In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop Night- In the Beginning Of Rock- Bop- Once Again, From the Vaults Of Sun Records

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out In The Be-Bop Night- In the Beginning Of Rock- Bop- Once Again, From the Vaults Of Sun Records

CD Review


The Sun Gods, 3-CD set, Dressed To Kill Records, 1999


One of the purposes of this space is to review various cultural trends that drove American popular culture in the 20th century. More specifically in the post-Word War II, the lifetimes of many of today’s baby boomers. A seminal point, musically at least, was the breakout of the mid-1950s fueled by a strange and sometimes contradictory mix of black-based rhythm and blues, Arkie, Okie, Appalachian “hillbilly” rock-a-billy and plain old jazz and show tune Tin Pan Alley. The mix of course we now know as rock ‘n’ roll, sadly for this aging reviewer now called the age of classic rock 'n' roll. No sadly that it does not exist except in CDs such as the one under review, The Sun Gods, but that frenetic fury to change the musical direction of popular culture seems to have lost steam along the aging process. But take heart. While we have all probably slowed down a step or seven we will always have Sun Records CD memories to carry us.

And there is no question, no question at all that, pound for pound, the music that came out of Sam Phillips’ Memphis-based Sun Records for about a decade in the 1950s was central to the mix that created rock 'n' roll. Think Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry to name just three of the more famous singers to come out of that label. And as this CD demonstrates beyond doubt, highlighted by the work of Sonny Burgess and Warren Smith here, also a whole tribe of lesser lights, one hit Johnnies and Janies, and those who never made it that formed the background milieu that drove the others forward and created this musical chemistry that can boggle the mind. If you want to find, in one spot, a CD set that rediscovers the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, especially the contributions from the rock-a-billy side well here you are.

I have highlighted some of the tracks on each disc.

Disc One: Carl Perkins performing Roll Over Beethoven, a song made famous by Chuck Berry (and that I went crazy over when I first heard it as a kid) which I think that he may actually do better than Chuck, if you can believe that: there are several Elvis interviews recorded here as part of the promotion of his records and/or concerts in the early days. I would say, thank god, that he had that great musical talent because off these innocuous, bland interviews he would have starved otherwise. Still these are good to hear from a time before the king became “the King.”

Disc Two: Red Hot by Billy Lee Riley, a rock-a-billy hard-driving classic that expresses just what the break-out was all about; We Wanna Boogie by Sonny Burgess (a definitely underrated force), Red Cadillac and a Black Mustache by Warren Smith (Bob Dylan covered this one in a tribute album); and, Crazy Women by Gene Simmons. This is one of those CDs that you have to listen to all the way through to get a real feel for this music, and you should.

Disc Three: Rock Boppin’ Baby by Edwin Brice; Let’s Bop by Jack Earls; Thinkin’ Of Me by Mickey Gilley; Rockhouse by Harold Jenkins; and, You Don’t Care by, Narvel Felts. Yes, I know, you probably have never heard of any of them. But if you listen to this CD you will see where Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck got their stuff from. And you know, successful or as failures, as I have mentioned before in reviewing Sun Record material, all these guys (and a few gals) all sound like they are happy to be rocking and rolling rather than whatever else they were slated to do in life.

In Honor Of The 146th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-On The Barricades- Therese Dubois’ Journey

In Honor Of The 146^th Anniversary Of The Paris Commune-On The Barricades- Therese Dubois’ Journey.

She had heard that they needed help over on Rue Martin, that the barricade work there had gone slowly and that if that barricade was breeched before completion then the whole northern front of Paris was in danger, was in danger from either the gruesome Germans, or worse, the vanquished Theirs government if it ever got its act together and tried retake Paris, retake their Commune, with or without German help. So she, Theresa Dubois, all of sixteen, all of sound working- class background, all of bright-eyed idealism and all of, well, all of fetching, fetching in non-revolutionary times when more than one stout-hearted working class gallant would take dead-aim at that fetching manner of hers. But these were revolutionary times, or Theresa acted on that premise and attempted, foolishly attempted, to hide that beauty beneath shabby boys clothing and unkempt hair. And nobody, no man young or old, at the  Rue Moulin barricade tried to do more that out- do each other in showing one Theresa Dubois what a great barricade builder he was.

But revolutionary fervor, revolutionary elan, and revolutionary idealism would all go for naught if that Rue Martin intersection did not hold and so Theresa and her younger sister, Louise, also dressed in boys clothing slipped away to the other desperate location.  Along the way, along the fifteen or twenty blocks it would take to reach Rue Martin before dark the sisters talked, mostly sisterly talked, girl talk in low voices about this or that young man who did, or did not, measure up on the barricade work at Rue Moulin but also as they drew nearer about what they expected, what they hoped for once they had secured their Commune. That got them to thinking about the new schools that were being talked about, the new schools where girls, girls like them, would be encouraged to learn, book learn, or trade learn as the case might be, and about the right to vote for women that seemed unbelievable just the previous year, and about having time to just sit along the Seine and daydream. [They also talked about whether the new government, or the doctors assigned to the problem, would be able to find a way so they didn’t have to deal with their “period” a cause of painful troubles for both girls. They weren’t sure that the government would be able to do anything about it. In any case they both agreed that they were too modest to ask anybody to anything about it even if they could.]                  

Upon reaching the Rue Moulin fortifications they were appalled by the sloppy and incomplete work previously done there. They immediately, with all the fervor of young revolution, went hither and yon to move the several young men who were dallying around the spot to get moving. And something in the manner of the young women (or the age- old sight of two women, young and fetching, in a man’s world) got the men moving.

Now barricades, at least in Paris, at least since the revolution of ’89 of blessed memory were something of an art form, something that in the best cases not only protected what they were intended to protect against unwanted intruders from whatever source but were hospitable as well. And so the sisters, Theresa in the lead, set about showing the young how to make their “new home” a new home. Logs and paving stones out front, varies wires, pickets, and ropes to retard any offensive advance from the opponent and behind overhangings to protect against all weathers. And then the furnishings (the young men had foolishly thrown many chairs helter-skelter on the pilings and were sitting on stumps) to make the place reasonable to while away the sentry duty hours.

When dusk settled in they stopped for the evening and one of the young men made some stew, which they all ate greedily. While sitting around the campfire that night to keep warm, Theresa noticed a young man, Laurent, a young man who had done much work strengthening the barricades once the two sisters took charge, was looking in her direction. And she flushed, was looking back…                  

From NPR-Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Relationship With The Soviets-And Then Some -As We Approach The 80th Anniversary Of The Barcelona May Days In The Spanish Civil War- Another Look By Ernest Hemingway At The Spanish Civil War.

From NPR-Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Relationship With The Soviets-And Then Some -

CIA archivist Nicholas Reynolds discusses his new book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures. It describes Hemingway's relationship with Soviet intelligence.

Click on link for a piece of Papa Hemingway’s link with the Soviets during World War II 

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/520631331/chronicling-ernest-hemingways-relationship-with-the-soviets

And then some:

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry on the Barcelona May Days of 1937 in the Spanish Civil War (as usual with political events, past and present, be careful using this source).


Book Review

THE FIFTH COLUMN AND 49 OTHER STORIES, ERNEST HEMNGWAY, P.F. COLLIER&SON, NEW YORK, 1950

I have written reviews of many of Ernest Hemingway’s major novels elsewhere in this space. I have reviewed his major novel on the Spanish Civil War For Whom the Bells Toll, as well. Here I review a short play of his concerning that same event. This play is the main item of interest for me in an anthology that also includes his first 49 short stories. I will make a few minor comments on them at the end. However, here I wish to address the main issue that drives the play, The Fifth Column. I believe that this is fitting in the year of the 75th anniversary of the Barcelona May Days-the last chance to save the Spanish Revolution.

The main action here concerns the actions, manners, and love life of a seemingly irresolute character, Phillip, in reality is a committed communist who has found himself wrapped up intensely in the struggle to fight against Franco’s counter-revolution. His role is to ferret out the fifth columnists that have infiltrated into Madrid for intelligence/sabotage purposes on behalf of the Franco forces in the bloody civil war that was shaking Republican Spain. The term “fifth column” comes from the notion that not only the traditional four columns of the military are at work but a fifth column of sympathizers who are trying to destabilize the Republic. What to do about them is the central question of this, or any, civil war.

At the time there was some controversy that swirled around Hemingway for presenting the solution of summary executions of these agents as the correct way of dealing with this menace. I have questioned some of Hemingway’s political judgments on Spain elsewhere, particularly concerning the role of the International Brigades, but he is right on here. Needless to say, as almost always with Hemingway, a little love interest is thrown into the mix to spice things up. However, in the end, despite the criminal Stalinist takeover of the Spanish security apparatus and its counter-revolutionary role in gutting the revolutionary promise there this play presents a question all militants today need to be aware of.

49 short stories
I recently reviewed this same compilation of short stories in an edition that included the short play The Fifth Column that I was interested in discussing concerning the problem of spies and infiltrators from the Franco-led Nationalist side-and what to do about them- in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. This edition does not contain that play and therefore I can discuss the short stories on their own terms. Although Hemingway wrote many novels, most of which I have read at one time or another, I believe that his style and sparseness of language was more suitable to the short story. This compilation of his first forty-nine although somewhat uneven in quality, as is always the case with any writer, I think makes my point. In any case they contain not only some of his most famous short stories but also some of the best.

The range of subjects that interested Hemingway is reflected here, especially those that defined masculinity in his era. Included here are classics such as The Snows of Kilimanjaro about the big game hunt, The Killers- a short and pungent gangster tale that was made into a much longer movie much in the matter of his novel To Have Or Have Not, many of the youthful Nick Adams stories tracing his adventures from puberty to his time of service in World War I, stories on bullfighting- probably more than you will ever want to know about that subject but reflecting an aficionado’s appreciation of the art form, a few on the never-ending problems of love and its heartbreaks including a metaphorical one, reflecting the censorious nature of the times, on the impact of abortion on a couple’s relationship, and some sketches that were included in A Farewell to Arms. Well worth your time. As always Hemingway masterly wields his sparse and functional language to make his points. Again, as always read this man. This work is part of our world literary heritage.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Stuff Of Dreams- Humphrey Bogart’s “The Maltese Falcon”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir classic, The Maltese Falcon.

DVD Review

The Maltese Falcon, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorrie, based on the crime novel by Dashiell Hammett, directed by John Huston, Warner Brothers, 1941

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the early 1940s, The Maltese Falcon, offer parts of both.

Generously offer parts of both here as an exemplar of the genre with one of the classic detectives of the age, Sam Spade. The plot line works because it is a prima facie, hard-boiled example of the lengths that humankind will go in pursuit of “the stuff of dreams.” As for femme fatale energy, although my personal 1940s favorite is Rita Hayworth, it is provide by the fetchingly wicked Mary Astor. Yes, I can see where old Sam Spade will jump through a few hoops, hell, many hoops, to get next to that one once she starts making her moves. Watch out Sam.

Although every serious crime noir aficionado should know the plot to this one by heart I will give a short summary for those three people in the classic crime noir world who have not seen (or read) this one-yet. It is, frankly, about a bird, and not just any bird but a historically significant gem –ladened statue of a one, and one moreover that will bring a good price on the black market where such things are traded as a matter of course. That is where the “stuff of dreams” gets everyone evolved in trouble. Who has it (or doesn’t have it), for how long, and what they will do in order to get it (and keep it) provides the driving force of this film as it did with classic noir detective writer Dashiell Hammett when he wrote it. The film is fairly true to the spirit of the novel, including much of the dialogue. Of course, along the way certain alliances are made (and unmade) as Sam Spade tries to maneuver among the parties interested in the object, including the aforementioned Mary Astor, a band of high- end brigands led by Sidney Greenstreet, and maybe others who have fallen by the wayside in pursuit.

Dashiell Hammett was known, correctly known, along with Raymond Chandler, for taking the crime detective out of the police procedural/ society amateur detective milieu and permitting their detectives to take a few punches, give a few punches, flirt with the femme fatales, and use the sparse language of the streets to bring some rough justice to this sorry old world. Sam Spade here takes more than his fair share of hits in order to make sense out of the mess that Ms. Astor brings to his door (and initially his partner, the late Miles Archer). And that is the rub. The various characters here are willing, more than willing, to murder and maim to get the damn bird and so Sam has to, on more occasions that he probably wished, weigh what to do about it. See that is where the femme fatale to muddy the waters part comes in, that damn perfume and that dangerous sassy manner that will drive a man, even a rough justice seeking man a little too close to the edge. But in the end the code of honor, or just an idea of it, drives Sam away from the perfume and back on the straight and narrow. Later when he thinks about that perfume he still will be wondering if he did the thing the right way. Ya, dames will do that to you, tough detectives or just regular joes. I know I was ready to throw my lot in with her, share of the bird or not.

Note: This will not be the last time that Humphrey Bogart played the classic noir detective. Or work with Lorrie and Greenstreet. He got his shots at playing Phillip Marlow in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. In a sense Bogart as an actor, a strange sense since he was not “beautiful,” defined that kind of detective- the “tilting at windmills” guy not too fragile to take a punch, give a dame the once over, and bring a little of that “rough justice” to the world, especially a world where the stuff of dreams went awry more often than not.

Tell Me What The Resistance Looks Like-This Is What The Resistance Looks Like-Join The Resistance Now!!

Tell Me What The Resistance Looks Like-This Is What The Resistance Looks Like-Join The Resistance Now!!  

Yeah, Talk To Me Of Mendocino-The Voices From Up North The Music Of The McGarrigle Sisters

Yeah, Talk To Me Of Mendocino-The Voices From Up North The Music Of The McGarrigle Sisters   

By Zack James

“Jesus, Seth did you hear that Kate McGarrigle of the McGarrigle Sisters had passed away,” lamented Jack Callahan to his old-time high school friend and fellow folk music aficionado Seth Garth. Seth replied that since he no longer wrote music reviews for anybody, hadn’t since The Eye the newspaper that he had written for had gone out of business that he did not always keep up with the back stories of those who were still left standing in the ever decreasing old-time folk performer world. Jack’s sad information though got Seth to thinking about the times back in the early 1970s when he and Jack had gone out to Saratoga Springs to visit a cousin of Sam Lowell, also an old time friend and part-time folk aficionado, who thenn lived in nearby Ballston Spa and had invited them to go to the Caffe Lena to listen to a couple of young gals from Canada who would make the angels weep for their inadequate singing voices. In those days Seth was free-lancing for The Eye so he had called Oakland, California where the newspaper then had its offices to see if they would spring for a review, a paid review of the performance. They agreed although there was the usual haggling over money and whether they would actually use the sketch.            

That night after Lena’s introduction (the late Lena the legendary, now legendary, owner and operator of the coffeehouse) the McGarrigle Sisters did two sparking sets, a few songs in French, since they were steeped in the increasing bilingual Quebec culture which was demanding French language equality in the heated nationalist period when many were looking for independence. They also did a wonderful cover Heart Like A Wheel, a song that Linda Rhonstadt had had a hit with. But the song that Seth found his hook on, the one that he would center on to insure that his piece was published (and paid for) was Talk To Me Of Mendocino, their homage to Lena who desired to go out and see the place along the rocky ledges of Northern California, land’s end. (Whether Lena ever went out there subsequently Seth was not sure but he rather thought not since she was totally committed to the club in those days, was something of a homebody and perhaps wanted the memory more than the actual experience.)    

Seth mentioned to Jack that night that the sisters had evoked just the right mournful tone in presenting the song, and recalled how majestic they had thought they place was when they and their wives (Seth’s first  wife, first of three, all failed, Martha, and Jack’s one and only Chrissy) had gone from San Francisco up the Pacific Coast Highway and basically stumbled on the place with its sheer rock formations, fierce ocean waves beating against the rocks and the then quaint and unadorned town that sat just off the rocks. So Seth was able to close his eyes and envision travelling from the overheated, over-crowded over-wrought East and pinpoint a map to head out West “where the rocks remain.” The rocks, the ocean, our mother and some solitude in world gone mad with having to run away from what it had built. Seth was sorry that he had not been back there in many years. Hoped that Lena did get to go out to the rocks and glad that Kate and Anna McGarrigle spoke of the place, made it immortal in song.    

Red Harvest -Texas Style-The Coen Brother’s “Blood Simple” (1984)-A Film Review

Red Harvest -Texas Style-The Coen Brother’s “Blood Simple” (1984)-A Film Review     

DVD Review

By Film Critic Sam Lowell

Blood Simple, starring Francis McDormand, John Getz. Dan Heyada, M. Emmet Walsh, directed by the Coen Brothers, 1984

Anybody who as a kid like me, or even adults now that I think about the matter, who immersed themselves in the old time crime novels by the likes of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane, or even today’s better graphic novels knows that the success of the endeavor was to pile up the bodies and ask questions later. Keep the action, keep the guns firing. That premise, what that does to those under constant violent threat, that “red harvest,”  to take a title from one of Hammett’s early crime novels is what drives the film under review, Blood Simple, on the screen where much less is left to the imagination about what all that firepower was about.       

 Here’s the blood simple play. Abby, played by Frances McDormand, and Ray, played by John Getz, one of her husband Marty’s bartenders are lovers. Marty, played by Dan Heyada, hired private investigator Visser, played by M. Emmet Walsh to follow them. He gets the “skinny” on them complete with photographs. Then the madness-the skewing of reason among the parties when Marty hires Visser to kill Abby and John. Visser fakes their deaths and shows Marty doctored photos after grabbing ten thou from him for the job. Then he shoots Marty thinking he had killed him. Marty is left in his chair as Visser flees the scene. Ray shows up to collect his back pay and finds Marty slumped over presumably dead. Ray figuring the unhappy Abby had committed the deed decided to clean up her mess. But Marty is not dead at least not as Ray is driving away with his body. Marty tries to shoot Ray but fires empty cylinders and Ray subdues and buries that guy alive. 

Thereafter Abby and Ray think they were covering for each other but let those suspicions get in the way. Meantime Visser, worried that he might take a fall for the “death” of Marty starts covering his tracks. Tries and does kill Ray. Tries and does not kill Abby who winds up killing him thinking that he was Marty. Jesus. Yeah, here is the text book definition of blood simple-pure and simple.               

If Not For You-For Laura Perkins With Bob Dylan’s If Not For You In Mind

If Not For You-For Laura Perkins With Bob Dylan’s If Not For You In Mind 

By Zack James

Sam Lowell was riding in his car one morning to meet a fellow retiree in order to play a round of golf, a recreational activity that had helped keep him physically and mentally alert in his retirement days, when he decided to switch off the car radio which he had had for as long as he could remember been glued to the all-news National Public Radio channel and put on some CDs. He randomly picked one from the CD folder which sat on the empty passenger seat. A CD from the never-ending Bob Dylan bootleg series that had been given to them as a gift when his longtime companion Laura Perkins had renewed their  membership to the local folk music-oriented station in town, WUMB, the station run by UMass/Boston. These Bob Dylan bootleg series CDs, now in double digits, consist of variation on old standards, outtakes, concert performances, and material that could not find its way onto albums in the old days when the lyrics in Dylan’s head ran far ahead of the commercial ability to put all the work out into the public sphere.  

The very first selection on the CD that Sam had put the CD player was a variation on Dylan’s famous If Not For You done in slow heartfelt tempo with a meandering mellow fiddle in the near background something that was not featured on the original commercially released version. The slowing down of the tempo of the song allowed Sam to seriously listen to the lyrics and reflect on the meaning of the song. Allowed him too to reflect on how much his companion Laura had meant to him over the years, and how he would have been a very different person if not for her gentle influence in his life.

As Sam drove along, after replaying the song to hear that background fiddle again, he thought back to the days in the late 1970s when he, the consummate angry young man, if not for Laura would have gone on to some vagabond gypsy existence. Thought back to the times if not for her that he would not have done many things that he felt he had to do to make his place in the sun. If not for her would have been in endless despair about the world that he was desperately trying to change, to leave a mark in the struggle for the “newer world” that had animated the better instincts of his nature since he was fresh pup kid adrift in a sea of negativity and despond. He smiled to think that if not for her, and him too, continually showing up after their first improbable meeting in a country music bar in of all places Harvard Square that he would not have been able to offer her that gentle handshake that sealed their fate, the fate of two wandering waifs in the world.             

A million thoughts flooded his mind about different times more recently when if not for her he would have been rudderless. About the night he was so proud of her when she had been so nervous she could hardly sit still since she was at heart a very private person and yet she sang to make the angels weep for their inadequacies in her first public singing performance. Or the time up in Maine the summer when she had just retired and they were sitting in an ice cream shop with a jukebox and she swaying to some old time rock and roll record like a young schoolgirl. Or the time in Paris when she sat like some fairy tale princess on a merry-go-round horse and he was so proud to be in her company. His thoughts just then so numerous and jumbled that it would take half of cyberspace just to express them.

As he made the turn to the golf course parking lot Sam thought about something from just the night before that made him smile. He and Laura had been watching television, one of the twelve million reality shows that have inundated the airwaves during the last decade, and when the show was over he called her to the couch to say good-night and give each other a good-night kiss. He swore something in her laughing eyes and her slightly parted lips making her look very young made him realize how at times like that she made him feel very young again. Yeah, if not for you.  

If Not For You

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

If not for you
Babe, I couldn’t find the door
Couldn’t even see the floor
I’d be sad and blue
If not for you

If not for you
Babe, I’d lay awake all night
Wait for the mornin’ light
To shine in through
But it would not be new
If not for you

If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
I’d be lost if not for you
And you know it’s true

If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
Oh! what would I do
If not for you

If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
Anyway it wouldn’t ring true
If not for you

Copyright © 1970 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1998 by Big Sky Music

In The Time Of The 1960s Ebb Tide-The Patty Hearst Case And The Symbonise Liberation Army (SLA)

In The Time Of The 1960s Ebb Tide-The Patty Hearst Case And The Symbonise Liberation Army (SLA)  

Link to hear an NPR Terry Gross interview with the author of a book on the subject of 1970s Patty Hearst case and the fate of the Symbonise Liberation Army

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/03/488373982/whose-side-was-she-on-american-heiress-revisits-patty-hearst-s-kidnapping

By Frank Jackman

It is funny what you will see or hear that will provide a subject for comment. Mostly these days I find myself writing about the fate of the segment of the ever decreasing baby-boomer generation that had been driven by idealism, self-sacrifice and a bit of hubris thrown in to try and smite down the monster known then and now as the American government and its addiction to endless wars and endless waste of resources on programs other than social programs that might help some folks out. That fate had, and has, not been kind to those of us who are still standing and still tilting at windmills against the monster. We lost, lost badly, when you consider that we have been fighting a long forty plus years of rearguard action against the assorted night-takers who we have run up against since that time. 

The stuff that I have been writing about though had generally been about how far removed a lot of the generation that I came of age with, the so-called generation of ’68, a significant year in the chronology of the times, from that old youthful fervor, how they have either dropped away from political struggle or have retired to the laptop and other technological wonders to give them all. They have abandoned the streets, the streets where you sometimes have to be to fight the good fight. I have also chronicled some of the efforts of my old comrades and street politicians like Josh Breslin, Sam Lowell, Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris who are still punching away, although in ways that they would have never assumed back in the day.

Today though I don’t want to discuss personal memoirs but want to step back a little to the ebbtide, the early 1970s, to the time when we more or less were caught up in the counter-offensive started by the American government trying to take back the offensive after the long losing war in Vietnam burned a lot of bridges for a lot of people who could not go back to the old ways that they had been expected to do coming out of the 1960s high schools and colleges. As the Vietnam War ground on and domestic minorities were still being ground down despite the endless promises of the civil rights movement earlier in the decade the more radical, one might even say revolutionary elements of the “movement” began to chaff under the idea that all one could do was continue to march and continue to seek redress of grievance from the government, put pressure on public officials to do the right thing (whether they gave a fuck or not)     

Of course a generation whose only apparent progressive veneer was the Democratic Party, the party of many of their parents really who grew up in the hard-bitten 1930s Great Depression and slogged through World War II, their fight against fascism as they saw it and whose hero was Franklin Delano Roosevelt had no access to something like a labor party or viable communist party to attach their loyalties when those very Democrats were ankle, no let’s take an expression from folksinger’s song, were waist-deep in the Big Muddy called Vietnam and other repressive policies at home. So whole layers of that radicalized milieu began drifting in many different direction-some to the dope fields, some to “music is the revolution,” some, some city kids who wouldn’t know a turnip from a tomato, to the land, some out of politics in general taking shelter from the storm. That is the incomplete list of those who gave up the struggle against the monster-called a truce- just leave me, us, alone. The group I want to talk about today though were the mostly young people who stayed with radical opposition to the government but had righteous given up as a lost cause begging establishment politicians to do the right thing-had given up trying to “hold their feet to the fire.” They kept fighting but in the end lost their way, we lost our way.         

A great dividing line is that 1968 that I have for convenience given the name for the generation who continued the fight against great odds. The debacle of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, a city presided over by a Democrat, was a keystone in the turn away from electoral politics as many saw how raw the workings of a government that thought it was under threat reacted to what were at worse some silly pranks. The organizational component of that understanding came at the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention in 1969 where a couple of radical factions (turn to the working class and massive actions and the fashionable post-Cuban revolution guerilla warfare factions far removed from poll booths) brought almost decisively from tradition pressure politics. Some, maybe some of the best if misguided elements wound up under the various banners of the Weathermen in their struggle to build a second front, a military front, in support of the National Liberation Front in Vietnam. You can look up their various actions some of them dangerous and some maybe criminal but guided by an overwhelming desire to stop the damn war and other governmental policies. Whatever their shortfalls in policy, and despite their substituting themselves, sometimes heroically, for decisive mass action they had come out of the left, were known quantities, had names on the left and as long as they were directing their actions against military-industrial targets were worthy of political and legal defense. (Unfortunately a lot of the left-the “holding their feet to the fire” left did not defend the groups that morphed into what would turn into the Weather Underground).              

With the decisive defeat of the street left on May Day in Washington after taking massive arrests trying to shut down the government if it would not shut down the Vietnam War and the demobilization of American troops from that benighted country the radical left, hell, anybody, who wanted to continue to struggle got waylaid. Moreover out on the hinterlands, out in little unknown collectives, and who knows what other kinds of formations people, isolated people left adrift after the great social movements of the 1960s had run their courses began to get weird. And that is where this discussion is leading. What do you do about groups that had no history, had unstable and unknown leaderships, had frankly odd-ball programs and demands. Were they also to be defended under the same umbrella that one covered the various SDS factions with, the Weather Underground? That was a question that the diminishing organized left (and various independent radicals) had to contend with. I know the organizations I was close to had many arguments about whether to support this thing called the Symbonise Liberation Army (SLA) that gained widespread notoriety with its kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Most of us, and I was one, did not support the actions of this organizations as acts against the American imperial state. Angela Davis and Ruchell McGee yes. SLA no. Yeah, I know sometimes politics gets weird, gets you in some strange situations but there you have it for what it is worth. Enough said.            

The Night Of Gloria’s Night-With One Huddie Leadbetter In Mind

 

The Night Of Gloria’s Night-With One Huddie Leadbetter In Mind

By Lester Lannon

“You know Washington is kind of behind the times, kind of behind Boston, New York, and San Francisco on this folk revival that has been sweeping up college students around the country,” Selena Ryan told her friend, and the woman who was putting her up for the weekend, Gloria Davis as they walked up Wisconsin and 32^nd Street in Georgetown heading to the Pig& Calf Coffeehouse where they were to hear Billy Bottoms doing his covers of the great Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie songs. Truth to tell Gloria did not know who Billy Bottoms was, nor who Lead Belly or Woody Guthrie were either and while she did not consider herself a square when it came to such cultural affairs she was as likely to follow the trends of her college generation (she Georgetown, Class of 1964, and Selena Boston University, same year). The problem was, as Selena had put the matter in a nutshell, that in all of Northeast Washington, meaning college Washington, meaning either Georgetown or George Washington University both located only a stone’s throw from the Pig &Calf  that establishment was the only known coffeehouse which catered to the folk revival in the whole city. And so Gloria’s not knowing the previously mentioned names was not an oddity in itself but reflected the back-water nature of D.C. in this folk revival thing.     

The Pig & Calf moreover had only been established about six month before when Selena’s friend, Michael Greenleaf, who owned Mike’s across the street from the Village Vanguard in New York City decided that D.C. was becoming a center of attraction for college students and that setting up a coffeehouse with all the cheap date perks that had become associated with such establishments had become a financial possibility. Those students were coming into town to support the civil right workers working down further south and increasingly coming down on the Boston-Washington corridor to protest nuclear proliferation and other social issues at the Washington Monument and the White House. Hence Selena’s presence here this night the first chance she had gotten to check the place out since it opened. Bringing Gloria, her best friend from high school and something of a social butterfly at social butterfly Georgetown (except the School of Diplomacy), was meant to get the word out that while rock and roll was still cool a new form of music was coming down the lane. Or really as the playlist that Billy had sent Selena a few days before suggested an old form of music for new listeners was coming down the pike and combined with the political activism might have a long-term effect on the world.    

Selena had been shocked when Gloria didn’t know who Billy was, got a further shock when she didn’t know what a coffeehouse was, at least the latest incarnation of the institution that really went back to seventeenth century England as place for the advanced element to hang out and communicate with each other. Selena had spent about an hour earlier that afternoon explaining the evolving etiquette of the folk scene. Number one was to sip the damn coffee slowly to insure that you could keep your place at the table in places like the Pig& Calf where there was no cover charge. And hence the charm of such places in college towns when guys who didn’t have much money could take a date, a cheap date out and spent a couple of hours or more (depending on how fast that coffee was sipped) for no more that the price of a couple of exotic expressos (which allowed one to sip very slowly since they provided such a rush) and maybe a shared brownie or other pastry. Throw a couple of bucks in the “basket” (which could be a hat or tin cup) for the performer since this was their “pay” and done. Gloria, used to the more cosmopolitan dining out at decent restaurants with dates who had dough enough to spring for such fare had to laugh as Selena in all seriousness described the “etiquette.” But she was determined to be good-natured about the upcoming event and so let Selena rattle on.

As they approached the Pig& Calf Selena could see that Mike was at the door controlling the flow into the coffeehouse although unlike a Saturday night in Boston or New York there was no line going half-way up the street. (That had been how Mike had originally gotten his start across from the Village Vanguard as the folk revival picked up steam and lines formed in that establishment to get in and the overflow would head to Mike’s which was nice and with no cover. In fact in the Village directions to Mike’s place were identified as “Mike’s across the street from the Village Vanguard.”) Mike seated them up close to the small stage in front of the house at a table for two and Selena ordered two expressos for them (an item Gloria had never had before. They decided to hold off on the brownie until they were hungry later.).

A few moments later Billy Bottom came out with guitar in hand and sat down on a stool with a mic set-up in front and began to tune up his guitar to start his first set. Selena had failed to tell Gloria that despite his being a folk-singer and hence wearing the traditional flannel shirt, blue jeans, sandals, and longish hair that he had the sexiest bedroom blue eyes she had seen lately and a nice built too unlike the idea she had formed from what Selena had told her about male folk performers. She was fixated on what he was doing as he started strumming his first song- Woody’s Pretty Boy Floyd and she noticed that he was giving her a couple of peeks too and a wicked smile. That went on through the first set, mainly an alternating mix between Woody and Lead Belly ending with Huddy’s Good Night, Irene.     

After the completion of the first set (the first of three-traditional in one performer coffeehouses as Gloria found out that night) Selena, who had known Billy since her weekend trips to the Village when he played at Mike’s and had had a very brief affair with him before she latched on to Sam Levine, a local Boston poet, introduced them. After that Selena might have well have been on another planet for all the conversation that got directed her way.       

Nothing happened between Gloria and Billy that night but he was invited over to her apartment the next afternoon before Selena headed back to Boston. Ever ready with a song he played Lead Belly’s Bourgeois Blues about how in the old days blacks coming up from down south had found Washington an inhospitable town which made Gloria laugh. Well what else can one say except that Billy and Gloria eventually hit the sheets. Oh yeah, and Gloria took Selena’s place in conducting “classes” in coffeehouse etiquette for her gang of friends at Georgetown. And also while they were waiting in the line that went half-way up the street on Friday and Saturday nights to get into the Pig &Calf.      

*****From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

*****From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

Logo Of The Communist Youth International

Click below to link to a Communist Youth archival site

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/yci.html



Sam Eaton, once he got “religion” on the questions of war and peace after a close high school friend in Carver was killed in the jungles of Vietnam in 1968, and Ralph Morris, once he had served in Vietnam after having become totally disenchanted with the war effort and had been discharged back to Troy, New York in 1970 were both very interested in left-wing anti-war politics, in studying about how previous generations fought against the highly-charged war blood lust currents that periodically burned over the American landscape.

Sam, exempt from the military draft since he was the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his father had passed away suddenly of a heart attack in 1965, who had been prior to his friend Jeff Mullin’s death been very political in a conventional way but somewhat indifferent to the war blazing all around him in this country as well as in Vietnam and Ralph who was as gung-ho as any naïve young soldier before the “shit hit the fan” (his expression) when he went into Vietnam had met down in Washington, D.C.  

Had met under frankly odd circumstances, circumstances which kind of came with the times when people who ordinarily would not run into each other did so as they came to oppose the war in Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, home of the Washington Redskins football team after they had been arrested in different incidents during the May Day 1971 actions. The idea behind those actions by those like Sam and Ralph who were enraged by the continuation of the war was to attempt to close down the government if it did not close down the war. For their efforts, Sam trying to help close down Massachusetts Avenue a main thoroughfare and Ralph at an action at the White House (which his group never got close to), along with thousands of others were placed in the bastinado for several days without much food or shelter and without the quick release demanded by law for such minor infractions (in the event they had actually just walked out of a side exit one day and nobody stopped them, some kind of poetic justice, since law enforcement was totally overworked out on the streets). They had met in some forlorn line when Ralph noticed that Sam had a Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) button on his lapel and had asked him whether he was a member. Sam told him why he was a supporter of VVAW after Ralph told him he was a member and had taken part in a couple of actions on the streets that made people freeze in their tracks when they saw the long lines of anti-war veterans, some on crutches and others in wheelchairs silently marching as was a tactic of the time. That meeting in any case formed a lifelong friendship as Ralph recently had mentioned to Sam when they met for one of their periodic Boston meetings when Ralph came to town.          

That May Day event more than any other of the actions which they had participated in during those years was pivotal in bringing them to an understanding that if you were going to take on the government then you had better have more than a few thousand committed souls with you and better be better prepared, damn better, when the “shit hits the fan” (again Ralph’s expression). So they both started to hit the books, to read old time left-wing Socialist and Communist literature to get a fix on things that went wrong with May Day (although Ralph admitted he was not much of a reader of such materials he did plod through the stuff and still remembered a fair amount of it). They would talk about what they had read between themselves and even began to attend study classes provided by a collective in Cambridge (the Red Book collective some of whose members are still around Cambridge although not "red" but aging faculty members at local colleges if anybody is asking) where both young men were staying for the summer of 1972.

Sam and Ralph were especially intrigued by the work that left-wing political organizations did in recruiting young people to the cause, a task that would have made it far easier for them to get involved if such organizations had existed in their respective growing up towns of Carver, Massachusetts and Troy, New York. So for a while they were all abuzz with thoughts of the Socialist and Communist youth organizations, especially when they read about Spain the 1930s and the key role left-wing youth played there and on the battle fronts. Although both would slide away from 24/7 type politics that had driven them early in the decade later in the decade as the aura of 1960s confrontation faded back into “normalcy” and they began careers and families they for a time considered themselves “left-wing youth,” maybe even communist youth although that designation was a tough dollar to swallow given their backgrounds. 

During that period Sam, more of a writer than Ralph, wrote up some materials about their experiences. He more recently in the age of the Internet got involved with a blog, American Socialist History, which was accumulating stories about anything related to socialist youth in the 1960s and Sam had written another short piece for that publication. Here is what he had to say:

“One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-socialist and communist wing. And particularly how to draw the young into the struggle. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided some archival works in this space in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.

More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common socialist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few.  That is, beside the question of numbers, in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing “in between” generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help); differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s "night of the long knives" through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since); differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s  computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).

There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available on-line at the press of a button today. When I developed political consciousness very early on in my youth, albeit a liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.

As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically worrying more about a possible cushy career on the backstairs of politics. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I vaguely knew they were around from my readings but not in my area. In any case the aura of the red scare was still around so it is a toss-up if I had known about those groups that I would have contacted them.   

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me on-line and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a left-wing youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become radicals with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

**********

Third Congress of the Communist International

The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement

---

Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;

Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

---

12 July 1921

1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.


In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.

2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).


In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.

4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.


The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.

The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.

Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.

The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.

5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.


It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.

The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.

If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.

Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.

6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.


At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.

7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses. 

In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.

8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).

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?

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.