The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The “Last Waltz”- The Never-Ending Classic Rock Review Tour

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The “Last Waltz”- The Never-Ending Classic Rock Review Tour

From The Archives Of Allan Jackson

[The attentive reader of this series may know already that there was an agreement negotiated by his (and my) old high school friend from their growing up days in the working class Acre section of North Adamsville Sam Lowell and the current site manager Greg Green about publicly acknowledging Allan Jackson, the previous site manager, as the driving force behind this classic days of rock and roll at the creation in the mid-1950s series. The “compromise” (thus far) is that Allan is now amorphously acknowledged to have had the works in his archives without specifying that the whole collection was of his inspiration and perspiration. What even the most attentive reader cannot know is that Sam has been in further negotiations with Greg about giving Allan full public credit with a by-line and including updated introductions by him.

The hook? Here is where politics in the Machiavellian raw, left-wing or not comes into play. Greg owes Sam a “favor.” Essentially Greg owes his job to Sam’s decisive vote in the fall of 2017 when there was a fierce internal struggle at this publication over its future direction and Sam sided with the younger writers to what everybody agrees was a purge of the Jackson leadership after many years of hard copy and on-line publication. To show what kind of guys we are dealing with (who I have been dealing with for fifty years so am not surprised at anything these two do) when Allan found out that Greg had initially rebooted the series using another old friend of ours Frank Jackman as a “front” he went crazy with rage. But also contacted Sam on the sly to get attribution for him on the series.

You have to know that these two had cut their teeth in politics back in their radical past 1960s when nobody thought anything of backstabbing one day and then going out for a long round of drinks the next to understand that even though Sam lost him his job, threw him to the exile woods by-gones were by-gones. Amazing. The hook on Greg’s side was that Sam now knew that Greg had been instrumental in “doing Allan in” in the publishing business after he went into exile. He had put the mark of Cain, had put the kiss of death on Allan telling all who inquired about Allan’s employability that he was “hard to work with.” That would explain as Sam and I found out after we discovered where Allan was hiding out up in old haunt Bar Harbor, Maine the source of a million wild rumors about his fate which will be discussed further below and in a couple more introductions since we, Sam, Allan and I, want the reader to read the sketch more than try to fathom the byzantine politics of the publishing business. In any case Sam and Greg are still negotiating about where Allan will ultimately land in this space.         

One of the most persistent rumors after Allan went “underground” (he, they, we are still addicted to the expressions and attitudes of those by-gone 60’s) was that he was in America Siberia out in Utah sucking up to the Mormons in order to get a by-line, to get work and later after U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch announced his retirement and Mitt Romney declared his candidacy that he attempted to get on the campaign as a press secretary or speechwriter. Sam, Phil, Josh, all the older writer here and some others who don’t but have known Allan for a long time dismissed the whole scheme out of hand especially knowing how he had skewered Mitt as a chameleon, a charlatan who would sell his soul if he had one to the highest bidder to get whatever political office he was looking for in 2008 and 2012 when he ran for the roses. Strangely that rumor proved to be the truest one of all although as usual not exactly as the rumor mill had it. Once Greg put the kiss of death on Allan with that “hard to work with” mantra he was frozen out of the East Coast media hub. Having spent time in California in his younger days he headed out there but also faced a stone wall trying to get a job, any job. Here is where the personal and the political sometimes come into conflict. Allan, despite his age and longtime in the business had over the years accumulated three ex-wives and a parcel of kids, mostly nice and bright and college bound. He is still paying alimony and costs of tuition so he needed, needs money. Hence his bright idea that he would go to out of the way Utah and try to hustle some work.

The basis of that idea that he could get some work from the hard shell Mormons came from a couple of articles he had done during one of the Romney runs for President concerning the ritual of their wearing white underwear and a secret admiration for either Romney’s grandfather or great-grandfather who had five wives at one time and survived tell the tale in the days when the Mormons were seriously polygamous. He did write am OpEd piece for the Salt Lake Star which got printed and some good comments on the sly from a couple of Romney’s aides who thought the polygamy article was “cute.” Of course none of that went anywhere since the secret of Mormonism, of Romney, is that you keep it in the family, hire Mormons. Allan would never have survived a vetting in any case either about his radical past or some other articles about old Mitt which put had put him on the skewer and lit the fire. More later but read this sketch now. Jack Callahan]       

************

Sam Lowell had several years before, maybe in about the middle of 2010, done an extensive survey of a commercially-produced Oldies But Goodies series (this series had fifteen separate CDs, more about its mass in a minute, in twenty to thirty song compilations and had torn his ear off from the endless listening. He had begged for a little gangsta hip-hop to soothe his ravaged soul although he was strictly a white-bread blues guy around that kind of music, around black-burst out roots is the toots music) and he had selected one song in each CD to highlight the music. He sought to highlight in particular the music that he and his corner boys, Frankie Riley the acknowledged leader, Pete Markin (also known as the “Scribe” for his endless “publicity” for the group, especially the fountain of wisdom put forth by one Frankie Riley, who later when the drug craze hit full blossom in the late 1960s went over the edge down in Mexico trying to rip off a couple of bricks of cocaine from the hard boys and Pete got two slugs and a face down in a dusty Sonora back alley for his efforts), Jimmy Jenkins, Rats McGee, Johnny Callahan, and other guys like Luke the Juke, Stubby Kincaid, and Hawk Healey who walked in and out of the group at various high school points, had grown up with. Better, had come of age with the music in Adamsville, that is in Massachusetts (Sam had been born in Clintondale a few towns over before moving to Adamsville, a similar town, in junior high school and taken under Frankie Riley’s corner boy wing but had decidedly not been corner boy in that town for the simple reason that there were, unlike in Adamsville at Doc’s Drugstore and later Benny’s bowling alleys, no stand-out corner to be a corner boy in, for good or evil). Yeah, the music of the great jail-break rock and roll 1950s and early 1960s when Sam and the guys came of age had driven his memory bank at that time, some of that material had been placed in a blog, Rock and Roll Will Never Die, dedicated to classic rock and roll music (the classic period now being deemed to have been between about the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s although Sam flinched every time he heard some young guy, some guy who might be an aficionado but was nevertheless not splashed by that tide, called his time the “classic age,” yeah, that rubbed him raw).

Sam had received some comments at the time, mostly from his generational brethren inquiring about this or that song, asking about where they could get a copy of the song they were seeking and he would inform them of the monstrous beauties of YouTube if you could stand the damn commercials that notoriously plague that site to get to your selection, especially Elvis and Jerry Lee stuff. Asked about whether he knew where a 45 RPM vinyl copy could be had, had at any price, a tougher task and asked about the fate that had befallen various one hit johnnies and janies whose single song had been played unto death at the local hang-out jukebox or on the family record player thus driving some besotted mother to the edge. Many though, with almost the same “religious” intensity that Sam brought to his efforts, wanted to vividly describe how this or that song had impacted their lives. Sam had presumed then, presumed a passing fancy but a few apparently had been in a time warp and should have sought some medical attention (although Sam was too much the gentleman to openly make that suggestion). A lot of times though it came down purely to letting  Sam know what song did they first dance to, a surprising number listing Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock  and Danny and the Juniors At The Hop as the choice, surprising since that would have meant a very early introduction not only to rock and roll but to the social etiquettes of dancing with the opposite sex, to speak nothing of the sweaty palms, broken nerves and two left feet which blocked the way, which Sam had not done until he was a freshman in high school. Or what song in what situation had they gotten, or given, their first kiss and to whom, not surprisingly in the golden age of the automobile generation that frequently took place in the back seat of some borrowed car (a few over-the-edgers had gone into more graphic detail than necessary for adults to go into about what happened after that kiss in that backseat). Yeah, got in the back seat of some Chevy to go down to the local lovers’ lane (some very unusual places, the lovers’ lanes not the backseats which were one size fits all) Or had their first fight and make-up to, stuff like that.

As the shelf-life these days for all things Internet is short Sam thought no more about that series, the article or the comments until recently when a young guy (he had presumed a young guy since most devotees of classic rock fall into that demographic, although his moniker of Doo-Wop Dee could have signaled a young woman) who had Googled the words “rock and roll will never die” and had come upon the blog and the article. He sent an e-mail which challenged Sam to tell a candid world (Sam’s expression not Doo-Wop Dee’s who probably would not have known the genesis of that word) why the age of the Stones, Beatles, Animals, Yardbirds, etc., the 1960s age of the big bad guitars, heavy metal, and big backbeat did not do more for classic rock than Elvis (Presley), Chuck (Berry), Roy (Orbison), Bo (Diddley), Buddy (Holly), Jerry Lee (Lewis) and the like did all put together.

Well Sam is a mild-mannered guy usually, has mellowed out some since his rock and roll corner boy slam bang jail-break days, his later “on the road” searching for the great blue-pink great American West night hippie days and his later fighting against his demon addictions days (drugs, con artist larceny, cigarettes, whiskey, hell, even sex, no forget that, drop that from the addiction list) and he had decided, not without an inner murmur, to let the comment pass, to move on to new things, to start work on an appreciation of electric blues in his young life. Then one night late one night he and his lady friend, Melinda (and the reason to forget about that sex addiction stuff above), were watching an old re-run on AMC (the old-time movies channel, featuring mostly black and white films also a relic from his youth and his high school time at the retro-Strand Theater that existed solely to present two such beauties every Saturday afternoon, with or without popcorn) and saw as the film started one ghost from the past Jerry Lee Lewis sitting (hell maybe he had been standing, twirling whirling whatever other energy thing he could do back then to add to the fury of his act) on the back of a flat-bed truck, piano at the ready, doing the title song of the movie, High School Confidential, and then and there Sam had decided that he needed to put old Doo-Wop right. The rest of the movie, by the way, a classic 1950s cautionary tale about the pitfalls of dope, you know marijuana automatically leading to heroin, complete with some poor hooked girl strung out by her fiendish dealer/lover, and of leading an unchaste life, you know that sex addiction stuff that Sam had not been addicted to along his life’s way, as a result was actually eminently forgettable but thanks Jerry Lee for the two minute bailout blast. Here is what Sam had to say to his errant young friend and a candid world:       

First off the term “last waltz” used in the headline is used here as a simple expression of the truth. But that expression will also give Doo Wop and anybody else who asks an idea of the huge amount of material from the classic rock period, like I said in my blog sketch from the mid-50s to the mid-60s, which was good enough, had rung our running home after school to check out the latest dance moves and the cute guys and girls American Bandstand hearts enough, to make the cut. (And that really was true, out of over four hundred songs at least one hundred, a very high percentage, could have had a shot at the one hundred best popular songs of all times lists. When I had started that Oldies But Goodies series a few years ago in a fit of nostalgia related to reconnecting with guys like Frankie Riley, Johnny Callahan and Frank Jackman from the old hometown I had assumed that I had completed the series at Volume Ten.  I then found out that this was a fifteen, fifteen count ‘em, volume series. I flipped out.

Thereafter I whipped off those last five CDs in one day, including individual reviews of each CD and a summing up for another blog, and was done with it. Working frantically all the while under this basic idea; how much can we rekindle, endlessly rekindle, memories from a relatively short, if important, part of our lives, even for those who lived and died by the songs (or some of the songs) in those compilations. How many times could one read about wallflowers, sighs, certain shes (or hes), the moonlight of high school dances (if there was any) and hanging around to the bitter end for that last dance of the night to prove... what. Bastante! Enough! Until Doo-Wop decided that my coming of age era paled, paled if you can believe this, in comparison to Johnny-come-lately rockers like Mick and Keith, John and Paul, Jerry, Neil, Roger and the like.

No, a thousand times no, as right this minute I am watching a YouTube film clip of early Elvis performing Good Rockin’ Tonight at what looks like some state fairgrounds down south and the girls are going crazy tearing their hair out and crying like crazy because the new breeze they had been waiting for in the death-dry red scare Cold War 1950s night just came through and not soon enough. If Doo-Wop had paid attention to anything that someone like Mick Jagger said all the over whelming influence, the foundation for their efforts it might have held his tongue, or been a bit more circumspect. Guys like Mick, and they were mainly guys just like their 1950s forebears know that much. Yeah, it was mainly guys since I admit the only serious female rocker that I recall was Wanda Jackson whereas Doo-Wop’s time frame had Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, just to name a few. If he had argued on the basis of female rockers I would have no argument that the 1960s was a golden age for female rockers but his specified only the generic term “rockers.”

Like I said part of what got me going on the re-tread trail had been that nostalgia thing with my old corner boys and all our nights dropping dimes and quarters in Doc’s or Benny’s jukeboxes, listening on our transistors until our ears turned to cauliflower, and swaying at too many last change dance to mention but I also had been doing a series of commentaries elsewhere at the time on another site on my coming of political age in the early 1960s. You know the age of our own Jack Kennedy, the age of the short-lived Camelot when our dreams seemingly were actually within our grasp, and of the time we began realizing the need for serious struggles against all kinds of wars, and all kinds of discriminations, including getting a fair shake for the working people, those who labor, the people who populated our old time neighborhoods, our parents for chrissakes, in this benighted world. But here when I am writing about musical influences I am just speaking of my coming of age, period, which was not necessarily the same thing as the former.

No question that those of us who came of age in the 1950s were truly children of rock and roll. We were there, whether we appreciated it or not at the time, when the first, sputtering, musical moves away from ballady Broadway show tunes from Oklahoma, South Pacific and the like and rhymey Tin Pan Alley pieces hit the transistor radio airwaves. (If you do not know what a transistor radio is then ask your parents or, ouch, grandparents, please. Or look it up on Wikipedia if you are too embarrassed to not know ancient history things. Join the bus.) And, most importantly, we were there when the music moved away from any and all staid arm in arm music that one’s parents might have approved of, or maybe, even liked, or, hopefully, at least left you alone to play in peace up in your room when rock and roll hit post- World War II America teenagers like, well, like an atomic bomb.

Not all of the material put forth was good, nor was all of it destined to be playable fifty or sixty years later on some “greatest hits” compilation but some of songs had enough chordal energy, lyrical sense, and sheer danceability to make any Jack or Jill jump then, or now. Think Elvis almost any place where there were more than five girls, hell more than one girl, or Jerry Lee and that silly film high school cautionary film that got this whole comment started where he stole the show at the beginning from that flatbed throne or Bill Haley just singing Rock Around The Clock in front of the film Blackboard Jungle. Here is the good part, especially for painfully shy guys like me, or those who, like me as well, had two left feet on the dance floor. You didn’t need to dance toe to toe, close to close, with that certain she (or he for shes). Just be alive…uh, hip to the music. Otherwise you might become the dreaded wallflower. But that wallflower fear, the fear of fears that haunted many a teenage dream then, that left many a sad sack teenage boy, girls can speak for themselves, waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats worrying about sweaty hands, underarms, course breathe, stubble, those damn feet (and her dainty ones mauled), and bravery, bravery to ask that she (or he for shes) for a dance, especially the last dance that you waited all night to have that chance to ask her about, is a story for another day. Let’s just leave it at this for now. Ah, to be very, very young then was very heaven.

So what still sounded good to a current AARPer, and perhaps some of his fellows who comprise the demographic that such 1950s compilation “speak” to (and some early 60s songs as well). Carl Perkins original Blue Suede Shoes (covered by, made famous by, and made millions for, Elvis). Or the Hank William’s outlaw country classic I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Naturally, in a period of classic rock numbers, Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue (or, like Chuck Berry and Fat Domino from this period, virtually any other of about twenty of his songs).

But what about the now seeming mandatory to ask question the inevitable end of the night high school dance (or maybe even middle school) song that seemed to be included in each of those CD compilations? The song that you, maybe, waited around all night for just to prove that you were not a wallflower, and more importantly, had the moxie to, mumbly-voiced, parched-throated, sweaty-handed, ask a girl to dance (women can relate their own experiences, probably similar). Here Elvis’ One Night With You fills the bill. Hey, I did like this one, especially the soulful, snappy timing and voice intonation. And, yes, I know, this is one of the slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, one learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason than to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you? Touche Doo-Wop!

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night- A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Adamsville South Elementary School Class Of 1958-Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night- A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Adamsville South Elementary School Class Of 1958-Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

This is the way my old corner boy, Fritz Taylor, from down in “the projects” told me the story one night years later when we were sitting on the grey granite steps of our high school, Miller High, in Seaside Heights, that’s in New Hampshire. Those projects by the way, all white projects  unlike the ones you hear about lately which are mostly populated by minorities, had originally been build right after World War II to help stem the heavy demand for housing from returning servicemen with young families and not enough dough to finance a house. The original idea as well was that the housing was temporary and had been built with a certain careless abandon by some low-bidder contractors. Fritz’s and my family had been among those families in the 1950s who did not get to participate in the “golden age” and so we were long time tenants all through our school years until we graduated from Miller High. Between the isolated location of the projects and the high number of kids the place had it had its own elementary school, Snug Harbor (sounds nice right, however, that school was also expected to be temporary and built as such by those same low-bidder contractors), where we both had gone through all six grades together (we started in the time before kindergarten became a step in one’s education). I am telling you about this because the story happened down there long before we got to high school.

So there we were sitting there on the steps, no dough in our pockets, our main guy for a ride out of town, Benny, also a corner boy, on a family vacation up in Maine, no girls in hand, or prospects either since any girls we were interested in had no interest us either because we had not car or because we were from the projects, come to think of it forget that last part it was because we were car-less and that world was filled with guys with cars, “boss cars,” swooping down on the interesting girls, talking slowly. Talking kind of softly for us although loudly or softly no one would have been around to heard us that warm summer night with about six weeks to go before school started again and we could go back and start our junior year, kind of dreamy too really about the first times we had been smitten by a girl, not necessarily a forever smitten thing (forever then being maybe a month or six weeks, no more except for some oddball couples who found love and stayed together for the next fifty years if you can believe that in this day in age) but with a bug that disturbed our sleep.

Yeah, that is exactly the way to put it, when some frail disturbed our sleep, the first of many sleepless nights on that subject.  (That “frail” a localism for girl, heavily influenced by our corner boy with the car Benny watching too many 1930s and 1940s George Raft or James Cagney gangster and Humphrey Bogart hard-boiled private detective movies.) So we were sitting there thinking about how we were now chasing other dreams, well, maybe not other dreams but older versions, sweet sixteen versions of that same dream.  Of course at sixteen it was all about girls but as it turned out that subject had its own pre-history way back when. Just ask Fritz Taylor if you see him.

Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all and at times like that dream vision night at sixteen on the steps in front of the high school he might have, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, loving history or even the thought of history since Miss Winot blew him away with talk of ancient Greeks and Romans. Blew him away so that when he got in trouble with that teacher for saying something fresh, and it really was, a swear word expression, “what the fuck,” that he heard all the time around his house which he thought everybody said when they were angry, assigned him a paper to write of five hundred words and he wrote an essay about Greek democracy which she actually read to the class she was so impressed. Miss Winot, blew him away more when she freaked him out with talk of Egypt and Pharaoh times with the Pyramids and the slaves and all time and he begged his older brother to drive him all the way down to the art museum in Boston to look at old Pharaoh stuff some guys from Harvard had unearthed. But all that is just stuff to let you know what kind of guy Fritz was in elementary school before he wised up, or kind of wised up, in high school. Funny one time when I wanted to take the bus down to Boston when I got the Pharaoh bug in high school he dismissed me out of hand. Done that, he said. So that night he had his history hat on so I knew I was in for a story, a bloody silly story if I knew Fritz but we had nothing better to do so I let him go on. Let him go on that sixteen years old summer night when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about more modern history, thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund.

No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in a very old-time Quincy cemetery while the events to be related occurred since Fritz was crazy about her too once he figured out she was the real power behind John and John Quincy) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment, the fighting 54^th, out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like. This is about “first love” so rest easy.

Fritz, that early summer’s night, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and figured that he would write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of our class who could stand to know that story. Although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average Miller High class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to tell me that story and to write that different story later.

Still, once the initial trauma wore off, Fritz thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his brown-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Snug Harbor doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth Here is his say:

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably supposed to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it is there for isn’t it. At least it was that way a few years back, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.

I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl on the dance floor (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little). Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since I am talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect us from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on re-runs. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the plaid 1960s. Wrong.

Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that leering Amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with the girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.

Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Seaside Heights Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that SHHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)

Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.

I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I though I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity.

Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about me back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night –Sweet Little Rock and Roller

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night –Sweet Little Rock and Roller

Sketches From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night –Sweet Little Rock and Roller

Chuck Berry – Sweet Little Rock 'n Roller Lyrics

Yeah, nine years old and sweet as she can be
All dressed up like a downtown Christmas tree
Dancin? And hummin? A rock抧抮oll melody
She抯 the daughter of a well-respected man
Who taught her to judge and understand
Since she became a rock抧抮oll music fan

Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Her daddy don抰 have to scold her
Her partner can抰 hardly hold her
Her partner can抰 hardly hold her
She never gets any older
Sweet little rock抧抮oller

Should have seen her eyes when the band began to play
And the famous singer sang and bowed away
When the star performed she screamed and yelled "Hooray!"

Ten thousand eyes were watchin? Him leave the floor
Five thousand tongues were screamin? 揗ore and More!? Br> And about fifteen hundred people waitin? Outside the door

Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller
Sweet little rock'n'roller

*********
Recently Josh Breslin,  my old travelling companion from the great yellow bus down the nirvana highways days out West in the late 1960s (the West is the best, get here and we will do the rest was the Jim Morrison-etched mantra driving us out there) told me, that he had, seemingly endlessly, gone back to his early musical roots, his coming of age in the 1950s golden age of rock (and mine too), now conceded even by him (me, I am agnostic on the question) to correctly carry the designation classic rock. Although Josh had his huff and puff sneaking out of the house at midnight heading via subway to Harvard Square to see if could be washed by the new breeze coming through the land folk music minute in the early 1960s that I can attest to when he later tried to foist the records off on me (you know the Village/Old Town/North Beach faded minute when all those guys and gals like Dylan/Baez/Collins/Odetta/Rush/Clancy Brothers/Van Ronk/Ochs/Paxton, Christ even old guard Pete Seeger and so on who had previously sung their hearts out for the basket in the up and coming coffeehouses and to move, or better if you believe the stories  Dave Van Ronk tells, clear the beat poetry crowds to bring in a new crowd got their chance to front). Had his blues phase, you pick ‘em country or electric, after he saw Howlin’ Wolf practically eating his harmonica on How Many More Years. Had as well an outlaw country cowboy second with Waylon and Willie. And still later did a retro Duke/Count/Charlie/Dizzy retro jazz thing although he has always claimed that he was always a child of his times, a “child of rock ‘n’ roll.” I believe him if that helps.

To show his adherence to that truth Josh had spent some time reviewing various compilations of a commercially produced classic rock series that went under the general title Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die. That task was not as easy as it would seem since those commercial interests have tapped into their demographic pool and have caught our generation, the generation of ’68 in a nostalgic mood, or in a retro- buying mood. Ready to buy fifteen volume sets just to get maybe thirty gems (if they have not caught onto iTunes or YouTube, an iffy proposition for our generation just on the edge of needing to be computer literate). So there are many (although with a fair amount of overlap) compilations out there honing in on the “oldies but goodies” bug that has infiltrated the AARP-worthy set. He has noted that while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes, you know novelty stuff like Purple People-Eaters or goof things like Who Wears Short Shorts, it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for our generation who had just started to tune into music. (We have talked a great deal about the various failures, one hit johnnies and janies, and the “never should haves,” although I hope not endlessly.) 

I had to laugh when Josh explained his take on the scene back then.  We had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own “sub-group cultural expression.” I, Josh too maybe since we are working to mine the same memoires lately, have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, of course Luckies preferred) hanging from the lips, Coke, big- sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, “hold the onions I might get lucky tonight,” dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, natch. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.

Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working- class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them). Moreover, I clued you in, and keep this quiet, about sex, or rather I should say “doin’ the do” in case the kids are around, and about the local “custom” (for any anthropologists present) of ocean-waved Atlantic “watching the submarine races.”

That is maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger Josh felt the need to go back indoors again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The jukebox scene where we usually heard some sounds for the first time and we either worked out some deal to buy the record at Smitty’s Record Shop up in Adamsville Square or cadged nickels and dimes to endlessly play the tune until it got worn out (or we got worn out hearing it and therefore moved on). Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days. Bowling alleys, drugstores (drugstores with soda fountains- why else would healthy, young, sex-charged high school students go to such an old-timer-got-to-get medicine-for-the-arthritis place. Why indeed, although there are secrets in such places that I will tell you about some other time when I’m not jazzed up to talk about Josh  be-bop juke-boxing around the town), pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and so on. Basically any place where kids were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

Josh said a lot of it was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention as they came in the door. I agree with the latter point although the real killing time didn’t come until we hit the Army, and later. Here is where Josh showed me he was not kidding about his devotion to classic rock when one night at a local bar in Cambridge he showed me the cover artwork on one compilation showed dreamy girls waiting around the jukebox for their platters (records, okay) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. That said to me “There is your chance, boys, grab it,” like in the old days. See these were girls just hanging around the machine. Some cashmere-sweatered, beehive-haired (or bobbed, kind of), well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) chatting idly was worth at least a date if you moved fast or, more often, a telephone number to call. Not after nine at night though or before eight because that was when she was talking to her boyfriend. Lucky guy, maybe.

But after looking at that artwork (worthy of Edward Hooper, for the clear visual message it sent, believe me) I reminded Josh where the real skill came in. That was when you were just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking to her friends as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some now faded old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next. Then you made your move-“Have you heard Only You?” NO! “Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up.” Or some such line.

Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to … for just a minute, before the “I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc.” line came at you. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. On that self-same jukebox you were very, very likely to hear some of the songs on the compilation Josh showed me. Let me mention the stick outs (and a few that worked some of that “magic” mentioned above on tough nights). The other “has beens” you don’t have to waste your time on:

Oh Julie, The Crescendos (a great one if you knew, or thought you knew, or wanted to believe that girl at the jukebox’s name was Julie); Lavender Blue, Sammy Turner (good talk song especially on the word silly dilly billy word play); Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Chuck Berry (discussed above, and worthy of consideration if your tastes ran to those heart-breaking little rock and rollers. I will tell you about the ONE time it came in handy for me sometime); You Were Mine, The Fireflies; Susie Darlin’, Robin Luke (ditto the Julie thing above); Only You, The Platters (keep this one a secret, okay, unless you really are a sensitive guy). So, yeah, Josh is a “child of rock ‘n’ roll” in good standing. How about you? 

[You should know one thing about Josh, and it is as true of him today as it was in Big Sur or down in La Jolla when we were running the yellow brick road out West. Once he gets onto something he will see it through until the end. That is the case with his recent passion to remember his “child of rock ‘n’ roll” youth. I mentioned, I think, that he had just completed a review of the multi-volume Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die series that he had shown me one compilation from, the one with the girls hanging around the jukebox waiting, waiting for something.

Well there are many compilations out there (and as Frank will gladly tell you there is a fair amount of overlap between competing sets) but what Frank is looking at now is the series titled The Golden Age of Rock. When he mentioned that one night when we were sitting on a couple of barstools at Rich’s, the “oldies but goodies” place in downtown Boston, having a drink he also added that he thought that I should assist him in future efforts since I was a member in good standing of that generation as well. It took all my persuasive powers to disabuse him of the notion that I needed to hear about two hundred, maybe three hundred songs, many which I did not like, in order to get that maybe thirty gems that I, we, died for back then. So I turned him down but when I got home I thought if the artwork was as good at jogging the memory as that jukebox scene, well, maybe…]          

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-When (the late) Mister Chuck Berry Told Mister Beethoven To Move Over A New Sheriff Was In Town

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-When (the late) Mister Chuck Berry Told Mister Beethoven To Move Over A New Sheriff Was In Town     

Sketches From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Introduction

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 from computers to iPods. 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-out from the music that was wafting through many of our houses in the early 1950s.

The pitter-patter sound of stuff from Tin Pan Alley and sometimes from Broadway if they were not one in the same once they hit our muffled ears. You know Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree, Rum and Coca Cola, Tangerine, I’ll Get By, If I Didn’t Care, tear the goalposts down, grab a Tennessee waltz, and swing and sway with Big Buddha and some guy chomping on the chop sticks. 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, those square parents still square but maybe there was hope if they listened to the Ink Spots crooning away at about seven million different songs with that great harmony, or the Duke taking that A train or better, much better sweet junkie Billie swaying a dark fruit, day and night, all of me, and whatever else Cole Porter could button up the night with. Some, I said, since I am unabashedly a child of rock and roll, now denominated classic rock. Jesus.   

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, we 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 we breathlessly rushed home every afternoon after school to make sure we were hip to the latest songs, the latest dances, the latest hair styles, boys and girls, and whether that brunette with the boffo hair-do and showing an edge of cleavage was “going steady” or whether we has a dream chance at her, or her “sister,” same boffo hair-do sitting across from you in seventh grade English class), and best of all on that blessed transistor radio, compact enough to hide in shirt pockets but loud enough when placed next to your ear to block out that mother-father-brothers buzz that only disturbed you more, 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 frat or frail whose father busted out of the tumbled down tarpaper shacks down in some Appalachia hills and hollows, headed north, followed the northern star, his own version, 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 whether your young febrile brain caught any or all of the not so subtle to experienced ears sexual innuendoes that drove Shake, Rattle, and Roll, if you did not rock with or without Miss La Vern 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 because they held the key to the backbeat that drove Elvis just a little bit harder, rockier, and for the girls from about ten to one hundred sexier, 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 (and that long black hair and ruby red lips to make a schoolboy dream funny dreams), 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. (And you not caring for all the strung-out emotion, or hubris, still wanting Patsy for a last chance last dance close up song to take a whirl at that she you had been eying until your eyes got sore all night.)  

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 flat-bed truck in High School Confidential calling out, no preaching out the new dispensation 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, getting everybody nervous, everybody who had gone past curfew looking for a little, well, looking okay, and not reflecting enough on damn reputations except in the school pecking order determined first week of ninth grade in the girls’ lounge and boys’ “lav,” 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 last gasp 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 anyway, 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 in this quarter, 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.

These following sketches and that is all they are, and all they pretend to be, link up the music of the generation of ‘68s coming of age time (and a few post-coming of age sketches as well) gleaned from old time personal remembrances, the remembrances of old time corner boys whom I hung around with on lonesome, girl-less Friday nights at Jack Slack’s bowling alleys just off Thornton Street in the Dorchester section of Boston, and from remembrances of events and personalities that I, we, heard about through the school grapevine (especially those obligatory Monday morning before school talkfests where everybody, boy or girl, lied, or half-lied about what they did, or did not do, over the steamy weekend), the media (newspapers or radio and television in those days) or through what is now called the urban legend network but then just called “walking daddy” talk.

The truth, the truth of each sketch is in the vague mood that they invoke rather than any fidelity to hard and fast fact. They are all based on actual stories, more or less prettified and sanitized to avoid any problems with lose of reputation of any of the characters portrayed and any problems with some lingering statute of limitations. That truth, however, especially in the hands of corner boys like Jimmy Jenkins, our leader Frankie Riley, Sam Lowell, Pete Markin, Billy Bradley, Dime Store Benny Kidd, myself and the other guys who passed through the corner at Jack Slack’s must always be treated like a pet rattlesnake. Very carefully. Still the overall mood should more than make up for the lies thrown at you, especially on the issue of sex, or rather the question of the ages on that issue, who did or did not do what to whom on any given occasion. The lies filled the steamy nights and frozen days, and that was about par for the course wasn’t it.    

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.  

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bo Diddley performing his rock classic Bo Diddley.

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

DVD Review

Rock ‘n’ Rock All-Star Jam: Bo Diddley, Bob Diddley, Ron Woods, and other artists,1985

Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And here in this one hour all-star concert documentary, complete with background backstage footage, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim that was featured in a song by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some “street cred” for that proposition.

Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos along with a ragtag coterie of “hip” whites is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis’). But here let’s just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner’s Rocket 88, Joe Turner’s Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James’ Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.

Enter one Bo Diddley. No only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that “jungle music”, that “devil’s music” that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south was worried, no, frantically worried would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.

Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo’s claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white “projects” kids like me and my boys. In years like 1955, ’56, ’57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From dress, to sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify that statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls. And, additionally, aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.

Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, “Billie”, my bosom buddy in old elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At this time we are playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo’s beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even an old clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.

Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn’t know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn’t like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness.

But see, Billie also, at that time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.

Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone’s attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear “Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy”. All goes quiet. Billie runs out, and I run after, out the back door. I couldn’t find him that night.

See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo’s race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn’t know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all white housing project and here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of the line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam has gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll know that old Bo’s claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.