***The “Last Waltz”- The Never-Ending Classic
Rock Review Tour
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
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!
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