Showing posts with label wanda jackson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wanda jackson. Show all posts

Sunday, February 10, 2013

***In The Time Of The Be-Bop Baby-Boom Jail Break-Out- Out In The Seal Rock Night



From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:

A while back I was on a tear in reviewing individual CDs in an extensive rock and roll series, you know those “oldies, but goodies” compilations pitched to, uh, certain demographic, an ARRP-worthy demographic, okay. A lot of those reviews had been driven by the artwork which graced the covers of each item, both to stir ancient memories and to rather truly reflect that precise moment in time, the youth time of the now very, very mature (nice sliding over the age issue, right?) baby-boomer generation, the generation of ’68, who lived and died by the music. And who fit in, or did not fit in as the case may be, to the themes of those artwork scenes. The one I am thinking of right now is a case of the latter, of not fitting in. On this cover, as I recall, an early 1960s summer scene (always a nice touch since that was the time when we had at least the feel of our generational breakout), a summer night scene, a lovers’ lane summer’s night scene, with a non-described as such but clearly “boss” Corvette front and center car scene to spell it all out, to put a stake right through the heart of this car-less teen, no car soon in sight teen, and no gas money, etc., etc. even if I had as much as an old Nash Rambler junk car. But my aim is not to speak bitterness today, although I do want to talk car dream, Corvette car dream, okay.

I have ranted endlessly about the 1950s as the “golden age of the automobile” and I am not alone. As perceptive a social critic and observer as Tom Wolfe, he of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and many other youth nation tribal gathering-type book screeds, did a whole book on the California car culture, the “hot rod “ culture, the California post- World War II disposable income teen car culture that drifted east and “infested” plenty of young working- class kids in that time, the time of white tee-shirts, jeans, maybe a leather jacket against life’s storms, and of endless grease monkey tune-ups to get that engine revved just right. Moreover, nostalgia-driven George Lucas’s American Graffiti of 1973 is nothing but an ode to that good-night teen life, again California-style.

Sure, and as that car wind drifted back east Sammy the local wizard, the local car wizard, had all the girls, all the good-looking girls hanging around his home garage just waiting to be “selected” for a ride in Sammy’s latest effort, usually some variation off a ’57 Chevy. Sammy, believe me, was nothing but very average for looks. A high school drop-out too (he said cars and girls what did he need school for anyway) But get this, old bookish writer here, old two-thousand facts and don’t stop counting writer here, got exactly nowhere even with the smart girls in Sammy-ruled land. That was how tight Sammy’s rule was on the car dream night.

And one girl, a girl who was supposed to be my girl, or something like that, once Sammy even gave her a look, a look, for crying out loud (which I didn’t see, honest), as he passed by in that two-toned (white and red) ’57 Chevy said this to me the very next day (after spending that night out with Sammy although I didn’t know that part until a long time afterwards) when she gave me the brush-off- “ Yah, get away kid, ‘cause Sammy is the be-bop daddy of the Eastern ocean night. And books and book-knowledge, well you have old age for books but a ’57 Chevy is now.” This from a girl who eventually went to Colby College. And here is the unkindest cut of all as she tore out my heart -"go wait for the bus at the bus stop, boy. Sammy rules here."

But a man can dream, can’t he? And even Sammy, greased up, dirty fingernails, blotched tee-shirt, admitted, freely admitted, that he wished, wished to high heaven that he had enough dough for the upkeep on a Corvette the ding-daddy (his word) “boss” (my word) car of the age and nothing but a magnet for even smarter and better looking girls than the neighborhood girls that“harassed” him. ( I found out later that this “harassed” was nothing but a nothing thing because come Friday or Saturday night he had more than his fair share of companions down by the seashore-everything is alright night.) Still Corvette meant big dough and as the scene in that CD cover indicated, probably big “new money” California daddy rich kid dough to look out at the Hollywood Hills or Laguna Beach night. Yah, that was the dream, and that window-fogged Seal Rock night part too (the local lovers’ lane down at the far end of Olde Saco Beach up in Maine but you fill in your own lovers’ lane locale).

And whether you were a slave to your car (or not, as with this writer), be it ’57 Chevy, Corvette or just that old beat down, beat around Nash Rambler you had that radio glued, maybe literally, to the local rock station to hear the tunes that made us jump into that good night.

Friday, December 21, 2012

When Rockabilly Rocked The Be-Bop 1950s Night- “Rock This Town-Volume 2”- A CD Review

 


CD Review

Rock This Town, Volume 2, various artists, Rhino Records, 1991


The bulk of this review was used to review Volume 1 as well:

The last time that I discussed rockabilly music in this space was a couple of years ago when I was featuring the work of artists like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis who got their start at Sam Phillips’ famed Sun Records studio in Memphis. Part of the reason for those reviews was my effort to trace the roots of rock and rock, the music of my coming of age, and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Clearly rockabilly was, along with country and city blues from the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Ike Turner and rhythm and blues from the likes of Big Joe Turner, a part of that formative process. The question then, and the question once again today, is which strand dominated the push to rock and rock, if one strand in fact did dominate.

I have gone back and forth on that question over the years. That couple of years ago mentioned above I was clearly under the influence of Big Joe Turner and Howlin’ Wolf and so I took every opportunity to stress the bluesy nature of rock. Recently though I have been listening, and listening very intently, to early Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis and I am hearing more of that be-bop rockabilly rhythm flowing into the rock night. Let me give a comparison. A ton of people have done Big Joe Turner’s classic rhythm and bluish Shake, Rattle, and Roll, including Bill Haley, Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee. When I listen to that song as performed in the more rockabilly style by them those versions seem closer to what evolved into rock. So for today, and today only, yes Big Joe is the big daddy, max daddy father of rock but Elvis, Jerry Lee, and Carl are the very pushy sons.

And that brings us to this treasure trove of rockabilly music presented in two volumes of which this is the second; including material by those who have revived, or kept the rockabilly genre alive over the past couple of decades. I have already done enough writing in praise of the work of Sam Phillips and Sun Records to bring that good old boy rockabilly sound out of the white southern countryside. There I noted that, for the most part, those who succeeded in rockabilly had to move on to rock to stay current and so the rockabilly sound was somewhat transient except for those who consciously decided to stay with it. Here are the examples that I used for volume one and they apply here as well:

“…the best example of that is Red Hot by Bill Riley and his Little Green Men, an extremely hot example by the way. If you listen to his other later material it stays very much in that rockabilly vein. In contrast, take High School Confidential by Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee might have started out in rockabilly but this number (and others) is nothing but the heart and soul of rock (and a song, by the way, we all prayed would be played at our middle school dances to get things moving).” Enough said.

Stick outs here on Volume 2 include: C’mon Everybody, Eddie Cochran (probably better known for his more bluesy, steamy, end of school rite of passage Summertime Blues, a very much underrated performer whose career was cut short when he was killed in a car accident; Let’s Have A Party, Wanda Jackson (one of the few famous women rockabilly artists in a very much male-dominated genre); Red Hot ( a cover of the famous one by Bill Riley featured in Volume 1), Robert Gordon and Link Wray; Rock This Town (title track from the group that probably is the best known devotee of the rockabilly revival), The Stray Cats.