***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Introduction-Warren Smith’s Rock and Roll Ruby 

 

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 19^th 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 our parents’ generation, that being the parents of the generation of ’68, the ones 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 music that was not 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 actually were detonated. At least that is the way we will tell the story now.  

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, 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, knew what sacred place the music of the 1950s, rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly, doo wop, flat out pure rock and roll, and the like was held in our youthful hearts. That was our music, our getting through the tough times music, that went wafting through the house on the living room radio (when the parents were out), on the record player, or, for some, the television (ditto the parents out, especially when American Bandstand hit us like a hurricane), and best of all on that of blessed transistor radio that allowed us to while away the time up in our rooms away from snooping parental ears. Yes, the music 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 and 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 rock, rock with or without Miss LaVern Baker, better with, better with, swaying slightly, lips moistened, swirling every guy in the place on Jim Dandy vowing he would do just that for a 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 season 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 bad weather, making grown men cry (women too) when she reached that high note fretting about her long gone man, 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, 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, they were 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. 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 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.

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Rock N' Roll Ruby

Warren Smith

Well, i took my ruby rockin'
On the outskirts of town
Kicked her high heels off
And rolled her stockings down
Put a quarter in the jukebox
To get a little beat
All the people 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'
Boys, it satisfies my soul, my soul

Well ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock
And when she started rockin'
She just couldn't stop
She rocked on the table
And rolled on the floor
With all the people yelling "ruby rock a little more!"

She's my rock'n'roll ruby, rock'n'roll
Rock'n'roll ruby, rock'n'roll
When ruby starts to rockin'
Boys, it satisfies my soul, my soul

Aw look out
It was long 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 you get sore
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 to rockin'
Boys, it satisfies my soul, my soul
When ruby starts to rockin'
Boys, it satisfies my soul