***In The Time Before The Rock ‘n’ Roll Jailbreak –They Shoot CD Players Don’t They

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

 

 

 

 

A YouTube film clip of Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra performing Harbor Lights-and then Elvis

 

A while back someone asked me about my ideas, or feelings about the music of my parent’s generation, the generation that survived the Great Depression and slogged through World War II. You know, Benny Goodman, The Inkspots, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby, Kate Starr, The various sister acts and so on. I believe that person, a younger person not all that familiar with the music or my parent’s generation or of mine, the now classic age of rock and roll, you know Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and so on, asked the question to see if there so hidden, subconscious effects of my parent’s music on me now. My answer went something like this:            

Some people ask; although I am not one of them, if there was music before 1950s classic rock ‘n’ roll. Of course there was and I have taken some pains to establish the roots of rock back to Mississippi country blues, you know Son House, Robert Johnson, Skip James, electric blues as they traveled north to the heartland industrial cities, you know Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, jazz as it got be-bopped and took to swing, certainly rhythm and blues, north and south, Cool Breeze Charley Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and rockabilly as it came out of the white small town South with the likes of Carl Perkins, Warren Smith and Smokey Burgess. What it owes little to, or at least I hope that it owes little to is that Tin Pan Alley/ Broadway show tune axis part of the American songbook. You know Oklahoma, Let’s Fall In Love, Easter Parade, the Irving Berlin, Cole Porter stuff. That seems to me a different trend and one that was reflected in a review of a CD compilation I did a while back, The 1950s: 16 Most Requested Songs, which was really about the 16 most requested song before the rock jailbreak of the mid-1950s.

I have along the way, in championing classic rock as the key musical form that drove the tastes of my generation, the generation of ’68, contrasted that guitar-driven, drum/bass line driven sound to that of my parents’ generation, as they listened to swing, jitterbuggery things and swooned over big bands, swings bands, Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters and The Mills Brothers, among others. In other words the music that, we of the generation of ’68, heard as background music around the house as we were growing up. Buddha Swings, Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree, Rum and Coca-Cola, Paper Dolls, Tangerine, and the like. Stuff that today sounds pretty good, if still not quite something that “speaks” to me.

That  music reflected, okay, let’s join the cultural critics’ chorus here, the attempted vanilla-zation (if such a word can exist) of the Cold War Eisenhower (“I Like Ike”) period when people were just trying to figure out whether the Earth would survive from one day to the next. Not a time to be rocking the boat, for sure. Once things stabilized a bit though then the mad geniuses of rock could hold sway, and while parents and authorities crabbed to high heaven about it, let that rock breakout occur and not have everything wind up going to hell in a hand basket. But that music, those 16 most requested songs were what we were stuck with before then. Sure, I listened like everyone else, everyone connected to a radio, but this stuff, little as I knew then, did not “speak” to me. And unlike some of that 1940s stuff still does not “speak” to me.

Oh, you want proof. Here is one example. On this compilation Harbor Lights is done by Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra. This was cause number one for wanting to get a pistol out and start aiming. Not for the song but for the presentation. Why? Well, early in his career Elvis, while he was doing his thing for Sam Phillips’ Memphis Sun Records operation, covered this song. There are a myriad of Elvis recordings during the Sun period, including compilations with outtakes and alternative recordings of this song. The worst, the absolute worst of these covers by Elvis has more life, more jump, dare I say it, more sex than the Kaye recording could ever have. And you wonder why I ask whether they shoot CD players. Enough said.

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Harbor Lights Lyrics
(words & music by H. Williams - J. Kennedy)

I saw the harbor lights

They only told me we were parting

Those same old harbor lights

That once brought you to me.

I watched the harbor lights

How could I help it?

Tears were starting.

Good-bye to golden nights

Beside the silvery seas.

I long to hold you dear,

And kiss you just once more.

But you were on the ship,

And I was on the shore.

Now I know lonely nights

For all the while my heart keeps praying

That someday harbor lights

Will bring you back to me.