The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Just Before The Sea Change - With The
Rolling Stones In Mind
A YouTube film clip of the
Dixie Cups performing their 1960s classic (who brought the house down with this
number about 15 or 20 years ago at the Newport Folk festival of all places to
show an example of a song with staying power Chapel Of Love
From The Archives Of Allan Jackson
[In a recent introduction part of
this series, see archives dated February 28, 2017 on the subject of 1960s icon
writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters who set a certain tone for part of
what that whirlwind decade meant to those in the Generation of “68, I noted
that after some exhaustive investigation I had found out where the previous
site manager of this publication, Allan Jackson, my old high school friend and
a founder of the hard copy edition of this space as I was, was hiding out. The
reason that was important was that we had lost contact with him in the
aftermath of the vicious internal struggle where he was essentially “purged” after
he was given a vote of no confidence mainly by the younger writers who though
he had gone off the deep end last year in demanding wall to wall coverage of
the 50th anniversary commemoration of the famous Summer of Love in
1967 centered in San Francisco and environs.
When Allan went “underground” to use
a term of art used in the 1960s for a lot of situations when people dropped off
the face of the earth it seemed the rumors flew high and wide since he cut
communications with all his old high school and 1960s friends who whose writing
and adventures had formed one of the bases for this publication. Some rumors
mentioned that he had been done away with in some nefarious way by the incoming
new site manager Greg Green and his hand-picked Editorial Board. As I have
mentioned before that seemed ludicrous on its face like this was some kind of
replay (as farce as Karl Marx once said about second time around events) of the
infamous Stalin-Trotsky war to the death which all the older guys were always
knee-deep talking about in their radical 1960s pasts. (That Board by the way mandated by the younger
writers to avoid some of the problems caused by Allan’s increasingly
single-minded devotion to “re-living” the 1960s especially in the decisive 50th
anniversary of the myriad events that dotted the landscape of 1968.)
A persistent rumor had him turning
tail and placing himself in self-imposed exile out in the American Siberia Utah
sucking up to the Mormons in order to get a by-line in one of their dink
publications. Things got so out of hand that he had been alleged to have
written reams of trash about the virtues of their wearing white underwear and
the hardships of having five wives at one time. Worse, worse of all sucking up
to a lizard, a chameleon like Mitt Romney who is running for U.S. Senate out
there in order to be his press secretary. It got worse in the rumor mill as he
was alleged to be living with, living off of some twenty-something part-time
waitress surfer girl out in La Jolla who had a father fixation and who was
“doing the do” an expression from the old days every chance she got with him and
was teaching his to surf to boot. In a more sinister vein which could bring him
big legal and maybe bang-bang troubles he was alleged to be putting together a
big drug deal on credit with some guys down in Mexico who were looking to make
a name in the States. Along the same lines was the rumor that he was running a
high-class international whorehouse in Argentina with his old lover Madame La
Rue catering to the strange whims of Asian businessmen. There were others,
mostly along the same lines, but one last one will suffice to give an idea of
what was essentially a smear campaign against the man. Supposedly he was in
Frisco dating a transvestite who was connected with the opium trade and he was
living high off the hog on Russian Hill stoned to the gills all the time.
The way we, Sam Lowell and I, as I
said among his oldest friends from back in the old Acre working class
neighborhood in North Adamsville where we all grew up and came of age was
simplicity itself. We checked with his third ex-wife Mimi Murphy to see if he
had sent her an alimony check. He had and since he was still sweet on her (she
had left him for a younger guy when he got too wrapped up in the 1960s for her
taste) he told he not only about the purge which she actually already knew
about from Josh Breslin but where he was to see if she wanted to “come up to
see him” in his hours of despair. That “come up to see him” a telltale sign
that he was not on the West Coast but up in Maine, up in Bar Harbor where he
always went when things were tough. Had owned a house there until his parcel of
kids from those three wives started college and he almost went bankrupt before
he bailed out of that place to pay the freaking tuitions. So Sam and I headed
up to see him, see what the real story was. More later except some of those
rumors were actually at least partially true. That should keep things
interesting.
**********
Meanwhile story time
There were some things about Edward
Rowley’s youthful activities that he would rather not forget. That is what got
him thinking one sunny afternoon in September about five years ago as he waited
for the seasons to turn almost before his eyes about the times around 1964,
around the time that he graduated from Wattsville High School, around the time
that he realized that the big breeze jail-break that he had kind of been
waiting for was about to bust out over the land, over America. It was not like
he was some kind of soothsayer, could read tea leaves or anything like that but
in his senses which were very much directed by his tastes in music, by his
immersion into all things rock and roll kind of drove his aspirations and that
music had the cutting edge of what followed later, followed by about 1964 when
that new breeze arrived in the land.
That fascination had occupied
Eddie’s mind since he had been about ten and had received a transistor radio
for his birthday and out of curiosity decided to turn the dial to AM radio
channels other that WJDA which his parents, may they rest in peace, certainly
rest in peace from his incessant clamoring for rock and roll records, concert
tickets, radio listening time on the big family radio in the living room, had
on constantly and which drove him crazy. Drove him crazy because that music,
well, frankly that music, the music of the Doris Days, the Peggy Lees, The
Rosemary Clooneys, the various corny sister acts like the Andrews Sisters, the
Frank Sinatras, the Vaughn Monroes, the Dick Haines and an endless series of
male quartets did not “jump,” gave him no “kicks,’ left him flat. As a
compromise they had purchased a transistor radio at Radio Shack and left him to
his own devises.
One night when he was fiddling with
the dial he heard this sound out of Cleveland, Ohio, a little fuzzy but audible
playing this be-bop sound, not jazz although it had horns, not rhythm and blues
although sort of, but a new beat by a guy named Warren Smith who was singing
about his Ruby, his Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby who only was available apparently to
dance the night away. And she didn’t seem to care where she danced by herself
on the tabletops or with her guy. Yeah, so if you need a name for what ailed
young Eddie Rowley, something he could not quite articulate then call her
woman, call her Ruby and you will not be far off. And so with that as a
pedigree Eddie became one of the town’s most knowledgeable devotees of the new
sound. Problem was that new sound, as happens frequently in music, got a little
stale as time went on, as the original artists who captured his imagination
faded from view one way or another and new guys, guys with nice Bobby this and
Bobby that names, Patsy this and that names sang songs under the umbrella name
rock and roll that his mother could love. Songs that could have easily fit into
that WJDA box that his parents had been stuck in since about World War II.
So Eddie was anxious for a new sound
to go along with his feeling tired of the same old, same old stuff that had
been hanging around in the American night since the damn nuclear hot flashes
red scare Cold War started way before he had a clue about what that was all
about. It had started with the music and then he got caught up with a guy in
school, Daryl Wallace, a hipster, or that is what he called himself, a guy who
liked “kicks” although being in high school in Wattsville far from New York
City, far from San Francisco, damn, far from Boston what those “kicks” were or
what he or Eddie would do about getting those “kicks” never was made clear. But
they played it out in a hokey way and for a while they were the town, really
high school, “beatniks.” So Eddie had
had his short faux “beat” phase complete with flannel shirts, black chino
pants, sunglasses, and a beret (a beret that he kept hidden at home once he
found out after his parents had seen and heard Jack Kerouac reading from the
last page of On The Road on the Steve Allen Show that they severely
disapproved on the man, the movement and anything that smacked of the “beat”
and a beret always associated with French bohemians and foreignness would have
had them seeing “red”). And for a while Daryl and Eddie played that out until
Daryl moved away (at least that was the story that went around but there was a
persistent rumor for a time that Mr. Wallace had dragooned Daryl into some
military school in California in any case that disappearance from the town was
the last he ever heard from his “beat” brother). Then came 1964 and Eddie was fervently waiting for something to
happen, for something to come out of the emptiness that he was feeling just as
things started moving again with the emergence of the Beatles and the Stones as
a harbinger of what was coming.
That is where Eddie had been
psychologically when his mother first began to harass him about his hair.
Although the hair thing like the beret was just the symbol of clash that Eddie
knew was coming and knew also that now that he was older that he was going to
be able to handle differently that when he was a kid. Here is what one episode of the battle sounded
like:
“Isn’t that hair of yours a little
long Mr. Edward Rowley, Junior,” clucked Mrs. Edward Rowley, Senior, “You had
better get it cut before your father gets back from his conference trip, if you
know what is good for you.” That mothers’-song was being endlessly repeated in Wattsville
households (and not just Wattsville households either but in places like North
Adamsville, Hullsville, Shaker Heights, Dearborn, Cambridge any place where
guys were wating for the new dispensation and wearing hair a little longer than
boys’ regular was the flash point) ever since the British invasion had brought
longer hair into style (and a little less so, beards, that was later when guys
got old enough to grow one without looking wispy).
Of course when one was thinking
about the British invasion in the year 1964 one was not thinking about the
American Revolution or the War of 1812 but the Beatles. And while their music
has taken 1964 teen world by a storm, a welcome storm after the long mainly
musical counter-revolution since Elvis, Bo, Jerry Lee and Chuck ruled the rock
night and had disappeared without a trace, the 1964 parent world was getting up
in arms.
And not just about hair styles
either. But about trips to Harvard Square coffeehouses to hear, to hear if you
can believe this, folk music, mountain music, harp music or whatever performed
by long-haired (male or female), long-bearded (male), blue jean–wearing (both),
sandal-wearing (both), well, for lack of a better name “beatniks” (parents, as
usual, being well behind the curve on teen cultural movements since by 1964
“beat” except on television was yesterdays’
news). Mrs. Rowley would constantly harp about “why couldn’t Eddie be like he was when he listened to Bobby
Vinton and his Mr. Lonely or that lovely-voiced Roy Orbison and his It’s
Over and other nice songs on the local teen radio station, WMEX (he hated
that name Eddie by the way, Eddie was also what everybody called his father so
you can figure out why he hated the moniker). Now it was the Beatles, the
Rolling Stones and a cranky-voiced guy named Bob Dylan that has his attention.
And that damn Judy Jackson with her short skirt and her, well her…
Since Mrs. Rowley, Alice to the
neighbors, was getting worked up it anyway, "What about all the talk about
doing right by the down-trodden Negros down in Alabama and Mississippi. And
Eddie and that damn Peter Dawson, who used to be so nice when they all hung
around together at Jimmy Jacks’ Diner (corner boys, Ma, that is what we were) and
you at least knew they were no causing trouble, talking about organizing a book
drive to get books for the little Negro children down there. If Eddie’s father
ever heard that there would be hell to pay, hell to pay and maybe a strap
coming out of the closet big as Eddie is. Worst though, worst that worrying
about Negros down South is that treasonous talk about leaving this country,
leaving Wattsville, defenseless against the communists with his talk of nuclear
disarmament. Why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone and stick with
his idea of forming a band that would play nice songs that make kids feel good
like Gale Garnet’s We’ll Sing In The Sunshine or that pretty Negro girl
Dionne Warwick and Her Walk On By instead of getting everybody
upset."
And since Mrs. Rowley, Alice, to the
neighbors and mentioned the name Judy Jackson, Eddie’s flame and according to
Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talk, Judy’s talk they had “done the
deed” and you can figure out what the deed was let’s hear what is going on in
the Jackson household since one of the reasons that Eddie was wearing his hair
longer was because Judy thought it was “sexy” and so that talk of doing the
deed may well have been true if there were any sceptics. Hear this:
“Young lady, that dress is too short
for you to wear in public, take it off, burn it for all I care, and put on
another one or you are not going out of this house,” barked Mrs. James Jackson,
echoing a sentiment that many worried North Adamsville mothers were feeling
(and not just North Adamsville mothers either) about their daughters dressing
too provocatively and practically telling the boys, well practically telling
them you know what as she suppressed the “s” word that was forming in her head.
"And that Eddie (“Edward, Ma,” Judy keep repeating every time Mrs.
Jackson, Dorothy to the neighbors, said Eddie), and his new found friends like
Peter Paul Markin taking her to those strange coffeehouses instead of the high
school dances on Saturday night.
And endless talk about the n-----s down South
and other trash talk. Commie trash about peace and getting rid of weapons. They
should draft the whole bunch and put them over in front of that Berlin Wall.
Then they wouldn’t be so negative about America."
Scene: Edward, Judy and Peter Paul
Markin sitting in the Club Nana in Harvard Square sipping coffee, maybe pecking
at the one brownie between, and listening to a local wanna-be folk singing
strumming his stuff (who turned out to be none other than Eric Von Schmidt).
Beside them cartons of books that they are sorting to be taken along with them
when head South this summer after graduation exercises at North Adamsville High
School are completed in June. They have already purchased their tickets as far
as New York’s Port Authority where they will meet other heading south. Pete
Paul turns to Edward and says, “Have you heard that song, Popsicles and
Icicles by the Mermaids, it has got great melodic sense.” Yes, we are still
just before the sea change. Good luck, young travelers.
