Try To Describe The Colour Blue...

     John Hartwick's blog about how he was introduced to rock and roll through AM radio in a Galaxie 500 convertible and the song American Pie by Don McLean (a great song in it's day but I'm not sure I ever need to hear it again) inspired me to retrace my musical roots as well. I was first introduced to music at four years old  through an old grey Crosley record player my Mom had and a big stack of '78 RPM records...

    She also owned a Crosley TV and console hi-fi as well but my sister and I weren't allowed near that-- off limits. Mom used to joke that the only reason Dad married her was because she had the TV, the stereo and $800 in the bank--in the day you could buy a house for $3000...


      The 78's must have been stacked at least a foot and a half high with various pop artists of the era but the only ones I remember playing repeatedly were; Jerry Lee Lewis~ Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On and Great Balls Of Fire, Elvis Presley~ Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock and Heartbreak Hotel, Little Richard~Tutti Frutti, Good Golly Miss Molly, Long Tall Sally and Slippin' and a Slidin' and for some reason a Patti Page song called Cross Over The Bridge...

 

      Wendy, my sister was only one year old at the time and together we would sit on the floor in front of the Crosley spinning these discs. They didn't call it the Stack-O-Matic for nothing. We had a few quarters taped to the top of the arm so it applied enough pressure to play the scratchy discs and if you weren't careful the record player would give you a zap-- but it was well worth any temporary discomfort.

     There still aren't words to explain how that music made me feel inside but it stirred something--I'm just not exactly sure what. Hound Dog was my favorite Elvis song but I couldn't understand what he was saying in one lyric, it sounded like; "You ain't nuthin' but a Hound Dog, just "crockin" all the time." Realized later it was "cryin" not "crockin", that rock 'n' rollers don't always enunciate correctly and to love the tune you don't always need to understand the lyric. 

     Jerry Lee and Little Richard took music to a whole other level for me (this is exactly what I was thinking at the time, "next level"). The merciless nature with which the two of them attacked the piano and their animalistic wailings are forever burned in my musical psyche. Little Richard was my favorite--as far as I'm concerned the real King of Rock and Roll... A Wop Bobba Loo Bop A Bop Bam Boom...