Out In The 1960s Jukebox Saturday Night –North Adamsville Corner Boy Version

A YouTube clip of Ben E. King performing Spanish Harlem.

By Bartlett Webber

A while back I was on a tear hunting down every oldie but goodie, 1950s and 1960s versions if you please since rock is now over sixty years old and has morphed into a number of classic periods by now, rock and roll compilation, set, 45 RPM record (look that up if you don’t know what it is, what went on back when music did not come out of the ether by via vinyl of various qualities, look it up on Wikipedia if you are in a hurry) that was not nailed down to some musty, dusty attic floor.

Reason? 

The immediate reason had been to search for songs that drove a certain part of our high school existence back then, specifically the Saturday night “search” of songs while watching the “submarine races” down at the far end of the local Adamsville Beach (and songs that before heading down to that spot got the girl, hell, got you “in the mood”). That search for songs had been prompted by my old corner boy Zack James’ and my failure one night while reminiscing at the Dublin Grille after we had spent the better part of that afternoon at that sacred spot sitting on the seawall (a more recently constructed version of that seawall since the one we sat on when on car-less dates was washed out to sea after a tropical storm ripped through the area a number of years ago). Our failure to remember what songs set up the night, usually at some dance held in the dinky school gym or the even dinkier if there is such a word church basement (the Roman Catholic church usually presided over by stern, tight-fisted Father Lally but occasionally we would attend heathen Protestant dances, a couple of the other corner boys were of that persuasion), and what songs “set the mood” down by the shore.     

Who knows the real reason beyond that fight against senior moments that seemed to grab both Zack and me on the subject except this maybe better reason: I, of late, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots. Maybe to the earliest music that I could call my own, be-bop rock and roll (not that Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, Inkspots stuff, Jesus no, that got my parents’ generation through the Great Depression [1930s variety] and World War II although that was endlessly heard wafting through the teenage house). While as I mentioned previously in discussing good times Saturday night at the beach time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes (who, for example, really wants to remember Gene Pitney’s Town Without Pity, that I had found myself  playing  endlessly on girl-less Saturday nights) it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-62, really did form the musical jail break-out for our generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music, had found something we could grab onto.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, more approvingly than an early earlier brethren who wrote us off as dead-enders, as marginal types, as wrongly alienated against the coming “golden age of American plenty, as, get this, juvenile delinquents, and a threat to the sanctity of the red scare Cold War American night, our own sub-group cultural expression. Yeah, the cramped crowded cowered world of the corner boy night, the Tonio’s House of Pizza “up the Downs” night. We needed, maybe desperately needed, a way to express that futile alienation from what golden age things were happening all around us but with the exception of Zack and maybe Sam Lowell whose families were a little further up the food chain were not privy to. Tired unto death of not having something coming out of the family radio which spoke to us, spoke to our isolation, spoke to the hope that some of us to could emulate Elvis and break out, spoke to something with could dance to without having to worry about stepping on toes, or worry about whatever wild gyrations we wanted to produce to have our “fifteen minutes” of local fame before heading out into a cruel and dangerous world (cruel because we were assumed like our parents to be down in the heap forever and dangerous because we lived under the very real sigh of the various nuclear weapons systems which blow us to smithereens).   

I have already talked elsewhere about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered, naturally, “coffin nail” ready, usually Luckies but on occasion Camels with matches tucked inside the cellophane wrapper) hanging from the pursed lips, Coke, big-sized green glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. These guys (along with their foxy girlfriends in tight-fitting cashmere sweaters and ass tight skirts) were our heroes, the guys we looked up to who set the vague rules of the neighborhood corner boy night, as they had had them set for them in their turn going back to legendary bandit corner boy Red Riley’s time whose exploits animated all corner boy hearts. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, usually off of some frill’s quarter when cash was low and we worked Markin’s sensitive guy scam to get to play what we wanted, telling Tonio if successful to hold the onions because someone might get lucky tonight, if that phantom dreamy girl might just come in the door thing and chase the blues away. Hold that alienation at bay for one freaking night. Talked to you unto death of course, of the soda fountain at Doc’s drugstore and that infernal jukebox that kept every corner boy glued to see, well, to see …ditto, a dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, please. Finally, the same for the lamo teen dance club, parent imposed once they knew they could not stop the rock and roll revolution sitting right there at their doorsteps to keep the kids off the streets even if they, the parents hated their damn rock music. Even in that lamo place we never give up the now eternal hope of a dreamy girl coming in the door, saying save the last dance for me thing.

 

That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts, weak memories, or weak dispositions to run the rack on the few good times of youth against the day to day Monday to Friday horror of coming of age in the nuclear iced night. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days, bowling alleys, drugstores, pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and maybe at the snack bar at the daytime beach, if you lived near a beach. I remember one such beach place called, surprise, surprise the Surf Club about twenty miles from North Adamsville that catered to summer vacation teens from places like New York and Connecticut during the day and doubled as a no teens, no goddamn teens allowed, hot spot nightclub for be-bop hipsters (really faux hipster by then), motorcycle daddies with their mamas (or somebody’s mama) on back, and your average just that moment at- large hood. But all this jukebox seeking by pimply teen or chain-wielding biker was done while boy or girl watching as they headed toward the club’s two, that’s right, two jukeboxes which between them contained every be-bop rock daddy or sweet mama song ever produced. Some stuff that predated Elvis and Bill Haley and was strictly for aficionados as I found out years later when we found out that guys like Big Joe Turner, Smiley Jackson and Ike Turner were the real max daddies of rock.

So juke heaven was basically any place where kids (and those oldsters just mentioned as well) were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

Funny, a  lot of hanging around the jukes was to kill time waiting for this or that, waiting for sunset and the real life, waiting like it was going to help by waiting for some show to drop or something to happen to break the cycle of being stuck in the no-man’s land of wanting habits and low expectations. A lot of that was stuff Markin would put in our heads so we would know the score if the big break-out didn’t happen or got snuffed out by somebody before we got to the “new age” although the basic reason we hung on to the jukebox dream machine was that these were located in all the places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention after you had sized them up as they came in the door.

I remember one time at this place, Jimmy Jack’s Diner, the one on Washington Street near the high school not the one on Jackson Avenue where all the blue-haired ladies had salad lunches, the all the kids in town after school afternoon hang-out diner waiting for Cokes and burgers to wash away the awful school lunch from memory this dreamy girl had been waiting for her platters (records, okay, again check Wikipedia if you are lost) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. And this white tee-shirted sullen guy, me (could have been you if you are a guy though, right?), just hanging around the machine waiting for just such a well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) to show up, maybe chatting idly for what might be worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Okay, I got the number that time but get this.  Don’t call after nine at night though or before eight because those were times when she was talking to her boyfriend. Scratch that one. Lucky guy he, maybe. 

But here is where the real jukes skill came in, the one Markin clued us in on mentioned above but also one of the few times something he wanted us to do made sense didn’t turn into a horror show because even if Markin had million ideas he couldn’t usually pull them off. This is where that sullen white-tee-shirted guy just mentioned seemed to be in his element, although a million guys have stories about how they worked this one. You started out just hanging casually around the old jukebox, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (slang for girl in our old working- class neighborhood, one of several our leader Frankie Riley coined, or rather “stole” from watching too many 1930s and 1940s gangster and film noir detective movie) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in, Jimmy Jack’s was three but that was because he wanted to turn over the after school crowd fast in order to serve his evening mainstay, guys who were finishing their first shifts at the local shipyard that provided the big boost to the town’s economy then, now long gone but Tonio’s who liked the corner boy idea as an attraction to bring girls, date girls, or just hanging round girls, gave you five) talking, usually to girlfriends, as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next.

 

Then you made your move-“Have you heard Ben E. King doing Spanish Harlem?” “NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up.” Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed, let’s say, to Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to... for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc. That “sensitive guy” bit was pure Markin, was why guys and gals both told him stuff that they wouldn’t tell to anybody, girlfriends, corner boys whoever. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. Sometimes, more times than you might think, it actually worked. Beautiful.

Now that I am at a great remove from jukes I can give you my basic spiel playlist well worked out during those periods when things were slow and I really was killing time.    Here’s the list and there are some stick outs that might work today and others, well remember the fate of Gene Pitney and his damn “town without pity” because you know it’s tough out there on those mean streets.  I have added a few that worked some of that “magic” just mentioned above on tough nights too just in case you run into a jukebox, run into that dream girl who maybe happens to like the idea of hearing some of the old time music that a sensitive guy like you (gals just flip the roles, okay, other possible combination go to it):          

1) My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels (in honor of the memory of that shapely brunette who broke my heart above, the one with the boyfriend with the telephone ear); 2) Nadine (Is It You?) (please only use if the “target” looks like a little rock and roller and if you have a strong enough heart to stand the rejection when she turns you over in a week or so for the next best thing) - Chuck Berry; 3)Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King (only if you can do the “sensitive” guy thing otherwise save this one for the last chance last dance situation for that girl you have been getting sore eyes over all night) ; 4)Come & Get These Memories (strictly for known Motown heads) - Martha & the Vandellas; 5)Perfidia (for smart girls who might even know what this word means) - The Ventures; 6)Lover's Island (figure this one out yourselves but think beach and starlight nights)- The Blue Jays; 7)Playboy (not for use with the “girl next door” types, please save yourselves the misery of rejection) - The Marvelettes; 8)Little Latin Lupe Lu (strictly for be-bop girls, girls with many quarters) - The Righteous Brothers; 9)It's Gonna Work Out Fine (with thoughts of backseat Saturday night, okay)- Ike & Tina Turner; 10)When We Get Married ( for dreamy kind of need weights in their shoes to keep them earth bound girls-and without boyfriends)- The Dreamlovers; 11)The One Who Really Loves You ( ditto the “sensitive guy” thing)- Mary Wells; 12)Little Diane ( for the “girl next door”) - Dion; 13)Dear Lady Twist ( strictly when you get the feeling you will only be friends, except…maybe these days that “with benefits” I keep hearing about and would have died for along with every corner boy who ever lived you might give it a shot)- Gary "U.S." Bonds; 14); Heartaches (“recovering” from that two-timing bastard  girls) - The Marcels; 15)Feel So Fine (Feel So Good)( back to Mr. Sensitive, you had better learn that approach)- Johnny Preston; 16) If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody  (please, please, James Brown, please is your plea) - James Ray; 17)All in My Mind (for girly girls)- Maxine Brown; 18)Maybe I Know ( strictly for telephone number givers-without boyfriends)- Lesley Gore; 19)Heart & Soul (you have it, Mr. Sensitive, don’t you see a pattern here) - The Cleftones; 20)Peanut Butter (goofy tough night girls met at the bowling allys or some such good places)- The Marathons; 21)I Count the Tears (Mr. Sen…need I say more) - The Drifters; 22)Everybody Loves a Lover (for the girls with telephone boyfriends)- The Shirelles. There it is all laid out for you- Good luck.