***The
Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s
Red Scare Cold War Night-Warren Smith’s Rock
and Roll Ruby
…he knew, knew deep
in his bones, knew on the face of it too that he could not keep her, keep her
to himself, keep her settled down and so he accepted that she would blow away
like the wind on him sometime and it was just a matter of how long he could
keep her. It hadn’t started out that way, at least he did not see it like that at
the beginning, see that she was a wayward wind, see that she had deeply imbibed
the new wave coming across the continent. They had met conventionally enough senior
year at old North Adamsville High, had responded to each other’s furtive glances
in Miss Williams’ study hall, had danced around each other at Doc’s Drugstore
where all the kids hung out after school to listen the latest music, their
music juke box and had finally gone out on a double date (he without car at the
time) at the local drive-in theater where she, sitting in the back seat with
him, surprised him with her sexual advances. Stuff that he wasn’t all that
familiar with but which he liked and which she knew that he liked. When he
asked her about it later, not that night but a couple of weeks later, she just
said girls knew stuff like that and she had learned it from her first boyfriend
who was older. He let it pass. And so
they were an “item” that last year of school.
Peter
Paul Markin comment on this series:
I recently completed the first leg of this series which is
intended to go through different stages of the American songbook as it has
evolved since the 19th century, especially music that could be
listened to by the general population through radio, later television, and more
recently the fantastic number of ways to listen to it all. That first leg dealt
with the music of my parents’ generation, that being the parents of the
generation of ’68, those who struggled through the Great Depression of the
1930s and World War II in the 1940s. This leg, centered on the music of my
generation growing up in the Cold War 1950s, is a natural progression from that
first leg since a lot of what we were striving for was to make a big musical
break from the music that was wafting through many of our houses in the early
1950s. The music of our “square” parents which was driving us to desperation
for a new sound just in case those threatened bombs that we kept being warned
about actually were detonated. At least that musical jail-break is the way we
will tell the story now, although I, for one, have a little more tolerance for
some of their music. Some, I said, since I am unabashedly a child of rock and
roll.
Whether we liked it or not, whether we even knew what it
meant, or frankly, during that hellish growing up absurd teenager time in the
1950s trying to figure out our places, if any, in the cold war red scare world,
if there was to be a world, and that was a close thing at times, or whether we
cared, our tribal music was as dear a thing to us, who were in the throes of
finding our own very different musical identities. Whether we knew it or not in
the big world- historic picture scheme of things, knew what sacred place the
music of the 1950s, rhythm and blues, scat be-bop, rockabilly, doo wop, flat
out pure rock and roll, those tunes held a primordial place in our youthful
hearts. That was our music, our getting through the tough times music of
post-World War II teen alienation and angst, that went wafting through the house
on the living room radio (when the parents were out), on the family record
player (ditto on the parents), or, for some, the television (double ditto the
parents out, especially when American
Bandstand hit us like a hurricane), and best of all on that blessed
transistor radio that allowed us to while away the time up in our rooms away
from snooping parental ears. Yes, that was the pastime of many of those of us
who constitute the now graying fading generation of ‘68.
Some of us will pass to the beyond clueless as to why we
were attuned to this music when we came of age in a world, a very darkly-etched
world, which we too like most of our parents had not created, and had no say in
creating. That includes a guy, me, a coalminer’s son who got as caught up in
the music of his time as any New York City Jack or Jill or Chi town frill whose
father busted out of the tumbled down tarpaper shacks down in some Appalachia
hills and hollows, headed north, followed the northern star and never looked
back and neither did his son.
Yes we were crazy for the swing and sway of Big Joe Turner
snapping those big fingers like some angel- herald letting the world know, if it did not know already, that it did not
mean a thing, could not possibly matter in the universe, if you did not Shake, Rattle, and Roll, if you did not rock
with or without Miss LaVern Baker, better with, better with, her hips swaying slightly,
lips moistened, swirling every guy in the place on Jim Dandy vowing be her man just for that smile and a chance
at those slightly swaying hips. Mr. Elvis Presley, with or without the back- up
boys, better with, belting out songs, knocking down walls, maybe Jericho, maybe
just some teen-struck Starlight Ballroom in Kansas City blasting the joint with
his Jailhouse Rock to the top of the
charts. Elegant Bill Haley, with or without that guy blowing that sexy sax out
into the ocean air night in some Frisco club, blowing out to the Japan seas on Rock Around The Clock. Bo Diddley, all
banded up if there is such a word, making eyes wild with that Afro-Carib beat
on Who Do You Love. A young Ike
Tina-less Turner too with his own aggregation wailing Rocket 88 that had every high school girl throwing dreamy nickels
and dimes into the jukebox, with or without fanfare. Buddy Holly, with or
without those damn glasses, talking up Peggy
Sue before his too soon last journey. Miss Wanda Jackson, the female Elvis,
with or without the blues, personal blues, strung out blues too, singing
everybody else’s blues away with that throaty thing she had, that meaningful
pause, on yeah, Let’s Have A Party.
Miss (Ms.) Patsy Cline, with or without the bad moments, making grown men cry (women
too) when she reached that high note fretting about her long gone man on She’s Got You, Jesus.
Miss (Ms.) Brenda Lee too chiming in with I’m Sorry. Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis doing a
million songs fronting that wild piano off the back of a truck in High School Confidential calling out to
anybody who wanted to rise in that rocking world, with or without a horde of cashmere
sweater girls breaking down his doors, putting everybody else to shame. The Everly
Brothers, always with that soft -spoken refrain catch that nobody seemed to
tire of, doing teary Wake Up Little Susie.
The Drifters with or without those boardwalks. The Sherilles with or without the
leader of the pack, the Dixie Cups with or without whatever they were doing at
that chapel. Miss Carole King, with or without the boys, writing the bejesus
out of Tin Pan Alley. Yeah, our survival music.
We, the generation of ’68, baby-boomers, decidedly not what
Tom Brokaw dubbed rightly or wrongly “the greatest generation,” decidedly not our
parents’ generation, finally could not bear to hear their music, could not bear
to think anybody in the whole universe would think that stuff was cool. Those
of us who came of age, biological, political, and social age kicking, screaming
and full of the post-war new age teenage angst and alienation in the time of
Jack Kennedy’s Camelot were ready for a jail-break, a jail-break on all fronts
and that included from “their song” stuff. Their staid Eisenhower red scare
cold war stuff (he their organizer of victory, their gentile father Ike), hell,
we knew that the world was scary, knew it every time we were forced to go down
into some dank school basement and squat down, heads down too, hoping to high
heaven that the Russkies had not decided to go crazy and set off “the bomb,”
many bombs. And every righteous teenager had a nightmare that, he or she, was
trapped in some fashionable family bunker and those loving parents had
thoughtfully brought their records down into the abyss to soothe their savage
beasts for the duration. Yelling in that troubled sleep please, please, please
if we must die then at least let’s go out to Jerry Lee’s High School Confidential.
We were moreover, some of us any way and I like to think the
best of us, driven by some makeshift dreams, ready to cross our own swords with
the night-takers of our time, and who, in the words of Camelot brother Bobby,
sweet ruthless Bobby of more than one shed tear, quoting from Alfred Lord
Tennyson, were “seeking a new world.” Those who took up the call to action
heralded by the new dispensation and slogged through the 60s decade whether it
was in the civil rights/black liberation struggle, the anti-Vietnam War
struggle or the struggle to find one’s own identity in the counter-culture
swirl before the hammer came down were kindred. To the disapproval, anger, and
fury of more than one parent who had gladly slept through the Eisenhower times.
And that hammer came down quickly as the decade ended and the high white note
that we searched for, desperately searched for, drifted out into the ebbing
tide. Gone. But enough of that for this series is about our uphill struggles to
make our vision of the our newer world, our struggles to satisfy our hunger a little, to stop that
gnawing want, and the music that in our youth
we dreamed by on cold winter nights and hot summer days.
***********
Then the music at
Doc’s jukebox changed, got more charged, frankly, got more sassy and sexual far
different from their parents’ sappy sentimental stuff that didn’t get anybody’s
heart rate up. And she changed, well maybe not so much changed as got caught up
in the new dispensation, the new moves. When they went on dates it wasn’t to
the movies or to some restaurant but to Smiley’s Bar &Grille on the
outskirts of town where old Smiley had a hot new cover band, the Rocking
Rockets, playing all the latest big beat stuff from guys like Warren Smith with
his Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby that she
flipped out on. Not that she, like Warren said, would dance on the tables and
stuff like that but that she would dance with lots of guys, would be flirty,
tease flirty right before his eyes. When he questioned her on it she just said
“don’t be a square, daddy” and refused to discuss it further. And some nights
when he called her mother answered to say she was not home, had gone out with
the girls, or something like that. Yeah, he knew deep in his bones …
********
…he had changed, changed too much for her tastes, changed
into a “square” just like all the parents in town and all the kids who didn’t
want to have fun and just be like them and so she knew, sooner or later she was
not sure which, she would have to drop him, drop him for somebody who was fun.
The problem was that in square old North Adamsville that someone who was fun
had not passed her door, but she had hopes. In the meantime she thought she would
stick with old gloomy Gus him as he fretted his life away when she started
swaying when the juke-box played some hot, latest rock and roll tune or the
cover band at Smiley’s started her dancing to the beat on something like Warren
Smith’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby.
Funny, as she thought back to that time a little over a year
before when they had eyed each other in Miss Williams’ study hall that she was then attracted to his easy manner, his sly boyish-ness which she thought she could talk him out of with a little coaxing(he had made her laugh when after they
became an “item” he said that the eyeing had really been furtive glances-he
said funny things like that then). They had not spoken a word until
they had spent what seemed like a lifetime dancing around each other at Doc’s
Drugstore where he put in endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box and then
just sat there dreamy-eyed looking at her until she said enough and went over
to him and stood right in front of him and dared him to ignore her with her
look. He had surrendered easily enough and they became an “item” after a
subsequent drive-in movie date where she had shown him a few things in the back
seat of her friend Debbie’s boyfriend’s car. He liked her doing that stuff and
she knew he liked her doing that stuff although he was a very shy boy for the
first few times. So this was how they had spent their last year of school together
in some kind of bliss.
Things changed though, changed when a new breeze came
through the town, when Doc’s juke-box started to almost jump off the walls what
with the latest rock tunes coming one right after another. But he did not catch
on, wanted to stay mired in his parents’ music and so the frets began-his about
marriage and settling down, hers about having fun rocking the night away. The worse
times had been when they went to Smiley’s,
the hot-spot bar on the outside of town and who had plenty of booze and bop and
guys who eyed her, maybe not shy furtively like he had but eyed her like they wanted
to have a good time, wanted to have fun rather mope around and be square. He
would just sit there and be mopey while she danced with a few guys, a couple of
whom she had given her telephone number to although they had not worked out.
She got to telling her mother sometimes that when he called to tell him she was
out and that she didn’t know when she would be back. Even when, like this night, she was just
sitting up in her room waiting for a new guy who had danced her off her feet the
night before was supposed to call and maybe, just maybe, want to have fun …
***********
"Rock
And Roll Ruby"
Well
I took my Ruby jukin'
On the out-skirts of town
She took her high heels off
And rolled her stockings down
She put a quarter in the jukebox
To get a little beat
Everybody started watchin'
All the rhythm in her feet
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock
And when she started rockin'
She just couldn't stop
She rocked on the tables
And rolled on the floor
And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
It was 'round about four
I thought she would stop
She looked at me and then
She looked at the clock
She said: "Wait a minute Daddy
Now don't get sour
All I want to do
Is rock a little bit more"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
One night my Ruby left me all alone
I tried to contact her on the telephone
I finally found her about twelve o'clock
She said: "Leave me alone Daddy
'cause your Ruby wants to rock"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
On the out-skirts of town
She took her high heels off
And rolled her stockings down
She put a quarter in the jukebox
To get a little beat
Everybody started watchin'
All the rhythm in her feet
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock
And when she started rockin'
She just couldn't stop
She rocked on the tables
And rolled on the floor
And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
It was 'round about four
I thought she would stop
She looked at me and then
She looked at the clock
She said: "Wait a minute Daddy
Now don't get sour
All I want to do
Is rock a little bit more"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
One night my Ruby left me all alone
I tried to contact her on the telephone
I finally found her about twelve o'clock
She said: "Leave me alone Daddy
'cause your Ruby wants to rock"
She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
Rock, rock, rock'n'roll
When Ruby starts a-rockin'
Boy it satisfies my soul
When: Thursday, January 30, 2014, 7:00 pm to 8:45 pm
