From The Archives Of The Carter’ Variety Store 1950s Corner Boys-The “From Hunger” Boys Do, Well, Do The Best They Can-When Billy Bradley Held Forth In The Whole Rock And Roll World

By Sam Lowell

One reader recently told me to cut the bullshit and get on with the story, or stories, about the legendary Billy Bradley who unlike some two-bit junior varsity thug who was doomed to fall down, fall down hard either in Q or out on the cop-infested highways like Ronnie Mooney or some stumblebum has-been journalist for publications now since vanished along with the so-call prizes like the Scribe hy had actually heard of, had heard on the radio, probably WNCB out of Providence, or from records back in the late 1950s with his moderate smash hit Me And The Rock And Roll Baby Sitter. Maybe a one hit johnnie but at least he was a recognized name then. That reader further accused me of apparently getting paid by the word which for a modern day journalist, a guild guy, a guy who has spent many years in the vineyards is a serious slap in the face since only free-lancers and people who work on spec get paid that way today and so bulk up the volume to see what falls out, how many dimes they can squeeze out of an assignment. (Every editor knows the gag and will automatically cut one thousand words on “principle” to keep under budget.)       

Okay so on with it although I think that straight as a gate reader must have been asleep during the 1950s since while Billy did record a moderate smash 45 RPM single it was not played on radio (too salacious) and had  passed muster in 1950s teen angst world via the old-fashioned way of having promoters (who could be the performers themselves) going around to the various record stores, hose that had listening cubicles and hustling their proteges material that way. If the song hit pay dirt everybody grabbed copies and word, the eternal teenage be-bop grapevine world would do the rest. Be that as it may I did not meet Billy that first day of school at the old Snug Harbor Elementary when I did meet the Scribe down across from the Adamsville Housing Authority projects where we all grew up and became Carter’s Variety Store corner boys for the simple fact that he had skipped school that day since it a yawner half day and he went to Adamsville Center to perfect his skills on “the clip” which was our poor boy financial lifeline when our parents said no dough for nothing every time we bothered to ask.   

Moreover and that sleepy-headed reader will probably take a fit when I mention this Billy, whatever authority he had later as corner boy leader and as a rock and roll singer, was not the leader then nor the guy who led the rock and roll doings around our way. That “junior varsity thug” Ronnie Mooney did. It was Ronnie who was so recklessly tough that he thought nothing of kicking a guy in the groin as some kind of initiation into corner boy life and who led the criminal enterprises like the classic “clip” devised by the Scribe without anybody questioning his authority to lead. For our purposes as well he was the king hell king of the doo wop night in the summer between fifth and sixth grade when his voice was pure magic and would draw the curious girls around him, us. It was only later after Ronnie decided hanging with serious tough guys, getting deep into that life was what he wanted, craved that Billy who was probably even tougher than Ronnie became the king hill king of the rock and roll night and leader of the corner boy crew.    

I think, and if I remember right the Scribe agreed with me at the time, that Billy also had a better voice than Ronnie when he finally came around to those summer doo wop sessions and would eventually share lead with Ronnie on say This Magic Moment. Everybody thought

Ronnie knew a ton of stuff about music but Billy through his older sisters knew more. In any case that doo wop attraction pit is what got Billy all hopped up about a singing career, about being the next Elvis or Buddy or Jerry Lee (it was different models at different times). That would sustain Billy through a couple of good years once Ronnie left and nobody challenged either his larcenous heart or that be-bop beat in his head.

The icing on the cake, the thing that drove Billy’s early career forward, was his big prize win at the all city rock and roll talent show held in the summer of 1958. In order to qualify you had to have won a talent show and been sponsored by some organization in the town (that meant either Adamsville proper or North Adamsville since both were part of the same city). As it turned out Billy would represent Our Lady Of The Flowers Catholic Church, the projects parish where he had won the annual teenage singing contest. The whole gag with the church was to keep the budding sexual stirrings of the young in check by providing a weekly outlet and keep a sharp eye out with a Friday night dance to keep things in check. During intermission at those dances there would be a short talent show with the winner getting a fifty-dollar U.S. Savings Bond as a prize (Ronnie would be the first to win that bond and quickly turned it into cash, some thirty some dollars which he could never figure except somebody was cheating him ping since you had to wait a million years for the bond to mature and get the whole fifty). One night Billy blew the lid off the place with his version of Sweet Little Rock and Roller with a classic Chuck duckwalk included. The girls went wild and Billy was headed for the stars (and I got at that point Billy’s stick girl rejects, no, got second choice after the Scribe in those days the guy who Billy thought was his best friend, at least the Scribe thought so).    

Still trying to keep the thing in check the head priest, mean old Father Lally, at Our Lady decided that the church would sponsor Billy at the all-city talent show (later they would be called talent searches but that is when the radio stations and record companies were desperate for new sounds). So with some front money Billy got some new clothes and was ready to make the all city talent show “jump” (his term). The expectation was that he would again do the Chuck Berry classic and that was that. What the crowded audience at the Adamsville High School auditorium got however was Billy’s own creation, Me and My Rock and Roll Baby-sitter. This song as already mentioned pretty salacious about a guy who is pissed off because his girlfriend has to babysit a bunch of brats one Friday night and who sneaks into the house the babysitter is at and after she blows the kids off to bed gets down and dirty with her rock and roll man with Jerry Lee in the background. Not much left to the imagination either. Needless to say despite winning the talent show hands down (based on audience applause not judges approval) Billy was persona non grata around Father Lally, around Our Lady in general.

That night though would start Billy on his short sweet ride to his fifteen minutes of fate.