This blog has been established to provide space for stories, comments, and reflections on old North Quincy, your thoughts or mine. And for all those who have bled Raider red.
This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Yah, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around; on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook; and, neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.
Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations (somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
*********
One Night-Elvis Presley
Intro: E A A11 E
[NC] Riff 1 Riff 1
One night with you
B7
Is what I'm now praying for
B7
The things that we two could plan
E
Would make my dreams come true
[NC] Riff 1 Riff 1
Just call my name
B7
And I'll be right by your side
B7
I want your sweet helping hand
E E7
My loves too strong to hide
Riff 2 Riff 2
Always lived, very quiet life
Riff 1
I ain't never did no wrong
Riff 3
Now I know that life without you
B7
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I'm now praying for
The things that we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true
Always lived, very quiet life
I ain't never did no wrong
Now I know that life without you
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I'm now praying for
The things that we two could plan
E A A11 E B7 E7
Would make my dreams come true
*****
Billie, William James Bradley, comment:
Yah, I know I haven’t talked to you in a while like I was supposed to. I was supposed to tell you all about Markin’s, Peter Paul Markin's, my best friend over Adamsville Elementary School, ill-fated attempts to single-handedly close the space gap they keep talking about ever since the commies put that Sputnik satellite up in orbit last year. I will have to put that on hold for now, because I still kind of broken up about something. See I got caught up, well I might as well just come out with it, with woman trouble, alright girl trouble okay. Some of you may know about how old best buddy Peter Paul tried to used Jerry Lee Lewis to cut my time with Laura, Laura Doyle. Ya Laura, the hottest frill in school, and maybe in this dead old town if you just count twelve or thirteen year old girls. And for right now all that counts, anyway. Got it.
Oh you think that Peter Paul, old best pal but definitely strictly junior varsity when it comes to the women, ah, girls took Laura away from me. Jesus, are you kidding? Come on now, if you know the story then you know that’s a joke, and if you don’t you should still know it is a joke. Hell, I swept Laura back even before the next school dance. I just let, once I figured out that Laura was really dazzled more by Jerry Lee’s hopped-up piano on High School Confidential than Peter Paul’s book shuffle dancing, nature take its course and she was back in my arms before you knew it. Maybe I will tell you the details of that one sometime but unlike that space thing, that Markin single-handed space thing, don’t hold me to telling you that story. Just say that nature is one thing you can’t escape from, nature and the king of the rock night around here, me, putting on his charm, his high Elvis charm and it was all over. Markin’s white flag was flying all over the place almost before it began.
No, what has me down in the dumps, seriously down in the dumps is that Laura moved away from the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. Now I don’t know if Markin explained what this “projects”neighborhood thing is here down in Adamsville but it started out with guys like Markin’s father Prescott (a good guy although he is nothing but a Protestant, a Southern Baptist or something like that, but not a Roman Catholic like most of us here, and definitely not Irish like most of us too, but everybody likes him even William James Bradley Senior, my father, and he doesn’t like anybody usually, anybody without a beer bottle in his hand giving it to him anyway) and my father coming back from the war, World War II, and needing some housing, some cheap housing to hold them over until better times came along. And that’s how it worked for lots of people, well, except for Markin’s father and mine, who seem are going to be here forever and you can forget the better times. Well the ship finally came in for Laura’s father, a veteran like Prescott and mine, and so they moved to New Hampshire to some better place in the country or something. Laura showed me a picture of the place and it looked pretty good.
But see here is the bitch, excuse my language. No question Billie, William James Bradley, is strictly a love ‘em and leave guy. I have had plenty of girlfriends already, most of them sticks, no shapes, if you know what I mean, eleven and twelve year sticks, maybe one or two ten, sticks like Theresa, Karen and Donna (Cool Donna O’Toole, not my older sister Donna who is no stick but who I don’t talk to lately, if I can help it, what with her not liking anything in the world just because I like it). Laura though was my first step-up not stick girl, with a nice shape, a shape like a woman, or trying to be, and it showed, the trying part. Definitely something to invest some time in, some Billie time, and I did.
Here is where the bitch part comes in. Not only was Laura smart, and had those curves, that shape I just told you about. But as it turned out she had some great kind of kiss, long kisses, longer than any of the stick girls, way longer. And Laura was not afraid, once I put on the charm, to let me feel her up. I am not bragging and she is gone far away and so I am not talking behind her back but a few times, about four or five, she and I well, we acted like adults that way. And it wasn’t all me pushing either. See I knew that from my sister Donna, when we were talking more, that girls like this kind of stuff as well as guys do although they usually don’t let on. So, if you excuse me, I am kind of down in the dumps because I will now be left with just the sticks. And you know they don’t go for that sex stuff, or even think about it, or maybe even dream about it like it was a mortal sin. And maybe it is but don’t tell me that, or Laura.
And do you know how we set the mood for our fooling around once Laura got over that one-hit Jerry Lee thing? Well, I’ll give you a hint. A guy from Mississippi with long sideburns and a wicked sneer that made all the girls act crazy, and women too. Sure, Elvis. But not just any Elvis song. One Night. That was OUR song. And if you think about the lyrics a minute it talks about a guy being lonely, finding the right girl and making plans for the future. That guy was me, me with Laura because, and just ask Peter Paul, otherwise I am a love ‘em and leave ‘em guy. But now she’s gone, gone to some freaking farm country and will probably wind up showing some hayseed a good time, if you know what I mean. But, as my father s ays, says all the time-“that’s the breaks, kid.”
See, now that I am over my period of mourning, two weeks is enough for any girl, shape or no shape, and I am talking to Peter about different records I might as well tell you what I discovered in checking up on history, Elvis history, what else? That One Night thing was strictly kid’s stuff, goodie, goodie Ed Sullivan, and good parenting seal of approval kid’s stuff to make us act just like grown-ups. Find a girl or guy, make plans, settle down and maybe listen to Elvis all day and all night until we are old, like thirty maybe. Square, very square, if not just plain cube.
There is the real thing though and I can hardly wait to try it out on my next chick, my next love ‘em and leave ‘em chick. I found a recording up at Benny’s Record Shop in Adamsville Square that Elvis recorded that has the same beat as One Night but with different lyrics, One Night Of Sin. Yah, that’s more like it, more like real Elvis, more like Billie, William James Bradley, king of the rock night around here. And guess what? I have been noticing that Donna O’Toole, Cool Donna O’Toole is starting to have some shape, some woman’s shape, or trying to and maybe I‘ll give her another chance. Peter Paul, mad man Peter Paul Markin, heard that Donna cried no tears, no tears at all, when Laura headed north. I know one thing for sure I am going to make One Night Of Sin my song, and I don’t mind paying for my sins after. Got it.
This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.
Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations(somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
********* High School Confidential lyrics-Jerry Lee Lewis
You better open up honey it's your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everybody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and
Light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
********
Peter Paul Markin comment:
“Who are you taking to the hop? Come on now, tell me, tell me, your old buddy Billie, who you asked? Was it Theresa? Was it Donna? Was it Karen?” That was the incessant bugging by my old elementary school boy compadre, Billie, William James Bradley if you didn’t know already, every time a school sock hop came up. But you know, or you should know, that was just a little way that he had to bait me about my shyness, or rather my awkwardness around girls. Around girls that he, king hell king of the late 1950s rock night “discarded” and left for the rest of us, especially for me.
And he knew, he knew damn well that I had not gotten up the nerve to ask any of those three ex-flames, or any girl, to the dance coming up in a few days. For one thing because, as king hell king of the rock night, and therefore king, crowned or uncrowned, of the sock hop he had all the configurations, combinations, set-ups, and, and, no-go bust-ups all computed out, no, not on some machine memory depot but in his head. For another because he didn’t know that I had decided just to go to the dance alone and maybe getting lucky there. Heck, I had done it before, a few times, although not with any great success but if there is any rhyme or reason to youth it is around the possibilities of getting lucky. Of course, old Billie had “selected” Laura as his escort, no awkwardness in Billie, although I had heard, heard from more than one budding teenage source that she “liked me,”(don’t ever tell him this though for I will deny it on seven stacked bibles). Or liked my seriousness, and my clowny, get in the way bookishness. So I am going “stag” on the hope, the hell or high water hope that Billie will let his old buddy, his old amigo, his, well you know, have a dance with his escort to see if I have some “magic.”
Now, and ever since I heard about her opinion of me, I have been wracking my brain to figure out this question. How could she “like me”, or not like me for that matter, I do not know because although I had looked over in her direction in class dreamily (yes, dreamily) more than somewhat I had never said word one to her, or her to me. Now this Laura, if you want a description is not drop-dead beautiful, at least by Billie-Markin defined drop-dead beautiful, twelve and thirteen year old girl beautiful, but she has something else that I would not (and Billie definitely would not) figure out how to say for many years, she was fetching. Definition: nice figure, meaning having a shape, if you really want to know, because when you think about it, boy or girl, twelve and thirteen year old boy or girl, any girl that had a shape (meaning had womanly contours, hips, breasts, nicely-formed legs) rather than a stock stick figure tomboy-like girl was bound to get ahead in that be-bop night, and probably now too.
But more than that, for me, if not for Billie, she didn’t giggle, silly giggle like the other girls when a boy said something stupid-funny (and the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe is more than somewhat filled with stupid-funny stuff done by eons of clueless guys, trying, trying just like me, and just like Billie if he could have ever been honest about it, to figure out the key to the girl-charm thing, yes, there is plenty of room in that universe even now for the stupid-funny) and, she carried herself in a way, sometimes with a certain thoughtful look, sometimes by a thing she did by putting her fingers to her lips, and maybe the most important, that she knew she was a girl and was content with that knowledge. She would lack for no dates or admirers, ever. Oh, ya she was also smart, not Billie street smart, not Markin two-thousand facts smart but asking and answering teacher smart, without being crazy smart about it that you also knew every boy, or almost every boy, in the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe did not like in girls then, and maybe now for all I know. It only gets sifted out later.
But enough of Laura, of Billie, christ of Markin as well, of pre-sock hop arrangements, derangements and dreamily kid in the night be-bop stuff let us get to the sock hop. Hey, wait a minute, you know what sock hops are, or you heard from your parents or grandparents what sock hops are, right? Back in the fifties, yes, the 1950s (and a little bit into the 1960s but the term had kind of died out by then, at least for “non-squares”). If you don’t then I’ll fill you in quickly now, but you’ll see you really know about all of this because it is nothing but a “primitive”, maybe Stone Age when you hear it, version of any school dance scene since they started making teenagers a separate social category in the world, the whole wide world even. Okay the idea was to hem in this mad dash, this mad craze to dance, and dance guys with girls and vice versa, that kids have been into since the radio and jukebox came on the scene, maybe back in that Stone Age now that I think about it.
So dear mother and father, you name the generation, figured out if you can’t beat them join them, and the schools (and churches later) were in cahoots. So every once in a while to keep three eyes on this stuff (and to avoid the feared, seriously feared, basement or “family room”-launched “petting parties” if kids are left to their own devices), maybe a few times a month they would throw a sock hop (the sock part comes from the fact, the hard fact, that most girls, most twelve and thirteen year old girls, wore ankle socks. Ya, no nylons, etc. If you don’t believe me look it up on Wikipedia, or something). Now, most times, this was nothing but some parent or teacher acting as dee-jay and "spinning platters” (records) in some dank, well-lighted, too well-lighted school gym or church basement, christ more than once in the school cafeteria when the gym was being used for other purposes that night. Yes, the night, the night in those days being from seven to about ten in the evening so you would have to think pretty hard about not going, stag or dated up, to the dance if for no other reason than to be able to get out of the house, the cramped, nowhere project house (really apartment) for a few hours uncramped freedom.
This night, this night that Billie kidded me about, this Billie and Laura night, though somehow, although I am vague on the details of how they were brought in, we are not reduced to cranky, scratchy records but a real live local band, a band that prided itself, I heard, on doing covers of the “hot” new singers and groups we knew from American Bandstand (an afternoon television show that had Philly kids, older Philly kids, dancing and swaying to whatever dee-jay Dick Clark, is he still around?, decided was wholesome and fit for the ears of America’s afternoon rock obsessed youth). So this is a time you definitely did not want to miss. And to truth to tell I went early, nervously early if you must know, to see what was up and watch the band set up.
Now this is not just any time in the 1950s, although the sock hop thing, the worried parent, worried about those “petting party” things(and more, much more, about sex things) and this wild and woolly rock obsessed thing their no understand what kids are into could have been anytime from about 1955 on, from the time that Elvis exploded onto the scene with those swiveling hips, that jumping girl guitar, that unkempt hair (ya, unkempt to them), and that permanent sneer came onto the scene.
No, this is 1958 when the Elvis thing had died down a little now that he was dead, or we thought he was dead, and for a fact he might have well have been dead in the constant teen chew-up of rock talent from the kind of music and movies he was into after giving us such great stuff like Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Heartbreak Hotel and One Night With You. Ya, the king was dead, long live the king, and let’s move on, okay. Billie and I talked about it, about how guys, rock guys that is, seen to have a short shelf-life, but as Billie knew, knew from his own bumpy rock “career”, that’s show biz. So this night we are wondering, wondering like crazy, how the band will work out and whose music they will cover.
Like I said I got there early and watched the band set up, including a piano besides the guitar and drums so I figure maybe they will do some Little Richard or Fats Domino stuff. Seven o’clock comes and here comes Billie with Laura. Wow, Billie has on a nice jacket, wide lapels like all the rock guys are wearing these days (I’ll tell you about how he got it sometime but you can figure that a projects boy didn’t get it as a birthday present from Ma and Pa). Really sharp. But double wow on Laura who has on a cashmere sweater, some wide skirt and, can you believe this, nylons, to show off her nice legs. Oh ya, and just a hint of smile on her face like she is here with the king of the rock night, crowned or uncrowned, and she has staked out the territory as queen, demure queen, but queen nevertheless.
Yes, fetching (although we will agree between ourselves that I don’t know that word, or how to use it in relationship to describing girls and their charms just yet, alright). But here is where the sweetest part comes in when Billie and Laura make their royal entrance and come over to where I am standing when Billie introduces me, formally introduces Laura to me, she gives me this, well, I don’t care if I do wear out the word, fetching smile and says “I’ve seen you in class but you never seem to pay any attention to me. I thought that report you gave on Greek democracy in class was very well done.” Be still my heart, she actually remembers the report… and me. And here I am wearing some bedraggled (always bedraggled, always) stripped (stripes, jesus) white collared shirt, ratty black pants, and old Thom McAn Easter-bought brown shoes. Well, she remembered my report, that’s a start, and it actually was pretty good because I went to the Thomas Crane Public Library right up in Adamsville Square to look the stuff up.
But enough of reports, and "be still my hearts" because the music is going on. A few covers of Little Richard and Fats as I expected, with that piano and all, some Buddy Holly that sounded a little tinny, a few other non-memorable odd and ends, including some Elvis that sounded, and I again swear on seven bibles, like old time parents’ music, like Frank Sinatra, or those guys. The suddenly, the leader of the band said that he had a special guest on the piano for the next number. We all wondered what the song would be while they were setting the piano up closer to the front. I heard somebody say it was going to be something by a new guy, Jerry Lee Lewis. Whoa! I have only heard him once or twice but I thought his piano was smoking so maybe this guest guy could do a good cover on it. Billie, Billie king hell king of the rock night, must have known something was up, and why (always why) because he brought Laura over and asked me if wanted to dance the next dance with her. Me, two left feet, or two right feet, stag, coming to the dance stag just hoping that I would get lucky with “discarded” Theresa, Donna, or Karen dance with fetching Laura. No way. The she said “but I really want to dance with you, you being Billie friend, and he says you are a good dancer,” and then turns a very whimsical smile on me.
Well what are you going to do when a woman (alright girl, but a girl with a shape) wants to dance with you, and had something nice to say about your school report, and, oh yes had that smile, that come hinter smile that leaves a man (okay, boy) anywhere from twelve to twelve hundred weak at the knees. Well, the music is starting so I say yes, okay yes.
And what does our guest pianist do but a cover, a hot cover by the way, of Jerry Lee Lewis’ latest, High School Confidential, which I had heard about but had not heard. Great. Laura and I are dancing away and she is doing nothing but give me meaningful smiles and, maybe that rumor about her “liking me” was true. I am just dancing away like crazy and people are looking at me like where did he learn how to do that. After the dance I returned Laura to Billie, a little miffed Billie but I could have been wrong on that. And then Theresa came over and asked if I wanted to dance. A few dances, a few Laura-less dances later the call for last dance came, and not feeling like watching Laura with Billie just then I headed home.
The next morning, a Sunday morning, if I recall, Billie came over to the house and was fuming/hangdog as we talked, talked obviously about the sock hop doings. Fuming because I had switched up on him. How? Well, apparently, Laura, sweet fetching Laura, spent more than the allotted time talking about me, rather than about Billie’s virtues and he had used the dance, the Jerry Lee Lewis manic rock number that he had found out the band was going to play to make me look silly (his word, although mine when I heard it was more of an expletive). Hangdog because he felt bad now that he had done his best friend wrong, wrong over a girl although, in Billie fashion, he tried to step back and argue that maybe he did me a favor getting me out on the dance floor. See, though what he didn’t know (and don’t tell him either, if you know his whereabouts) is that I had been taking lessons from his slightly older sister, Carol, on how to dance this latest faster dance stuff.
So that is the end of the story, or almost the end. A few days later Laura knocked at our apartment door in the afternoon after school. My mother answered the door and invited her in, although she, my mother that is, said Laura was coming in no matter what from the look on her face. She was fuming, although as it turns out good fuming, because she said she had been smiling at me like crazy when we were dancing to give me the “hint” to ask her for the last dance, the last close to her dance. Sorry, Laura. And then she blurted out her command, “You and I are going to the next sock hop together and you had better not say no.” Well, when a woman (girl, are you happy) "insists” on something, almost anything like that, and on top of that had that kind remark about that school report, and that shape, what is a boy, a boy of the twelve and thirteen year old universe to do but say yes. So at the next dance I won’t be dancing with Billie “discard” Theresa, Donna, or Karen although they are okay but with fetching Laura. So there Billie, we are even. And if anybody asks you, like they asked me once-Elvis or Jerry Lee? Jerry Lee, long live the king.
********* Billie, William James Bradley comment:
I am fuming, fuming six ways to Sunday if that is possible, fuming until the cows come home if there are any cows around, and if they have wandered I am still fuming. Why? I just called up Laura, Laura that I took to the school dance last week, to ask her if she wanted to go to the church sock hop scheduled for this weekend, Saturday night. Now it wouldn’t be as good as the last school one with a live band, and all, but even with just records and just ten thousand poor as church mice chaperones doing their chaperone thing to get grace or something, for real, we could still have a good time.
And do you know what she said. “I’ve got a date.” What, no way, no possible way, when everybody knows that she is my “personal property.” “Who is the guy, who is the guy, who is the guy who would dare cross the king of the rock night? This world is not big enough for the two of us, give me his name,” I said as I readied my arrows. “It’s Peter Paul, and before you get all crazy I asked him,” she darted back the sound of her voice pleased, pleased as punch the way she said it. “Double what?” I shouted over the phone so everyone within a twenty square mile area could hear, if they wanted to. And she came back, all sweet reason just like every girl, every stick or shapely girl, women even “I like you, I definitely like you, you’re funny, and you’re a good dancer, and you sure know a lot about rock ‘n’ roll, but you seem too bossy, and you take that "king of the rock" thing that Peter Paul keeps telling everybody about way too seriously. If Peter Paul hadn’t spent what seems like half his life building you up as, what did he call it, oh ya, “king of the be-bop night” you might be a better boy to be with. But the big thing, and here is where it all comes down on you, I found out, found out from Karen, that you tried to make a clown out of poor Peter Paul when you let him dance with me and you knew, or thought you knew, that he couldn’t dance for beans.” After she let that set in my head, uneasily in my head for a minute, she continued “So, yes, I went right over to his house and told him, no, what did he say I said, ‘insisted’ that we were going to the next dance together.” But get this, get this dagger thing aimed right at my heart. She finishes off with “And he makes me smile with his silly bookish ways, and you don’t okay. Next dance I’ll go with you, your highness, maybe.” And then she hung up. Ouch!
Two-timing that is all that it is. I can see that now. No, not Laura, you know how girls are, twelve and thirteen year old girls, with their hard to figure giggles, their starting to get shapes, and their monthlies (my sisters, Carol and Donna, told me all about it, sorry, tough luck girls). No, Peter Paul, Markin, that s.o.b., two-timed his best friend that’s all it can be. Probably went to the Thomas Crane Public Library branch that is attached to the school and read up everything that was on the shelves about two-timing, the history of two-timing, boys two-timings girls, girls two-timing boys, everything on the subject back to Pharaoh Egypt times. Just to two-time Billie, William James Bradley, known far and wide, despite what Laura said, as the king of the be-bop rock night. And Markin, no more Peter Paul nice guy now, didn’t have diddley to do with that. Period
But how did he switch up on me? I don’t get that. First, I know, I know from Karen, I know from Donna (not my sister Donna, Donna O’Toole, Cool Donna O’Toole, or was until I ditched her, or what did Markin call it, “discarded her”), I know from Theresa, and I know now, because I just asked her before she went out the door, from my sister Carol, that Markin never said word one to Laura before I introduced them the other night. Although now that I think about it I am still ticked off at Carol for not telling me about helping Markin learn to dance, rock dance, not that silly cowboy, barn dance, square dance thing that he calls rock dancing. I also know from Carol that Markin did not know much about jumping Jerry Lee Lewis. He was just hoping to get maybe an Elvis One Night With You, Good Rockin’ Today, Jailhouse Rock chance. Or a Chuck Berry Sweet Little Sixteen, or a Bo Diddley Who Do You Love? chance with Theresa, Karen or Donna (O’Toole). No way he believed, and I am going to go over right now and ask him about it, that he was going to step up to Laura’s league. Hell, it couldn’t have been that silly report, that silly report that he kept hammering me about as he leaned each new thing, Jesus Christ, Greek democracy, what are you kidding.
At his house I confront him. “Okay Markin what gives, what, how, why, where, when did you figure out how to break my time with Laura? And don’t play innocent and definitely, I warn you, start talking about that report, that silly Greek geek report.”
Of course I do not believe Peter Paul’s story, is who me story, no way. No way in hell, excuse my language, is a nice shape like that Laura, a nice shape in all the right places, or trying to be in all the right places, and smart, real smart going to go off the deep-end for a, let’s face it, ragamuffin boy like Markin. Christ, even he said it, a guy with a clowny outfit, a shirt, a shirt, a white stripped shirt for Christ sake, if you can believe that, a Bargie special, or straight of the back-rack at Woolworth’s, black chino pants with cuffs, jesus, cuffs and those square, too square Thom McAn brown shoes that I haven’t worn since about first communion is going to put the whammy on a babe like Laura.
Against me, against the king of the rock night in these parts, with my smart-looking wide lapel two-tone sports jacket just like Eddie Cochran, my black pants (ya, black pants, the black is okay it is the chinos, and, and the cuffs that have to go) nicely-pressed (ya, ma-pressed), my Elvis-style hair-do with just the right length sideburns and my foxy, spit-shined Florheim suede shoes (no, not blue suede, that’s squarey square now).
Ya, it was some drugstore medicine whammy he put on her at the dance that night. No question, although I haven’t quite figured out how he did it, because everybody knows, or I know anyhow that Peter Paul and science don’t mix. Don’t mix since he tried that rocket ship caper last year, trying personally to beat the commies at their own game after Sputnik jumped the night sky, when he tried to send some balsa wood rocket into space when he punctured a CO2 cartridge with a nail and a hammier and almost got us all killed. Or when, after that, he started to mix some chemicals in his cellar to go about it another way with some three-stage rocket concoction and almost blew the whole place up. I’ll tell you about that sometime but right now I wish, I wish, well I wish. See, Peter Paul is really about things like Abigail Adams, or her son John Quincy, or about literary guys, like this guy Fitzgerald who wrote about rich kids with names like Basil something and Josephine this or that and their hi-jinks ages ago that he has been yakking about lately. Ya, reading about rich kids, rich, rich guys having fun with rich girls like that is going get us out of the projects, and like reading that stuff is going make him rich, or even get him a pass out of this dungeon project.
Hey, wait a minute, no, no, it is not about science, it’s not about some silly book report, and it’s not about Peter Paul suddenly being a lady’s man. Why didn’t I think of it before? It’s about this new rocker- Jerry Lee Lewis and his be-bop thing, be-bop piano thing. Ya that's it. They say he is going to replace the king, and for all you squares, cubes, and fourth dimension guys and frills, that means Elvis. And if you don’t know that name you must have been up in space with the dogs, monkeys, or robots or whoever is riding those rockets.
Okay, okay I can take a joke. The spell is not Markin, it’s Jerry Lee. Hell, a momentary thing, maybe a few weeks while the king is resting up and waiting to go into the service, or something. No way someone who jumps up and down on a piano, and is kind of a wild man ever going to be, in his wildest dreams, better than Elvis. No way, no comparison, forget it. Name song names, okay. Heartbreak Hotel, That’s When You’re Heartbreak Begins, Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Hound Dog, One Night (that alone says it all). Come on now, I listed enough. And Jerry Lee, High School Confidential. Ya, it’s good, its be-bop but this guy is strictly a one-hit Johnnie. Ya, okay I’ll let Peter Paul have his moment of glory, and maybe a kiss or two, if he’s not scared like usual, but Laura will be back with me at the next dance. Who knows, if I cut in at this Saturday's dance that's coming up, to spare her having to dance with Peter Paul and his black chino cuffed pants all night, maybe this dance. Then Peter Paul can go back and try his luck on those stick girls that are more his speed anyway. Ya, Elvis and Billie. Long live the kings!
You better open up honey it's your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everybody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and
Light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
******** Billie, William James Bradley comment:
I am fuming, fuming six ways to Sunday if that is possible, fuming until the cows come home if there are any cows around, and if they have wandered I am still fuming. Why? I just called up Laura, Laura that I took to the school dance last week, to ask her if she wanted to go to the church sock hop scheduled for this weekend, Saturday night. Now it wouldn’t be as good as the last school one with a live band, and all, but even with just records and just ten thousand poor as church mice chaperones doing their chaperone thing to get grace or something, for real, we could still have a good time.
And do you know what she said. “I’ve got a date.” What, no way, no possible way, when everybody knows that she is my “personal property,” “Who is the guy, who is the guy, who is the guy who would dare cross the king of the rock night? This world is not big enough for the two of us, give me his name,” I said as I readied my arrows. “It’s Peter Paul, and before you get all crazy I asked him,”she darted back the sound of her voice pleased; pleased as punch, the way she said it. “What?” I shouted over the phone so everyone with a twenty square mile area could hear, if they wanted to.
She came back, all sweet reason just like every girl, every stick or shapely girl, women even “I like you, I definitely like you, you’re funny, and you’re a good dancer, and you sure know a lot about rock ‘n’ roll, but you seem too bossy, and you take that "king of the rock" thing that Peter Paul keeps telling everybody about way too seriously. If Peter Paul hadn’t spent what seems like half his life building you up as, what did he call it, oh yah,“king of the be-bop night” you might be a better boy to be with. But the big thing, and here is where it all comes down on you, I found out, found out from Karen, that you tried to make a clown out of poor Peter Paul when you let him dance with me and you knew, or thought you knew, that he couldn’t dance for beans.”
After she let that set in my head, uneasily in my head for a minute, she continued “So, yes, I went right over to his house and told him, no, what did he say I said, ‘insisted’ that we were going to the next dance together.” But get this, get this dagger thing aimed right at my heart. She finishes off with“And he makes me smile with his silly bookish ways, and you don’t okay. Next dance I’ll go with you, your highness, maybe.” And then she hung up. Ouch!
Two-timing that is all that it is. I can see that now. No, not Laura, you know how girls are, twelve and thirteen year old girls, with their hard to figure giggles, their starting to get shapes, and their monthlies (my sisters, Carol and Donna, told me all about it, sorry, tough luck girls). No, Peter Paul, Markin, that s. o. b., two-timed his best friend that’s all it can be. Probably went to the Thomas Crane Public Library branch that is attached to the school and read up everything that was on the shelves about two-timing, the history of two-timing, boys two-timings girls, girls two-timing boys, everything on the subject back to Pharaoh Egypt times. Just to two-time Billie, William James Bradley, known far and wide, despite what Laura said, as the king of the be-bop rock night. And Markin, no more Peter Paul nice guy now, didn’t have diddley to do with that. Period
But how did he switch up on me? I don’t get that. First, I know, I know from Karen, I know from Donna (not my sister Donna, Donna O’Toole, Cool Donna O’Toole, or was until I ditched her, or what did Markin call it, “discarded her”), I know from Theresa, and I know now, because I just asked her before she went out the door, from my sister Carol, that Markin never said word one to Laura before I introduced them the other night. Although now that I think about it I am still ticked off at Carol for not telling me about helping Markin learn to dance, rock dance, not that silly cowboy, barn dance, square dance thing that he calls rock dancing. I also know from Carol that Markin did not know much about jumping Jerry Lee Lewis. He was just hoping to get maybe an Elvis One Night With You, Good Rockin’ Today, Jailhouse Rock chance. Or a Chuck BerrySweet Little Sixteen, or a Bo Diddley Who Do You Love? chance with Theresa, Karen or Donna (O’Toole). No way he believed, and I am going to go over right now and ask him about it, that he was going to step up to Laura’s league. Hell, it couldn’t have been that silly report, that silly report that he kept hammering me about as he learned each new thing, Jesus Christ, Greek democracy, what are you kidding.
At his house I confronted him. “Okay Markin what gives, what, how, why, where, when did you figure out how to break my time with Laura? And don’t play innocent and definitely, I warn you, start talking about that report, that silly Greek geek report.”
Of course I did not believe Peter Paul’s story, his “who me?” story, no way. No way in hell, excuse my language, is a nice shape like that Laura, a nice shape in all the right places, or trying to be in all the right places, and smart, real smart going to go off the deep-end for a, let’s face it, ragamuffin boy like Markin. Christ, even he said it, a guy with a clowny outfit, a shirt, a shirt, a white striped shirt for Christ sake, if you can believe that, a Bargie special, or straight off the back-rack at Woolworth’s, black chino pants with cuffs, jesus, cuffs and those square, too square Thom McAn brown shoes that I haven’t worn since about first communion is going to put the whammy on a babe like Laura.
Against me, against the king of the rock night in these parts, with my smart-looking wide lapel two-tone sports jacket just like Eddie Cochran, my black pants (yah, black pants, the black is okay it is the chinos, and, and the cuffs that have to go) nicely-pressed (yah, ma-pressed), my Elvis-style hair-do with just the right length sideburns and my foxy, spit-shined Florsheim suede shoes (no, not blue suede, that’s squarey square now).
Yah, it was some drugstore medicine whammy he put on her at the dance that night. No question, although I haven’t quite figured out how he did it, because everybody knows, or I know anyhow that Peter Paul and science don’t mix. Don’t mix since he tried that rocket ship caper last year, trying personally to beat the commies at their own game after Sputnik jumped the night sky, when he tried to send some balsa wood rocket into space when he punctured a CO2 cartridge with a nail and a hammier and almost got us all killed. Or when, after that, he started to mix some chemicals in his cellar to go about it another way with some three-stage rocket concoction and almost blew the whole place up. I’ll tell you about that sometime but right now I wish, I wish, well I wish.
See, Peter Paul is really smart about things like Abigail Adams, or her son John Quincy, or about literary guys, like this guy Fitzgerald who wrote about rich kids with names like Basil something and Josephine this or that and their hi-jinx ages ago that he has been yakking about lately. Yah, reading about rich kids, rich, rich guys having fun with rich girls like that is going get us out of the projects, and like reading that stuff is going make him rich, or even get him a pass out of this dungeon project.
Hey, wait a minute, no, no, it is not about science, it’s not about some silly book report, and it’s not about Peter Paul suddenly being a lady’s man. Why didn’t I think of it before? It’s about this new rocker- Jerry Lee Lewis and his be-bop thing, be-bop piano thing. Yah that's it. They say he is going to replace the king, and for all you squares, cubes, and fourth dimension guys and frills, that means Elvis. And if you don’t know that name you must have been up in space with the dogs, monkeys, or robots or whoever is riding those rockets.
Okay, okay I can take a joke. The spell is not Markin, its Jerry Lee. Hell, a momentary thing, maybe a few weeks while the king is resting up and waiting to go into the service, or something. No way someone who jumps up and down on a piano, and is kind of a wild man ever going to be, in his wildest dreams, better than Elvis. No way, no comparison, forget it. Name song names, okay. Heartbreak Hotel, That’s When You’re Heartbreak Begins, Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’Tonight, Hound Dog, One Night (that alone says it all). Come on now, I listed enough. And Jerry Lee, High School Confidential. Yah, its good, its be-bop but this guy is strictly a one-hit Johnnie. Yah, okay I’ll let Peter Paul have his moment of glory, and maybe a kiss or two, if he’s not scared like usual, but Laura will be back with me at the next dance. Who knows, if I cut in at this Saturday's dance that's coming up, to spare her having to dance with Peter Paul and his black chino cuffed pants all night, maybe this dance. Then Peter Paul can go back and try his luck on those stick girls that are more his speed anyway. Yah, Elvis and Billie. Long live the kings!
Nobody in the whole wide 1956
Western world wanted to be the be-bop max daddy king hell king of rock and roll
more than Billie Bradley (not Billy, not regular old ordinary vanilla Billy, or
some goat Billy. Not if you didn’t want a fight about it after your first
passed-by indiscretion , and believe me you didn’t, no unless you wanted about
ten generations of fury and ofunhealedhurts compacted in one
twelve year oldboy with a set of brass
knuckles in your face). Well, nobody wanted it more except maybe the king
himself, Elvis, a guy who had had his own share of stored furies and unhealed
hurts of an indeterminate number of generations that needed to get out of the
bottle and was as fame-hungry beneath the volcano surface as any person alive, but
Billie was a close second. And maybe, forget about talent and opportunity for a
minute, for pure hunger, for pure get out from under the rock hunger, a lot
closer to first than second.
What Billie was first at, definitely,
and maybe more first than Elvis, who after all had the swivel hips, had the
trainable voice, had the genetically-encoded rock rhythm, had the smoldering
snarl, had the deep alienation look, and had that that fugitive sex appeal that
made the women wet and the guys let their sideburns grow long, was the desire
to use whatever musical talents he had (and they were promising) to be the king
hell king of the projects where he grew up, the Olde Saco projects (up in Maine, a place they locally called the
Acre) to name it but it could have been any such place in the go-go golden age
American 1950s. And so whenever Billie (don’t spell it the other way even now,
even now when he is long gone from king hell king strivings. Remember what I
said about the furies and that set of “nucks”) was not in school, was not
humoring his corner boys (including me) with some song or skit down in hang-out
back of the elementary school, or was not robbing (“clipping” we called it but
robbing was what it was, petty larceny anyway) some uptown Olde Saco merchant
of his earthy goods or planning to, he was before the mirror (vanity thy name
is Billie or one of thy names is Billie) singing some song but more importantly
developing that certain look that was meant to drive the girls wild.
And it worked for a while, a
while around the Olde Saco projects for a while, with the local girls (junior
division about age twelve or under) who wanted their Elvis moment even if it
was once removed. Not that Billie’s look was anything like Elvis’ (in tense
moments, Billie fury moments, moments when Elvis got another boost of stardust,
maybe the Ed Sullivan Show, to add to his fame Billie would call Elvis’ style
pure punk, nothing , nada. All we said was okay Billie, okay). Billie, kind of
wiry tough, kind of with a long thin face, and more importantly, with blondish
brown hair would had perhaps done better to work off a Bill Haley imitation but
the one time I mentioned that to him he exploded (no nucks though) that Bill
Haley was yesterday, a has been, a never was, nobody and, maybe with that big
sax sound something our parents would listen to. [Billy Haley and his Comets
were the jump street in 1955 with their Rock Around The Clock youth anthem.-JLB]
Every time Olde Saco South
Elementary School put on a charity talent show, or Saint Sebastian’s ran a
church dance with its included talent show between sets during the period from,
say, 1956 to 1958 Billie was there. And for several shows running he was the
be-bop king hands downs. Beating everybody with his faux renditions of
Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel and the like. One time at Saint
Sebastian’s when Billie performed, all in black suit (borrowed from a cousin),
black shirt, black tie, and white shoes (yah, he did look good that night,
looked like the next heavyweight contender that night) the place went wild when
he did his rendition of One Night With You. The girls, and not just the twelve
year old junior division girls either, hell, maybe not even the twelve years
old girls, started storming the stage throwing themselves and whatever they had
in their hands at Billie. It was all that he could do for Father Lally, the
priest assigned to monitor the church dances, to get order restored and close
the hall up for the night after that scene. That Sunday the Monsignor himself,
a fierce old fire and brimstone orator from the old school, read from the
pulpit that anyone who had been present at the melee had better show up at
confession within the week, and be quick about it. At last count about two
people showed, and they were not Billie or me.
Needless to say all through
this period the girls would flock around Billie, more so after the San
Sebastian episode (the girls from over at the San Sebastian Elementary School
and Saint Brigitte’s too started mysteriously showing up at our hang-out) and
his “rejects” would wind up with his corner boys (including me). So for all the
Olde Saco days and nights of that period, especially those summer nights when
for a change of pace Billie would lead us in some doo wop harmony and the girls
would, like lemmings to the sea, come gathering around as dusk turned to night we
were his biggest promoters. All hail King Billie.
Then one night, one 1958 night,
at a church benefit held in the basement of Sainte Brigitte’s Billie’s world
came unglued. See he had become something of a “local kid makes good” celebrity
by then after winning those local contests. More importantly he had established
himself as a girl magnet, girls with dough to buy dreamy guy records, and
therefore a prospect in a music world looking for next big thing after Elvis(
who had just signed up to do some military service), or maybe by then Jerry
Lee. Every record label had scouts out
in every nook and cranny to find the next Tupelo honey magic. So Alabaster
Records, the big label for new untried and unattached talent, had sent an agent
to see Billie do his stuff.
Naturally Billie wanted to
impress the agent so he tore into his best current cover, Carl Perkin’s Bopping
The Blues. What nobody knew, at least nobody in the audience (except said
corner boys), was that his suit, his sweet Billie blue suit, had been quickly
made by his mother on the fly from material purchased at some bargain discount
joint over on Second Avenue. On the fly in this case meaning that there had
been a dispute in the Bradley family about buying Billie a new suit (he already
had acquired that San Sebastian black suit as a hand-me-down from his cousin
which his father said was good enough) when dough for the rent money was scarce
just then A compromise was reached and Mrs. Bradley had purchased the material
to make the suit herself. All of this just a couple of days before Billie’s
showcase show time.About half way through
the performance though first one arm of his suit jacket came flying off and
then the other. Needless to say the Alabaster agent wrote Billie off without a
murmur.
Here is the funny part. The
girls in the audience, those giggling teeny-bopper girls, thought that the arm
gag was part of Billie’s act. So for many, many months Billie was followed by an
even larger bevy (nice, word, huh) of adoring girls from school and the
neighborhood. And we, his loyal corner boys gladly took his “rejects.”
Here is the not funny part
though. After than night, after that rejection (the agent had left without a
word said to Billie, maybe the unkindest cut of all) something kind of snapped
in Billie. I don’t know what it was exactly, call it loss of innocence, project
style, although we were already wise to the not having enough dough when others
had plenty part.And the breaks in the world
breaking to those with some spoon-fed clout part too.
I was the closest of his
corner boys to Billie then. The others, sensing some impending disaster or
Billie fury busting out, started to move away from his orbit. We would talk for
hours about stuff but there was an edge to his dream talk, an edge that hadn’t
been there before when we talked about his great big break-through and how he was
going to take care of all of us corner boys, and the girls too. Something about
the world being fixed a certain way, a certain not Billie way, and it ate at
him. He dropped away from his music, from the talent shows and school dances. From
that point on the wanna-be gangster began to take over. I stayed with him through part it, through
being his look-out man when he was on the “chip,” being his “hold” man when he started doing
minor breaking and entering over in plush Ocean City, and, for a minute, when
he moved on to more serious stuff. Then I too moved on. The last I heard, and this was a while back,
he was doing ten to twenty for armed robbery up at Shawshank. But when William
James Bradley, Billie, was in his Elvis moment, yes, when he was in his Elvis
moment, he made this whole wide world move.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis performing “Shake, Rattle And Roll/
CD Review
Elvis 56, Elvis Presley (who else), RCA Records, 1956
I have beaten myself over the head, eaten humble pie, been flash-flayed, said ten acts of contrition, in short, confessed, confessed publicly, that when I was a know nothing pre-teenager in the 1950s be-bop, doo wop, red scare cold war rock and roll at the creation night I did not like Elvis. (Do I really need to say Presley among this crowd? Come on now there is only one Elvis when it comes right down to it). Now a lot of this was due to pure jealousy, pre-teen style, around the question of, ah, girls. Or maybe not so much girls as male vanity. No actually it was girls and my budding interest in them. And their very focused interest on Mr. Presley.
See I did not look, unlike my best friend Billy Bradley, remotely, like Elvis. I would have been very, very hard pressed, to imitate his side-burn driven hair style with my growing up blondish hair (moreover worn for saving household money sake buzz short). I would have been even more hard-pressed in my Podunk working poor neighborhood, alright, my projects neighborhood, to wear clothes even remotely as cool as Elvis’. Christ I was lucky to get cheapjack denim brothers hand-me-downs from the bargain center and off-color, off-cool color shirts. Worst, much worst when the deal came down in that first blush of school dance church dance last dance time held every once in a while to “keep us off the streets.” I was unable to swivel my hips like the “king.” And worst, although in that case not much worst, was my voice sounded like a frog from the local pond that graced one corner of our projects home.
Moreover I did not like Elvis because I did not like his songs, for the most part. See I was hung up on what I would now call that primordial Bo Diddley sound, that sound from some ancient mist dance around the fireplace to keep the wolves away and rock, rock to perdition time of our distant forbears. (I did know how to sway, hell, anybody could sway.) Even more moreover I was hung up on those black rhythm and blues guys like Big Joe Turner and Ike Turner. That was due to the fact that I was able to catch a midnight radio station, The Big Bopper Show, out of Chicago on the weekends on my transistor radio by some miracle and heard all kinds of stuff that drove me crazy. (For those too young, or those who have forgotten, look up that ancient communications transistor radio reference on Wikipedia. Basically though it was a small compact battery-driven unit that had the virtue, the very big virtue that it could be taken up into one’s bedroom, placed close to young ears and one’s parents would be blissfully unaware of the “subversion” until, well, until the big break-out came in 1956 and then they were caught flat-footed. At least at first.).
The best way to explain that musical taste difference is on the song “Shake, Rattle And Roll, Big Joe’s signature song covered by everybody, including Elvis here (and everybody since from Jerry Lee Lewis on). Elvis is just okay on that one even to fifty years later ears. Big Joe ruled and always will on that one. But here is where the “confession” part comes in and I grant Elvis his pardon. Several years ago I, by happenstance, watched Elvis in the break-out rock film (although the story line is so-so and predictable) “Jailhouse Rock.” I was mesmerized. By the gyrations, but more importantly, by the voice. Naturally, as is my wont, when I “get religion” I went out and gathered up every (early) Elvis compilation I could find, including this RCA break-out album. Big Joe might have been the max daddy of rhythm and blues but when Elvis swiveled for that little pre-military induction period in the mid-1950s, the time of my time, he was the king. Sorry for the delay, Mr. King.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing the essential That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.
The Essential Elvis Presley, Two CD set, Elvis Presley, Sony Music 2007
There are a thousand, thousand ways to package the be-bop rock and roll minute king of the 1950s teenage angst night. And for his early work he should be packaged, packaged to eternity. It is the rest of his work that is the problem and hence the problem with this two CD set of what the producers have picked as essential. There are just too many dud, and semi-duds from his later period (the 1960s and 1970s Las Vegas flame-out period. Any essential product has to be top-heavy with 1950s stuff get a nod from me.
From this compilation the obvious classics That’s All Right, Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Jailhouse Rock and It’s Now or Never rate a nod. Th rest though are strictly a mishmash. And I know from where I speak. Why? Until very, very recently I actually, if you can believe this, did not think much of Brother Presley’s music. And I was (and still am somewhat) nothing but a be-bop rock and roll baby-boomer boy who could listen to the stuff all day and night. A while back I got a hold of a five CD set of Elvis’ work from the Sun Record days mainly. That’s the Elvis who will live in rock and roll history. Stuff like It’s All Right, Mama, I Forgot To Remember To Forget, Good Rockin’ Tonight, That’s Where Your Heartaches Begin, Your Right She Left and a ton of others. Ya, the stuff from the days when he was hungry, and we were too. This compilation will not satisfy that hunger.
This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around; on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook; and, neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.
Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations (somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
*********
One Night-Elvis Presley
Intro: E A A11 E
[NC] Riff 1 Riff 1
One night with you
B7
Is what I'm now praying for
B7
The things that we two could plan
E
Would make my dreams come true
[NC] Riff 1 Riff 1
Just call my name
B7
And I'll be right by your side
B7
I want your sweet helping hand
E E7
My loves too strong to hide
Riff 2 Riff 2
Always lived, very quiet life
Riff 1
I ain't never did no wrong
Riff 3
Now I know that life without you
B7
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I'm now praying for
The things that we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true
Always lived, very quiet life
I ain't never did no wrong
Now I know that life without you
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I'm now praying for
The things that we two could plan
E A A11 E B7 E7
Would make my dreams come true
*****
Billie, William James Bradley, comment:
Ya, I know I haven’t talked to you in a while like I was suppose to. I was suppose to tell you all about Markin’s, Peter Paul Markin's, my best friend over Adamsville Elementary School, ill-fated attempts to single-handedly close the space gap they keep talking about ever since the commies put that Sputnik satellite up in orbit last year. I will have to put that on hold for now, because I still kind of broken up about something. See I got caught up, well I might as well just come out with it, with woman trouble, alright girl trouble okay. Some of you may know about how old best buddy Peter Paul tried to used Jerry Lee Lewis to cut my time with Laura, Laura Doyle. Ya Laura, the hottest frill in school, and maybe in this dead old town if you just count twelve or thirteen year old girls. And for right now all that counts, anyway. Got it.
Oh you think that Peter Paul, old best pal but definitely strictly junior varsity when it comes to the women, ah, girls took Laura away from me. Jesus, are you kidding? Come on now, if you know the story then you know that’s a joke, and if you don’t you should still know it is a joke. Hell, I swept Laura back even before the next school dance. I just let, once I figured out that Laura was really dazzled more by Jerry Lee’s hopped-up piano on High School Confidential than Peter Paul’s book shuffle dancing, nature take its course and she was back in my arms before you knew it. Maybe I will tell you the details of that one some time but unlike that space thing, that Markin single-handed space thing, don’t hold me to telling you that story. Just say that nature is one thing you can’t escape from, nature and the king of the rock night around here, me, putting on his charm, his high Elvis charm and it was all over. Markin’s white flag was flying all over the place almost before it began.
No, what has me down in the dumps, seriously down in the dumps is that Laura moved away from the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. Now I don’t know if Markin explained what this “projects” neighborhood thing is here down in Adamsville but it started out with guys like Markin’s father Prescott (a good guy although he is nothing but a Protestant, a Southern Baptist or something like that, but not a Roman Catholic like most of us here, and definitely not Irish like most of us too, but everybody likes him even William James Bradley Senior, Billie Senior, my father, and he doesn’t like anybody usually, anybody without a beer bottle in his hand giving it to him anyway) and my father coming back from the war, World War II, and needing some housing, some cheap housing to hold them over until better times came along. And that’s how it worked for lots of people,
Well, except for Markin’s father and mine, who seem are going to be here forever and you can forget the better times. Well the ship finally came in for Laura’s father, a veteran like Prescott and Billie, Sr., and so they are moving to New Hampshire to some better place in the country or something. Laura showed me a picture of the place and it looked pretty good.
But see here is the bitch, excuse my language. No question Billie, William James Bradley, is strictly a love ‘em and leave guy. I have had plenty of girlfriends already, most of them sticks, no shapes, if you know what I means, eleven and twelve year sticks, maybe one or two ten, sticks like Theresa, Karen and Donna (Cool Donna O’Toole, not my older sister Donna who is no stick but who I don’t talk to lately, if I can help it, what with her not liking anything in the world just because I like it). Laura though was my first step-up not stick girl, with a nice shape, a shape like a woman, or trying to be, and it showed, the trying part. Definitely something to invest some time in, some Billie time, and I did.
Here is where the bitch part comes in. Not only was Laura smart, and had those curves, that shape I just told you about. But as it turns out she had some great kind of kiss, long kisses, longer than any of the stick girls, way longer. And Laura was not afraid, once I put on the charm, to let me feel her up. I am not bragging and she is gone far away and so I am not talking behind her back but a few times, about four or five, she and I well, we acted like adults that way. And it wasn’t all me pushing either. See I knew that from my sister Donna, when were talking more, that girls like this kind of stuff as well as guys do although they usually don’t let on. So, if you excuse me, I am kind of down in the dumps because I will now be left with just the sticks. And you know they don’t go for that sex stuff, or even think about it, or maybe even dream about it like it was a mortal sin. And maybe it is but don’t tell me that, or Laura.
And do you know how we set the mood for our fooling around once Laura got over that one-hit Jerry Lee thing? Well, I’ll give you a hint. A guy from Mississippi with long sideburns and a wicked sneer that made all the girls act crazy, and women too. Sure, Elvis. But not just any Elvis song. One Night. That was OUR song. And if you think about the lyrics a minute it talks about a guy being lonely, finding the right girl and making plans for the future. That guy was me, me with Laura because, and just ask Peter Paul, otherwise I am a love ‘em and leave ‘em guy. But now she’s gone, gone to some freaking farm country and will probably wind up showing some hayseed a good time, if you know what I mean. But, as Billie Senior says, says all the time-“that’s the breaks, kid.”
See, now that I am over my period of mourning, two weeks is enough for any girl, shape or no shape, and I am talking to Peter about different records I might as well tell you what I discovered in checking up on history, Elvis history what else? That One Night thing was strictly kid’s stuff, goodie, goodie Ed Sullivan, and good parenting seal of approval kid’s stuff to make us act just like grown-ups. Find a girl or guy, make plans, settle down and maybe listen to Elvis all day and all night until we are old, like thirty maybe. Square, very square, if not just plain cube.
There is the real thing though and I can hardly wait to try it out on my next chick, my next love ‘em and leave ‘em chick. I found a recording up at Benny’s Record Shop in Adamsville Square that Elvis recorded that has the same beat as One Night but with different lyrics, One Night Of Sin. Ya, that’s more like it, more like real Elvis, more like Billie, William James Bradley, king of the rock night around here. And guess what? I have been noticing that Donna O’Toole, Cool Donna O’Toole is starting to have some shape, some woman’s shape, or trying to and maybe I‘ll give her another chance. Peter Paul, mad man Peter Paul Markin, heard that Donna cried no tears, no tears at all, when Laura headed north. I know one thing for sure I am going to make One Night Of Sin my song, and I don’t mind paying for my sins after. Got it.
***** One Night Of Sin lyrics
One night of sin, yeah
Is what I'm now paying for
The things I did and I saw
Would make the earth stand still
Don't call my name
It makes me feel so ashamed
I lost my sweet helping hand
I got myself to blame
Always lived, very quiet life
Ain't never did no wrong
But now I know that very quiet life
Has cost me nothing but harm
One night of sin, yeah
Is what I'm now paying for
The things I did and I saw
Would make the earth stand still
Always lived, very quiet life
Ain't never did no wrong
But now I know that very quiet life
Has cost me nothing but harm
One night of sin, yeah
Is what I'm now paying for
The things I did and I saw
Would make the earth stand still
Rock This Town, Volume 1, various artists, Rhino Records, 1991
The last time that I discussed rockabilly music in this space was a couple of years ago when I was featuring the work of artists like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis who got their start at Sam Phillips’ famed Sun Records studio in Memphis. Part of the reason for those reviews was my effort to trace the roots of rock and roll, the music of my coming of age, and that of my generation, the generation of ’68. Clearly rockabilly was, along with country and city blues from the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Ike Turner and rhythm and blues from the likes of Big Joe Turner, a part of that formative process. The question then, and the question once again today, is which strand dominated the push to rock and roll, if one strand in fact did dominate.
I have gone back and forth on that question over the years. That couple of years ago mentioned above I was clearly under the influence of Big Joe Turner and Howlin’ Wolf and so I took every opportunity to stress the bluesy nature of rock. Recently though I have been listening, and listening very intently, to early Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis and I am hearing more of that be-bop rockabilly rhythm flowing into the rock night. Let me give a comparison. A ton of people have done Big Joe Turner’s classic rhythm and bluish Shake, Rattle, and Roll, including Bill Haley, Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee. When I listen to that song as performed in their more rockabilly style those versions seem closer to what evolved into rock. So for today, and today only, yes Big Joe is the big daddy, max daddy father of rock but Elvis, Jerry Lee, and Carl are the very pushy sons.
And that brings us to this treasure trove of rockabilly music presented in two volumes of which this is the first. I have already done enough writing in praise of the work of Sam Phillips and Sun Records to bring that good old boy rockabilly sound out of the white southern countryside. There I noted that for the most part those who succeeded in rockabilly had to move on to rock to stay current with the youth wave (the disposable income/allowance post World War II youth wave) and so the rockabilly sound was somewhat transient except for those who consciously decided to stay with that sound. Here the best example of that is Red Hot by Bill Riley and His Little Green Men, an extremely hot example by the way. If you listen to his other later material it stays very much in that rockabilly vein. In contrast, take High School Confidential by Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee might have started out in rockabilly but this number (and others) is nothing but the heart and soul of rock (and a song, by the way, we all prayed would be played at our middle school dances to get thing, you know what things going). Case closed.
Other stick-outs here include Ooby Dooby, Roy Orbison (although he has a ton of better songs); Blue Suede Shoes (the teeth-cutting, max daddy of rockabilly songs), Carl Perkins; Susie-Q (right at that place where rockabilly and blues meet to form rock and a classic come hither song), Dale Hawkins; Party Doll (another great middle school dance song), Buddy Knox;and, Come On, Let’s Go (bringing just a touch of Tex-Mex into the rockabilly mix), Ritchie Valens.
This is the back story, the teen listener back story if you like, going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, somewhat later Jerry Lee Lewis, and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, on his night table every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.
Although in early 1959 my family had started the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back there until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words spoken during those conversations(somewhat edited, of course). That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
********* High School Confidential lyrics-Jerry Lee Lewis
You better open up honey it's your lover boy me that's a knockin'
You better listen to me sugar all the cats are at the High School rockin'
Honey get your boppin' shoes Before the juke box blows a fuse
Got everybody hoppin' everybody boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
I've rollin' at the High School Hop
I've been movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Come on little baby gonna rock a little bit tonight
Woooh I got get with you sugar gonna shake things up tonight
Check out the heart beatin' rhythm cause my feet are moving smooth and
Light
Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Movin' at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' just a boppin' just a boppin'
Piano Solo!
Come on little baby let me give a piece good news good news good news
Jerry Lee is going to rock away all his blues
My hearts beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues
Oooooh Boppin' at the High School Hop
Shakin' at the High School Hop
Rollin' at the High School Hop
Gettin' it at the High School Hop
Everybody’s hoppin' Everybody's boppin'
Boppin' at the High School Hop
********
Peter Paul Markin comment:
“Who are you taking to the hop? Come on now, tell me, tell me, your old buddy Billie, who you asked? Was it Theresa? Was it Donna? Was it Karen?” That was the incessant bugging by my old elementary school boy compadre, Billie, William James Bradley if you didn’t know already, every time a school sock hop came up. But you know, or you should know, that was just a little way that he had to bait me about my shyness, or rather my awkwardness around girls. Around girls that he, king hell king of the late 1950s rock night “discarded” and left for the rest of us, especially for me.
And he knew, he knew damn well that I had not gotten up the nerve to ask any of those three ex-flames, or any girl, to the dance coming up in a few days. For one thing because, as king hell king of the rock night, and therefore king, crowned or uncrowned, of the sock hop he had all the configurations, combinations, set-ups, and, and, no-go bust-ups all computed out, no, not on some machine memory depot but in his head. For another because he didn’t know that I had decided just to go to the dance alone and maybe getting lucky there. Heck, I had done it before, a few times, although not with any great success but if there is any rhyme or reason to youth it is around the possibilities of getting lucky. Of course, old Billie had “selected” Laura as his escort, no awkwardness in Billie, although I had heard, heard from more than one budding teenage source that she “liked me,”(don’t ever tell him this though for I will deny it on seven stacked bibles). Or liked my seriousness, and my clowny, get in the way bookishness. So I am going “stag” on the hope, the hell or high water hope that Billie will let his old buddy, his old amigo, his, well you know, have a dance with his escort to see if I have some “magic.”
Now, and ever since I heard about her opinion of me, I have been wracking my brain to figure out this question. How could she “like me”, or not like me for that matter, I do not know because although I had looked over in her direction in class dreamily (yes, dreamily) more than somewhat I had never said word one to her, or her to me. Now this Laura, if you want a description is not drop-dead beautiful, at least by Billie-Markin defined drop-dead beautiful, twelve and thirteen year old girl beautiful, but she has something else that I would not (and Billie definitely would not) figure out how to say for many years, she was fetching. Definition: nice figure, meaning having a shape, if you really want to know, because when you think about it, boy or girl, twelve and thirteen year old boy or girl, any girl that had a shape (meaning had womanly contours, hips, breasts, nicely-formed legs) rather than a stock stick figure tomboy-like girl was bound to get ahead in that be-bop night, and probably now too.
But more than that, for me, if not for Billie, she didn’t giggle, silly giggle like the other girls when a boy said something stupid-funny (and the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe is more than somewhat filled with stupid-funny stuff done by eons of clueless guys, trying, trying just like me, and just like Billie if he could have ever been honest about it, to figure out the key to the girl-charm thing, yes, there is plenty of room in that universe even now for the stupid-funny) and, she carried herself in a way, sometimes with a certain thoughtful look, sometimes by a thing she did by putting her fingers to her lips, and maybe the most important, that she knew she was a girl and was content with that knowledge. She would lack for no dates or admirers, ever. Oh, ya she was also smart, not Billie street smart, not Markin two-thousand facts smart but asking and answering teacher smart, without being crazy smart about it that you also knew every boy, or almost every boy, in the twelve and thirteen year old boy universe did not like in girls then, and maybe now for all I know. It only gets sifted out later.
But enough of Laura, of Billie, christ of Markin as well, of pre-sock hop arrangements, derangements and dreamily kid in the night be-bop stuff let us get to the sock hop. Hey, wait a minute, you know what sock hops are, or you heard from your parents or grandparents what sock hops are, right? Back in the fifties, yes, the 1950s (and a little bit into the 1960s but the term had kind of died out by then, at least for “non-squares”). If you don’t then I’ll fill you in quickly now, but you’ll see you really know about all of this because it is nothing but a “primitive”, maybe Stone Age when you hear it, version of any school dance scene since they started making teenagers a separate social category in the world, the whole wide world even. Okay the idea was to hem in this mad dash, this mad craze to dance, and dance guys with girls and vice versa, that kids have been into since the radio and jukebox came on the scene, maybe back in that Stone Age now that I think about it.
So dear mother and father, you name the generation, figured out if you can’t beat them join them, and the schools (and churches later) were in cahoots. So every once in a while to keep three eyes on this stuff (and to avoid the feared, seriously feared, basement or “family room”-launched “petting parties” if kids are left to their own devices), maybe a few times a month they would throw a sock hop (the sock part comes from the fact, the hard fact, that most girls, most twelve and thirteen year old girls, wore ankle socks. Ya, no nylons, etc. If you don’t believe me look it up on Wikipedia, or something). Now, most times, this was nothing but some parent or teacher acting as dee-jay and "spinning platters” (records) in some dank, well-lighted, too well-lighted school gym or church basement, christ more than once in the school cafeteria when the gym was being used for other purposes that night. Yes, the night, the night in those days being from seven to about ten in the evening so you would have to think pretty hard about not going, stag or dated up, to the dance if for no other reason than to be able to get out of the house, the cramped, nowhere project house (really apartment) for a few hours uncramped freedom.
This night, this night that Billie kidded me about, this Billie and Laura night, though somehow, although I am vague on the details of how they were brought in, we are not reduced to cranky, scratchy records but a real live local band, a band that prided itself, I heard, on doing covers of the “hot” new singers and groups we knew from American Bandstand (an afternoon television show that had Philly kids, older Philly kids, dancing and swaying to whatever dee-jay Dick Clark, is he still around?, decided was wholesome and fit for the ears of America’s afternoon rock obsessed youth). So this is a time you definitely did not want to miss. And to truth to tell I went early, nervously early if you must know, to see what was up and watch the band set up.
Now this is not just any time in the 1950s, although the sock hop thing, the worried parent, worried about those “petting party” things(and more, much more, about sex things) and this wild and woolly rock obsessed thing their no understand what kids are into could have been anytime from about 1955 on, from the time that Elvis exploded onto the scene with those swiveling hips, that jumping girl guitar, that unkempt hair (ya, unkempt to them), and that permanent sneer came onto the scene.
No, this is 1958 when the Elvis thing had died down a little now that he was dead, or we thought he was dead, and for a fact he might have well have been dead in the constant teen chew-up of rock talent from the kind of music and movies he was into after giving us such great stuff like Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Heartbreak Hotel and One Night With You. Ya, the king was dead, long live the king, and let’s move on, okay. Billie and I talked about it, about how guys, rock guys that is, seen to have a short shelf-life, but as Billie knew, knew from his own bumpy rock “career”, that’s show biz. So this night we are wondering, wondering like crazy, how the band will work out and whose music they will cover.
Like I said I got there early and watched the band set up, including a piano besides the guitar and drums so I figure maybe they will do some Little Richard or Fats Domino stuff. Seven o’clock comes and here comes Billie with Laura. Wow, Billie has on a nice jacket, wide lapels like all the rock guys are wearing these days (I’ll tell you about how he got it sometime but you can figure that a projects boy didn’t get it as a birthday present from Ma and Pa). Really sharp. But double wow on Laura who has on a cashmere sweater, some wide skirt and, can you believe this, nylons, to show off her nice legs. Oh ya, and just a hint of smile on her face like she is here with the king of the rock night, crowned or uncrowned, and she has staked out the territory as queen, demure queen, but queen nevertheless.
Yes, fetching (although we will agree between ourselves that I don’t know that word, or how to use it in relationship to describing girls and their charms just yet, alright). But here is where the sweetest part comes in when Billie and Laura make their royal entrance and come over to where I am standing when Billie introduces me, formally introduces Laura to me, she gives me this, well, I don’t care if I do wear out the word, fetching smile and says “I’ve seen you in class but you never seem to pay any attention to me. I thought that report you gave on Greek democracy in class was very well done.” Be still my heart, she actually remembers the report… and me. And here I am wearing some bedraggled (always bedraggled, always) stripped (stripes, jesus) white collared shirt, ratty black pants, and old Thom McAn Easter-bought brown shoes. Well, she remembered my report, that’s a start, and it actually was pretty good because I went to the Thomas Crane Public Library right up in Adamsville Square to look the stuff up.
But enough of reports, and "be still my hearts" because the music is going on. A few covers of Little Richard and Fats as I expected, with that piano and all, some Buddy Holly that sounded a little tinny, a few other non-memorable odd and ends, including some Elvis that sounded, and I again swear on seven bibles, like old time parents’ music, like Frank Sinatra, or those guys. The suddenly, the leader of the band said that he had a special guest on the piano for the next number. We all wondered what the song would be while they were setting the piano up closer to the front. I heard somebody say it was going to be something by a new guy, Jerry Lee Lewis. Whoa! I have only heard him once or twice but I thought his piano was smoking so maybe this guest guy could do a good cover on it. Billie, Billie king hell king of the rock night, must have known something was up, and why (always why) because he brought Laura over and asked me if wanted to dance the next dance with her. Me, two left feet, or two right feet, stag, coming to the dance stag just hoping that I would get lucky with “discarded” Theresa, Donna, or Karen dance with fetching Laura. No way. The she said “but I really want to dance with you, you being Billie friend, and he says you are a good dancer,” and then turns a very whimsical smile on me.
Well what are you going to do when a woman (alright girl, but a girl with a shape) wants to dance with you, and had something nice to say about your school report, and, oh yes had that smile, that come hinter smile that leaves a man (okay, boy) anywhere from twelve to twelve hundred weak at the knees. Well, the music is starting so I say yes, okay yes.
And what does our guest pianist do but a cover, a hot cover by the way, of Jerry Lee Lewis’ latest, High School Confidential, which I had heard about but had not heard. Great. Laura and I are dancing away and she is doing nothing but give me meaningful smiles and, maybe that rumor about her “liking me” was true. I am just dancing away like crazy and people are looking at me like where did he learn how to do that. After the dance I returned Laura to Billie, a little miffed Billie but I could have been wrong on that. And then Theresa came over and asked if I wanted to dance. A few dances, a few Laura-less dances later the call for last dance came, and not feeling like watching Laura with Billie just then I headed home.
The next morning, a Sunday morning, if I recall, Billie came over to the house and was fuming/hangdog as we talked, talked obviously about the sock hop doings. Fuming because I had switched up on him. How? Well, apparently, Laura, sweet fetching Laura, spent more than the allotted time talking about me, rather than about Billie’s virtues and he had used the dance, the Jerry Lee Lewis manic rock number that he had found out the band was going to play to make me look silly (his word, although mine when I heard it was more of an expletive). Hangdog because he felt bad now that he had done his best friend wrong, wrong over a girl although, in Billie fashion, he tried to step back and argue that maybe he did me a favor getting me out on the dance floor. See, though what he didn’t know (and don’t tell him either, if you know his whereabouts) is that I had been taking lessons from his slightly older sister, Carol, on how to dance this latest faster dance stuff.
So that is the end of the story, or almost the end. A few days later Laura knocked at our apartment door in the afternoon after school. My mother answered the door and invited her in, although she, my mother that is, said Laura was coming in no matter what from the look on her face. She was fuming, although as it turns out good fuming, because she said she had been smiling at me like crazy when we were dancing to give me the “hint” to ask her for the last dance, the last close to her dance. Sorry, Laura. And then she blurted out her command, “You and I are going to the next sock hop together and you had better not say no.” Well, when a woman (girl, are you happy) "insists” on something, almost anything like that, and on top of that had that kind remark about that school report, and that shape, what is a boy, a boy of the twelve and thirteen year old universe to do but say yes. So at the next dance I won’t be dancing with Billie “discard” Theresa, Donna, or Karen although they are okay but with fetching Laura. So there Billie, we are even. And if anybody asks you, like they asked me once-Elvis or Jerry Lee? Jerry Lee, long live the king.
********* Billie, William James Bradley comment:
I am fuming, fuming six ways to Sunday if that is possible, fuming until the cows come home if there are any cows around, and if they have wandered I am still fuming. Why? I just called up Laura, Laura that I took to the school dance last week, to ask her if she wanted to go to the church sock hop scheduled for this weekend, Saturday night. Now it wouldn’t be as good as the last school one with a live band, and all, but even with just records and just ten thousand poor as church mice chaperones doing their chaperone thing to get grace or something, for real, we could still have a good time.
And do you know what she said. “I’ve got a date.” What, no way, no possible way, when everybody knows that she is my “personal property.” “Who is the guy, who is the guy, who is the guy who would dare cross the king of the rock night? This world is not big enough for the two of us, give me his name,” I said as I readied my arrows. “It’s Peter Paul, and before you get all crazy I asked him,” she darted back the sound of her voice pleased, pleased as punch the way she said it. “Double what?” I shouted over the phone so everyone within a twenty square mile area could hear, if they wanted to. And she came back, all sweet reason just like every girl, every stick or shapely girl, women even “I like you, I definitely like you, you’re funny, and you’re a good dancer, and you sure know a lot about rock ‘n’ roll, but you seem too bossy, and you take that "king of the rock" thing that Peter Paul keeps telling everybody about way too seriously. If Peter Paul hadn’t spent what seems like half his life building you up as, what did he call it, oh ya, “king of the be-bop night” you might be a better boy to be with. But the big thing, and here is where it all comes down on you, I found out, found out from Karen, that you tried to make a clown out of poor Peter Paul when you let him dance with me and you knew, or thought you knew, that he couldn’t dance for beans.” After she let that set in my head, uneasily in my head for a minute, she continued “So, yes, I went right over to his house and told him, no, what did he say I said, ‘insisted’ that we were going to the next dance together.” But get this, get this dagger thing aimed right at my heart. She finishes off with “And he makes me smile with his silly bookish ways, and you don’t okay. Next dance I’ll go with you, your highness, maybe.” And then she hung up. Ouch!
Two-timing that is all that it is. I can see that now. No, not Laura, you know how girls are, twelve and thirteen year old girls, with their hard to figure giggles, their starting to get shapes, and their monthlies (my sisters, Carol and Donna, told me all about it, sorry, tough luck girls). No, Peter Paul, Markin, that s.o.b., two-timed his best friend that’s all it can be. Probably went to the Thomas Crane Public Library branch that is attached to the school and read up everything that was on the shelves about two-timing, the history of two-timing, boys two-timings girls, girls two-timing boys, everything on the subject back to Pharaoh Egypt times. Just to two-time Billie, William James Bradley, known far and wide, despite what Laura said, as the king of the be-bop rock night. And Markin, no more Peter Paul nice guy now, didn’t have diddley to do with that. Period
But how did he switch up on me? I don’t get that. First, I know, I know from Karen, I know from Donna (not my sister Donna, Donna O’Toole, Cool Donna O’Toole, or was until I ditched her, or what did Markin call it, “discarded her”), I know from Theresa, and I know now, because I just asked her before she went out the door, from my sister Carol, that Markin never said word one to Laura before I introduced them the other night. Although now that I think about it I am still ticked off at Carol for not telling me about helping Markin learn to dance, rock dance, not that silly cowboy, barn dance, square dance thing that he calls rock dancing. I also know from Carol that Markin did not know much about jumping Jerry Lee Lewis. He was just hoping to get maybe an Elvis One Night With You, Good Rockin’ Today, Jailhouse Rock chance. Or a Chuck Berry Sweet Little Sixteen, or a Bo Diddley Who Do You Love? chance with Theresa, Karen or Donna (O’Toole). No way he believed, and I am going to go over right now and ask him about it, that he was going to step up to Laura’s league. Hell, it couldn’t have been that silly report, that silly report that he kept hammering me about as he leaned each new thing, Jesus Christ, Greek democracy, what are you kidding.
At his house I confront him. “Okay Markin what gives, what, how, why, where, when did you figure out how to break my time with Laura? And don’t play innocent and definitely, I warn you, start talking about that report, that silly Greek geek report.”
Of course I do not believe Peter Paul’s story, is who me story, no way. No way in hell, excuse my language, is a nice shape like that Laura, a nice shape in all the right places, or trying to be in all the right places, and smart, real smart going to go off the deep-end for a, let’s face it, ragamuffin boy like Markin. Christ, even he said it, a guy with a clowny outfit, a shirt, a shirt, a white stripped shirt for Christ sake, if you can believe that, a Bargie special, or straight of the back-rack at Woolworth’s, black chino pants with cuffs, jesus, cuffs and those square, too square Thom McAn brown shoes that I haven’t worn since about first communion is going to put the whammy on a babe like Laura.
Against me, against the king of the rock night in these parts, with my smart-looking wide lapel two-tone sports jacket just like Eddie Cochran, my black pants (ya, black pants, the black is okay it is the chinos, and, and the cuffs that have to go) nicely-pressed (ya, ma-pressed), my Elvis-style hair-do with just the right length sideburns and my foxy, spit-shined Florheim suede shoes (no, not blue suede, that’s squarey square now).
Ya, it was some drugstore medicine whammy he put on her at the dance that night. No question, although I haven’t quite figured out how he did it, because everybody knows, or I know anyhow that Peter Paul and science don’t mix. Don’t mix since he tried that rocket ship caper last year, trying personally to beat the commies at their own game after Sputnik jumped the night sky, when he tried to send some balsa wood rocket into space when he punctured a CO2 cartridge with a nail and a hammier and almost got us all killed. Or when, after that, he started to mix some chemicals in his cellar to go about it another way with some three-stage rocket concoction and almost blew the whole place up. I’ll tell you about that sometime but right now I wish, I wish, well I wish. See, Peter Paul is really about things like Abigail Adams, or her son John Quincy, or about literary guys, like this guy Fitzgerald who wrote about rich kids with names like Basil something and Josephine this or that and their hi-jinks ages ago that he has been yakking about lately. Ya, reading about rich kids, rich, rich guys having fun with rich girls like that is going get us out of the projects, and like reading that stuff is going make him rich, or even get him a pass out of this dungeon project.
Hey, wait a minute, no, no, it is not about science, it’s not about some silly book report, and it’s not about Peter Paul suddenly being a lady’s man. Why didn’t I think of it before? It’s about this new rocker- Jerry Lee Lewis and his be-bop thing, be-bop piano thing. Ya that's it. They say he is going to replace the king, and for all you squares, cubes, and fourth dimension guys and frills, that means Elvis. And if you don’t know that name you must have been up in space with the dogs, monkeys, or robots or whoever is riding those rockets.
Okay, okay I can take a joke. The spell is not Markin, it’s Jerry Lee. Hell, a momentary thing, maybe a few weeks while the king is resting up and waiting to go into the service, or something. No way someone who jumps up and down on a piano, and is kind of a wild man ever going to be, in his wildest dreams, better than Elvis. No way, no comparison, forget it. Name song names, okay. Heartbreak Hotel, That’s When You’re Heartbreak Begins, Jailhouse Rock, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Hound Dog, One Night (that alone says it all). Come on now, I listed enough. And Jerry Lee, High School Confidential. Ya, it’s good, its be-bop but this guy is strictly a one-hit Johnnie. Ya, okay I’ll let Peter Paul have his moment of glory, and maybe a kiss or two, if he’s not scared like usual, but Laura will be back with me at the next dance. Who knows, if I cut in at this Saturday's dance that's coming up, to spare her having to dance with Peter Paul and his black chino cuffed pants all night, maybe this dance. Then Peter Paul can go back and try his luck on those stick girls that are more his speed anyway. Ya, Elvis and Billie. Long live the kings!
