A First-Grader's Music

(Who are these kids??)

I had two birthday parties in my life. Two. Not that I especially cared that much. Birthday parties weren't a "thing" then. Sometimes kids had them; mostly they didn't. We weren't exactly the center of the universe. 

I don't know why my mom decided I should have one when I turned five. I was too young to have actual friends. I had cousins and neighbors. I really only liked one of my cousins, and my neighbors I knew as much as one could know fellow school bus riders. In the country we didn't have "next door neighbors". We had neighbors whose houses we drove past on the country road on the way home. But I guess they were the same age as me, so voila! Another aspect of birthday parties was that we all (most of us) wore dresses. It wasn't a big deal -- we had to wear dresses to school, so it's not as if we dressed up in our birthday party finest. Half the kids at my party lived in town, so there was a lot of whining when we went outside to do things that involved "nature". Actual open air was "icky" to some...grass and mud (!) and non-paved walks. I wonder if these girls ever managed to maneuver through life. 

In addition to our school dresses, we had (apparently) little tiny party hats, like the kind a trick monkey would wear. Granted, there was no such thing as a party store; only the local confectionery, so my mom managed to find festive paper plates and candles and....excruciatingly puny hats. 

I was soon to enter first grade at haunted Lincoln School, which was seemingly erected in the Revolutionary War period, and was slated for demolition. I believe my class was the last to inhabit the building before it was mercifully "put down". It was an imposing and scary red brick building -- a long concrete staircase to clamber up to reach the Gothic barricades. I'm shocked there weren't clanky iron knockers affixed to the door's facade. Once inside, however, it was as cheery as a medieval asylum could be. My teacher, Mrs. Fisher, did her best to obscure the mammoth green chalkboard with kid-appropriate primary-colored placards and assure us that the creaking floor absolutely did not mean that the floor was about to give way beneath us.

I'd had my run of showing off in kindergarten, but had since absorbed the rules of polite society, so I now kept my head down and concentrated on being a good girl. "Good girl" was the new coat I wore. It served me well for a decade.

Musically, not much was shaking. I was still influenced mostly by my dad and by our wondrous TV. Any tune that was featured on a television show was a sure-fire hit because we had nothing else, really. I was still a couple years away from obtaining my very own pink transistor radio. So, I plopped on my belly in front of the big screen and absorbed anything anyone wanted to tell me, in black and white.

Like this:

And this movie that played out on our black-and-white. The movie was oh-so-melodramatic, and I didn't understand most of it. It did, however, star Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad) and a girl who called herself  "Tuesday" and an actress who went on to become a nun (!), and good old Paula Prentiss, who was omnipresent in every sixties movie.

This song, by a duo who called themselves Dick and Dee Dee, was a paean to falsetto, later memorialized by Lou Christie:

Another dude who had his own TV show, on ABC, was that old sausage-maker, Jimmy Dean. Jimmy's was a variety show that featured a dog (?) puppet named Rowlf, who turned out to be the patriarch of The Muppets, and who would'a thought?

Jimmy Dean could ostensibly sing, but he did a lot of narrative songs. That was apparently his niche. This one was huge (for some reason):

My older sisters thought this song was fab. Really fab. They played the 45 a lot. If I was to pinpoint a musical memory from 1961, I'd had to give the prize to this:

 

I liked this one and I'll tell you why -- when you're six years old, you latch onto stuff that makes sense, like lists. This was the ultimate "list" song:

There were actually two classic tracks released in 1961, but I'll just keep them a secret, because I didn't know they were classics when I was six. And frankly, they didn't even register with me then. I had other stuff to do, like watching TV and skipping through the (icky) woods behind my house. 

I will say that I learned how to not be a snob in 1961 by observing silly girls freak out over muck on the bottom of their shoes. And I conquered my fear of decrepit buildings. 

1961 was wondrous.

A Year Lost To Time -- 1962

(all cars looked like this)

My sisters could tell you more about 1962 than I am able to. It's not that I wasn't around -- I was -- I was seven, which is an age when one is barely conscious of the world around them. I was confused, trying to feel my way in the vast universe that primarily consisted of my school bus, home, and Valley Elementary School. 

In second grade my school caught on fire. That was something different. It was mid-winter, and all of us kids were stuffed into waiting buses, and then the teachers exited the school carrying boxes of snow boots and pressed them into our confused hands. I went home with one boot that fit and another red rubber boot that was two sizes too big. I don't recall being traumatized. Little kids tend to accept whatever happens to pop up. I had to go to a different school while mine was being rehabilitated. There were only three elementary schools in my town -- Riverside, Valley, and Crestwood. My class got bused to Crestwood, where my teacher commenced to instruct us in the hallway. Again, I was not unnerved by having to squat on the hard linoleum floor for six hours a day as the regular Crestwood kids stomped past on their way to the lunch room and stared at us. 

This went on for approximately six-to-twelve weeks, and then we returned to Valley, which looked brand-spankin'-fine, like a blazing inferno had never engulfed the furnace room. I tend to think everyone over-reacted. I had a boyfriend, who I liked but didn't like, Jon Bush, and I got mixed up the day we moved back to Valley, and pushed him away. I thought my teacher had only wanted me to correct one classmate's paper, but she had meant for me to correct everybody's. She got mad when she saw me give Jon a shove and she reprimanded me sternly. Last time in my life I ever shoved anyone. 

The big event in my seven-year-old life was Valentine's Day. We crafted our Valentine receptacles out of shoe boxes; decorated them with bric-a-brac from Mom's sewing box and festooned them with red Crayola hearts. Everybody had to give everybody a valentine. There was no quibbling. Mom chose the valentine pack based upon the number of students in my class. It was a difficult decision, however, determining which valentine to bestow upon whom. If a girl was a good friend, I gave her the prettiest sparkly heart. For Jon, I didn't really want to lead him on, but I did need to distinguish him from the other boys in my class. The sentiments printed on the cards contained subtle differences. For example, "You've Roped My Heart Podner" was far more meaningful than "Hi Cookie!" Choosing the appropriate valentine for each person in my class was a very serious undertaking. In retrospect, perhaps I placed too much significance on the process.

On Valentine's Day, when I got home with my shoe box stuffed full of hand-printed hearts, I perched on the top of the stairs and sorted and categorized my cards and created little songs to accompany them as I danced them about. I was a bit too invested in Valentine's Day.

That, in a nutshell, is my memory of 1962.

Music was haphazard. Granted, music was filtered through my sisters' tastes. My oldest sister was kind of flighty -- one could never pin her down as far as what she truly liked. My second oldest sister was damn moody. I didn't dare ask her what music she preferred, or anything, really; because she might just fly off the handle. I was her mangy mutt -- someone she was forced to tolerate, but really a giant pain in the ass.

I'm guessing my sisters didn't really like this song, but it was a giant hit. This is because radio in 1962 wasn't radio as we know it today (if anyone actually listens to radio today). Singles weren't slotted into crisp categories. There wasn't rock ('n roll) and country (western) and easy listening. The DJ played them all! And mixed them up! Right after Jay and the Americans came Frank Sinatra! Yes, disc jockeys didn't just stab a button and up came a whole pre-fab playlist. DJ's actually played real records and they picked them out themselves. They also gauged local hits by how many call-in requests they received -- yes. Ahh, so antiquated.

Anyway, this single, I'm guessing, was for the "old folks", because we all listened to the same radio station (in my case, KRAD), be we seven or seventy-seven.

Much like this:

Yes, there was a common thread running through the old folks' songs. Lots of violins and a rhythm that was sort of a "slow gait". Connie Francis was a mega-star in 1962. I remember playing at my cousin's house when one of those "be the first caller to guess this singer" blurbs came on the radio. My aunt hollered to my cousin, "Connie Francis!" and my cousin dialed the radio station's number. "Is it Connie Francis?" she asked. "You're our winner!" My cousin won the black MGM single and all she had to do was have her mom drive her to the station to pick it up. I played that game, too, except all the songs I knew were records I already owned, and I did my own guessing without my mom's help. I often ended up with double copies of the same '45, but it was the notoriety that counted. 

To be frank, there were only two renowned female singers in '62 -- Connie Francis and Brenda Lee -- so there was a fifty-fifty chance my cousin aunt would get it right. Sadly, I can find no live performance videos of this song (Connie is shy):

You can see why I had such a laissez-faire attitude toward music. Well, toward everything, really, but that's kind of a seven-year-old thing.

There were a few more rockin' hits in 1962; songs that my sisters much preferred. Face it, it was a new world. JFK was president and he was young. Ike probably liked Nat King Cole, but it was time to rocket into the second half of the twentieth century. Sputnik was being launched into space, whatever Sputnik was, and John Glenn had climbed inside a "capsule" and putted across the sky.

Yep, this was more like it:

Dang it, I loved this song in '62. I danced and sang in front of the upstairs bedroom mirror to it. It had a nonsense intro and harmony and a good beat (you could dance to it). What's not to love for a little kid?

In 1962 "twisting" was of supreme importance. My sisters did a masterful rendition of the dance in our kitchen one winter evening, to the family's delight and consternation. I've featured Chubby Checker's version here too many times, so here is a variation:

The "peppermint" twist was what all the cool cats did, especially in New York. You know, people like Truman Capote and Lee Radziwell. And their martinis.

The twist was by far not the only dance craze of the time. No. There was any stupid dance that any dunce could do, even if just by accident. The twist was really good exercise, but if one was tired, they could always do the mashed potato, which essentially involved simply contorting one's feet in and out. The remainder of the body could rest. Hey, I'm not a snob when it comes to dances. My generation had the jerk, which was ordinary arm exertion, as opposed to foot movement, but the result was the same. One could be their regular lazy self and still "dance".

Believe it or not, this single hit number five on the charts. You may think this is a tired old saw; the song that pops up every time a movie scene demands it, but there was a time when this was new. Of course, at seven I didn't know what a "stripper" was. My big brother knew. You gotta admit, it had a good beat.

Aside from the kitsch, music was beginning to show signs of what was to come. 

There was this new group that not many people paid attention to. They wore matching plaid shirts. So hokey. I don't know whatever happened to them. Maybe I should do a Google search.

I'm including this simply because it's good:

Gene Pitney was a rock star in the days before there was such a thing as rock stars. I suspect he probably really wanted to be on Broadway, but nevertheless. This guy could sing. And he had the look -- the early sixties Anthony Perkins look.

Yea, goofball was around. Sorry, I mean Elvis Presley. My sisters liked him a lot. I almost wish I liked him, but I'm not sure why. In '62 I frankly thought Ricky Nelson was better. Aside from being a caricature, it struck me that Elvis tried too hard.

My sisters had this album. I wonder if they remember. It seems, in my recollection, that my two sisters shared singles and albums. I'm averse to that. I think music should be the possession of one person. The reason I like this song is because it foreshadowed the direction my life would go, musically. It's not rock (or rock 'n roll). It's country. They called it rock 'n roll in 1962. It wasn't:

To sum up, at age seven I was confused, befuddled. I had the beginning of an inkling of what music was -- good music and bad music. Music wasn't the sum of my existence then. 

It soon would be.

Your Future Has Been Decided

Don't you love those stories about how someone abandoned their staid old life and embarked on an entirely new career at age fifty?

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

I'm a believer that what we will become has been decided for us by age five. We can fight against it, but we can't change the essence of ourselves. There may be detours along the way, but most of us come back to our real nature eventually.

When I was five, my career goal was to be "in charge". Rather a nebulous ambition, I admit, but there is a logical rationale behind it. I was a shy kid (which, by the way, is not a fun way to be); timid; scared of making a wrong move and drawing others' eyes to me. A darkened corner was my preferred resting place. Shy kids aren't wobbly toothpicks -- they do have a strong spirit, but it stays hidden. Shy kids are probably more resilient than most people. They depend on themselves -- for comfort, for validation. They know their talents, but take them for granted. I was a kid who drew pictures and made up stories and songs. These weren't pursuits I needed to "learn"; they were just what I did.

Alone in the clammy basement of our farmhouse, the games I played were those of a teacher instructing her class (of empty chairs I'd set up in front of my card table "desk"), or of a priest saying mass -- again in front of my card table altar. Mass was said in Latin at that time, so I just made up words as I held my chalice high -- "Domini...something..."

The thread that tied these games together was that I was at the front of the room and I was in charge.

Shy kids want to be in charge; be noticed; be the center of attention -- but only if they are in control.

I suppose I was, too, a bit of a ham. I craved attention, but only at my behest. You can look at me when I tell you it's okay to look at me.

Today, all these years later, I am a teacher, so to speak. I like parts of my job -- those that put me in front of the room. I can walk among my students and lecture extemporaneously. In real life, I'm generally tongue-tied, my words sputtering forth in fits and starts; but in front of a group, I'm transformed. There is no explanation for it, and I don't spend any minutes pondering it. It is what it is.

It's me. The essence of me.

I bided my time for a lot of years, functioning as a clerk-typist or another button-pusher -- a cashier -- working quietly; unobtrusively, before the opportunity presented itself, or perhaps before I made my own opportunity. It's difficult to say after all this time if the possibility found me or if I found the possibility. However, once I became "in charge", I was at home. And that's when I shined. All that practice at age five paid off, finally.

I could tell you about my kids and how what they were at age five turned out to be what they became, but trust me on this -- I was there. I saw it, and I know it.

I'm not saying that our life experiences after age five don't shape us. Everything shapes us. But those experiences are the extra cheese atop our pizza. They enhance, but they don't create.

Musically, at age five, I was adrift. There were good records released, but music confused me. It was schizophrenic. Some of it was as dull as the test pattern on our big console TV; some of it my big brother informed me was good music. The only song I made up my own mind about; the only one I definitively knew was good, was this:

The number one hit of 1960 is one that Don Draper would really like; one that Adrian Cronauer made fun of:

My most lingering memory of 1960 is that Connie Francis was the girl singer. One could win a free 45 RPM single from the local radio station by being the first caller to identify who sang this song:

As girl singers went, I preferred this: 

Yep, taste is not acquired, but born.

In 1960 it was the battle of the girl singers -- Connie Francis versus Brenda Lee. We know who ultimately came out on top, don't we?

This song sucked, but that didn't stop the DJ's from playing it over and over. We were bereft of decent music in the midpoint of the twentieth century . Even at my tender age, I knew this song was just wrong:

My brother informed me this was good music. He was not wrong:

My older sisters were such slaves to pop fads. I'm so glad that never, ever, happened to me. I mean, I never once did The Jerk or The Watusi. Never.

My dad liked this song. I was never an Elvis fan (sorry; still am not), but if my dad liked something, that carried even more weight than my brother's opinion:

I missed this song in 1960 and only caught up with it later. At least the five-year-old me doesn't remember it. My loss. This guy would see me clear through the eighties. And...whoa...

This musical interlude not withstanding, remember the five-year-old you. The five-year-old you is who you really are.

Don't try to deny it.

Pioneers Of Rock - The Early '60's

I don't think it's right to just stop with the late '50's, do you? Not when there was so much good music yet to come. I already did a whole series on the British Invasion bands, but there was actually a whole gaggle of good artists from the good old USA!

The early-to-mid '60's were good years for rock 'n roll music. There were a lot of different styles, from doo-wop to the precursors of rock & roll (singers such as Connie Francis), to the California surf sound of the Beach Boys, to the wall of sound stuff by that unsurpassed weirdo named Phil Spector, to the Jersey sound of The Four Seasons, and on to the pop stylings of producer Quincy Jones, then on to the Motown Sound, and everything in between.

One thing you can say about that era ~~ everything didn't sound the same.

So, I'm just going to throw some videos in here, with little thought to rhyme or reason, and see what you think.

CHUBBY CHECKER - THE TWIST



This song was from 1960. Interestingly, the song also hit the Top Ten again in 1962. It makes one wonder if there was a dearth of songs back then, so they had to recycle the old ones. I don't know. Anyway, this appears to be from an appearance on American Bandstand (note the lip-syncing). Plus, there is NO WAY he could dance and not lose his breath if he was actually singing. I mean, really. This song marked a new phase in dance music. Prior to The Twist, everyone was just fox-trotting around and jitter-bugging. With the advent of The Twist, people could dance all by themselves! I think we can credit this song with creating the ME generation. Who needs a dance partner? Again, also, as in Fats Domino's case, why do they call him "Chubby"? He doesn't look very chubby. I'd call him "Average Checker".

JOEY DEE & THE STARLITERS - THE PEPPERMINT TWIST

Well, what hath Chubby Checker wrought? What started as simply "The Twist" in 1960 morphed into the Peppermint Twist in 1962. I'm no historian, but I'm thinking Joey Dee was a real hipster dude who was the toast of discotheques all the way from Brooklyn to the Bronx. This version, The Peppermint Twist, is the New York take on the now classic dance number. I am loathe to point this out, but Joey is actually doing a combination of The Twist/The Mashed Potato, so he is by no means pure in Twist parlance.




DEE DEE SHARP - MASHED POTATO TIME

I don't want to be nitpicky here, but some of the dancers were doing The Jerk, NOT the Mashed Potato. I guess they thought no one would notice. Although, David St. Hubbins WAS doing the Mashed Potato, so good work, St. Hubbins! I wonder whatever happened to Dee Dee. I wonder if she's still wearing that giant brooch in her "hair" (wig). I don't know how exactly I ended up being focused on dance crazes, but I promise it will end soon.


THE CHIFFONS - HE'S SO FINE

Okay, I couldn't actually find a performance of "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons, so I substituted this one. It's the same song ~~ just ask the US Copyright Office. Only the words were changed. This is nothin' against George Harrison, but good god, man, didn't this melody ring a bell when you were writing it? Just add in some "do lang, do lang's" and you got it. Still a great melody, though. A classic, if you will. I think we should ALL write lyrics to this melody. Pay it forward, as they say.

THE SHIRELLES - WILL YOU LOVE ME TOMORROW

Unfortunately, in addition to this great performance, we are subjected to pop references from 1961. Frankly, the ones that resonate with me are Rocky & Bullwinkle and Mister Ed. Sorry, JFK. Sorry, President Reagan. I guess Bullwinkle and Mister Ed hold a higher place of honor in the history of the USA. I don't make the news; I just report it.

FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS - BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY

1962; I'm thinkin' the Ed Sullivan Show. You think? You know, falsetto is kind of a lost art. One rarely sees that anymore. A pity. Cuz, if you think about it, it could get you ON BROADWAY! And you'd have a hit show, and you could just kick back and collect residuals. Not bad for a little falsetto. Not bad at all.

DION & THE BELMONTS - RUBY BABY

Bad video; great song. I still love this one, from 1962. Dion and his Belmonts did a great job incorporating doo-wop with rock & roll. This is but one example. Dion, of course, went on to a solo career, singing about Abraham, Martin, & John. This was in the late '60's, when people actually cared about that stuff. Oh, the times, they have a'changed.

GENE PITNEY - TOWN WITHOUT PITY

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS. It's from 1961. The net tells me that Gene himself wrote this song. If so, KUDOS, Gene! I don't know if I trust that info, though. It sure sounds like a Burt Bacharach song to me, but I could be mistaken. A little known fact: Gene was the first pop singer to perform at the Oscars. I really kinda miss Gene Pitney. I really liked him. Not to ruin the moment, but in this video, he really reminds me of Anthony Perkins, of "Psycho" fame.

CONNIE FRANCIS - EVERYBODY'S SOMEBODY'S FOOL

For those who don't know, Connie Francis was HUGE in the late '50's/early '60's. And she's a good singer who deserved her fame. I'll always remember Connie especially from that classic tearjerker, "Where The Boys Are". Have you ever seen this movie? It's a camp classic. First of all, you can't beat a cast that includes George Hamilton, Dolores Hart, Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Frank Gorshin (what?), Yvette Mimieux, and, of course, Connie herself. It's about these "kids" (who look approximately 35 to 40 years old) who go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. Well, all kinds of bad things happen: love is found, love is lost, love is found again, George Hamilton gets a tan. I understand that in real life, Dolores Hart went on to become a nun, to atone for actually getting paid for starring in movies such as "Where The Boys Are".

BRENDA LEE - FOOL #1

The gals were really popular in the very early '60's. Brenda Lee is another great singer. I really like her. She has a big voice for someone so very, very, very tiny. I'm guessing she's about 8 years old here. Okay, maybe not. But she's about 3 feet tall. Not that there's anything wrong with that. One nitpick I have about this video: she is lip-syncing the song. That's the only quibble I have, however. I think she's great, and the song is great.

RICK(Y) NELSON - TRAVELIN' MAN

He started out as "Ricky", and later became just "Rick". But that's really beside the point. This is widely credited as being the very first music video. It tells the tale of Rick(y) traveling all over the place - apparently to Mexico, then to Alaska, then to Hawaii, and on to parts unknown. The incredible part is that he (apparently) did all this traveling by BOAT. Wow, Rick(y) must have had a lot of free time on his hands. But I guess air travel was kind of pricey in 1961.


THE DRIFTERS - SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

I picked this one from the Drifters, because I like this song, and I haven't heard it in ages. Sorry about the Karaoke titles - but hey, feel free to sing along! The Drifters had many hits in their day. Also sorry for the lip-syncing. There are not a lot of good Drifters videos out there. Again, I hate to even point out things like this, but man, their choreography BLOWS! I've seen my dog do better footwork than this. But they still had great songs.

THE TOKENS - THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT

Okay, here's the deal ~ I know this is not the "classic" black & white video, but I have to admit it ~ I never knew these guys were WHITE. Seriously. I never knew this. As I reel from the shock, I do want to say that I don't appreciate Disney & Company appropriating this song. The song was NOT done by animated lions; it was done by real people. And stop stealing our nostalgia.

We'll close out this segment with a GREAT rock song from 1961, one of my all-time favorites:

DEL SHANNON - RUNAWAY

This is a classic song. And is that a wicked organ solo or what? Somewhere, some dude is sitting around telling his grandkids that he played the organ solo on that record. And they're saying, "Yea, whatever, Grandpa". Kids are rude. As a side note, on this video, did you note that all the "running/dancing" girls had the same hairstyle? I'll let you in on a little secret ~ that was NOT their real hair. We had something back then we called "falls". They were clumps of fake hair that you pinned to your head to make you look like you had long hair. And they were made of the cheapest synthetic crap ever. You wouldn't want to try to brush it out. It would be a nightmare. Thus, you just pinned that crappy plastic hair to your head that had been sitting around on your nightstand for a fortnight. And off you'd go, off to run/dance to the latest songs on the hit parade.



More to come. MUCH more to come.