Month: April 2017

Carol King and the Girl Groups

I saw a movie about Carol King’s life. When I was working night shift I’d watch television a lot and there was a movie about how Carol King grew up and how she got started in music. Her real name was Carol Klein.

When she was first married to Jeffrey Geffen they would be writing songs, most of which turned out to be number 1 hits. They did their composing in a room in the famous Brill Building where, during the late fifties and early sixties, many talented people played the piano, composed lyrics, and got songs written.

Carol was from a middle class place where few social problems existed. So when she started hanging around the Brill Building in NYC–according to the movie–she made friends with girls and women of color who were always have trouble with their boyfriends. She listened a lot to their conversations and how they interacted. This connection–again, according to this movie–fed the lyrics of the early songs recorded by girls, women, and the girl groups. Best example–“Natural Woman” first recorded by Aretha. Eventually Carol was persuaded to record it herself, years later.

I don’t know how many girl groups recorded Carol’s songs. But at the same time along comes Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound. Now, I’ll just interject my opinion here and say that I LOVED the Wall of Sound. I saw a documentary about the roots of rock and roll music and Phil Spector said that those were the days of hardly any electronic sound effects. They had weird ways of making that unmistakable loud roaring in the background.

My favorite girl group was the Ronettes and yes, just like a lot of other people, my favorite song was “Be My Baby.” There’s a line in there: “…we’ll make them turn their heads, every place we go…” Although I was a young teenager when the song was recorded, that particular line corresponded to a secret relationship I had much, much later. It was with a man who I should not have been having a relationship with but it ended nicely and nobody found out. I would think of how good the two of us would look together out on the street but that never happened.

The Association

The songs recorded by The Association are linked in my mind with having fun, taking it easy, laughing.

I had a friend, Iris Wells, and when we were 16 we spent a lot of time together. I came often to her home after school. Iris’ mother was a very large lady, very funny and good-tempered, and was welcoming to young people. She knew I was always on a diet so when she’d see me she’d always say: “Leslie, you’re getting thinner and thinner and thinner…”

Iris and I loved The Association. I have a recording of their greatest hits. First of all, Along Comes Mary being one their most popular, I used as a title for a story I wrote. We would lay on Iris’ bed, listen to the music over and over, and try to figure out what the words meant. Most of them we couldn’t make out but we loved the phrase “…the gassed and flaccid kids flung across stars.” Iris was quite open about our classmates who were what she called “Squirrel Hill Jews.” She hated them. I was not comfortable about being around these people–all the well-dressed, confident girls and boys–but I was too timid to say the things Iris said about them. But her honesty was refreshing and her denigrating names for these people satisfied something in me.

“Never My Love” was another song that had meaning. All of this group’s songs were mellow and kind of soft with no hard metal sounds. A friend I had was in a very
close relationship with one of my cousins. This boy gave my friend a record with this song on it and it got played over and over and over…

I was a little too young to know much about Elvis Presley when he first appeared. All I knew was that he sang in a funny, new way, not like the Four Freshmen. But I became aware of the fact, as I grew, that he had “crossed the line” from what was considered “black music” into the white world. Churches condemned him, parents were outraged, and when he made that first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the cameras only showed the top part of his body; adults thought that his movements were too sexual.

Yes, it’s all too silly to think about but in an odd way, it was true. Elvis was pure sex. If you drew a kind of “family tree” that traced the history of rock and roll music, there’s a line that connects Elvis with Janis Joplin, who to me sounded like a hollow woman, wanting desperately to have every empty place in her body and soul filled by a big, warm man. Sexual? You bet.

Elvis Presley had a superlative tenor voice and could sing all the way from the most delicate gospel songs to the most sexy songs of desire…i.e., “It’s Now Or Never, My Love Can’t Wait.” This was not about asking for a goodnight kiss. He also possessed a kind of cry in his voice when he sang “Kentucky Rain,” “In The Ghetto,” and his signature song “The Wonder Of You.” I have a recording of all his number 1 songs and I never get tired of listening. By the way, if you listen to Bruce Springsteen you can hear Elvis somewhere in the there.

Introduction

I already wrote a blog that went on for 30 entries about music. I looked at them but I didn’t write about all the music of the sixties and seventies. So I may repeat myself but it can’t be helped.

Bruce Springsteen and the E street band–what they mean to me.

From the first album–Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ–I became an instant fan. This music was visceral; I can never really put into words what Bruce does to me. The lyrics–pure poetry; Bruce’s guitar playing–out of sight; his way of writing and putting together songs–nobody does it like he does. And his band; I have this strong fantasy of the E street band all loving Bruce, being devoted to him and the message he puts out. I saw him play in Philadelphia and Michael interviewed him twice for the Pitt News. Michael told Bruce that his mother loves his music and sings it all the time and Bruce simply said “Thank you.” Michael was impressed by his quality of being down-to-earth. He sat patiently, answering Michael’s questions, not rushing him, and when Michael was done Bruce said “Do you have anything else you’d like to talk to me about?” In Michael’s words: Bruce treated him like a real person, not just a school newspaper writer.

Carl Jung wrote about the fact that every woman and man has her or his counterpart. For women the male aspect is called the “animus.” There’s no doubt that Bruce is my male counterpart. For one thing, I’ve noticed that every love song–every one–has a story about a man being in love with a wonderful woman, no cruelty, no “Under My Thumb” stuff. That’s who Bruce is.

Another factor in all of this is that Bruce comes from working class people. Now, I didn’t come from working class people but my mother’s family was, and when I had to
use my hands to make birds in our business, I had no trouble seeing myself in this way. So I identified.

And you can’t ignore the friendships within the band. Bruce and Clarence Clemmons, the saxophone man, were together from the beginning of the E Street Band and “Stevie”–I forget his last name–was also. Similarly Max Greenberg was the drummer since the beginniing. It’s loyalty.

Bruce has been awarded a Medal of Freedom–I think that’s the right one–and he deserves it. He’s done so much for others, both individual people and groups. I wrote a novel called “An Unfounded Door” and Bruce is a big part of it.

Of Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham

Not only was my mother self-educated; she played a major role in educating me. She gave me D.H. Lawrence to read and we discussed these books at length. But she also gave me Of Human Bondage; along with the book she told me about its author.

Maugham spoke with a severe stammer and could barely communicate. I am not nearly as afflicted as he was in terms of a speech impediment; however I do know how it feels to not be able to speak fluently. As the years have passed this mild speech anomaly has faded to a pinpoint; I’ve been doing public speaking and readings from my book and my speech hasn’t caused any problems. My poor mother; she suffered more from this situation than I did.

Maugham’s novel is autobiographical up to a point. In the book the main character, Phillip, has what used to be called a “club foot.” The book tells the story of Phillip’s life from toddler-hood to a mature man in his thirties. He is dogged by a sense of being different and not being able to play games with other boys.

The book feels naked. By this I mean that Maugham is revealing the very worst of his young life. Sometimes the reader becomes impatient when Phillip is so horribly depressed regarding Mildred, the love of his youth. Described as being almost ugly, with a cold temperament and poor manners, you want to shake him and tell him to pull his socks up and find a nice, kind, warm-hearted girl.

Maugham trained as a physician in London at St. Luke’s Hospital. He never completed his course because he knew he had to be a writer. So he did what lots of writers do: he wrote an initial first novel, thinly veiled as fiction but in fact was autobiographical. That piece of work done and put aside, the writer–in this case, Maugham–creates a new persona and his childhood/adolescent traumas are packed away between two covers of the first book. Maugham was considered the ultimate master of short stories and he wrote hundreds, all told by a mature man with a dry sense of humor. The “crippled” Phillip is gone forever, exorcised.

Yes, some of the book is sad but it is gripping in that you want to know “what happens next.” Of Human Bondage is full of characters that Maugham must have encountered along his way and he presents them as real people, in complete detail.

A book not to be taken lightly.

The Rolling Years
by Agnes Sligh Turnbull

In order to have fun doing this I decided to let my mind wander through the years and write about whatever book I thought about. Too often I like to set up rules and regulations and set goals,i.e., write in chronological order. This isn’t the time for that.

I wrote a poem called “There’s the New Girl and She’s a Jew.” It was about the first summer we moved to weird little Swisshelm Park and how I walked to the Swissvale Library almost every day. During the hours I spent in the library I was always browsing and for some reason this book caught my attention.

The Rolling Years is about farm life in western Pennsylvania. The novel is set roughly 150 years ago. The main characters are the McDowell family who, like the people who also farm there, are descendants of Scottish immigrants. The book’s plot is ingenious and quite emotional and the characters are so real, so beautifully described, that yes–you can see them and hear them speak. All of this is true–but the main issue in this book is the Calvinist sect of Christianity. All of the people follow the dictates of these beliefs; my 13-year-old soul was shocked at the rigidity and unforgiving ways of life that these people lived. Calvinists–at that point in time–believed fiercely in heaven and hell and no matter how good you were, you didn’t always automatically go to heaven. Most are doomed to fail, as told to them by their minister in his hour-long Sunday sermons. Nobody played cards–nobody even thought of dancing–there were hours set aside for family prayers–and there were only two leisure activities that were allowed. The McDowell family possessed several books and the children in the family could look at these on Sunday afternoons; on Sundays, during the lunch break between the service and the sermon, families grouped together and the women talked to each other. Farm life was lonely and the women clung to each other for friendliness and recipes and support.

Why did I, and still do, love this book? I don’t know exactly. It’s a superlative piece of writing. But most of all the book reminded me of my Orthodox Jewish grandfather, and the many rules and regulations he held sacred and forced onto others. In later years I would look back affectionately and admire him. Anyway, the book is set quite close to Pittsburgh and at one point one of the characters actually goes to live there.

Finally, Agnes Sligh Turnbull wrote a string of novels after The Rolling Years and at first I was really excited to dive in and read them all. But none were nearly as good as her first.

In many ways you could say that this book is about love, the many kinds of it. The characters experience love and happiness despite the iron rule of Calvinism. My young teenage soul responded easily and, in a way, was relieved that these characters who worried so much about ending up in hell for eternity could enjoy earthly pleasures.

The quotation which will be the name of this blog comes from Virginia Woolf. I’m not a fan of this writer; like too many female writers she committed suicide in what could be called the “prime of her life.” She had a successful marriage, a huge collection of friends who adored her, and her own private publishing business in partnership with her husband. Who knows why this happens? Well, I’m not going to waste my precious time wondering about it. I’m no Virginia Woolf in terms of talent but I didn’t even begin writing until I was 50.

However, I was looking up good book quotes and I chose the above. Why? My own truth is enclosed there. Like many life-long readers I re-read some beloved books many times over. This isn’t always a good idea; you can get stuck in a parallel universe and never get free. But if a book is a mirror of your own soul you want to look into that mirror over and over. I can honestly say that the books I’ve read have become a part of me and have provided flashes of truth about various elements of my universe. I will enjoy thinking all of this through, all the different books from when I was barely out of toddler-hood until the present day.

As we age we begin to think about the end of our lives. It’s natural to do so. I settled a question within myself a while back; if I can read–if I have access to books–I don’t care what happens to me. I’ve worked in an assisted-living establishment so I’ve had a double shot of reality where day-to-day living is concerned. It’s crowded–doesn’t always smell good–most are in pain. But I still say that if I can read I’ll be alright.