Jess Barker, Jess Barker, Junior to separate out the generations correctly, very correctly when talking about musical tastes, a subject over which more wars that international ones have been fought, mostly bloodless, but sometimes a close thing, mainly around that classic battle between sober, sane, and profound parent music and wild, pagan, decadent children music, name the generational conflict, but the present one is centered on the staid 1950s Perry Como, Patti Page, Frank Sinatra, and their gang versus sexy, silky, make the women wet Elvis, riffing Chuck Berry, manic Jerry Lee Lewis, and their progeny, specifically those doo wop singers who filled the gap after Elvis died (or might as well have fleeing in the night to the U.S. Army), Chuck got caught with one of Mister’s woman, also in the night, and Jerry Lee got caught playing kissing cousin games, maybe day and night. Jess had of late, after dusting off some attic boxes filled with 45 RPM records and LPs and his old teenage days record player in preparation for readying his father’s house, his late father’s house, for sale, been running back over some material that formed his coming of age listening music (on that ubiquitous, and very personal battery-driven transistor radio that kept those snooping parents out in the dark, clueless, and just fine, all agreed), and that of his generation, the generation of ’68.
Naturally back in those days, especially on the days, nights, late Sunday nights really, when he was able through some inexplicable airwave magic to receive Mr. Lee’s Midnight Blues Show from the wilds of Chicago, one had to pay homage to the blues influences on rock and roll from the likes of Muddy Waters (think Mannish Child), Big Mama Thornton(think the original fired-up Hound Dog not Elvis’ misspent version), and Big Joe Turner (think, accept no imitation, Shake, Rattle and Roll) And, of course, also the rockabilly influences on rock from Elvis (think Good Rock’ Tonight), Carl Perkins (think Blue Suede Shoes), Wanda Jackson (think Let’s Have A Party), Jerry Lee Lewis (think Breathless along with about twelve other classics of the genre), and perhaps the most influential of all, of Warren Smith’s Rock and Roll Ruby.
He had as well spent some time on the male side of the doo wop be-bop Saturday night led by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers on Why Do Fools Fall In Love? (a good question, he chuckled to himself as he fell into memory working through the lyrics of that one) backed up by The Falcons’ You’re So Fine. After taking stock of his old time tastes he noted that he had not done much with the female side of the doo wop night, the great girl doo wop groups that had their heyday in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the British invasion, among other things, changed his generation’s tastes in popular music. He had meant to make some amends for that omission but found a certain stumbling block in the way, the “speak to” issue, then and now.
One problem with the doo wop girl groups for a guy, as Jess thought to himself on that question, a serious rock guy was that the lyrics for many of the girl group songs, frankly, did not “speak” to him. After all how much empathy could a young ragamuffin of a boy brought up on the wrong side of the tracks (in the very small too cramped for five people faded house that held that treasure trove of memories) like Jess for a girl who broke up with her boyfriend, a motorcycle guy, a sensitive motorcycle guy, on her parents’ demand because of his lower class upbringing as the lyrics in the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack attest to. He remembered that he blushed every time it was played on the jukebox over at Doc’s Drugstore, the local hang-out for after school be-boppers, or those like him who wanted to be-bop. Except, see, she should have stuck with her guy through thick and thin, and maybe, just maybe, he would not have skidded off that rainy road and gone to Harley heaven so young. And, maybe, just maybe, they could be in that little white house with the picket fence, Harley out in the garage needing little work, a little washing too, hosting angelic grandkids today.
Try this one, as added ammunition for Jess’s plea, the lyrics about some guy, some sensitive, shy, good-looking guy, a guy with wavy hair who all the girls were going crazy over but who the singer was going make her very own in the boy and girl love battle in the Cliffons’ He’s So Fine when Jess was nothing but a girl reject, mainly. He blushed again as he remembered back to the time when he asked Laura, school fox Laura, out on a date based on some common discussion of the lyrics at Doc’s and in a moment of bravado blurted out his request. She just smirked, and said her boyfriend, her football- playing boyfriend, would frown on that request. He immediately backed off and returned to his wanna-be be-bop shell once he heard that bad news.
Or how about this one, the one where the love bugs were going to be married and really get that white house picket fence thing in the Dixie Cups’ Chapel Of Love for a guy who, more often than not, didn’t even have steady girlfriend. Jess, a kiss-less youth, would never even get into, would not even make the cut, on the part of the anatomy that Betty Everett harped on in Its In His Kiss. Or, finally, how could Jess possibly relate to the teen girl angst problem, the very real “what if I get pregnant if I do it” in the barely “the pill” knowledge night posed in the Shirelles’ Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Yah, how would Jess know if it was the real thing, or just a moment’s pleasure, and what that dreaded tomorrow they sing about would bring.
So you get the idea of Jess’ problem, this stuff, this girl chatter in the Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” what did, and did not happen on Friday and Saturday with Jimmy down at the seashore, over at the back seat drive-in theater, or the payback after a big splurge at Mel’s Drive-In restaurant could not “speak” to him. Now you understand, right? Yah, but also get, and get this is straight, straight from Jess Barker, Junior, you had better get your do-lang, do-lang, your shoop, shoop, shoop and your best be-bop bopped into that good night voice out and listen to, and sing along with, the lyrics to those great girl doo wop girl groups. This, fellow baby-boomers, was about our teen angst, our teen alienation, our teen love youth traumas and now, a distant now, this stuff sounds great.
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