Be-Bopping With The Boys-With Little Milton And Guitar Slim In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James

Little Milton And Guitar Slim Pickin’ Up, Little Milton, Guitar Slim, Fidelity Records, 1989

“Hey, baby boy do you have a hit, can you get me well,” hoarsely whispered because she could raise her voice no higher Lena with no last name because, well, because in her world last names didn’t matter, were a drag, might have to be changed quickly take your pick, that last one as good as any other. Naturally if Lena was talking baby boy talk she was sitting in the High Hat Club on Massachusetts Avenue in the Roxbury section of Boston. And if Lena of the no last name was sitting in the High Hat then she was talking to nobody else but Bobby Lee no last name for the same reasons that Lena had no last name except that changing names was more problematic since Bobby Lee was very likely in need of frequent name changes in his racket. See his was the local pusher man-anything from mary jane to horse and back although mostly mary jane ever since he got out of Charles Street the last time. Lena thus knew who she was talking to when she plaintively asked Bobby Lee, baby boy, for a little something for the head, something to get her through the night, something that would give her “kicks,” although she might rue the day she learned to lean on that expression for a crutch. Something to get her jumped up at while watching the act that was performing at the High Hat that night. None other than Little Milton himself straight from New York. There was a rumor, just a rumor that his sidekick Guitar Slim was around somewhere and might show up and blow the place away with some slick riffs bingo bango-ing off Little Milton.

It hadn’t always been that way with Bobby Lee, having to sweet talk low voice ask him for a little something to take the edge off, to get her mellow when Little Milton started be-bopping. Those first few times she had come into the High Hat she had been happy if a guy bought her a few scotches, throw a little water on the side, and she might, or might not, go someplace with him and take him around the world, or whatever he wanted- if she was feeling that way. Then one night Bobby Lee caught her eye, or maybe she caught Bobby Lee’s eye who knew at this point. Bobby Lee was all smoothness and light, then. Bobby though was not a guy who bought a girl, any girl, scotches with water on the side. Bobby Lee, sweet man Bobby Lee, was a guy who was connected, was the guy who if you needed something for the head would take you around a very different world than Lena’s simple sexual plaything adventure. Bobby Lee let’s face it was the pusher man, was the guy you went to around the High Hat if you needed to smooth out. Of course Lena, nothing but a whiskey head, and not much either didn’t know that when Bobby Lee came a-courting, came up and undressed her with his eyes, and she expected him to buy her a few drinks and then they would be off since she had already figured out how she would spent the rest of the evening after Sleepy Jones played his last set.

Bobby Lee threw her off though, didn’t offer to buy her a drink but instead gave her a line of sweet Bobby Lee pitter-patter and then told her he had something for her head, something that would cool out her head. Naturally she was hesitant but as she would find out later she couldn’t deny Bobby Lee whatever she had to give him and so she followed him out the door, followed him to the No Tell Motel and there he sprang some tea on her. Good stuff too not the cut to hell stuff that was running on the streets. And they grooved that night, grooved as the tea hit her with a bang, make her think not just sexy thoughts but about being cool, about getting kicks. All the while Bobby had them listening on the radio, WCAS for the record, the local R&B station, to sweet be-bop rhythm and blues stuff, explaining this and that riff that this cat Little Milton was putting down, got better when some of the cuts had this guy Guitar Slim playing a be-bop guitar that she had never heard before. She was not sure whether she had ever heard a guitar played in anger like that before. Had been out of touch with whatever was happening in the music world at that moment.    

Lena had been brought up pretty strictly in a very religious household, a Catholic household of the worse sort, that saw anything more radical than Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra was the devil’s music and even some of Sinatra’s stuff was suspect. She had grown up in Gloversville during the war, during World War II while her father was away overseas, listening along with her distraught mother, to those guys and to stuff, patriotic stuff when you think about it, stuff by somebody like Vera Lynn and her We’ll Meet Again which only made her mother bluer although she said later, after the war and after her father had come home in one piece that those songs got her through the war. So Lena had not been exposed to too much music, jump music anyway  and had due to that same parent, same mother directive not gotten hip to the whole jitterbug explosion. Had not been able to even go to a dance with her boyfriend, short term boyfriend for the very reason that she could not jitterbug and he was the Gloversville High School champion. It was no wonder that “she didn’t know from nothin’” as Bobby Lee put it about the be-bop stuff coming out of the radio that first line bedsheets night with him.                     

Just after the war, a couple of years after, once her father had “adjusted” to home life again (although that adjustment business was a matter of degree and causation since he became a heavy drinker and would be one for as long as Lena could remember later), after she finished her time at Gloversville High she made a big decision, a big decision directly related to her finding herself in bed listening to the radio with Bobby Lee, a big decision which she was not sure where it would lead, not expecting it to be about getting high from tea as often as she could and about digging guys playing hellish music like Little Milton. She decided she wanted some “kicks” out of life, didn’t, heaven forbid, want to wind up like a prune like her parents and decided to take a secretarial job with John Hancock, the big insurance company in Boston. Answered an ad for a roommate in the South End near work and left her girlhood household for good. No looking back, although her parents fought her tooth and nail before they accepted the inevitable.

That roommate, Sasha, again no last name, had been the one who had suggested one Friday night that they go to the Starlight Ballroom on Boylston Street and “get picked up,” as she put it. Benny Goodman was playing there and while Lena had heard the name she was not sure what kind of music he played. Lena was all apprehension at first but she had decided she was looking for “kicks” and so they went. And were “picked up.” Although that night nothing happened, the guy wanted to try something but Lena had begged off and so nothing happened. Before long though two things did happen once she started to like being picked up after not having had a great deal of experience or success in high school with boys as she exploded out of her shell when guys paid attention to her.

The first thing was the time a couple of months later was that she lost her virginity, lost it to a college guy from Boston College. She had no regrets although she hoped it would not get around work that she was interested in sex because there were guys, married guys mostly, who would swoop down on her in a minute. The second was that she tended to be gayer, tended to loosen up a bit when she had a few drinks, a few scotches, in her. She had been worried she might turn into a drunk although she did not slow down her drinking until knighted Bobby Lee turned her on to weed.   

After a while the Starlight and later Hoppy’s, the big swing bar in town seemed too tame and so she and Sasha started hitting the bars toward Dudley Square and that is when they found the High Hat with its mellow cool be-bop jazz that she frankly dug, and frankly put herself out there with for guys who also dug cool breeze jazz. She had had a succession of guys, nobody special, nobody bad either but she probably was ready when Bobby Lee took notice of her (or her of him they always had funny arguments in their good days about who was first). And so after that first night Bobby Lee became her man although she was unaware of his “business” as a distributor of drugs to the clientele of various nightclubs and bars.

Then the other shoe dropped. Bobby found somebody else, some blonde who had a better figure than hers (although if she had asked around the various gin mills she/they frequented she could have found out that Bobby Lee had a long trail of ex-lovers but she probably would not have listened anyway). They left it off on good enough terms and he would still supply her with her tea which she had come to use more often the bluer she got, bluer over Bobby Lee, her baby boy. Then Bobby got caught, got caught enough to face a one to three at Charles Street. He took one as it turned out as a first time offender but that left her flat for a while until she made another connection.        

Bobby got out after that year and a few weeks later she ran into him and asked that question, the question of questions, in that hoarse voice of hers. Bobby Lee said follow him to a No Tell Motel and they grooved the night away. About half way through their love-making Little Milton came on and blew the airwaves clean. She laughed to herself, not a funny laugh but not sardonic either that what goes around comes around. 

If you want to find out what Lena meant by that last statement those many, many years ago when Little Milton be-bopped and Guitar Slim went to the stars check out this CD.