Mundane '62

In 1962 all everybody cared about was space. Not me, mind you. I know everyone was supposed to be in awe of space travel, but all I knew was that the "astronaut" zipped through the sky in a "capsule", of which my only frame of reference was an Excedrin my mom took for a headache. When I was still in first grade that winter, my teacher wheeled a portable TV into our classroom so we could watch John Glenn do whatever he was doing. I was more fascinated by the diorama of songbirds Mrs. Fisher had built in a back corner of the room.

I wasn't completely disinterested in space. I did like this:

My interests were simple at age seven-going-on-eight. I got a sparkly paint set for Christmas and I liked dabbing it into my coloring book--sapphires and emeralds and rubies. I loved my phonograph. I had paper dolls-- cardboard cutouts of (generally) girls or sometimes someone older, like Patty Duke, for which one would cut outfits out of the book and drape them on the cardboard figure with little paper tabs that folded across the model's shoulders and hips. 

I liked TV. I never gave a second thought to the fact all the actors on television were black and white, whereas the real world bloomed with color. I would watch anything, which included my mom's soap operas. I learned that doctors led really melodramatic lives; at least Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey did. Matt Dillon was a sheriff of few words; Alfred Hitchcock was a fat scary man. Ed Sullivan had a lot of really crappy acts on his show, even a guy who talked with his hand and one whose claim to fame was spinning plates in the air. Lawrence Welk was woefully out of date, but my dad liked him. Game shows were a staple of prime time--they required you to "guess" something--what someone's job was or which one, out of three gamesters, was actually telling the truth. I lay on my stomach right in front of our big TV and absorbed every single thing that flashed on the screen. My favorite shows, by far, were Dick Van Dyke and The Andy Griffith Show.

In the fall, when I entered second grade, I transferred to Valley Elementary, which was a brand-spanking new school. I would spend four and a half years at Valley; years that would shape me into a semblance of a human person. Valley was where I would write and perform a play at the Hootenanny. Valley was where I would be chosen by my teacher to become part of the safety patrol, an awesomely responsible post in which I got to carry an official flag. Valley was where I blossomed, albeit temporarily, and learned to embrace my creativity.

In second grade, though, life was terribly mundane. I did worksheets and printed words on rough double-lined paper tablets, when I really preferred to write in cursive, which we weren't allowed to "learn" yet. I was a bit ahead of most of my classmates because my big sister had already taught me how to read and write before I even began kindergarten. However, one was not permitted to outdistance one's peers, so I was bored and fidgety. I did discover the school library, which flowered a whole new world. I devoured Laura Ingalls Wilder books, all eight of them; and then moved on to other biographies. I read every book in the library that was worth reading.

My mom bought me a lunch ticket every month, which the lunch matron punched each time I alighted the line of horizontal aluminum bars and plastic trays. I understand now why I was so skinny. Some people have fond memories of school lunches. Those people are freaks. I dumped more food in the giant trash receptacle than I ever ate. Nothing in the line ever looked appetizing--hamburger mush, gloppy mashed potatoes, possibly accompanied by carrot sticks, which were at least edible. Mini-cartons of milk were the only saving grace. Fridays were always fish sticks, in honor of the Lord. Granted, I was a very picky eater, but "Spanish rice" combined all the ingredients of horror.

The most consequential event of my second grade year was when the school caught on fire. It was a dreary sun-deprived winter day. I don't remember even smelling smoke, but our teacher hastily informed us that the "superintendent" (which was what the head janitor was called) had informed her that fire had broken out somewhere in the vicinity of the furnace room. We were all shepherded out to waiting buses (single file, of course), and a gaggle of teachers alighted the open bus doors and dumped cardboard boxes of rubber snow boots onto the slippery stairs, from which we confusedly tried to snatch a matching pair. I arrived home with two red boots, one of them two sizes too large for my feet. I guess I was lucky to escape the (supposedly) roaring blaze, but I was mostly upset that I couldn't gracefully clomp through snowbanks wearing one jumbo boot.

Apparently the school was grievously damaged, because my class ended up attending class in the hallway of a neighboring elementary building for two very long weeks, with kids who belonged there staring derisively at us as they made their way to the lavatory.

In music, my tastes were influenced by my big sisters -- actually one big sister. My oldest sister was mercurial. She flitted in and out of the house like a sprite, mostly unseen. She was eighteen after all, and soon to march down the aisle. My sisters shared a record collection, however -- all '45's. My brother had yet to blow my mind with actual reams of astounding LP's. So I lived in a world of little vinyl discs. And unlike my brother, my sister didn't care if I played her collection. Her tastes, however, leaned heavily toward Elvis Presley, who I always wanted to like, but for the life of me just couldn't.

I think my favorite record my sister owned in 1962 was this, and I don't quite remember why:

One of the few times I remember my oldest sister being around, she and Rosemary did a little demo on our kitchen linoleum in front of Mom and me of this dance; and Mom, by the way, was mightily impressed (although in reality, it's a pretty easy dance, and I don't know why they called him "chubby"):

But, as the early sixties could do, popular music often devolved into syrup. I don't know anything about Bobby Vinton, except that he recorded the cheesiest songs this side of Bobby Goldsboro. But, hey, it worked for him. Bobby Vinton was an early-sixties phenomenon, with recordings like this:

One artist Rosemary liked a lot that I could get on board with was Dion. She had good taste.

My sisters shared an album that was, I think, one of two long-playing records they owned (I wonder how they divided their record collection once Carole was married). It's sort of funny in hindsight that this was considered pop music, when in actuality it foreshadowed my immersion into country, but, truly, it was pop in 1962:

This was neither pop nor country nor anything other than, I guess, Broadway, but Gene Pitney was a sensation in 1962. And rightfully so:

Every era produces timeless artists (so they say). My sister can claim these as hers:

The truth is, we and radio were a bit behind the times. So the hits of 1962 were probably not on any of our radar until '63. Not that it matters. My family owned a circular cardboard ice cream container of 45-RPM records, some of which I have no doubt my parents picked up at rummage sales, and we played them all on a scratchy phonograph.

It wasn't so much a year as a feeling. A reminiscence of soot and red rubber snow boots and twisting in the kitchen. 

 

Music was always there.

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.

Revisiting Music Before My Time - Top Hits of 1963

It's not that 1963 was technically before my time. I mean, I was alive. But I had very little cognizance of music at that time. Really, it was only later that I caught up with '63's top hits.

The sixties was an odd time in music. The decade could be cut into thirds. One part schlocky, one part innovative, and another part angry and angsty.  Just like with country music, in the early sixties record producers were not convinced that "roots" music was acceptable, so they proceeded to ruin it, mostly by adding strings and background chorals. By roots music, I mean Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly. By "ruin it", think Elvis Presley.

The advantage to catching up with a year's music after the fact is that one doesn't have recurring nightmares of the world's worst songs blaring through their transistor's speaker. We can separate the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately, when I peer at Billboard's Top 100 list for the year, the flashbacks wash over me. My sister graduated from high school in 1963, so I was exposed to her favorite tunes, not only on the radio, but during Saturday afternoon's broadcast of American Bandstand, where all the girls wore wide skirts, mohair sweaters and "flats"; and the boys were decked out in sports coats, skinny ties and ducktail hairdo's (it was a much more formal time, I'm assuming).

The number one record of 1963 was this:

I've tried to put my finger on why this song reeks. Some things are hard to describe, so let me just say I find this to be "icky". Maybe it's the misplaced flute flourishes. Maybe it's the fact that Jimmy, while singing about "getting back to that girl", in fact sounds like a girl himself. No offense.

Nevertheless, I'd listen to Sugar Shack all day, given the choice between that and the number two record of the year. Let me tell you why this track is so hateful:  Well, at age eight, I couldn't understand why Bobby Vinton was so obsessed with the material of the dress his girlfriend wore. I still can't, really. It's rather creepy -- his fabric fetish. It seemed to me that he missed the dress more than the girl.

The number three single of the year was better, but it did contain a recitation, which was another big trend at that time. Shoot, Jimmy Dean made a whole career out of recitations (think "Big Bad John"). This was an odd producer choice. So, the song isn't good enough "sung", so let's talk it! Recitations had their heyday in the early sixties and soon fell out of favor, when singers realized they were expected to sing. The number three song brings to mind my other sister, who was a titch older than my American Bandstand-loving sibling. I don't have a lot of memories of my oldest sister from that time, because she graduated from high school, moved out, and promptly got herself married. I do remember that she liked this song, though:

I suddenly had a flashback regarding this next song. I remembering corralling two school friends and lip-syncing to this song in front of my third grade class. It must have been show-off -- I mean show and tell day. I did lots of outlandish things before I finally realized I was a real pain in the ass. 

This song is most remembered for the fact that George Harrison cribbed it for "My Sweet Lord". In George's defense, however, so many songs could be composed from those first three notes. 

Girl singers were all the rage in 1963. Alas, it was a different time, in that, record heads felt the need to ascribe adjectives to their singers. Thus, "Little" Peggy March:

I don't know how "little" she is. Hang on -- okay, four foot ten. That is little -- speaking from one who is apparently semi-little at five foot one and one-half. 

Speaking of girl singers, who would today be referred to as "singers", this next song played a seminal role in my ascension to "singing wanna-be", because I loved it so much and I perched atop our picnic table in the backyard and sang my lungs out along to:

Before I get too far into 1963, I want to make sure I include this next song. In my two-second research, I learned that this is a traditional folk song. Thus, I imagine it was recorded by many artists. However, none could do it better than Bobby Bare. Some songs are timeless and this is one:

And, aside from the Sugar Shacks and fabric-obsessives, there were a few truly innovative artists who scored hits in 1963. If you were to ask me who the best singer of all time is, I am pretty sure I'd need to go with this next one. My older brother had an LP of this artist's greatest hits, recorded on Monument Records, that I wore out when my brother wasn't around (I was not allowed to touch his albums; little did he know). This is what music does at its best -- it makes your heart soar to the heavens. I endeavor to include videos from the time they were fresh, but I make an exception for this one, because one needs to hear it in all its glory:

I've really, really tried to like Elvis Presley. I guess it's like a kid today who seriously wants to like the Beatles, but just can't (although that's not a fair comparison). My memory of Elvis is Sunday afternoon movies that mostly involved sports car driving and/or scuba diving with a song thrown in now and then for good measure. Elvis could have been better than he was, but he was mismanaged. Someone needed to tell him to cut back on the booming baritone, which sounded clownish. It's not that Elvis wasn't a good singer, but he was drowning in sub-par songs. I do understand how my older sisters came to revere hm, because there was most likely nobody like him at the time; certainly not foppish Jimmy Gilmer or Bobby Vinton. Maybe Elvis was too faux-dramatic for my tastes. It's like the way someone is supposed to sing to signal the world that they're a great singer, when they just need to relax and be themselves.

By 1963, Elvis's best days were already behind him, sadly. But my best friend and I dutifully paid our twenty-five cents to see his movies on Sunday afternoons, and this one is semi-okay (I believe it is from "Clambake"):

Truth be told, I took a lot of my musical cues from my dad. Of course, I was nine years old. Anything my dad liked, I liked. Looking back, my dad's taste in music tended toward catchy lines and/or catchy melodies. I have a fuzzy memory of skipping down the street, singing this song:

This next song is more of a 1964 memory than a 1963. Novelty songs were HUGE at that time. By 1964 I was living at Triple Service with my cousins. Triple Service was situated in a tiny town that had nothing in its favor. My mom had enrolled me in the local Catholic school, which was an ill fit. A really tight fit. I had long had a bias against nuns, with justification. After-school time was my freedom. My cousin Karen and I climbed to the roof and perched between the red wooden letters that spelled out T-R-I-P-L-E S-E-R-V-I-C-E and serenaded unsuspecting patrons with this song (sorry, no live video, but that's probably for the best):

It's not that 1963 wasn't a harbinger of things to come. We had the Four Season, who apparently have no live videos on YouTube, and we had the Beach Boys just coming on the scene. Too, we had Sam Cooke (no live videos, but kudos to the person who created this for their creativity):

Dion hadn't become all maudlin with Abraham, Martin, and John, and was still doing songs that we needed to dance to:

1963 was getting ready for 1964, when all heck would break loose.  Nobody knew in 1963 that the musical world was about to spin off its axis. We were still pining for velvet and traipsing down to the Sugar Shack. 

But oh boy...