Elvis Presley and the Book Fair Redemption

As a young lad in the sixties, I seem to recall that radio stations played mostly current music of the times from the worlds of pop, folk, adult contemporary, R&B, jazz, classical and country. (we won’t bring up Muzak…your welcome). However, and I could be totally wrong about this, but I don’t seem to recall any “Retro” format stations. It wasn’t very likely you’d run across Big Band or Ragtime music radio stations on your little hand sized, portable AM radio (with the cool leather cover and the one-ear headphone crammed uncomfortably inside your auditory-canal). You didn’t hear Wolfman Jack howling “OK cool cats, we’re gonna do some “Hot Boppin to Scott Joplin”.

Then in 1973, George Lucas (yes, as in “Star Wars” Lucas) released a summer blockbuster called “American Graffiti”,. A teen “coming of age” movie set in 1962 (“where were you in 62?”) All of a sudden you were hearing all these oldies from the 50′s & 60′s ad nausium. Late night K-tel adds were hawking all sorts of vinyl and 8-tracks of rock & rolls glory days. We were subjected to personalities such as “Bowser”, the cartoonish Jersey sounding Greaser of Sha-Na-Na fame, pedaling moldy-oldies all hours of the day. (remember their variety show? Geez! Who didn’t have a variety show back in the 70′s? Surprised we never saw “Charro and the Goochi-Goochie Fiesta Hour”)

I hated it!

Could not stand all that big bopper be-boppin crap!

I’d stub a toe racing to the television just to switch channels when one of those commercials came on.

I mean, come on people! We were still wearing black from the break up death of the Beatles, show a little respect here!

I did, however, like “Happy Days”. I had my Wednesday night ritual of a Root Beer Float and all things Fonzie. But once “Potsie” started his crappy-crooning, my A&W treat did it’s floating in the toilet.

I think you get my drift here. So I continued to immerse myself in current rock and roll trends never so much as giving a nod to the birth of rock and roll.

And then Ken Burns opened my eyes…and ears, apparently.

I was watching Ken Burns “Jazz” and found it compelling and fascinating. The episode I happen to catch was covering Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong’s early career in the 20′s. They were observing how his style of playing was “Scandalous”. Jazz music had been pretty light and bouncy with the ragtime style, but Armstrong was bringing in, what was considered at the time, a whole “sexual” feel by the way he bent the notes on his trumpet. (Sexual? were talking instrumental music here). Who knew he was the Madonna-Lady Gaga-Marilyn Manson of his day. I’d only known Satchmo as a “Pop” icon in the 60′s with his appearances on variety shows, the movie Hello Dolly (“Well helloooo Dollis!”) and his song “What A Wonderful World”. I learned from Ken Burns right then and there, that to understand and enjoy music from other era’s, you have to put it all in the context of what was happening in the culture of that time.

 As you may or may not know, I run a Book Fair business. I set up events in Hospitals and large corporations and basically bring a store into their lobbies. During my events, I’m always playing music on my little CD player to keep things lively and festive. I usually play the same CD every day and don’t really pay much attention to it, even though I may be singing or whistling along to it. It’s pretty much just “white-noise” to me.

So we got in this 4 CD set called “American Diner” that was all original recordings from the 50′s. As mentioned earlier, not a big fan of the era, though I was excited about the “original recordings” part as we sometimes, more than I care to say, get these CD sets that have the disclaimer:

“Some of these recordings may be from live performances and contain at least one original member from the group”.

In other words, they’ve re-recorded them several years after the fact. You might have a recording of “Brick House” by The Commodores that has the original drummer, but the rest of the band are a younger and cheaper version. Once we had a recording of Ben E. King re-doing “Stand By Me”. He must have been in his 70′s at the time. It was horrible. Wobbly and off key. I swear you could hear his dentures pop out at one point in the song.

So I had been playing the American Diner Cd’s for a several weeks. All of a sudden, I found myself actually paying attention and enjoying them. But the part that blew my mind was, I was actually starting to hear them in context of the time. That particular day, when “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley came on, I was suddenly struck by how aggressive and “in your face” it actually was. I never would have caught on to it had I not heard it in juxtaposition to the other songs playing over and over on the CD.  There’s such an urgency to it, and yes, a sexuality that I had never noticed. Then as I listened to Little Richard, I was like, this dude (?) is the bomb!! Talk about underrated. You can hear this guy’s influence all over Paul McCartney, James Brown and Prince.

So, it took me 30+ years, but I finally came to understand and appreciate what took place before my time. Not sure this applies, but I think we all do that in some form or another. How many times, now that your a parent, do you find yourself saying “Now I know why my parents did and said those things”. We have to fully allow ourselves to take in the moment, to “try it on” in some form or manner, and walk around in it, so that we can wrap our brains around it. That sometimes difficult relative, friend or co-worker you avoid, until you look at the world they grew up in. Suddenly, the blinders are off and compassion sets in.

I use to harbor resentment in my early twenties towards my father for not expressing his love and pride towards me. But when I thought about how his father had drowned when my dad was only 13, I realized that his future fatherhood training came to an abrupt end. He had no point of reference to fall back on. It helped me put those feelings aside and have a new and better understanding of him. I was able to put him in context.

Context helps bridge gaps and creates new appreciations.

In fact, the other day, at a hospital event, a couple of elderly “Pink Lady” volunteers, along with a few female customers and myself were walking around the room belting out…at the top of our lungs:

“LUCILLE! Please come back where you belong…I’ve been good to you, baby, please don’t leave me alone”

…All the while swaying our hips in a naughty, scandalous manner!!

…and no dentures being harmed in the process!