Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel (1960)- A 50th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billie’s 1960 View

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing the classic Teen Angel.

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline 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 Billie, William James Bradley, and the mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own. This song, Teen Angel, came out at a time when I had left the projects, had moved across town, acquired new friends, and, most importantly, had definitely moved away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. Still he knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
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MARK DINNING
"Teen Angel"

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh

That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

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Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over at the Adamsville 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 moved “uptown” to North Adamsville came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of the old neighborhood and we got to talking about this latest record, Teen Angel, by Mark Dinning that had us both baffled at first, but now I can give to you my take on it. And for one of the few times in recorded history, recorded Billie and Peter Paul from the old projects history, we agree right down the line that this weeper is strictly for the girls.

Yah, I know, and Markin does too, (I won’t keep saying “Markin does too” but I have to admit I was astounded when he agreed with me, especially on the ring stuff, so I had to say it at least this once) this is a guy lamenting his lost teen angel. So you think right off that he is all broken up about his baby. But that’s just for public consumption. (Do you like that term? Nice, huh?) What’s a guy supposed to say after his bimbo, yes, bimbo, and I will explain that in a minute, runs back to save his f-----g ring from a clunker (probably) stuck on some old railroad track. In fact the guy should be fuming that this b---o (okay) thought more of his “symbolic” ring (after all they were just “going steady”) that keeping herself alive in order to keep him company on those now lonely Saturday nights down by the seashore, or at the carnival or the drive-in (restaurant or movie). Ya, Markin says there should be a law against the "bim" (compromise, okay) doing such a thing and the guy should sue, like with divorce stuff. And you know I think he might be right.

What really grips me though is that f- - (hell, you know what kind of ring it was) ring thing. I’m not going to beat a dead horse over her running back. That’s over and done with. But let’s face facts, and everybody who knows anything about anything knows that those high school class rings are strictly from cheapsville, from nowhere, nada, nothing. Got it. All glitter and glow for lots of dough. But like I said cheapsville. Fake jewels, fake gold, hell, maybe fake lettering. Frankly stuff that I wouldn’t even bother to grab off some kid I was thumping. Definitely for not a girl. Got it.

Christ, I “clipped” better stuff at Woolworth’s and gave it to my younger sister, as a gag. But see I could have gotten this guy some good stuff, a nice ring that he could have given her, a ring she would have been proud to go back for, although I wouldn’t wish her to give up her young life over it. While I am at it if anybody reading this screed needs rings, bracelets, or other trinkets as signs of eternal love or just to give your honey something just get a hold of me. There won’t be any fako stuff either. Got it.

When you think about it though, and although I am glad that my boy Markin brought it up, how much time can you really spend on this set of lyrics. See here is where my papal authority comes in. I put this one strictly under novelty items, and like I said strictly for girls, weepy girls. Up in their lonely rooms waiting by that midnight telephone. No way, no way in hell, is this that moony swoony song that sets up your mood thing down at that previously mentioned seashore. Or do you really want to spend the whole night at the high school dance waiting for that last dance so that the she you have been eyeing all night just falls all over you, and then this “downer” comes on. Take it from the pope, no way. Got it.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night-Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel"

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing Teen Angel.

This American Left History blog is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hard working under sweating suns or noisy dust-filled factory floors, hard drinking Saturday into Sunday morning just before church blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off, the generation of ’68 from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly this retro look has been by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archaeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived ,and what we listened to back in the day.
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MARK DINNING
"Teen Angel"

(Jean Surrey & Red Surrey)

Teen angel, teen angel, teen angel, ooh, ooh
That fateful night the car was stalled
upon the railroad track
I pulled you out and we were safe
but you went running back
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
What was it you were looking for
that took your life that night
They said they found my high school ring
clutched in your fingers tight
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Just sweet sixteen, and now you're gone
They've taken you away.
I'll never kiss your lips again
They buried you today
Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love
Teen angel, teen angel, answer me, please

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First off when you are in the heart of 1950s rock and roll music get used to hearing ad finitum about angels, earth-bound, heaven-sent, hell-sent, angelic, yes, angelic, heart-broken, heart-breaking angels, and how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, Enough angels to make old revolutionary Puritan poet John Milton's angel fights in Paradise Lost seem, well, punk by comparison. That is if you really want to know about 1950s rock subject matter, all of the above, naturally being teen angels (as if there were any other kind), maybe even Milton's, and that brings us to the heart of this Mark Dinning teen angst classic, Teen Angel.

Frankly, I am bewildered by the bizarre lyrics and story line here, although it rates high, very high on my newly constructed teen song angst-o-meter. Peggy and Billy, okay I know they are not named, or maybe nameable, in the universal teen night but let’s call them that to give name to the kinds of fools we are dealing with, were stranded out on railroad tracks in old Billy’s apparently dead-ender car, probably his father’s hand-me-down. That should have been the first tip-off to Peggy. There were a million guys in town with “boss” cars, including Linc with his ’57 cherry red Chevy by the look on his face every time you passed by, who would have been more than happy to give you a tumble.

Or maybe Billy just didn’t have gas dough and the clunker ran out, unfortunately, ran out on that old dreaded isolated track with all those signs saying don’t stop, please don’t stop, on the tracks because even if trains were going out of style in the big 1950s freeway car exodus they still ran every now and again. No dough Billy, christ I knew seven guys (although not Linc) who had plenty of dough, or could get it, to show you a good time, including Frankie (and Frankie, supposedly only had eyes for his ever lovin’ sweetie, Joanne).

Okay, the ways of love are strange, no question, so Billy it was. But, jesus, he pulled you out, you were safe and then you went ballistic over some f-----g, cheapjack ring, some cheapjack fake gold (like about four carat gold filigree, maybe) with fako diamond and barely legible stuff written on it class ring. And you knew, since you had been out with Billy for a while by then that it was cheapo. Come on you couldn’t have been that naïve. Now you have left Billy all choked up over his teen angel lost, and I know for a fact that he stayed that way, for a while. But just recently he seems to be on the mend because didn’t Tommy T. see him and Linda Lou, ya, sweet “hot stuff’ Linda Lou, walking hand and hand into Kay’s jewelry store that handles the North Adamsville High School class ring account. Maybe it was nothing but I wonder what they were looking for?

Sometimes There Really Ain’t No Cure For The Summertime Blues-Hats Off To Mr. Eddie Cochran

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Eddie Cochran performing his schools out for the summer 1950s classic, Summertime Blues.

“Hey, school is going to be out for the summer tomorrow Billy (or you fill in the name, the1950s billyjohnniejimmybobby name, or bettyjoannconnielinda name if you prefer), What you gonna do?” yelled girl magnet Frankie Larkin, Francis James Larkin, king of the North Adamsville Junior High School corner boy night and a guy who has his card filled for the summer. And if you are a billyjohnniejimmybobby teenage boy, maybe just made it to teenage boy (or girl but this is strictly a guy thing and the girls, well, the girls can speak for themselves and from what I hear they do every Monday morning at mandatory girl talk what happened over the weekend pre-school “lav” world-historic session) then your answer, my billy answer, is mope. Ya, you heard it right (and you secretly knew it was coming, sledgehammer coming, once I started talking about teen boys, or that Monday morning girls “lav” line-up). Mope.

Mope, maybe mope plus. Reason: one bettyjoannconnielinda, hell, let me just say it and get it over with, connie, did not give me encouragement one at the last dance of the last school dance. And so mope, and maybe leave my sweaty humid room for a drink of water, is what summer has in store for me to while away the summer until school gets back in session come September and back to the connie wars. Until then just dream trance that we, billy and connie we, are one (and more, importantly known as one), down at the seawall of old Adamsville Beach. Ya, you know the spot right between the toney Adamsville Yacht Club and the broken down North Adamsville Boat Club. And where billy mind’s eye can already see Frankie holding court with some bevy of Monday morning talked-out junior high high pecking order chicks (okay, okay girls).

But let me back up and give you the details, the gruesome details of that last dance school dance and mope. I got kooky about this connie (alright Connie) when she sat next to me in art class and we started, as things like that happen in junior high, spatting. Ya, spatting back and forth about this and that, the subject matter is not important but the meaning, the significance, the world- historic significance (did I say that before, oh well, I like the expression) of those exchanges, for those clueless about how 1950s boys and girls relate, is that spatting, you know, if you say this, she says that, and then you say that and she says this, is we are, well, interested in each other. Otherwise why go to all the bother of being contrary. Jesus, do you guys need a diagram? Well all this this-ing (sic) and that-ing (double sic) led to my asking her to the last chance to dance end of school dance to be held on a Friday night. I was happy, and I thought she was too.

I won’t kid you. I was sky high getting ready for this dance, got a new shirt, double- showered, put on some sticky deodorant, and some father’s bay rum concoction on my hair. And I looked okay (and she said I looked okay). And she looked great when I went to her house to walk her to school (come on you know as well as I do these junior high school dances aren’t going to be held at the Ritz or some place like that. And that would be a waste anyway because what matters is who you are with, or not with, not where the damn thing is held. Christ it could be in an airplane hangar for all we cared as long as the certain hes and shes were there and the music was loud (except that last chance dance, then you wanted it dreamy).

But enough of this, Let me get to that last dance and why I am moping, maybe moping plus. Things were set; the last song was The Dubs Could This Be Magic? Home run, right? Well, usually right. But the problem with the slow-mo last dance is that you can hear enough to actually talk. So when Connie asked me “Will you miss me this summer when my parents take the family for a vacation until mid-August?” I answered “No.” Wrong answer, way wrong answer. See I was still playing she says this and I say that. Kid’s spat stuff. When the dance was over she just walked away, and she hasn’t spoken to me since. So when Mister Eddie Cochran says in his song about his mopes that just finished on the radio “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues,” he’s got it right, damn right. Excuse me; I have to go for a drink of water.

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Summertime Blues-Eddie Cochran

Well, I'm gonna raise a fuss
I'm gonna raise a holler
'Bout workin' all summer
Just to try to earn a dollar
Well, I went to the boss man
Tried to get a break
But the boss said 'No dice, son,
You gotta work late'

Sometimes I wonder what am I gonna do
'Cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Well, my Mom and Poppa told me
Son, you gotta earn some money
If you want to use the care
To go riding next Sunday
Well, I wouldn't go to work
I told the boss I was sick
He said 'You can't use the car
'Cause you didn't work a lick'

Sometimes I wonder what am I gonna do
'Cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Gonna take two weeks
Gonna have a fine vacation
Gonna take my problem
To the United Nations
Well' I went to my congressman
He said 'quote'
'I'd like to help you son,
But you're too young to vote'

Sometimes I wonder what am I gonna do
'Cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues

Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- Save The Last Dance For Me-With The Drifters’ Song Of The Same Name In Mind.

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Drifters performing their classic Save The Last Dance For Me

CD Review

AM Gold: The Early ‘60s, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1992

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs in this compilation, The Drifters classic end of the night high school dance number, Save The Last Dance For Me.

Recently, when I was reviewing a companion CD in this Time-Life Music series, AM Gold: 1962, I mentioned, in detailing some of the events surrounding the North Adamsville Class of 1962-sponsored version of the traditional late September Falling Leaves Dance that one of the perks that year was getting to hear the vocals of local singer and classmate, Diana Nelson, backed up by local rock band favorite, The Rockin’ Ramrods. I also mentioned that her selection had been the result of a singing competition held by the town fathers and that I would relate some of the details of that competition at a later date. That time has come. Additionally, I related that I had had a “crush” on Miss (Ms.) Nelson since I started staring, permanently staring, at her ass when she sat a few seats in front of me in ninth grade. At the time of the above-mentioned dance she was “going steady” with some college joe, and had not given me the time of day, flirting or encouraging-wise, since about tenth grade, although we always talked about stuff, music and political stuff, two of my passions, and hers too. Here’s the “skinny.”
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No question that about 1960, maybe into 1961, girl vocalists were the cat’s meow. (Okay, young women, but we didn’t call them that then, no way. Also no way as well is what we called them, called them among we corner boys at Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, especially when we got “no action.” I don’t have to draw you a diagram on what that meant, right?). You can, if you were around then, reel off the names just as well as I can, Connie Francis, Carla Thomas, Patsy Cline, and the sparkplug Brenda Lee. I won’t even mention wanna-bes like Connie Stevens and Sandra Dee, Christ. See, serious classic rock by guys like Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis was, well, passé, in that musical counter-revolution night. But music, like lots of other things abhors a vacuum and while guys were still singing, I guess, the girl singers (read young women, okay, and we will leave it at that) “spoke” to us more. Especially to record- buying girls who wanted to hear about teen romance, teen alienation, lost love, unstoppable hurts, betrayal (usually by the girl’s best friend and her boyfriend, although not always), lonely Friday nights, and other stuff that teenagers, boys and girls equally, have been mulling over, well, since they invented teenagers a long time ago.

So it was natural for the musically-talented girls around North Adamsville, and maybe around the country for all I know, to test themselves against the big name talents and see what they had. See if they could make teen heaven- a record contract with all that entailed. In North Adamsville that was actually made easier by the town fathers (and they were all men, mostly old men in those days so fathers is right), if you can believe that. Why? Because for a couple of years in the early 1960s, maybe longer, they had been sponsoring a singing contest, a female vocalist, singing contest. I heard later, and maybe it was true, that what drove them was that, unlike those mid-1950s evil male rockers mentioned above, the women vocalist models had a “calming effect” on the hard-bitten be-bop teen night. And calm was what the town fathers cared about most of all. That, and making sure that everything was in preparedness for any Soviet missile strike, complete with periodic air raid drills, christ again.

In 1962 this contest, as it was in previous years, was held in the spring in the town hall auditorium. And among the contestants, obviously, was that already "spoken for" Diana Nelson who was by even the casual music listener the odds-on favorite. She had prepped a few of us with her unique rendition of Brenda Lee’s I’m Sorry so I knew she was a shoo-in. And she was. What was interesting about the competition was not her victory as much as the assorted talents, so-called, that entered this thing. If I recall there were perhaps fifteen vocalists in all. The way the thing got resolved was a kind of sing-off. A process of elimination sing-off.

Half a dozen, naturally, were some variation of off-key and dismissible out of hand. These girls fought the worst when they got the hook. Especially one girl, Elena G., if anyone remembers her who did one of the worst versions of Connie Francis’ Who’s Sorry Now I had (and have) ever heard. The more talented girls took their lost with more grace, probably realizing as Diana got into high gear that they were doomed. But here is the funny part. One of the final four girls was not a girl at all. Jimmy C. from right down the end of my street dressed himself up as girl (and not badly either although none of us knew much about “drag queen” culture then) and sang a great version of Mary Wells’ Two Lovers. Like I said we knew from nothing about different sexual preferences and thought he just did it as a goof. (I heard a couple of years later that he had finally settled in Provincetown and that fact alone “hipped” me to what he was about, sexually.)

I probably told you before that one part of winning was a one thousand dollar scholarship. That was important, but Diana, when she talked to me about it a couple of days later just before class, said she really wanted to win so she could be featured at the Falling Leaves Dance. Now, like I said, I had a big crush on her, no question, so I was amazed that she also said that she wanted me to be sure to be at the dance that next late September. Well, if you have been paying attention at all then you know I was there. I went alone, because just then I didn’t have a girlfriend, a girlfriend strong enough for me to want to go to the dance with anyway. But I was having a pretty good time. I even danced with Chrissie McNamara, a genuine fox, who every guy had the “hots” for since she, just the night before, had busted up with Johnny Callahan, the football player. And Diana sang great, especially on Brenda Lee’s I Want To Be Wanted. She reached somewhere deep for that one.

Toward the end of the evening, while the Rockin’ Ramrods were doing some heavy rock covers, Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen I think, and she was taking a break, Diana came over to me and said, I swear she said it exactly like this- “save the last dance for me.” I asked her to repeat herself. She said Bobby (her college joe) was not here that evening for some reason I do not remember and that she wanted to dance the last dance with someone she liked. Well, what’s a guy to do when someone like Diana gives her imperial command? I checked my dance card and said “sure.” Now this last dance thing has been going on every since they have had dances and ever since they have had teenagers at such events so no big deal, really. Oh, except this, as we were dancing that last dance to the Ramrod’s cover of The Dubs Could This Be Magic Diana, out of the blue, said this. “You know if you had done more than just stared at my ass in class (and in the corridors too, she added) in ninth grade maybe I wouldn’t have latched onto Bobby when he came around in tenth grade.” No, a thousand times no, no, no, no…