The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Johnny Prescott’s Itch- With Kudos To Mister Gene Vincent 's
"Be-Bop-A-Lula"
Click on the headline
to link to a YouTube film clip of Gene Vincent performing his rock
classic, Be-Bop-A-Lula.
He had the itch. John Prescott had the
itch and he had it bad, especially since his eyes flamed up consumed with
hell-bend flames when he saw Elvis performing live on the Ed Sullivan Show
one Sunday night. And he had it so bad that he had missed, unbeknownst to his
parents who would have been crestfallen and, perhaps, enraged, his last few
piano lessons. Sure, he covered his butt by having saxophonist Sid Stein,
drummer Eddie Shore, and bass player Kenny Jackson from his improvisational
school jazz combo, The G-Clefs (ya, a well-thought out name for a musical
group) come by his house to pick him up. While standing at the Prescott door
parents and sidemen went through the “well aren’t things looking up for you
boys,” and “they seem to be” scene without missing a beat. But as soon as
Kenny’s 1954 Nash Rambler turned the corner of Walnut Street Johnny was a
long-gone daddy, real long-gone. And where he was long-gone but not forlorn to
was Sally Ann’s Music Shop over on the far end of West Main Street. Now the beauty
of Sally Ann’s was that it was, well, Sally Ann’s, a small shop that was well
off the main drag, and therefore no a likely place where any snooping eyes,
ears or voices that would report to said staid Prescott parents when Johnny
went in or out of the place. Everyone, moreover, knew Sally Ann’s was nothing
but a run-down, past its prime place and if you really wanted all the best 45s,
and musical instrument stuff then every self-respecting teenager hit the tracks
for Benny’s Music Emporium right downtown and only about a quick five-minute
walk from North Clintondale High where Johnny and the combo served their high
school time, impatiently served their high school time.
Now while everybody respected old Sally
Ann’s musical instincts (she was the queen of the jitterbug night in the 1940s,
had been on top of the be-bop jazz scene with Charley, Dizzy and the guys early
on, guys whom the G-Clefs covered, covered like crazy, and nixed, nixed big
time that whole Patti Page, Teresa Brewer weepy, sad song thing in the early
1950s) she was passé, old hat when it came to the cool blues coming out of
Chicago, and the be-bop doo wop that kids, white kids, because there were no
known blacks, or spanish, chinese, armenians, or whatever, in dear old
Clintondale were crazy for ever since Frankie Lyman and his back-up guys tore
up the scene with Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
But her greatest sin, although up until
a few weeks ago Johnny would have been agnostic on that sin part, was that she
was behind, way behind the curve, on the rock ‘n’ rock good night wave coming
though and splashing over everybody, including deep jazz man, Johnny Prescott.
But Sally Ann had, aside from that secluded locale and a
tell-no-tales-attitude, something Johnny could use. She had a primo Les Paul
Fender-bender guitar in stock just like the one Gene Vincent used that she was
willing to let clandestine Johnny play when he came by. And she had something
else Johnny could use, or maybe better Sally Ann could use. She had an A-Number
One ear for guys who knew how to make music, any kind of music and had the bead
on Johnny, no question. See Sally Ann was looking for one more glory flame, one
more Clintondale shine moment, and who knows maybe she believed she could work
some Colonel Parker magic and so Johnny Prescott was king of the Sally Ann day.
King, that is, until James and Martha
Prescott spotted the other G-Clefs (Kenny, Sid, Eddie) coming out of the Dean
Music School minus Johnny, minus a “don’t know where he is, sir,” Johnny. And
Mr. Dean, Johnny’s piano instructor, was clueless as well, believing Johnny’s
telephone story about having to work for the past few weeks and so lessons were
to be held in abeyance. Something was definitely wrong if Mr. Dean, the man
more who than anyone else who recognized Johnny’s raw musical talent in about
the third grade had lost Johnny's confidence. But the Prescotts got wise in a
hurry because flutist Mary Jane Galvin, also coming out the school just, then
and overhearing the commotion about Johnny’s whereabouts decided to get even
with one John Prescott by, let’s call a thing by its right name, snitch on him
and disclosed that she had seen him earlier in the day when she walked into
Sally Ann’s looking for an old Benny Goodman record that featured Peggy Lee and
which Benny’s Emporium, crazed rock ‘n’ rock hub Benny’s would not dream of
carrying, or even have space for.
The details of the actual physical
confrontation with Johnny by his parents (with Mr. Dean in tow) are not very
relevant to our little story. What is necessary to detail is the shock and
chagrin that James and Martha exhibited on hearing of Johnny’s itch, his itch
to be the be-bop, long-gone daddy of the rock ‘n’ roll night. Christ, Mr. Dean
almost had a heart attack on the spot when he heard that Johnny had, and we
will quote here, “lowered himself to play such nonsense,” and gone over to the
enemy of music. As mentioned earlier Mr. Dean, before he opened his music
school, had been the roving music teacher for the Clintondale elementary school
sand had spotted Johnny’s natural feel for music early on. He also knew, knew
somewhere is his sacred musical bones, that Johnny’s talents, his care-free
piano talents in particular, could not be harnessed to classical programs, the
Bachs, Beethoven, and Brahms stuff, so that he encouraged Johnny to work his
magic through be-bop jazz then in high fashion, and with a long pedigree in
American musical life. When he approached the Prescotts about coordinating
efforts to drive Johnny’s talents by lessons his big pitch had been that his
jazz ear would assure him of steady work when he
came of age, came of age in the mid-1950s.
This last point should not be
underestimated in winning the Prescotts over. James worked, when there was
work, as welder, over at the shipyards in Adamsville, and Martha previously
solely a housewife, in order to pay for those lessons (and be a good and caring
mother to boot) had taken on a job filling jelly donuts (and other donut stuff)
at one of the first of the Dandy Donuts shops that were spreading over the
greater Clintondale area.
Christ, filling donuts. No wonder they
were chagrined, or worst.
Previously both parents were proud,
proud as peacocks, when Johnny really did show that promise that Mr. Dean saw
early on. Especially when Johnny would inevitably be called to lead any musical
assemblage at school, and later when, at Mr. Dean’s urging, he formed the
G-Clef and began to make small amounts of money at parties and other functions.
Rock ‘n’ rock did not fit in, fit in at all in that Prescott world. Then damn
Elvis came into view and corrupted Johnny’s morals, or something like that.
Shouldn’t the authorities do something about it?
Johnny and his parents worked out a
truce, well kind of a truce,kind of a truce for a while. And that kind of a
truce for a while is where old Sally Ann enters again. See, Johnny had so much
raw rock talent that she persuaded him to have his boys (yes, Kenny, Sid and
Eddy in case you forgot) come by and accompany him on some rock stuff. And
because Johnny (not Sally Ann, old Aunt Sally by then) was loved, loved in the
musical sense if not in the human affection sense by the other boys they
followed along. Truth to tell they were getting the itch too, a little. And
that little itch turned into a very big itch indeed when at that very same
dime-dropper, Mary Jane Galvin’s sweet sixteen party concert (yes, Mary Jane
was that kind of girl), the G-Clefs finished one of their covers, Dizzy’s Salt
Peanuts with some rock riffs. The kids started to get up, started dancing
in front of their seats to the shock of the parents and Mary Jane(yes, Mary
Jane was that kind of girl), including the senior Prescotts, were crazy for the
music. And Johnny’s fellow G-Clefs noticed, noticed very quickly that all kinds
of foxy frails (girls, okay), girls who had previously spent much time ignoring
their existences, came up all dream-eyed and asked them, well, asked them
stuff, boy-girl stuff.
Oh, the Sally Ann part, the real Sally
Ann part not just the idea of putting the rock band together. Well, she talked
her talk to the headmaster over at North Clintondale High (an old classmate,
Clintondale Class of 1925, and flame from what the boys later heard) and got
the boys a paying gig at the up coming school Spring Frolics. And the money was
more than the G-Clefs, the avant guarde G-Clefs made in a month of jazz club
appearances, to speak nothing of girls attached. So now the senior Prescotts
are happy, well as happy as parents can be over rock ‘n’ roll. And from what I
hear Johnny and the Rocking Ramrods are going, courtesy of Aunt Sally,
naturally, to be playing at the Gloversville Fair this summer. Be-bop-a-Lula
indeed.
