Do the dance sensation that is sweepin' the nation at the hop
Well, you can swing it you can groove it You can really start to move it at the hop Where the jockey is the smoothest And the music is the coolest at the hop All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop Let's go!
Ah, let's go to the hop Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop (oh baby) Let's go to the hop Come on, let's go to the hop Let's go!
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!
*********
Funny how memory draws you in, draws you in tight and hard once you focus in just a little. Take this combination. Recently I have been involved in writing some little sketches for my North Adamsville High School reunion Class of 1964 website. You know never before revealed stuff (and maybe should not be revealed now except I believe the statute of limitations has run out on most offenses) about what went on in the class rooms when some ill-advised teacher turned his or her on the class; the inevitable tales of triumph and heartbreak as told in the boys’ or girls’ Monday morning before school talkfest about what did, or did not, go on over the weekend with Susie or Billy; the heart-rending saga of being dateless for the senior prom; the heroics and devastating defeats of various sports teams especially the goliaths of the gridiron every leaf-turning autumn; the mysteries of learning about sex (I thought this might get your attention, innocent exploration or not) in the chaste day time down at the summer-side beach, or late at night after not watching the double feature at the outdoor drive-in movies (look it up on the Internet that there was such a way to watch them); date night devouring some hardened hamburgers complete with fries and Coke at the local all-know drive-in restaurant (ditto look up that too); older and car-addled taking the victory spoils after some after midnight “chicken run”; spending “quality time” watching breathlessly the “submarine races” (ask somebody from North Adamsville about that); and, just hanging out with your corner boys at Doc’s Drugstore throwing dimes and quarters in the jukebox to while the night away. Yeah, strictly 1960s memory stuff.
Put those memory flashes together with my, seemingly, endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing a commercial classic rock and roll series that goes under the general title Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die. I noted in one review and it bears repeating here while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes 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, who had just started to tune into music. Those two memory-inducing events coming together got me thinking even further back than high school, back to elementary school down at Adamsville South where music and sex (innocent, chaste variety) came together at the record hop (alternatively called the sock hop if in your locale the young girls wore bobby sox rather than nylons to these things. Nylons being one of the sure signs that you were a young women and not merely some stick girl so the distinction was not unimportant).
See we, we small-time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word meaning not knowledgeable, not the malicious sense, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off to the radio or when we scurried home right after school to watch American Bandstand when that program came on in late afternoon. And we hungry to be “hip” (although not knowing that word, not knowing that out in the adult world guys, guys mostly, guys in places like North Beach in Frisco town or the Village in New Jack City were creating the ethos of hipness which we would half-inherit later as latent late term “beats”) wanted to emulate those swaying, be-bopping television boys and girls if not on the beauties of that medium then with some Friday or Saturday night hop in the school gym or in some church basement complete with some cranky record player playing our songs, our generation-dividing songs (dividing us for the prison of our parents music heard endlessly, too endlessly if there is such a concept).
Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billy who I will talk about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face, to the girls that he was Elvis’ long lost son. My friend’s twelve to Elvis’s maybe twenty. 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.
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) 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 music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway). And the local hop put paid to that notion, taking the private music of our bedroom dreams and placing us, for good or evil, out on the dance floor to be wall-flower or “hip” (remember we did not know that term then, okay.)
But can you blame me, or us, for our jail-break visions and our clandestine subterranean life-transistor radio dreams of lots of girls (or boys as the case may be), lots of cars, and lots of money if we could just get out from under that parental noise. Now getting back to that rock and roll series I told you that I had been reviewing. The series had many yearly compilations but as if to prove my point beyond discussion the year 1956 has two, do you hear me, two CDs to deal with that proposition that I mentioned above. And neither one includes Elvis, Jerry Lee, Bo Diddley or some other stuff that I might have included so you know we are in the golden age when there is that much good non- Hall of Fame stuff around.
Needless to say Larry Larkin, my old corner boy from North Adamsville home town day Phil Larkin’s cousin, remained a step ahead of everybody around Ashmont Street in the Dorchester section of Boston during those days, those days when that seismic change occurred in our youthful listening habits. (And Larry would transfer whatever cultural knowledge he had picked up on those Dorchester mean streets, mostly useful except more often than not wrong on the do’s and don’ts of sex, to Phil, known as “Foul-Mouth” Phil among the corner boy brethren who would pass it on to us). Everybody, everything had to change, had to take notice of the break-out, if only to cut off the jailbreak at the pass. And that is where Larry Larkin’s step ahead of everybody else came into play, everybody else who counted then, and that was mainly the junior corner boys who hung around in front of Kelly’s Variety Store on Adams Street where generations, at least two by that time and more since, of elementary school boys learned the corner life, for good or evil, mostly evil as a roster of those who wound up in the various county and state prisons would testify to.
And not just any elementary school corner boys but parochial school boys. That is what was significant about my bringing attention to the environs of the Dorchester section of Boston, a section loaded down with every kind of ethnic Catholic, recent immigrant or life-time denizen of the triple decker night, and where it seemed there was a Catholic church on every corner (and there almost was, and to prove the point Dorchester boys, girls too lately, identified themselves after being from “Dot” identified themselves by what parish they belonged to, say Saint Brendan’s on Main Street, Saint Gregory on Dorchester Avenue, Saint Anne’s on Neponset Avenue and so on, a phenomenon you would not notice in say Revere or Chelsea).
If there seemed to be a church on every corner there was sure to be a bevy, if that is the way they are gathered, of parish priests ready to guide the youth in the ways of the church, including at Saint Brendan’s one Lawrence Joseph Larkin. And one of the things that had upset that 1950s era bevy of priests at that parish (and at other parishes and had caused concern in other religious groupings as well) was the effect that the new music, rock and roll, in corrupting the morals of the youth. Was making them zombies listening on those transistor radios that seemed to be attached to their ears to the exclusion of all else. Was making them do lewd, yes, lewd, moves while they were dancing (and not even dancing arm and arm with some girl but kind of free-form about three feet away from each other as if the space between was some sacred land to be worshiped but not defiled, blasphemy, pure blasphemy) at what they called record hops, or sock hops, or some such thing on Friday nights at the public school Eliot School over on Ashmont Street. Was making them a little snarly when dealing with adults a snarl they learned from the television or movies with guys named Elvis or James leading them on, begging them to follow them in the great break-out. Worse, worse of all was the danger of dangers, sex, which bad as the fast dancing was when they did an occasion slow dance was very improper, the guys hands drifting down to the girl’s ass and she not even swatting it away. So yes there was something like a panic about to erupt.
And formerly pious altar boy Larry Larkin was leading the charge, was the first to wear those damn longer sideburns like he was some Civil War general. To constantly rake his hair with that always back pocket comb to look like Elvis’ pompadour style (strangely Larry was a dead-eye blue-eyed blonde kid, so go figure). He had introduced the new flaky dance moves like the Watushi learned from eternal afternoon rush home from school American Bandstand, fromhis older brothers or from “Foul-Mouth” Phil’s latest intelligence from his older brothers , that had priests and parents alike on fire, had been the villain who had introduced the move of the boy putting his hand almost to a girl’s ass when slow dancing (the girls learned to not swat them away on their own so don’t blame Larry for that one), and a mass of other sins, mortal and venial. All learned, according to the priests, at that damn (although they did not use that word publicly) secular school over on Ashmont Street. The priests and a few like-minded parents were determined after a collective meeting of the minds among themselves to put a stop to this once and for all.
Their strategy was simplicity itself, with few moving parts to complicate things-“if you can’t fight them, join them.” So come the first Friday night in November of the year of our Lord 1957 Saint Brendan’s Parish used its adjacent auditorium for its first sock hop. Worse, worse for Larry, hell, worse for everybody who learned anything at all from him, and liked it, boy or girl, the priests had ordered from their Sunday pulpits that every parent with teenagers was to send their charges to the hop under penalty, of I don’t know what, but under penalty. And thus the long chagrin death march faces come that first hop night.
Obviously there were to be certain, ah, restrictions, enforced by the chaperones inevitable at such gatherings of the young, those chaperones being the younger priests of the parish who were allegedly closer to the kids, had a clue to what was going on, or else dour older boys and girls, probably headed to the seminaries and convents themselves, or those who were sucking up to the priests for sin brownie point. Banned: no lipstick or short dresses (short being anything above the ankle practically in those days) on girls and ties and jackets for boys and no slick stuff on their hair. Worse, worst of all no grabbing ass on the slow dances (not put that way but the reader will get the picture). Yes, boring made more so by the selection of records that were something out of their parents’ vault with nothing faster than some Patti Page number yakking about old Cape Cod or Marty Robbins crooning about white carnations cranking out on the old record player that had been donated by Smiling Jack’s Record Store over on the Boulevard. (Jack O’Malley, proprietor of the shop, a notorious drunk and skirt-chaser in his off hours obviously in desperate need of indulgences, no question).
Enter Larry Larkin who had been dragged to the front door of the auditorium by his parents and who were duly recognized by Father Joyce, the young priest put in charge of the operation by Monsignor Lally (although Larry had not been too hard dragged since Maggie Kelly was to be there, yes, he had it bad for her). Now everybody knew that Phil had a “boss” record collection either bought from his earnings as a caddie over at the golf course on weekends and in the summer or “clipped” from Smiling Jack’s (and if the reader needs to know what “clipped” meant well we will just leave it at Larry did not pay for them). They also knew he has a pretty good record player with an amplifier that his parents had bought for him the Christmas before last. None of that stuff some of which had used by Loopy Lenny the DJ over at the Eliot School sock hops would be used this evening and some of the kids commented on the fact that Larry came record empty-handed. Yes all the signs where there for a boring evening.
But here is where fate took a turn on a dime, or maybe not fate so much as the fact that the new breeze coming through the teenage land was gathering some fierce strength in aid of the jail-break many like Larry knew was coming, had to come. About half way through the first part of the dance when more kids were milling around than dancing, talking in boy-girl segregated corners, when even the wallflowers were getting restless and threatening to dance, and they never danced but just hung to their collective walls, definitely before the intermission, all of a sudden from “heaven” it seemed came blaring out Danny and the Juniors At The Hop and the formerly downbeat scene started jumping with kids dancing up a storm (including a few former wallflowers who too must have sensed a portent in the air). The priests bewildered by where the music was coming from tried to investigate while Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock came on with the kids dancing fast like crazy (including some off-hand grabbing ass usually reserved for slow dances). Irate and failing to find the source of the “devil’s music” Father Joyce, red-faced (whether because he knew that the closed dance doomed him among the kids or because he was going to on the carpet with the Monsignor and probably consigned to do the 6:00 AM weekday masses) declared the dance over. Done. And that was the last time Saint Brendan’s Parish sponsored a sock hop for their tender youth charges.
Oh, yes, how does Larry Larkin last seen among the milling around crowd on the dance floor fit into this whole mix. Simple, he had hired Jimmy Jenkin, a non-Catholic ace tech guy older friend of his brother, Jack, and therefore not subject to the fire and brimstone of hell for his heathen actions, to jerry-rig Larry’s sound system in a room with an electric outlet near up near the rafters of the auditorium, a place that the good priests were probably totally unaware of. Money well spent and a kudo to Jimmy. And Larry, well, if you want to see Larry (and “Foul-Mouth” Phil, now a regular weekly visitor at his cousin’s, ready to bring the new dispensation across the river to Adamsville) then show up some Friday night at the Eliot School where he will be dancing to the latest tunes with Maggie Kelly in tow.
Enough said.
Hey, here are some stick-outs records from Larry’s collection used by Loopy Lenny at the Eliot School that every decent hopping, be-bopping record hop (or sock hop, okay) spun out of pure gold:
Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins (Elvis covered it and made millions but old Carl had a better old rockabilly back beat on his version); In The Still Of The Night, The Five Satins (a doo wop classic that I am humming right this minute, sha dot do be doo, sha dot do be doo or something like that spelling, okay); Eddie, My Love, The Teen Queens (incredible harmony, doo wop back-up, and, and “oh Eddie, please don’t make me wait too long” as part of the lyrics, Whoa!); Roll Over Beethoven, Chuck Berry ( a deservedly early break-out rock anthem. Hell I thought it was a big deal just to trash my parents’ Patti Page old Chuck went after the big boys like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.); Be-Bop-a-Lula, Gene Vincent (the guy was kind of a one hit wonder but Christ what a one hit, "yah, she’s my baby now"); Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino (that old smooth piano riffing away); Rip It Up, Little Richard (he/she wild man Richard rips it up); Young Love, Sonny James ( dreamy stuff that those giggling girls at school loved, and so you "loved" too); Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (for a minute the king be-bop, doo wop teenage angel boy. Everybody wanted to be the doo wop king or queen, including my friend Billy); See You Later, Alligator, Bill Haley and The Comets (yah, these “old guys” could rock, especially that sax man. Think about the expression people still use “see you later alligator”); and Since I Met You Baby, Ivory Joe Hunter (every dance pray, every last dance pray, oh my god, let them play Ivory Joe at the end so I can dance close with that certain she I have been eyeing all night).
Note: I have mentioned previously the excellent album cover art that accompanied each classic rock series compilation. Not only do they almost automatically evoke long ago memories of red hot youth, and those dreams, those steamy dance night dreams too, but has supplied this writer with more than one idea for a commentary. One of the 1956 compilation album covers is in that same vein. The cover shows what looks like a local cover band from the 1950s getting ready to perform at the local high school dance, not a record hop but if they are worth anything at all they will play the songs us po’ boys were listening to on the transistor radio or via that cranky record player lent by somebody for the occasion at the hop. Although the guys, especially the lead vocalist, look a little skittish they know they have to make a good showing because this is their small-time chance at the big time. Besides there are about six thousand other guys hanging around in their fathers’ garages ready and willing to step up if the Danny and the Bluenotes fall flat. If they don’t make that big splash hit like Danny and the Juniors did with At The Hop, the first song that got me jumping, jack they are done for.
This live band idea was actually something of a treat because, from what I personally recall, many times these school dance things survived on loud record playing dee-jay chatter, thus the term “record hop.” From the look of it the school auditorium is the locale (although ours were inevitably held in the school gym), complete with the obligatory crepe, other temporary school-spirit related ornaments and a mesmerized girl band groupie to give the joint a festive appearance.
More importantly, as I said before, at least for the band, as they are warming up for the night’s work, is that they have to make their mark here (and at other such venues) and start to get a following if they want to avoid another dreaded fate of rock life. Yes, the dreaded fate of most bands that don’t break out of the old neighborhood, the fate of having to some years down the road play at some of the students they are performing for that night children’s birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings and the like. That thought should be enough to keep these guys working until late in the night, jamming the night away, disturbing some old fogy Frank Sinatra fans in the neighborhood, perfecting those covers of Roll Over Beethoven, Rip It Up, Rock Around The Clock and Jailhouse Rock. Go to it boys, buy the ticket and ride the furies.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Teen Dance Club Night-Sonny James’ Young Love
Sketches From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
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.
********
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.
Will The Real James Bond Stand Up Part V-Pierce Brosnan’s “Die Another Day” (2002)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By former Associate Film Critic Alden Riley
Die Another Day, starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry 2002
I have been warned off, warned off complaining about the loss of my hard-fought for title of Associate Film Critic which was leading me with Sandy Salmon’s retirement to being the Senior Film Critic pretty soon. As anybody who has been paying attention to this space now knows there has been a just completed internal power struggle and the creation of a new regime under the leadership of site manager Greg Green. Greg, although fobbing off the decision officially on his rubber-stamp Editorial Board, has abolished titles under some obscure democratic theory that every writer, young or old, male or female, gay or straight, white or not, should just write under their God-given names (his term) and that alone.
That is one thing I have been warned off of talking about in this by-line. The other the current campaign to obliterate the name and the work of the former site manager Allan Jackson in the name of “leaving the past behind,” “moving on” or whatever the day’s excuse for creating non-persons is like this was the old-time Soviet Union and Allan, yes, Allan Jackson, was like his buddy, like some latter day Leon Trotsky knocked off his pedestal by an avenging angel Stalin (and his minions). I said in my last review, my review of beautiful James Bond worthy Pierce Brosnan’s The World Is Not Enough that while the amnesty Sam Lowell negotiated for pieces in the pipeline prior to the agreement lasted I would use this space as a bully pulpit to cry shame on those who want to liquidate the memory of Allan Jackson. (I have also mentioned that due to some crazy things Allan did to me, made me do, last year out of hubris there was no love lost when he went into exile rumored to be out in Utah somewhere after the purge so this is bigger than a personal issue, a lot bigger.)
Here’s the funny part, not laughter funny either I was not warmed off by Greg Green. Greg wouldn’t do that he would have one of his lackeys on the Ed Board like Lenny Lynch or “Timid” Timmy Walton give the axe. No I was warned off by Sandy Salmon, warned off by none other than my old “boss” and fellow combative in this so-called titanic struggle between my sweet baby James Pierce Brosnan and his hoary old goat ready for assisted living quarters Sean Connery Bond, the guy who started the whole twenty-plus episodes back in 1949 or some time like that. Sandy, an old defender of Allan Jackson in the internal fight, apparently has gotten weepy Sean Connery-like now that Greg and the toadies have pulled the hammer down. Have implied you are either with us or against us and if you are against us then you will have fun reviewing re-runs of I Love Lucy or worse reviewing super-hero comic book figures made into films. Whatever, I will not bow until I am sure that the amnesty is over and I have to toe the line, or else. And maybe I will take the “or else” road.
I will never forget that Sandy had taken my side on one of the immediate causes of the internal fight last year when Allan had gone over his head and ordered me to write a stinking review about a has-been blues singer, a girl from Texas, Janis Joplin, whom I had never heard of but who was supposed to be some mover and shaker in the 1960s when a lot of the older writers for this blog got their starts in life-and never forgot it or let us forget it. But this warning off business is way beyond his grade level-now. I won’t say more but it is rather indicative that Sandy’s bowing down to the powers that be now kind of puts paid to his devotion to the old tiger Sean as Bond, James Bond.
In any case I have review to do and I might as well get to it. Although both Sandy and I should be heartily fed-up with this by now pabulum Bond series since with the exception of a few name and bad guy organization changes, a few less dumb but beautiful young women who last read a book in about 1980 and more agent-like women, a sea-change number of high tech gizmos and a revolving door of male stars to carry the water in the role they are all the fucking same. The same no matter how much dough, moola, kale, they make for their production companies.
Take this 2002, damn I almost forgot the name, Die Another Day, too bad they couldn’t fork up some script-writer dough for some real title better than grade school choices. That 2002 should ring a bell since that is post-9/11 axis of evil time with one of those axes being North Korea this time rather than the old tired out Soviet Union-China-SPECTRE bashing. Here a rogue Harvard-educated, that tells a lot, North Korean colonel named Moon with influence in high places is running a scam operation to deal with conflict diamonds in order to amass a ton of dough to act the rich spoiled boy wonder of the world. He is aided by his comrade the nefarious Zao. This pair is on Mister Bond’s hit list since they have had him captured, imprisoned and tortured to perdition for fourteen months. The big story here though is that Jimmy has been betrayed by somebody in MI6, been done in by one his own. He righteously seeks revenge and maybe stop the conflict diamond trade and save the known world in the bargain.
When that Colonel Moon and Zao disappear (you can see the film if you want to know how and why) after a losing fight with Jimbo they reappear in Cuba (always need to the get the commie, even if tame commie angle in these never forget the Cold War that spawned you sagas) with genetically altered faces, more Western less Asia faces, to start their activities to destroy Western Civilization as we know it. Of course these post-World War II days dinky shrunken British Empire secret agents don’t have that game to themselves. The NSA have their agent, beautiful, smart, resourceful and bed-worthy under the silky sheets Jinx, played by foxy Halle Berry on the case. (You don’t even have to ask whether James and Jinx hit the sheets nor do you have to ask whether his female adversary, he MI6 agent who betrayed him, who is helping the Colonel and Zao is to be found in his bed since our James is an equal opportunity bed-mate.)
The long and short of it is the Colonel and Zao (and their female playmate) all go down in the mud after a million fights, scrapes, collisions and those best laid plans of mice and men of Colonel Moon and his cadre go asunder. As James and Jinx go under. Here’s Pierce’s beauty. Who wouldn’t go crazy to have a secret agent who can surf, fly an airplane, or any flying object, a hovercraft, ski, leap tall buildings at a single bound, drive every kind of exotic car, hold his breathe forever under water, drink hard liquor, hit the sheets with smart and/or evil women and never put in an expense account. All for her majesty. Sean would go dizzy just thinking about that, except maybe to hit on that eye candy who hasn’t read a book since 1949.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Beach Blanket Bongo- With The Falcons' You're So Fine –Take Two In Mind
The Falcons
You're So Fine You're So Fine The Falcons
You're so fine, you're so fine You're mine, you're mine I walk, and I talk, about you
I love you, I love you I need you, I need you I walk, and I talk, about you
There's nothing in the world as sweet as your kiss so fine, so fine Every time we meet, my heart skips a beat You're my first cup of coffee ( my last cup of tea) Bass line You're so fine, you're so fine You're mine, you're mine I walk, and I talk, about you
Sax solo You're so fine, you're so fine You're mine, you're mine I walk, and I talk, about you
*******
Sometimes it is funny how people will get into certain jags, will become aficionados, no, more than that will become single-minded fanatics if you don’t watch them very carefully and keep an appropriate distance say the distance you would keep from a cobra. Some of us will go all out to be the best at golf or some such sport (or game, I guess you would call golf a game rather than sport because sport sounds too rough, sounds too in-your-face for such a gentile pastime, for the active mashing of some innocent white ball, yeah, let’s call it a game and move on) or will devout endless hours to the now thirty-seven, at least, flavors of yoga now passing through a rage period (no, I will not name all the variants, all the exotically-named mostly Hindu-sounding names, except to say that such devotion at least makes health sense strangling some poor misbegotten caddie for not providing the right club for that perfect golf shot you had lines up) and others will climb straight-faced (theirs and the mountain’s) sheer rock precipices (no further comment needed except perhaps a sane citizen might just suggest that gentile pastime of golf to those sheer rocks). So be it.
Take me for example although I am not up for rigors of golf (or the premediated first-degree murder of some errant golf ball either), yoga (although thinking back the Kama Sutra came out of that same tradition so it might be worthy of some thought) or mountain-baiting (I like my rocks strictly in museums where they belong) recently I have been on a tear in reviewing individual[CL1] CDs in an extensive generic commercial classic Rock ‘n’ Roll series (meaning now the 1950s and 1960s) entitled Rock and Roll Will Never Die. The impetus for reviewing that particular CD series at first had been in order to hear the song Your So Fine by the Falcons after I had been listening to The Dubs’ Could This Be Magic on YouTube. That combination was driven by a memory flashback to about 1959 when I used to pester (I am being kind here) every available girls in my seventh grade class by being timid boy flirty and calling her, well, “so fine.” Available girls by the way meaning not going “steady” with a boy, especially a guy who might be on the football team and who might take umbrage with another guy trying to cut his time. Although let’s say that if she was going with a golf guy I might cut his time since they live by some strange honor system, you know count exactly the number of strokes you took to complete the hole, including those three, not two, you clunked into the pond. Available girl also meaning in seventh grade, unlike in sixth or fifth grade where the distinctions did not matter because they were all nuisances, girls who had gotten a shape and broken out of “stick-dom.” Those are the ones who were worthy of Jeff Sterling, that’s me, “so fine” designation. Such is the memory bank these days.
While that particular review was driven by a song most of those reviews that I was crazy to listen to and speak about had been driven by the intriguing artwork which graced the covers of each CD, pinpoint artwork drawn in such a way to stir ancient memories of ancient loves, ancient loves, too many to count, anguishes, ditto, alienations, you give a number, angsts, infinite, and whatever else teen–age life could rain down on you just when you were starting to get a handle on the world, starting to do battle to find your place in the sun. Starting to feel too that this wicked old world might be a place worthy of the fight to preserve it but such thoughts were only flushed out later, much later after the dust of angst and alienation settled.
Moreover these artwork covers reflected that precise moment in time, time being a very conscious and fungible concept then when we thought we would live forever and if we did not at least let us do our jailbreak rock and roll rock with the time we had, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may have been, to the themes of those artwork scenes. That fit in or didn’t fit in as the example of that flirty “your so fine” mantra that I would pin on any girl (remember any available girl not going steady and not with some big brute just in case that big brute is still holding a grudge).
Some artwork in the series like those that portrayed the terrors of Saturday night high school dance wallflower-dom, hanging around the you-name-it drugstore soda fountain waiting for some dreamy girl to drop her quarters in the juke-box and ask you, you of all people, what she should play to chase her blues away after some guy left her for another girl and she needed a sound to shed a tear by and you there with that empty shoulder to ease the way, or how about a scene down at the seclude end of Adamsville Beach with a guy and his gal sitting watching the surf and listening to the be-bop radio before, well, let’s leave it at “before,” and picture this a few beauties sunning themselves at the beach waiting for Johnny Angel to make an appearance need almost no comment except good luck and we, we of that 1950s demographic, all recognize those signposts of growing up in the red scare cold war night. This cover that I am thinking of though did not “speak” to me, a 1959 artwork cover from the time when the music died (meaning Elvis turned “square,” Chuck got caught with Mister’s girls and Jerry Lee failed to check the family tree).
On this cover, a summer scene (always a nice touch since that was the time when we had least at the feel of our generational breakout, listening all afternoon to the transistor radio, trying to keep the sand from destroying your sandwich, getting all or red and pretty for Saturday night in white), two blondish surfer guys, surf boards in tow, were checking out the scene, the land scene for that minute they were not trying to ride the perfect wave, or thinking about that possibility. That checking out of course was to check out who was “hot” on the beach, who could qualify to be a “surfer girl” for those lonely nighttime hours when either the waves were flat or the guys had been in the water so long they had turned to prunes. That scene although not pictured (except a little background fluff to inform you that you are at the beach, the summer youth beach and no other, certainly not the tortuous family beach scene with its lotions, luggage, lawn chairs, and longings, longings to be elsewhere in early teen brains), can only mean checking out the babes, girls, chicks, or whatever you called them in that primitive time before we called them sisters, and women.
No question that this whole scene had been nothing but a California come hinter scene. No way that it has the look of my Eastern pale-face beaches, family or youth. This is nothing but early days California dreamin’ cool hot days and cooler hot nights with those dreamed bikini girls. But hold on, see as little as I know about West Coast 1950s growing up surfer culture I was suddenly struck by this hard fact. These pretty boys are, no question, “beach bums” no way that they are serious surfer guys, certainly not Tom Wolfe’s Pump House La Jolla gang where those surfers lived for the perfect wave, and nothing else better get in the way. For such activity one needed rubberized surf suits complete with all necessary gear. In short these guys are “faux” surfers. Whether that was enough to draw the attention of those shes they are checking out into the humid night I will leave to the reader’s imagination.
As I noted before and commented on in the review the music, the 1959 music, that backed up this scene told us we were clearly in a trough, the golden age of rock with the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, and Chuck Berry was fading, fading fast into what I can only describe as “bubble gum” music. Sure I listened to it, listened to it hard on my old transistor radio up in my lonely shared room or out on those surly, tepid Eastern beaches mainly because that was all that was being presented to us. Somehow the parents, the cops, the school administrators and, if you can believe this, some of those very same bikini girls who you thought were cool had flipped out and wanted to hear Fabian, Bobby Vee and Bobby Darin, got to the record guys, got to Tin Pan Alley and ordered them to make the music like some vanilla shake. So all of a sudden those “you’re so fine” beach blanket blondes were sold on faux surfer guys, flip-floppers and well-combed guys and had dumped the beat, the off-beat and the plainly loopy without a thought. Leaving hard-boiled Harvard Square by night denizens like me homeless, and girl-less more than less.
It was to be a while, a few years, until the folk, folk rock, British invasion, and free expression rock engulfed us. My times, times when I did not have to rely on some kids’ stuff flirty “your so fine” line but could impress the young women of my acquaintance (admittedly not the beach blanket bingo blondes of my youth but long straight brunette-haired women with faraway eyes and hungry haunted expressions) with eight million Child ballad, Village, traditional music, mountain music facts I had accumulated during that red scare cold war trough before the break-out.
As the bulk of that CD’s contents attested to though we were in 1959 in the great marking time. There were, however, some stick-outs there that have withstood the test of time. They include: La Bamba, Ritchie Valens; Dance With Me, The Drifters; You’re So Fine (great harmony),The Falcons; Tallahassee Lassie (a favorite then at the local school dances by a local boy who made good), Freddy Cannon; Mr. Blue (another great harmony song and the one, or one of the ones, anyway that you hoped, hoped to distraction that they would play for the last dance), The Fleetwoods; and, Lonely Teardrops, Jackie Wilson (a much underrated singer, then and now, including by this writer after not hearing that voice for a while).
Note: After a recent trip to the Southern California coast I can inform you that those two surfer guys, who actually did turn out to be landlubbers and were working the shoreline while serious surfers with no time for beach blanket bingo blondes sought that perfect wave stuff, are still out there and still checking out the scene. Although that scene for them now is solely the eternal search for the perfect wave complete with full rubberized suit and gear. No artist would now, or at least I hope no artist would, care to rush up and draw them. For now these brothers have lost a step, or seven, lost a fair amount of that beautiful bongo hair, and have added, added believe me, very definite paunches to bulge out those surfer suits all out of shape. Ah, such are the travails of the baby-boomer generation. Good luck though, brothers.
The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Billy’s, Billy From The Old Neighborhood, View-Jody Reynolds’ Endless Sleep
JODY REYNOLDS "Endless Sleep" (Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.
Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.
[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
This is another of my tongue-in-cheek commentaries, the back story if you like, in the occasional sketches going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billy, William James Bradley, the mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood down in Adamsville not far outside of Boston. The “projects” for those not in the know, those of you who came of age in the leafy suburbs that we “projects” boys fiercely dreamed about once we saw what they looked like on television (and the girls, “projects” girls too dreamed our dreams too although there wasn’t so much mixing of the two until later, until we, meaning we corner boys figured out that those sticks that used to annoy us as they got some shape seemed a lot more interesting that we had previously recognized)were usually poorly constructed multi-unit complexes (ours were four-unit complexes, with many, many such complexes) originally built to house house-hungry returning World War II G.I.s who needed a place to stay while they were waiting on the golden age of the American dream to hit them.
But enough of that for this sketch is not about growing up poor in the land of plenty but growing up in the golden age of rock and roll that we hungry kids and kids from the leafy suburbs could both relate to. In those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days when he lost his moorings, went off to a hard scrabble life of crime, every kid, including one of his best friends, Markin, Peter Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every song that we would recognize as our own. This song, Endless Sleep, came out at a time when my family had been at the beginning of the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billy orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. I was then in my 24/7 reading at the local public library branch phase unlike previously being Billy’s accomplice on various, well, let’s call them capers just in case the statute of limitations has not run out. Still Billy, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billy I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
*****
Billy back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over at Snug Harbor Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he told me his family was going to move out of the projects and who has developed this big thing for the local library and books lately, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of my rock universe-adorned bedroom when we got to talking about this latest record, Endless Sleep, by Jody Reynolds. You can usually depend on Markin to show up when there is some song he is not sure about blasts over the radio, or maybe when he wants to go mano y mano with me on those ill-advised times when he thinks he has an edge on me.
All the parents around here, at least the parents that care anyway, or those who have heard the lyrics screaming from their kid’s electricity plug-in blaring living room radio (that’s why they invented transistor radios-so parents wouldn’t, or couldn’t, catch on to what we are listening to- smarten up is what I say to those kids still listening on the family radio, for Christ’s sake) about the not so subtle suicide pact theme. [See lyrics above.] Yah, like that silly pact to jump in the ocean is what every kid is going to do when the going gets a little tough in the love department. Take a jump in the ocean, and call one and all to join them. Come on, will you. It's only a song. Besides what is really good about this one is that great back beat on the guitar and Jody Reynolds’ cool clothes and sideburns. I wish to high heaven I had both.
But see the pope of rock lyrics, me, can’t just leave this song like that. I have to decode it for the teeny-boppers around here or they will be clueless, including big-time book guy Markin. And that is really what is going to make the difference between us here. We had a battle royal over this one. See, Markin always wants to give big play to the “social” meaning of a song, whatever that is, you know where the thing sticks in society, where it speaks to some teen concern, at least in teeny-bopper society. Or maybe he has read some newspaper article where some highly-paid guy, a professor usually has spotted a trend and wants to warn every parent, cop and rat teacher of the consequences. Jesus. Yeah, and Markin is also the “sensitive” guy, usually. Like, for example, one time when he was pulling for the girl to get her guy back, or at least go back to her old boyfriend who was waiting by the midnight phone after Eddie split for parts unknown for some back-up love, in Eddie My Love. Or Markin had a kind thing to say about the dumb cluck of a bimbo who went back to the railroad track-stuck car to get some cheapjack class ring that the boyfriend probably grabbed from a cracker-jacks box in Teen Angel (although he agreed, agreed fully, that the dame was a dumb cluck on other grounds, on the grounds that she should have dumped a guy long before if his foolish junk-box of a car got stuck on a forlorn railroad track).
Here though I am the sensitive guy, if you can believe that. Here’s why. It seems that Markin has some kind of exception to the “social” rule when it comes to the ocean, to the sea, christ, probably to some scum pond for all I know as the scene for suicide attempts. Apparently he is in the throes of some King Neptune frenzy and took umbrage (his word, not mind, I don’t go to the library much) at the idea that someone would desecrate the sea that way, our homeland the sea the way he put it. Like old Neptune hasn’t brought seventy-three types of hell on us with his hurricane tidal waves, his overflowing the seawalls across the channel from us, his flooding everything within three miles of the coast, or when he just throws his flotsam and jetsam (my words, from school, I like them) on the “projects” beaches whenever he gets fed up. So I have to defend this frail’s action, and gladly.
You know it really is unbelievable once you start to think about it how many of these songs don’t have people in them with names, real names, nicknames, anything to tag on them. Here it’s the same old thing. Markin would just blithely go on and makes up names but I’ll just give you the “skinny” without the Markin literary touches, okay. Rather than calling the girl every name in the book for disturbing the fishes or the plankton like Markin I am trying to see what happened here to drive her to such a rash action. Obviously they, the unnamed boy and girl, had an argument, alright a big argument if that satisfies you. What could it have been about? Markin, wise guy Markin, wants to make it some little thing like a missed date, or the guy didn't call or something. Maybe it was, but I think the poor girl was heartbroken about something bigger. Maybe boyfriend didn’t want to “go steady” or maybe he wasn’t ready to be her ever lovin’ one and only. Or maybe he didn’t was to satisfy her hormonal problem if you can believe that. Some guys are like that although I don’t know any, any that would pass that kind of thing up. Let me put it this way it was big, not Markin’s b.s. stuff.
Okay she went over the edge, no question, running down to the sea and jumping in. On a rainy night to boot. Hey she had it bad, whatever it was. But see old Neptune, Markin’s friend, maybe father for all I know, was taunting said boyfriend, saying he was going to take boyfriend’s baby away. Well, frankly, and old wimpy Markin dismissed this out of hand, those are fighting words in the projects, and not just the projects either, when one guy tries to horn in on another guy’s baby when he is not done with her, maybe even after too. Like I say those are fighting words around here.
And the girl, given the cold and what that does to you when you have been in the ocean too long was forced to taunt her lover boy, trying to bring him down too so no other frail could be with him. Just like a girl. This is the part I like though, although Markin would probably take umbrage (again), the boyfriend was ready to reclaim his honey, come hell or high water. He wasn’t done with her and so old man Neptune took a beating that night. Yah, he’s taking his baby, and taking her no questions asked, back from that nasty relentless sea. A little justice in this wicked old world. Chalk one up for our side. Yes, Billy, William James Bradley, is happy, pleased, delighted and any other words you can find in the library that this story has a happy ending. Markin’s homeland sea mush be damned.
