***Out In The 1950s Be-Bop R&B Night-He’s “Dancing With The Devil”-You Had Better Get In Line Because Her Dance Card Is Full

 

 

A YouTube film clip of Lonnie Johnson high heaven singing the classic R&B, rock and rock, bop and stroll, Tomorrow Night. Yes, Lonnie is in the house.

 

and LaVern Baker

 

and Elvis

Okay, okay call me Mr. Janus, call me Mr. Two-Faced in case that Janus reference passed by you although we are going to be  crying to the high heavens for some Greek hero, mythical or not,  to come to the rescue before this night is out. Call me fickle, call me, well, mainly call me perplexed. Every time I think I have it down pat, pat as can be, about what genre “fathered” my “generation of ’68” childhood growing up absurd in the half-benighted 1950s rock and roll birth I change course. (Okay, or “mothered” or “parented” to be politically and linguistically correct although when talking about low-down rock and roll and rhythm and blues which is the subject here that quaint social need seems dramatically out of place.) Mainly these days it depends on what was the last CD placed in the player, the last YouTube film clip clicked, or the last whatever other source I have filled my head with.

A couple of weeks ago it was definitely those mad men swing masters like Benny Goodman, the Duke, Artie Shaw and the Dorsey boys (when not playing sentimental last dance stuff) and their hard, sexy sax players, all hail Johnny Hodges, (and occasional clarinet per Benny swingman). Picture this- Benny with a young right off the farm or right off of some South Dakota isolated spot Peggy Lee hips swaying up front at the mic be-bopping her no good man to bring in the kale in What Don’t You Do Right or one of the boys firing up a jittery-buggery thing (is there such a word?) blast for all the jacks and jills to swing by. A couple of days later it was definitely Joe Turner, Big Joe Turner, all wide-lapel suited up be-bopping his big snapping fingers beat on Shake, Rattle and Roll putting later Elvis and Jerry Lee renditions in the shade, Bill Haley's  too.

Last week it was most positively either lonely Tina Turner-less Ike Turner in his Sun Record days and his piano explosion putting automobiles, his baby, and some hot night together on Rocket 88 (hell that combination is the essence of rock, has been since, well, since Greek myth times, hasn’t it) or rockabilly maven Warren Smith on his Rock and Roll Ruby. Yes old Warren crying to beat the band, and rightfully so, about his Ruby and her eternal dancing ways leaving no time, well, you know what she had no time for what with her be-bopping until all hours, and probably a little drunk especially after jumping those tables in her frenzy. This week, well, this week it is the R&B influences represented by a King Records compilation, Dancing With The Devil: 25 Essential Blues Classics. So hear me out.

Look I grew up in that red scare, cold war, atomic- bomb- going to- get- you- so- you- best- put- your- sorry- little- head- under- that –wooden- desk- and -don’t- ask- questions dark night made darker by being left out of the great American golden age 1950s by, well, by being from the working poor, and never getting out from under, never get that break a lot of post-World War II families were getting. I mean real poor, where is the next paycheck (if Pa worked that week) coming from and Ma divving up whatever dough was around and putting some in each weekly bill envelope, always short, and always making every collector irate that he was being pieced off  poor. The music around the house was strictly either country (Hank Williams, Earl Tubbs, etc.) representing my father’s rural Appalachian roots down in wretched coal-mining country or that 1940s Frank, Bing, Rosemary Clooney, we- won- the- world- war so our songs rule stuff blaring out of the local hokey radio station.

It was not until I got my first transistor radio (look that up on Wikipedia if you are clueless about what that was, or is, for old fogies, maybe). Then I could pirate my way to many midnight stations in the “comfort” (three boys to a room comfort so not much) of my room. And what I got at midnight was blues, or rather R&B coming from who knows where but not Boston (usually Chicago or New York) from people who distinctly did not sound like they were from Boston.

And they weren’t. They, as I found out later when I started to look into such things, mainly had come north from the rural South in one of the waves of black migration up river (Mississippi River, okay), got jobs in the Midwestern factories (mostly long gone now), or didn’t, and played music on the side at some electrified juke joint, or on rarified Maxwell Street and its environs as long as they hustled. Those who did make good music wound up making records for all kinds of “race” labels (and outfits like Chess Records) so there was no mystery as to why I didn’t know this music from around the house. But I knew it from then on. And I know it now.

That leads to this King Records compilation which, no question, has many, many riffs that sound a hell of a lot like the birth of rock and roll just now. Try Lonnie Johnson’s Tomorrow Night done later by Elvis, LaVern Baker, Jerry Lee and a million others. Or what about the beat in Wynonnie Harris’ All She Wants To Do Is Rock. How about Little Esther on Aged And Mellow Blues. Not good enough-try this. Wilbert Harrison on This Women Of Mine. Or the freaking rock beat on Earl King’s Don’t Take It So Hard. Okay now for the big ammo Joe Tex’s Another Woman’s Man and Hank Ballard’s Look At Little Sister. I thought that would get your attention. But let’s cut to the chase. The Stones and Beatles (and many others from the 1960s second- wave British rock invasion) were spoon-fed on R&B and blues stuff. And while Albert King’s Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong (good advice, by the way, for male and female alike) is a little too late to have been at the roots of rock it has all the guitar riffs that those later groups thrived on. So I rest my case. Unless of course next week I decide to hear Sonny Burgess’ Red-Headed Woman and all bets are off. Then call me Mr. Janus.