Month: August 2016

I will return to the Beatles. I just can’t handle the whole saga at one sitting. So let’s talk more about soul.

The Temptations–they made rock and roll a spiritual experience. Did any singing group ever move like that? And their fantastic suits, masculine and tailored in the best possible style. I saw them in person when they came to Pittsburgh and NOBODY sat still. We moved and jived and jumped along with them. I have a special attachment to their song My Girl.

When I was a mobile therapist I drove around, visiting my kids at their homes and schools. One day I went to an elementary school to meet my young client–this was during the last period of school–but the whole school was in the auditorium for a talent show. It was Friday afternoon; TGIF; couldn’t see my assigned client so I sneaked into the auditorium to watch the show. Talking about crying–there were these little kids, getting up on a stage in front of the whole school, singing and dancing their hearts out. There was this one group of eight who performed My Girl. It was mixed race and they just did so amazingly well and professionally; they had obviously practiced a lot. Did their own dance steps…I had tears in my eyes then, too.

Also who could not love Smokey Robinson? I Second That Emotion is my favorite. Why? There’s one line in the song that goes: “A taste of honey’s worse than not at all.” I used this in Buying A Year. Sharon wants to visit Declan in the monastery but he quotes that line. If he saw Sharon again, for only a half hour and surrounded with others, he’d go mad.

And the Four Tops; Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch; Standing in the Shadows of Love; Reach Out; and many more. And who could not love their lead singer Levi Stubbs? A name full of soul. As much as I loved the Temptations, it was listening to the Four Tops that taught me about soul music. Levi Stubbs sang with a sob or cry in his voice, really thrilling to this little white girl from Pittsburgh. And it’s easy to see, when you look back on it all, that all those people who did not like Elvis heard that particular sound in Elvis’ voice; and it was a “Black” sound. The merging of “white” and “black” sounds…

Where to begin re: the arrival of the Beatles?

I watched a television show that was partly interviews with all kinds of people from all different countries; its subject was the effect the Beatles had on your life.

Of course most of these people were from the Baby Boom years but not all of them. That was the amazing part. People of all ages have listened to the Beatles and love them. Many said that the Beatles music formed part of their identities.

Paul McCartney, not long ago, formed a new band with four other men. And they were just so mind-blowingly great!! Unfortunately I did not attend a concert but I bought the CD. All I can say is wow. I wish I had been there. The CD contained a small book or pamphlet with lots of quotes from Paul and each band member. All of these young men were completely awestruck by actually playing music and singing with PAUL McCARTNEY!!!! Who couldn’t identify with this?

I’ve listened to the CD over and over…and they do Hey Jude almost as well as the first Beatles. I honestly get “goose pimples” as I think about it. I know I cried at times while listening. When I began crying when I listened, the “counselor” part of me said: “Leslie. It’s obvious that the Beatles music formed you in some way; why do you think this is?”

Their unique sound–Lennon/McCartney’s superb compositions–they were something new, from a different country than ours and they made being British look very cool. What had come from England that was cool? There was Winston Churchill who stood up to Hitler and said: “….we shall never surrender. Give us the tools and we’ll do the job.” Now this was the utmost in cool–talk about grace under fire; but when you’re 14 years old it was a new world. Finally, none of the four came from the upper classes. They were working class lads and knew a lot about real life.

I just looked up the listing of Beatles songs. The number is 309, according to Wikipedia. I can’t possibly include them all here. I will just try to do my best.

She Loves You/I Want To Hold Your Hand/Please Please Me/P.S. I Love You/If I Fell In Love With You/All I’ve Got To Do/All My Loving

All of these were from 1964 or earlier. I remember having a sleepover party for my 14th birthday; all my friends were there. As we all lay in the dark, squeezed together because there were 8 girls there, we sang softly: “If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true, and help me–understand, that I’ve been in love before, and I know that love is more–than just holding hands? If I give my heart to you, you must be sure from the very start, that you would love me more than her…”

Damn, I’m crying again. Not sobbing but I have tears in my eyes. It was so lovely; and in the end who can say for sure why we adored them, spent all our money on them, and let them into our hearts?

And Then He Kissed Me/The Crystals
Bobby’s Girl/Marcy Blaine
Popsicles and Icicles/The Murmaids

All of the songs were about love except for Jan and Dean with their car songs and the Beach Boys with their car and surfboard songs.

I fell for the “wall of sound” stuff from Phil Spector. It’s fantastic to listen to; one of my favorites, other than Be My Baby, is And Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals.

Bobby’s Girl was a “one-hit wonder.” It came at the same time that I was embroiled in major crush on–yes, a boy named Bobby.

Popsicles and Icicles is considered the best girl group song before the British Invasion. It’s simple, really. A list of the things that a boy and girl in love have in common, things they like to do that make up their world.

I get a tender feeling around my heart when I occasionally hear this song. It reminds me of a boy of whom I was extremely, intensely fond because we had stuff we loved to do, and we had a world of our own also.

I’m trying to write about the Music I Love before the Beach Boys and the Beatles but I can’t put it off forever. I’m just scared–the music was so BIG, so overwhelming. Where to start? It’s like compiling a musical score for your own life. But I will start here. A friend of mine, Rita Shore, asked me during the summer of 1963 if I had heard this song on the radio called “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by a brand new group called the Beatles. And the world was never the same, was it?

It really is impossible to write a short piece on classical music. But I have to at least try to convey what it meant to me and still does.

I had what I consider a medium-sized talent for music. I had a pretty good voice and I learned to play the piano amazingly quickly. I always liked systems and languages and different ways of classification. Music had all of that and I soaked it up. Even the words inserted in the musical scores are in Italian.

So I was introduced to Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. To me they were a minor kind of godhead. Bach was so orderly, his music not passionate but disciplined and comforting. Beethoven was full of passion. Mozart–it’s hard to say what he meant to me. I knew the horrendous stories of his father dragging him all over Europe, showing off his son’s mega-talents for money. And he died so young.

There aren’t enough words to describe how good I felt–good all over–when I had mastered one of the first simple pieces assigned to me.

2 South Pacific

The Broadway show and the movie called South Pacific comes from James Michener’s book, Tales of the South Pacific.

The album cover shows oh so handsome Rasonno Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor in an almost-embrace. So thrilling and made my curiosity go up a few notches. This was about love.

The love story is the core of this–he is a lot older than she is, he has two children. He is worldly, she’s from the midwestern part of the United States.

The song called “Some Enchanted Evening” is a part of this lovely story. Rasonno Brazzi sings it. Now here comes the silly part. Whenever Michael was going someplace awful, willing to give his life to help others, believe me, there was no singing around this house. But one time he was called to the South Sea Island groups as a United Nations peacekeeper; the population of this group of islands was having its first election and an uprising was expected. This wasn’t a dangerous assignment, or “mission” as Michael called them. No natural disasters and piles of bodies. So, I was in a light-hearted, kind of silly mood. For the few days before Michael left I kept strolling around the house singing “Some Enchanted Evening” in a fake deep male voice. I probably irritated him but he never showed it. He really loves me and maybe he was so grateful to me for not “fussing” about him going halfway around the world that he shrugged my singing off.

Not directly related to this was Michael’s mission to Antarctica. I was on top of the world; no war, no stinging insects, no dead bodies. He was going along with a group of medics who were planning to teach the people at the outpost new medical and first aid information. I’m proud to say that the people at the U.N. scheduled this trip around Michael’s spring break. Yes, he was still a college student when he was called on to lead the mission. Anyway, there’s an old movie with Fred Astaire called Flying Down To Rio. I knew no songs from it but I just kept saying it, over and over….He had to fly to Rio, then make connections at Tierra Del Fuego for a boat going to Antarctica. At Tierra Del Fuego there are a lot of stores selling stuffed animals, especially penguins, the intriguing animal that makes its home at the south pole. Michael managed to get a stuffed penguin for me and kept it with him, then bring it all the way back home. All roads lead to Michael…I can’t get very far away from him, it seems, nor do I want to.

1 Guys and Dolls

Before I get completely swept away and tunnel into more rock and roll music, I must mention two other kinds of music that I really did love: show music and classical.

My mother had albums from several shows: South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, and Three- penny Opera. There were others but I can’t remember them now. She played these albums over and over until I knew every word from South Pacific and Guys and Dolls. Threepenny Opera didn’t excite my interest, for some reason.

I would lay flat on our living room floor and play these albums just like my mother did, over and over, and read the liner notes on the album covers. You can actually learn a lot just by doing that.

I actually did learn a lot about life and living from listing to Guys and Dolls. Don’t forget how young I was–maybe about seven or eight. My mind was like a new sponge, especially when it came to music; I was just starting the piano then. So what did learn? There was a place called “Salvation Army” with people who walked around, preaching about God, and asking for money. This was in NYC. Then there were these sharp, cool, card-playing, heavy drinkers who hung out together and had fun.
The story is about what happens when these two groups clash.

What romantic music, about love and living! Also about sadness and the fear of being alone. On top of that there was plenty of humor. After listening to these songs an infinite number of times, I can still remember the characters, the words to all the songs, and who played who in the Broadway production.

The more I write, the more I love my mother. In those early childhood days it was a happy home on a short but busy street, like a beehive of people doing what they should. I just think it’s nice that my mother let me lay on the living room floor and listen to her records, over and over.

Throughout the day I kept thinking of writing about music. The whole thing kind of came at me at once and I thought: What have I taken on? There was so much fabulous and fantastic music we listened to. How am I going to do this? Oh well. I’m in it now and there’s no turning back.

I haven’t even mentioned Motown and the great, GREAT music from African-American performers. The mind reels. But I thought about Sam Cooke. How could you not like Sam Cooke? His many, many songs meant a lot to me. But Chain Gang is special.

My parents had friends in Ohio and one weekend we all went to see them. Their last name was Sachs. They had a son, Kenny, who was just my age. Kenny’s mother asked him if he would taken me down to what she called the “Rec Room.” The adults were old friends who probably wanted to talk among themselves and so they told the kids to find something to do.

This never happened to me before and it didn’t happen again until I was in my mid-twenties and divorced. Kenny brought me downstairs and we looked at each other. We squeezed ourselves into this big arm chair and made out for a long time.

I still can’t believe I did this. I was 13 years old. Here’s a funny detail: on the ride home from Ohio I was sick to my stomach. This thing that happened–I felt so guilty!

What does this have to do with Sam Cooke? Kenny’s father had a really neat car that was a convertible. He took us out in a ride that night and Chain Gang was playing on the radio. It was great. That sneaky making out, then a ride in a convertible–what a weekend.

Also, I liked the Everly Brothers. They had lots of nice songs and my favorite was Dream. It’s sad, a song about somebody who can only dream about being with a another person. I think, on listening to this, that I was afraid I’d end up like that person in the song who “dreams (her) life away.”

I am trying to be organized and begin with early rock music and saving the British Invasion, mid sixties and supergroups for later. Dusty Springfield sort of crept in there.

I looked up the following and–thank goodness for you tube–I listened to:

Rock Around The Clock/Bill Haley and The Comets
Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire/Jerry Lee Lewis
The Bristol Stomp/ The Dovells
Jailhouse Rock/Elvis Presley

Rock Around The Clock came out when we still lived on Shady Ave.Ext. I was barely a teenager but it was the first true rock and roll I’d ever heard; it was really exciting and exhausting as well. Arlene, my neighborhood friend, and I talked about it. So that’s what you do when you got to be a teenager: you rocked around the clock. I asked Arlene if her parents would ever let her do that–stay out all night and dance with boys. Of course both of our answers were NO. We didn’t even know how to dance then; but the music was true rock and it “rocked us” all over and backwards. Here’s a very interesting fact. On you tube, while the music was played, there were different scenes connected with that time. Mostly, though, there were kids dancing. It was amazing. BUT there were black teenagers in at least one scene, not dancing, just standing and watching.

Timewise, Jerry Lee Lewis came later but I don’t associate him with the British Invasion in the early and mid-sixties. I just loved the way he played the piano and almost shrieked when he sang. “You shook my nerves and you rattled my brain…you broke my will, but what a thrill! GOODNESS GRACIOUS, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!!!! It came, again, at a time when I was trying to get the idea of what it meant to grow up and be a teenage girl. So that’s what happened?! You break some poor guy’s will and he thinks it’s a thrill?! Yecch! But I loved the music and the energy.

My parents bought me my first record player when we were still living on Shady. I bought one “45” and it was The Bristol Stomp by the Dovells. Arlene and I listened intensely, over and over, to the words. We knew one thing for sure; these guys were not from Pittsburgh. They had to be from New York or Philadelphia, someplace where the kids were “sharp as a pistol.” We were still playing with dolls….

I wrote briefly about Elvis but I made a mistake. He’s as big and all-encompassing than any supergroup. I watched him perform Jailhouse Rock and I could barely sit still. He threw his body around like a panther and his grin, so self-confident and blindingly white, made me think about things I thought were long-forgotten. I think he had some mysterious quality that made girls feel a bit maternal. He had a boyish quality even though he was SO masculine.

Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” was something different and original. At least I thought so. It went straight from my brain to my heart. These young black girls–mostly black, I think–singing their hearts out with this incredible booming in the background! Of course it was about love but it was “girly love.”

The Ronettes were the best, I think. I do like lots of other girl-groups, though.
“Be My Baby”–the words captured me and every time I hear it I sigh a little and remember a certain secret romance I had that nobody knew about. Favorite line in the song? “We’ll make them turn their heads every place we go.” This relationship, if it ever had been a real one and not secret, would have been like that. The two of us looked so good together, we definitely would have “turned their heads.”

“Going To The Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Married” by the Dixie Cups
“These Are a Few of the Things We Love by ?
“And Then He Kissed Me also by ?
“My Boyfriend’s Back”

These songs kind of mapped out what I could expect from being in love. A first kiss, meeting your boyfriend’s parents, thinking of situations that were romantic because you both liked them…all of this is not cerebral and it’s a good thing it’s not. What would life be without this dreamy, contented, foresight of meeting the right boy and being fulfilled by love?

Related to the girl groups is Dusty Springfield. I don’t know what category she’s in–country or pop rock. Her voice was low and grainy and sounded sexy and female. I always went bonkers when I heard her sing “Son of A Preacher Man.” In this song she sings about a young girl, coming to first awareness of sex and love with the “preacher man’s” son.

“Preacher Man had a son and when he’d come to visit he’d come along
When they all got down to talking, Cousin Billy would take me walking
Through the back yard we’d go walking
Then he’d stop and look into my eyes
Lord knows, to my surprise
The only boy who could ever reach me
Was the son of a preacher man
The only boy who could ever teach me
Was the son of a preacher man
He was, yes he was…

Now that I think of it, Dusty Springfield definitely had a big portion of southern soul in her. The song, I have to admit, reminded me of myself, a little. I really don’t know why…certainly no preacher man ever came to our house!!! (Words are not entirely correct, I’m sure. It’s the spirit that counts.)

Bill Withers is one of those pop singers who do get attention but not the frantic kind that the super-stars receive. However, I’m a fan of his and I have a CD of his greatest hits.

The more you think about music and remember how it made you feel, that effort opens doors and then more doors until your head is full of stuff, i.e., memories of other people you loved, what was happening in the world.

My liking Bill Withers is very romantic. He had a hit song called “Lovely Day.”

“When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes…
Then I look at you
And the world’s all right with me
Then I look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day…

It’s the way I feel about my husband. It’s straight from the gut; when my husband wakes up and smiles at me I feel fantastic.

There’s this other song he recorded called “Use Me.” It’s more like a Rolling Stones song or something like that. Let’s just say it’s on the rough side of human relations.

I also like the song “Everybody Plays The Fool” which I think was recorded by a group called The Main Ingredient. It’s not about love but what it is about is life. That’s just the way things go. It’s kind of comforting in a way…everybody gets a chance to find happiness but you don’t always get it immediately, like Harold and Maxine did. When I think of this song my mind goes into a kind of life line and I go back in time and think of the boyfriends I had, also my ex-husband Mark. Yes, I “played the fool” once in a while but not overwhelmingly. Nothing to be bitter about. When you listen to music you’re part of the whole world.