When In Nome

Christmastime's acomin!

            Just like the summer of 1967, great music was everywhere during the Madisonville Summer of Love in 1971. Via the Record Club of America I was able to catch up on some really incredible stuff I’d missed the first time around. Buffalo Springfield comes immediately to mind. I had its Retrospective: The Best of…album and listened to it throughout the summer. I’d heard For What It’s Worth and had seen the band perform it on The Ed Sullivan Show, but when I got a taste of the other music I was knocked to my knees. The songs Rock and Roll Woman, Mr. Soul, Kind Woman, and On the Way Home inspired my greatest appreciation, but Bluebird and the mind blowing Broken Arrow rank, in my mind, among the best of a type of rock that, presents a band in the studio role of chamber orchestra, turning the five piece and sidemen into double their number through overdubbing. The Moody Blues, using the studio and a Mellotron, took the idea a step further by producing the sound of an entire orchestra, not unlike the Phil Spector Wall of Sound (King Crimson went so far as to use multiple Mellotrons and a horn section and a piano to bring that concept to the live stage [check out the new surround sound mix of Lizard to get an idea of what the band was after]).

            Albums from former members of Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills and Neil Young, also soaked up a goodly amount of my listening time. Stephen Stills produced the great radio hit Love the One You’re With, and also contained one of the last studio performances by Jimi Hendrix, and overall was backed by some of the best singers and musicians from American pop music (and Ringo, too). The song Black Queen, with Stills singing while accompanying himself on guitar, knocked me over, too. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, on the other hand, employed a more campfire/folkish approach to achieve its effects (though on songs like Southern Man, Young churned out some fairly gritty, almost freeform guitar). Of course both Stills and Young played in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young which was another group I’d been listening to for awhile. I owned the first two albums, and borrowed Four Way Street for an extended period. Billy D had a copy of David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name, and I really got into that weird musical combination of the highly structured vocals smacking into the incredibly loose arrangements and execution of the accompaniment. Crosby employed members of The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Santana, all of CSNY, and singers to make the record happen. I think it’s a masterpiece.

            My pal Luke came into the equation when he mail ordered a Warner Brother’s/Reprise sampler entitled The Big Red Ball. The album was released to promote new acts (it sold at the bargain price of $2 for a two record collection), with an emphasis on progressive music from folk influenced acts like Tim Buckley, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, to hard rockers like Neil Young, The Faces, and Fleetwood Mac (and the nine minute version of Mac’s song Oh Well), to wild fringe acts like Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, The Mothers of Invention, and Ed Sanders (with his great anthem to American values, Iliad), and even an edited jam of Turn On Your Love Light by The Grateful Dead. It was just the sort of album to attract The Crabs (its songs reaching out like inviting pubes) who latched onto it and the anarchy it promoted (strange, since the release was designed to stimulate capitalist responses [which, at least in my case, was successful] that it contained such subversion) without hesitation. The Crabs passed the album from member to member as though it contained secret instructions for the destruction of the status quo. Rocked, too.

            Another bombshell whose fragments hit The Crabs was Hooker N Heat. Not only did John Lee Hooker’s singing and playing prove to be highly influential to me and my crew, but his commentary between the songs on that release is nearly as important as the music, and perhaps more influential than almost anything else to a troublemaker like me. After living in a family where women ran everything, I was glad to hear old John Lee say, “You talk too much, woman.” Now there’s a man who knows something, I thought. Everything John Lee said was a revelation, a mind blowing expression of common sense and life experience. Quoting John Lee after a night of hard living, I once told my grandmother, “Whiskey and women’s just about wrecked my life.” “You better stay away from em, then,” she said without batting an eye. I guess there’s plenty of wisdom to go around.

Snow & Sun

A good day to all.

            I was out of the gospel gig after the second performance, an afternoon event at a nursing home, and was more or less free to pursue my girlfriend and spend more time on Juicy Root. Actually, things started to heat up on the band front after Tig bought a new Gibson SG guitar and an amp with twin cabinets that stood nearly eight feet tall when one cabinet was stacked atop the other. It was an impressive looking rig. Tig and I had become very close and hung out while listening to records, or rode around in his car (which had an 8 track player through which we listened to a stack of cheap 8 tracks Tig had bought from the Kayo service station). Things were getting very groovy during the Madisonville Summer of Love.

            We got hold of the guys who’d been jamming with us, The Cobbler and Ears, and added OJB as lead vocalist and began to practice. The guys were really swell and fun as band mates. We concentrated first on songs we all knew, then worked our ways out toward learning new and potentially popular songs. Rehearsals had not been going on very long before Tigs announced a couple of gigs at Hiwassee College, where Tigs dad, and a bunch of his relatives, worked. Tig’s dad was the financial manager of the college, so anything to do with money passed through his office. Hiwassee held camps for high school marching bands every summer. Lots of wonderful young girls, many my own age, came there. That’s where Juicy Root came in. The band was hired to perform at two dances, both held in the gym, on consecutive weeks. I think we made $75, or $15 for each member, for each show. That doesn’t sound like much, but in 1971, $15 had about the same purchasing power as $100 now, so the members were pretty happy about the gigs.

            The turnout for the first of the two dances was the biggest crowd I’d played for at that time. I enjoyed performing, but overall the band sounded uninspired. Who knows why things like that happen? When we played to a much smaller crowd the following week, the band perked up and managed a good, enthusiastic performance. Not that it really mattered since none of the people attending knew us nor would likely ever see us again. That’s show biz.

I Knew the Japanese

My first year at TMG began in 1991. The kids were shipped home for Christmas on Dec. 5 to avoid any conflict that Dec. 7 might dredge up. Sweet, long vacation.

            Quite out of the blue, in May of 1971, I was suddenly invited to join a gospel group. The baritone singer/guitarist and leader of the group owned a recording studio, and that’s where I was taken that cold spring evening. Why they members of the group chose me is a mystery yet. I’m no fan of gospel music, but I was fascinated with the idea. The singers were all kin, two sisters, a brother, and the oldest lady’s son (sang tenor, played bass). A classmate of mine played piano, and another classmate (an incredibly good looking girl) was the bass player’s girlfriend. The band had recorded an album at the studio, which was released on the studio’s label. I’d heard the main singer, the oldest sister, sing harmony on a demo Billy D had made of My Sweet Lord.

            The rehearsal took place at the studio. I struggled on my little Gem organ to learn the songs, and was nervous that they wanted me to play the next day, Decoration Day, at Hopewell Springs Baptist Church. I knew I’d be terrible because I didn’t really learn the changes or the song titles, but that’s rock n roll. The important thing, however, was not the rehearsal, nor the group, nor the gig, but what happened when practice broke up.

            The young people and the sisters left, but I stayed behind with the leader and tuned his guitar. We’d not been at it long when one of the sisters burst in and announced that bass player and crew had wrecked on their ways home. We quickly lit out.

            I don’t remember much about the crash except that it happened on a straight, level stretch of Niles Ferry Road. My classmate, the piano player, banged her knee under the dash, and the other classmate had a panic attack. The injuries were determined to be minor, and no ambulance was called.

            While the wreck was processing round, I spied a girl standing in the driveway of the house in front of which the crash had occurred. Damn, I thought to myself, she looks good. I wondered how I could get to know her a little better. It was getting up toward 10:30 p.m., so I approached the girl and inquired about the use of her telephone to call my parents. She led me into her kitchen and I saw her in the light, then I saw the light. I flirted with her through the whole of the phone conversation with my mom, and talked to her every second until the wreck cleared and all headed home. She’d told me she planned to be at the church the next day.

            I played the church gig, but no girl. In a way I was glad because my playing had been not merely bad, but erratically bad, lagging, a total mess. The band should have fired me on the spot and put me before the firing squad as the closing entertainment to Decoration Day, but to my surprise seemed nonplused and invited me back for another time. All I could think about was the girl.

            I began to feel sorry for myself and thought I’d somehow blown the chance to impress my personality upon the life of such a good looking, unsuspecting girl. Something like that could never have happened in Madisonville, where I was just too well known, but in another town (Vonore) a chance existed. For a change I didn’t just give up, but pushed ahead until I got her phone number and talked my way into her life. Not only was she a babe, but a cheerleader, too. Hell, I hadn’t been within ten feet of a cheerleader since that cold football game my freshman year, and dating one was not going to happen, but Vonore was an island of dreams.

            My new little girlfriend was a music lover, a piano and guitar player, one of the top students in her class and school, a cheerleader, a Christian, and a model citizen, about half the things that I wasn’t. Somehow most of the opposing sides were planed away for a number of years before everything fell apart. The entire experience, with its rough and smooth qualities, was part of growing up. I hadn’t quite done that by the end of the romantic run.

Born One Morning

A little storm is cracking over Madisonville this morning. The Banana is still happy.

            Near the end of spring, quite apart from Juicy Root, I heard Emerson Lake and Palmer’s song Lucky Man on a car radio. The synthesizer got to me. I’d heard Switched On Bach (both Crowbar and The Cobbler had copies of it), and limited use of Moogs by The Beatles and The Doors, but synths had never been stuck up in my face the way ELP did it. I read a magazine interview with the band and decided I had to have Emerson Lake and Palmer. I bought the album, and though it was vastly different from what I expected, and pretty different from Lucky Man, I grew to love band, album, and synthesizer.

            Discovering ELP was a step toward moving me into the position of becoming a bigger fan of progressive music. Shortly after discovering the synthesizer, I also discovered Bill Chandler’s show, Till 2, on WUOT in Knoxville. Chandler’s taste was pretty wide, including many of the progressive bands around in the early 70’s, and I enjoyed listening to the show, especially since nearly every night I sat up late after everyone else had gone to bed. The radio couldn’t be louder than a whisper or my parents might wake. The low volume actually forced me to pay closer attention to the music than if played at a regular level while I fiddled with something else. Chandler introduced me to King Crimson and Frank Zappa. I listened intently nightly.

            Somehow I came to join The Record Club of America. I talked it over with my parents before doing so, and they were ok with it since the number of required purchases was very low (I think just three records), and the club gave each member three records for joining. One of my first purchases was Let It Bleed, by The Stones. That one’s definitely a winner. The records the club offered were little more expensive than from the drug and dime stores in town, and the selection was much better.

            At the beginning of summer The RCOA ran a membership promotion whereby three records would be awarded to anyone who signed another to a membership. The idea struck me that if I really went to work I could get a large pile of records. My goal was to sell 10 memberships, but my drive petered out at 9. Still, 27 vinyl discs would boost the shit out of my collection (at that point becoming respectfully large), so I happily sent in the order and waited for my prizes. The wait was short and several packages arrived over the course of a week or so. It was better than Christmas. As can be expected, some of the titles were duds, but most were exactly what I’d wanted. I got the ELP album, a Uriah Heep LP, the greatest hits of The Buffalo Springfield, and more. I listened for hours every day.

Dark Winds

Dark winds are blowing over this great land. Perhaps reading The Banana will bring a needle point of light.

Phase 12

            Tig and I began to jam more often together until I became the keyboard player in the remnant of his old band. The singer I’d previously replaced got tossed again, and the guy who’d played keyboards moved over to bass. What a waste. The Cobbler (not his real name) could play rings around me with just his thumb. The Cobbler had a musical gift, and instantly played any instrument he happened across. He also allowed me to use his incredible double keyboard Whitehall organ (from which The Cobbler could coax a symphony) and was game for any crazy shit the band conceived. OJB came on as the singer and brought a wide open fuck you attitude that suited the rest of us very well. We chose Juicy Root (suggested by Hook) as the band’s name, and began to practice in earnest.

            I think one of the reasons Tig and I had started to bond was that we like a lot of the same music. We sort of competed to out-trump each other on album and artist finds. I really got him on Johnny Winter. I remember playing him Be Careful with a Fool. He got me with Derek and the Dominos (though he confessed he’d had the album, via the automatic function of his family’s record club contract, for several weeks before realizing that Eric Clapton, one of Tig’s favorites, was Derek). We were also huge fans of Vanilla Fudge (as stated earlier).

            Another reason we were such good musical buddies was that I loved (still love) great guitar playing. Until 1971 my favorite instrument wasn’t organ but guitar, especially if pushed loudly through an amp and/or other devices. I could list many reasons, but I think mine closely resembles Frank Zappa’s when he described the electric guitar as the most blasphemous thing on the planet. “It spews blasphemy,” he was quoted as saying. Whether mean, ugly, smooth, sweet, raw, or refined, the guitar just cannot be suppressed. But it can be used for good or ill, right? Hell, no. The power of a guitar to possess a human soul should never be underestimated.

            The summer of 1971 was the Summer of Love in Madisonville. Young longhaired males became more common. The hippie ethos and fashion flooded into town in all directions at once. Marijuana, despite the efforts of crusading editors and overly zealous police chiefs, appeared in commercial quantities for a growing marketplace. Total acceptance of the tenants of hard, improvised/extended song parts flew because the range of what was considered dance music had widened because of this new attitude. Face it, The Pusher is hardly a club mix, but people stood and stared as a little band of high school geeks hacked away, so bands could get by with quite a bit. Needless to say, for good and ill, personal expression became important.

Monkey Man

When ya lost one, ya really lost one.

            After the stage setup was complete, before the band came out, John Kay, the lead singer and slide guitar/harmonica player, walked onto the stage wearing dark sunglasses, black leather pants. and a collarless pullover with a raised replica of Saturn across the chest, and fiddled with something on the stage floor. Since no spotlight came on, no one was quite sure it was Kay, but when a cheer finally went up he acknowledged the crowd with a wave and left the stage.

            Two Dan Armstrong Plexi guitars waited suspended from a metal stand. I’d seen several pictures of Keith Richards playing a Dan Armstrong in a paperback about The Stones. The guitars were single pickup deals with bodies made of a clear, heavy, acrylic material. The sound system also impressed me. The bands of the concert I’d seen at the Coliseum a little over a month before had used the house PA (the sound rained down from metal speakers hanging from various rafters), the same as an announcer for a hockey game might. Steppenwolf stacked a wall of speaker cabinets on either side of the stage.

            The members of Steppenwolf appeared relaxed and ready to play when they took the stage. The album the band was touring to support was Steppenwolf 7 (Cowpuncher gave me a copy for Christmas), and the opening song of the show, Foggy Mental Breakdown, opened Side Two of that LP. Between songs John Kay talked to the audience, and while he tuned a guitar (the Dan Armstrongs belonged to him) someone yelled out for The Pusher. “We’ll get to that in a minute,” Kay said. The crowd went nuts (I told you the song had power.).

            The concert, including encore, lasted about ninety minutes, during which time the band played 11 songs. The lineup was the same as on the 7 album, and the players were very good. I was surprised that Kay played slide and second lead guitar as much as he did. He wore and utilized a device called The Bag that acted like a filter, similar to a wah wah pedal.

            The 1971 show was a triumph and I really enjoyed myself. Hook and I have revisited that day in conversation many times since.

Late of Late

December came on like a cold dagger. It was so cold my internet was down early in the day. Everything's better now.

            Steppenwolf was not just a cool looking band, but a political band as well. As were many others at that time, the band was firmly anti-establishment, against the Viet Nam War and the various hypocrisies of modern politics, and was pro pot. The members of Steppenwolf were crack studio players who knew their ways around the blues and country music. Their songs were often very eccentric, at times even comic, due as much to musical arrangement as lyrical expression. Consider the example of the evolution of elements that sprang from The Pusher. The earliest version I’ve heard of Steppenwolf’s cover of Hoyt Axton’s iconic anti-drug anthem was a jammy, 21 minute version that came from the Early Steppenwolf LP (recorded when the band was still know as The Sparrow). Instead of the tight arrangement of the song that made it onto the vinyl of the Steppenwolf album, on Early Steppenwolf it begins with a tribal drum part supplemented by a wooden sounding flute. That goes on for awhile before evolving into The Pusher. The drum/flute piece was later recreated in the studio and released as Mango Juice (from At You Birthday Party), and parts of two songs, Round and Down (which begins with a heavily tremoloed guitar playing Wildwood Flower) and the huge hit Rock Me, were seemingly derived from those ideas. Even as late as the Monster album, those same techniques, such as displayed on the tricky song Draft Resister, continued to appear.

            Though kinda tired after the long wait, I was excited by the time we had taken our seats. The opening band was a group of local short hairs who won over much of the audience with a cover of Okie from Muskogee, wherein the word ball was emphasized to some comic effect. Damn me for saying it, but the band (I don’t remember its name) was just to regular and square for my taste. I thought the band played pretty well, and produced a rather seamless show, but I wanted edge, and the band had none.

            I saw several fellow Madisonvillions during the changeover between the bands. A pair of football (one basketball also) teams of mind and Crowbar’s came walking by. “How’s it goin, queers?” I said to them. A security officer in a police uniform stood between me and the guys so that I didn’t clearly see him. The guys stopped dead in their red faced tracks. As the guys passed by I heard the cop say, “He must know em,” to a female usher also standing there. I stayed quiet during the remaining intermission.

Cold and Early

If you're still reading, let me hear from you. I get lonely. The Lonely Banana isn't the kind that people eat.
My musical history is drawing toward a close. The story currently recounts the summer of 1971, and though it continues on, my account will stop with the year of 1985.

            Playing in a band with Crowbar was the most fun thing. He was totally pure in his approach. The first time he played his brand new Hofner Beatle Bass was at a band practice. Brillo and I would point out the chord changes and direct him toward the root note of each change. There was no slappin or flappin or freewheeling: it was all root note banging at a more or less primal level. And though Crowbar’s, all our, influences were immediately from the psychedelic era, he was punk, all punk, and nothing but the punk, the living embodiment of rock ethos and demonstration. I’m serious. Crowbar had no choice but to go straight at every song that came up. He’d had no time for lessons or study, and not being a natural musician in the traditional sense (Does it count that he played French horn in the high school marching band?), he just took the path of least resistance. He never objected to any outrageous idea, and by his basic nature was prone to experiment. But that’s the essence of rock music: anybody can do it. It’s campfire music with amplifiers; however, instead of sitting around a pit full of burning wood and plucking on a guitar or thumping on a tambourine while passing around a bottle and howling to the sky, the bandsmen gather in basements and garages and spare rooms to assault life with guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, singers, and occasionally horns, until the players become proficient enough on a selection of songs to play in other basements, garages, and spare rooms and howl at and share whatever with whomever shows up. That’s all there is to it. I don’t belittle great players and playing, I love them and that, but no one has to be great to play. It takes all kinds to make a band.

A Wet Weather Creek

A creek runs through it.

            Along with our Crab pal, Cowpuncher, and my former band mate and football teammate Crowbar (he could drive), we took off for Knoxville way earlier than necessary. It was just past midday when the expedition got started, and along the way stopped at Rose Music. I saw the first Magic Chord organ that day, as well as the apple of my then eye, a Hammond Porta B organ. It was sweet. I thought of all the worlds I could conquer with a keyboard like that. I was glad we’d stopped. We messed with the keyboards and wore out our welcome before getting back on the road.

            Crowbar parked on a bridge between Gay Street and the Coliseum. There were still hours to spare, so we walked up to Gay street to see what was happening, which, in a word, was nothing. I don’t think I’ve been on Gay Street on a Saturday afternoon since that lovely April day, so there’s nothing to judge it by, but it was darn near deserted as we roamed the streets. In fact, the only people we saw on the street at all were former US Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and his wife walking alone on the other side of the street going away from us. That was the first time I had encountered a famous person in the wild (not the last, either). When we got up even to the elderly couple, Cowpuncher yelled, “Give em hell, Brock!” (Bill Brock had defeated Gore a few months earlier), as a good Crab might be expected to do.

            The celebrity hubbub wore quickly off and our little knot of assholes started back toward the Coliseum. This little knot of assholes did have definite anarchist tendencies, and I assure all that not a one of that crowd was above hurling objects for amusement, but our true aims were gentler than that. In truth, we’d all bought into the reality that love was the key to happiness. The Beatles told us that, and we loved The Beatles. The Christian religion (I believe that all The Crabs, at that time, were Christians) told us that, too. The political leaders of the country, then as now and forever more, said it, urged it on us, nearly insisted on it while at the same time waging a pissing contest war with the Soviets in Southeast Asia (using the native population of Viet Nam and America’s drafted poor as punching bags), and that great sore thumb of a contradiction riled the ire of the average Crab. Hell no we won’t go! But would we?

Blue Monday

It's kinda soggy, but I like rain.

            Word that Steppenwolf was coming to Knoxville got me excited. Steppenwolf had the coolest look of any band in the world (though I’ll confess that there was no shortage of cool at that time) and played a rough and ready kind of music soaked in distorted guitars (including slide), rock solid drumming, inventively clever Hammond organ (and other keyboards) playing, and shouted out by a gravelly voiced singer whose songs delivered timely political messages which ranged in tone from the humorous (Don’t Step On the Grass, Sam), to the very serious (Draft Resister and From Here to There Eventually), and all delivered with a little extra jab to the teeth of the establishment. The arrangements and playing in many of Steppenwolf’s songs also displayed a wide eccentric sound and manner. All in all, it was my kinda band.

            Along with Billy D and Tig, I’d been spending a lot of time with my friends Luke and Hook. We’d been buddies at school and beyond for a few years (I’d known Luke since grammar school, especially 6^th grade), and as we approached our late teens were vigorously working toward the contradictory ideals of becoming hippie anarchists. We had practiced those ends as often as possible with various acts of anarchist defiance including a brief concert for our English class (rearranging lyrics and anything else to bend three cover songs to our ends), and several sessions on the railroad tracks near Luke’s house where we would unload torrents of rocks against the windows and bodies of automobiles hauled through the unprotected air in open sided train cars. I always felt damned good when we’d damaged a Caddy or another vehicle.

            We started calling ourselves, and the others who hung around with us, The Crabs (after, yes, those crabs) because we were the unwanted, the cast outs, the shunned, the not ready for anything players. And yet, none of us really wanted to be establishment darlings. We wanted society girls (because they looked good and dressed so well), but the rest of the scene was a big, fat drag to us. Hook’s poem said it best: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,/It’s not a lie, it’s not a sin,/But we are Crabs, we’re tried and true,/ And if you don’t like it—fuck you!” Hardly upscale political discourse, though it captures the essence of Crabdom.

Black Friday

Shop your brain at The Happy Banana.

            Just a little before my second concert, mom and dad announced to me one evening that mom was expecting a child. That news was a shock. Mom was 37 years old, and I thought she was too old to have another baby. I immediately went across the street to talk to my grandmother about the news. I’d figured that she already knew it, but was taken by surprise that she didn’t. I’m not sure she really believed me. It was true, however, and my sister was born in July of 1971. Her birth brought a whole new layer to our existences, especially since Crystal was born with severe cerebral palsy.

            Mom was born in 1934. My grandparents lived in Louisville, Tennessee at that time, but I believe mom spent a lot of her early youth in Kentucky, where her daddy and several of my grandmother’s relatives worked in the Lynch coalmine. She was one of five sisters (one died in infancy) living under the same roof with many of granny’s said relatives. Sometime along the way the family lived between Madisonville and Vonore, where granddad was from, and sometime before or shortly after granddad was drafted into the army, the family lived in Loudon, which is where my grandmother had spent a lot of her childhood.

            Granddad left for the service in 1944, on the day his fifth child was born. Before that year was over he had trained, shipped to Italy, been wounded and captured by Germans, and died a POW. Mom was only 10. Granddad was only 34. He was posthumously awarded The Bronze Star and Purple Heart. The war had been over for several years when his body was returned to the family for burial.

            Even before granddad died the family had led a hard scrabble existence, and nothing changed after he was out of the picture, so mom was used to living on the edge. In fact, she’s lived like that in one way or another most of her life, including all of my childhood, and at times beyond. I can’t say we were destitute, especially since we had a house to live in, but the thin times were very lean. I think we were lucky that we processed a lot of our own food. In 1960 I remember granny and company buying a bunch of chickens for the freezer. My impression was that my family had expected the chickens to be packaged. They weren’t. The poultry waited with bound legs in the carport. In less than an hour granny had set up a makeshift block, got out the old, dull ax, and started chopping heads. With help from neighbors a packaging line was established from block to freezer. The operation took all day, but we ate chicken for a couple of years.

            I can honestly say that my mom is both physically and mentally tough. If there was ever anyone equipped to handle the challenges of having a special needs child it’s my mom. She and my grandmother drove Crystal to physical therapy in Knoxville several times a week for several years. Mom had to organize with other special needs parents to push like hell to make the school system obey the law with regards to handicapped children. One county school superintendant once remarked to my mom that if the state required him to jump eight feet but he could only jump three, what more could be done? Well, more was eventually done, but not without constant pushing against the reluctance of those in power.

            I think that my sister’s living nearly 38 years is as much a testament to mom’s iron will as any other factor. On a daily basis mom had to clean my sister’s immediate habitat and body, dress her, often several times each day, prepare and feed my sister all meals and snacks, as well as do all the usual tasks necessary to run a household. There were lots of other things too, as in all lives, and she handled most of them pretty well. If I had a hat on I’d tip it to her now.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks for reading The Happy Banana.

            At that point I figured we’d really be in for big doings with Savoy Brown. Of course, being average and only 16 years old, I didn’t know the ways of the world. I didn’t know that the bands on a bill were lined up as much by seniority as talent (which is why Led Zeppelin opened for Iron Butterfly and later Vanilla Fudge on its first trip to the states). I thought the best band took the top spot, but I was wrong.

            Not to be unfair, Savoy Brown was very good. The band members were good players and the musical direction was that of a progressive rock n roll group. The band’s leader and lead guitarist was named Kim, and that caught my interest, too. The musicians came on full of fire (they had to after The Faces) and warmed up on two pretty decent numbers. The third song was very dramatic with a longish section of excellent scat singing. But just when I was about to be won over, Kim Simmons bid the auditorium farewell and the band left the stage. The crowd, small as it was, got rowdy, felt, as did I, cheated. Some official looking gentleman took the stage and announced that we had to leave. A chant of “Hell no, we won’t go,” filled the room. After several warnings of dire consequences by the poor fellow charged with verbal crowd control, Savoy Brown took the stage again. It was easy to see that the band wanted to go home, and the song it played was nothing more than an instrumental three chord shuffle that was half-heartedly executed, but enough to dupe the crowd into standing down and heading for the exits when completed.

            We dropped my cousin off in Strawberry Plains and headed toward home. Billy D had an eight track player in his car and we were able to listen to Santana on the way back. As we sailed through Greenback, I went nuts when Soul Sacrifice came on. Anyone following the car might have thought that I was having some sort of fit with my bobbing, weaving, and spasms. A lot of it was an exaggeration on my part designed to get some reaction from Billy D, but partly because good music has the power to pitch one outside the usual boundaries of normal existence. I got home around 1:00 a.m.

The Teen Years

I'm thinking of the holidays.

            Never assume. I didn’t expect much from The Faces, and thought that Savoy Brown had better be good lest I was out time and money. I watched the crowd between acts. Smoking was allowed at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. I wondered if we’d encounter the demon weed. Tobacco was all I could identify. The crowd seemed as restless as I felt. The opening acts were busts and nearly everyone probably thought so.

            The first thing I noticed about The Faces was that two of the band members, tall, skinny fellows full of pep, had the most unusual hair styles I’d ever seen. The hair designs looked like English shags with fountains of spikes exploding from the crown. It was a different world. The first number began with a solo slide guitar part (I’d never heard a live slide since Brillo played one in grammar school). The blond singer opened his pipes and let out the voice of god. He and slide man (Ron Wood, current long time guitarist for The Stones), traded off for a bit. The singer, Rod Stewart (I’m not sure I caught his name that night), said, “But she’s my girl,” and the band launched into a measured RNR explosion. The crowd went nuts at the song’s end. I clapped and yelled, but was also in shock. I’d never heard the likes of The Faces. I expected some warmed over 60’s stuff and got hit square in the face with the 70’s.

            Rod was totally different from anything I’d seen or heard. Besides the great voice, he also had a winning manner as a front man. Unlike the guy in Big Brother, Rod didn’t have to say fuck to make a statement. He also had this little shuffling dance he did when Ronny cut to a lead. While the band played Maybe I’m Amazed, Rod put his arm around the bass player’s shoulder like a best pal or brother might do. The entire set looked like the band was having a great time and was glad to be there. The Faces rocked and rocked and were called back for three encores during a set that lasted nearly two hours.

I Dig Music

The saga continues.

            Right at the end of the 1970-71 basketball season, I got the chance to attend my second ever concert. I can’t remember why I got so excited, but when I learned that Savoy Brown had booked a stop in Knoxville, I couldn’t wait to see the concert. The strange part is that I didn’t know anything about the music of SB, and was basing my excitement on a review of the band’s newest album and singer. There were to be two other bands, The Grease Band, who had been Joe Cocker’s band at Woodstock, and Faces (formally The Small Faces), who I had not heard anything from since Itchycoo Park in 1968, on the bill.

            I had scraped up enough money to buy tickets for Billy D, who would be doing the driving, my cousin, who was supposed to be BD’s date, a girl named Ruby, who was supposed to be my date but allegedly came down with some ailment and didn’t make it, and me. We went out to my cousin’s and ate with my aunt and uncle. My cousin allowed us to listen to her copy of Jimi Hendrix’s Monterey Pop album. We also listened to the Otis Redding side of the same disc. We left about an hour and a half before concert time.

            I bought three first balcony tickets at $3.50 a pop, and we waited outside The Knoxville Civic Auditorium until the doors opened. The crowd milling around near us was certainly groovier looking than the bunch I’d seen at my first concert the previous summer, but by the time we had found our seats I could see that the auditorium less than half full. I hoped like hell that the small size of the crowd wasn’t because the bands were going to be shitty. I read the rock press a lot and I didn’t know much about the bands and I figured no one else did either. I kept an open mind.

            Just like my first concert, an unannounced opening act warmed up the crowd. I don’t remember the guy’s name, and hence have no idea of his place in music, but he was in my eyes a fairly average folk singer, and probably a local act. I’m sure I watched him while listening intently, yet no lasting impression marked itself in my brain.

            Same’s true for The Grease Band. To be perfectly frank, they were terrible. I don’t mean that the members couldn’t play. Everybody had heard the band backing Joe Cocker in Woodstock (one of the highlights of the film), but whatever fire exhibited during the movie was absent in Knoxville. I could see a Hammond organ on stage and was excited about what might come from it, but nothing ever did, save for one song that sounded like Three Dog Night’s Out in the Country.

Turkey On My Mind

There's no day like today.

            I had surgery on a broken finger around that same time and could play neither basketball nor music. I fell deeply into an intense depression and moped my way through everything. My family knew something was up, but I couldn’t tell them anything because I didn’t know what the problem was. A gnawing mental grind stayed with me to a greater or lesser extent for many years. The agony wasn’t something I grew out of. As time has worn on I have become better able to deal with internal chemicals running amuck. I finally learned to accept such things as part of my own normal life-cycle. Do I feel better? Sometimes.

            My finger healed and I was able to rejoin the basketball team and finish the season. The local dance scene had, after too long an absence, sort of come back around. The lead singer for The Heroes formed a new band and began to gig in the area again. Instead of weekly engagements in Madisonville, the new band often played at The National Guard Armory in Sweetwater. The core of that new band was the bass player, his brother keyboard player (playing a very sweet Hammond B-3 organ amplified by two Leslie cabinets), and the guitar player, all of whom had been members of a well known Vonore High School band, The Jewels. When that band dissolved, the three members and drummer had worked up a goodly number of Booker T and the MG’s tunes. The new band, The Blues Blogs, had absolutely nothing to do with blues, and played, to my disappointment, too much bubblegumish Top 40 fluff, along with some Carolina beach music, and the Booker T songs, which somehow stayed on the playlist. The singer once told a friend of mine that I should mind my own business when I had given some friends a less than stellar review to the band. I understand his consternation with my appraisal, but if you can’t take the heat, you know, but that’s not the point. The real point is that The Blues Blogs didn’t have the love of the high school as The Heroes had, and that even a nobody like me could put a little jitter into the fabric of things. Look, no offense, but what I thought was that with such a group of fine musicians, including horn players (rare around Madisonville in those days), the band could stretch its muscle by playing something a little more challenging than Hitchin a Ride. I still liked The Blues Blogs and never missed any chance to see a performance. I don’t know whatever happened to The Blues Blogs, but after the early spring of 1971 I never saw nor heard of the band again.

After the Meteor Shower

I never feel cleaner than after a meteor shower.

            No band came out of those jams, but I did get an offer to play a gig with Tig. Two members of his group had departed, so he and the drummer, Ears, replaced them with vocalist OJB, me on organ, and The Third on bass. The band rehearsed in a spare room at The Third’s house. Tig, The Third, and I were members of the high school football team. The Third was the starting tight end and defensive end, and he and I had always been friendly. Along with CEP, Lawman, the head coach, and several others, I had played football in his backyard many Sunday afternoons during my freshman year. The House of Representatives had borrowed The Third’s amplifier for vocals and guitar when we’d played the Farm Bureau a couple of years earlier.

            I don’t remember the name of that band, but we played a Thursday night gig in the gym of Hiwassee College in Madisonville after that single practice. Ears had this enormous Whitehall drum kit with double bass drums, and his Wipe Out-ish drum playing on our rather lame version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida seemed to excite the crowd, especially when OJB put his head into a hollowed bass drum front as Ears stomped the shit out of them. A small number of patrons formed a semi-circle around the band to groove with OJB’s Jim Morrison-like behavior. When the song was over, rather than allow the crowd to cool, we pulled the one ace from our deck by playing a not half bad cover version of Steppenwolf’s The Pusher. I had never heard another band play that song (except for Steppenwolf, I haven’t heard anybody do it), so I guess we were the first. The Pusher still had a lot of power then, and the college kids liked it, I think, because the Hippie ethos had finally penetrated the mainstream of a little place like Madisonville, Tennessee, even though it had been largely over for a couple of years in the major cities. Whatever the reason, the band was well received that evening, and I felt very good about the experience.

            Tig got us to practice at The Third’s twice for a scheduled dance at the Farm Bureau following a Friday night basketball game. I don’t know what happened, but OJB, The Third, and I were all sacked before the week was out, and the two former members rejoined for that engagement. I was a little ticked-off at Tig, but I was playing varsity basketball and didn’t really have time to devote too much effort to a band.

Frankensteiny Day

There's nothing I like better than a gloomy day.

Phase 11

            My second year of high school started much like the first in that I again played football. It was, as usual, a bad decision on my part, even though I got the chance to play quarterback (again on the B team). Most of the B team duty and direction was given over to two guys who had played on the team the previous year. It was a bad decision by the coach to allow those guys that power. Both guys had powerful dads, and that probably played into the coach’s decision, though neither guy was mature enough to handle the responsibility. I don’t know what eventually happened, but both guys lost interest or something and they were gone long before the season was over. So was I. No, I didn’t do the honorable thing and quit, I would occasionally attend a practice, but most of the time I just hid out in the restroom to make a break for the busses when the bell rang. Whatever love I’d had for football and the team spirit of things was gone, and it never came back. The idea that I was supposed to help and support guys who wouldn’t give me the time of day started to eat at my craw, so I took a fuck it all approach and that seemed to work best for me.

            Billy D was home from basic training (he’d spent six months on active duty to begin his guardom) and I believe attending barber school. His marriage had already broken up and he was looking for something to do. He still owned a Farfisa organ, and had collected a guitar, a fuzz tone, a small amp, a mic and stand, and a set of drums, and lived with his mom, step dad, and two younger brothers. We often jammed in Billy D’s bedroom. The Thumbers’ drummer had begun playing guitar, so Billy D and I would back his seemingly endless stream of improvised licks. “I don’t wanna play drums no more,” he said, sitting on the edge of Billy D’s bed while picking away on some guitar he’d borrowed. “Listen to this.” He played a lick. “That’s Stephen Stills,” he said. “I just love the way he does that.” He replayed the lick and added a variation. “Stephen Stills, man.”

            We got to jamming pretty regularly, and were mightily influenced by The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, especially the song, Dear Mr. Fantasy. The guitar guy had heard Stephen Stills jamming with Bloomfield and Kooper on the Super Session studio album. Several times when I’d ditched football practice I headed over to Billy D’s to get in a living room jam before his parents got home. We seemed to be moving toward a band, at one time even inviting two former Heroes to join us. I don’t know why, but I was surprised that the former Heroes were fairly terrible at the art of jamming. Those guys, the bass player and drummer, were really swell fellows, and we were lucky that they actually accepted our invitation, but they worked better within a tight framework where everyone knew what was coming at all times. Our approach was a bit looser than that, to the point where at times no one had any idea where the music was going, but maintained the faith that everything would eventually work itself out, and even if it didn’t, the jam would be a fun ride.

The End of Another Beginning

Hello.

            Since we’d been there that long, Tig and I decided to stay on. Vanilla Fudge finally took to the stage at 2:00 a.m. It was a strange Fudge, too. Instead of the four piece lineup (we knew that the drummer and bass player had already left to form Cactus), five guys, one a singer, made up the group. The band launched right into a long piece. I was tired but loving it, while at the same time worried about what would happen to our asses when we got home. We left while Vanilla Fudge played its third song, a cover of the Spencer Davis Group’s I’m a Man. The time was around 2:30 a.m.

            On the way back home Tig remarked that he had never been awake that late at night before. What was worse was that we got turned around and drove by several landmarks several times each before getting back on track. When we finally reached my parents’ house, everybody was, predictably, still awake. By then it was getting toward 6 a.m., and my mom said Tig’s parents were insanely worried. Mom called them and prepped them with the story that we told her, that Tig and I had become lost (we let on that we had been lost for nearly six hours instead of a shade over three. Everyone was so relieved to have us back that there was no talk about grounding or any punishment, and as far as they were concerned we were still trustworthy and in good standing.

The Talk Is On

Since I write about music, I also think about music. If any reader wants to engage me about specific or general music topics, then do so on Face Book. I'll respond to almost anything.

            The opening act was a local band that mostly did covers from Grand Funk Railroad’s first album, On Time. The singer had long hair and a headband, but the get-up was a wig and he removed it after the first song. Despite the phoniness of the beginning of that presentation, I thought the band played well and sounded good. Tig and I heard a great commotion at the entrance, almost directly under our seats. The disturbance turned out to be a small gang of young men who had stormed an unguarded gate and climbed over the locked door. One of the voices sounded familiar and turned out to be Billy D’s younger brother. After getting lost in the crowd, he spotted us and came over and talked for a little bit (offering us some “grass”) before disappearing again into the crowd.

            The first big league band on the bill was Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, who had recently made the charts with a song called Good Old Rock ’N’ Roll. I don’t know what the deal was, and I really didn’t care, but the band never played its hit that night. Instead, the crowd was treated to a little over an hour’s worth of heady, progressive music. I was very impressed with the flute playing that figured into several songs. Cat Mother’s persona for the show was laid back, but the music was intense. I really liked what the band did.

            Before the second act could take the stage, a conflict began to emerge. A big part of Tig’s and my getting permission to go to the concert in the first place was our promise to be home near midnight. Well, Cat Mother hadn’t left the stage until nearly 9:30, and it was around 10 p.m. when Blue Cheer came on. I wanted to see the entire set and so did Tig, so we dug in. I had always liked Blue Cheer since their 1968 cover hit of Summertime Blues. The band played more covers than I had expected, including the Cream songs, Politician and Sitting On Top of the World. Blue Cheer played some hard-assed music and Tig and I decided to stay in hopes of hearing the Fudge after them.

            That was not to be because the next band to play was Big Brother and the Holding Company. Don’t get too excited. Janis was already long gone and had been replaced by a harmonica player. Neither Tig nor I expected too much from the band, and we really didn’t get that much, but the front man was unlike anything I’d ever seen in that he was great at talking to the audience and adding an additional angle to the show. That night was the first time I had ever heard anybody say “fuck” on stage (quite often, as I recall). The set lasted for nearly two hours.

Howdy

It's good to feel ok.

            Tig had turned 16 and had been regularly driving for a few months when, in early summer, we discovered that Vanilla Fudge would be playing at a racetrack east of  Knoxville. Of course both of us were excited nearly beyond our capacities to contain ourselves. We plotted carefully how we would raise ticket money and how we’d get to the place. A big sale would be our parents. I was only 15 and had rarely been allowed outside the county, and Tig was little older and had no practical experience driving in the big city. But it was the Fudge coming, so we would pull out all necessary stops to make the trip happen.

            Things really went better than we had hoped. We were quickly granted parental consent, and the concert cost, I believe, was around four dollars each. Great. My dad worked in Knoxville and gave us directions, which he assured us were easy to follow, and that the location was easy to find. Tig’s folks allowed him to use the main family vehicle, equipped with an eight track tape player. Everything came together.

            We got rolling a little early on the night of the concert in case we took a wrong turn or in some other way got lost. New Interstate 75 had not yet been completed, so everyone from Madisonville took Highway 411 to get to K-town, which meant also that going through town during rush hour was a necessity to get to the concert. My dad had stressed that all we had to do was stay on the road to Virginia and we couldn’t miss the place. As coincidence would have it, we stopped at a convenience store to make sure we were on the correct road, and ran into my dad who just happened to be there. He confirmed our location, and not long afterword we parked in the racetrack lot.

            I was expecting a scene like Woodstock, but except for the occasional long haired boy, the crowd looked about the same as one at a high school football game. Tig and I bought tickets and were allowed through a narrow, gated passageway. We found an isolated spot on the bleachers and prepared for the crowd to come that never came. Not only were the seats largely unfilled, but no one even sat near us. The majority of concert goers had settled on spread blankets arrayed near the stage.

The Weakend

It's a sweet morning.

            After basketball season, a very successful campaign which included the school’s first win over McMinn Central, an 18 game winning streak, and the first trip by Madisonville to the regions of state tournament (The Heroes’ guitarist was the big man on team), The Heroes regrouped for its last gigs. I believe The Heroes played a time of two in the high school cafeteria, and I recall, though I might be a tad mixed-up, that the last two gigs were played in the newly rebuilt gym in the late spring.  As I remember them, the band’s performances were laid back and effective. Some songs from the past like Lonely Too Long and You Keep Me Hanging On came out of mothballs, and sounded sweet to boot, and the note for note version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida proved what the band members were made of. The Heroes did not survive the graduation of the drummer and guitarist (the bass player had graduated the year before but played with The Heroes while attending a local college).

            Around that same time Tig and I had become closer friends and spent a goodly amount of time talking about and listening to music. Three bands we always agreed on were Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, and Vanilla Fudge, especially the Fudge. To us the Fudge seemed the perfect band due to the members’ abilities to play airy, atmospheric passages and still deliver a blow to the head whenever one was called for. Both Tig and I liked Oh, Well, by Fleetwood Mac, a shortened version of which had charted on Top 40 radio.

            I wanted to play in a band with Tig, but he was already in a band. Two of the band’s members, the drummer and bassist/keyboardist, came from the high school marching band. The lead vocalist and co-lead guitarist used a strange, rag-tag assemblage of equipment. He used a Hagstrum guitar (a brand I had only seen in advertisements a few years earlier featuring The Mothers of Invention), a decent Fender amp, and some kind of bullhorn PA system which delivered a harsh, metallic vocal tone. I’d once jammed with the guitar player, but nothing came of it.

Bloggo

Have mercy!

            If playing gigs was the standard, then my freshman year in high school was a total bust. Football and basketball took their tolls on my time, as did the never ending quest to keep my head bobbing above water in the classroom, and I could never garner enough interest from anyone to get a group together. I felt sad about it all, and walked around in a mostly depressed state. The only thing to be happy about was my growing record collection. I put every nickel into bringing home new music. Mom’s job at The Big K figured mightily into the equation when she’d had first crack at a stack of albums and bundled packs of singles a night before they officially went on sale.

            As might have been predicted, some of the selections were busts, though I don’t fault my mom because she was running blind. That she scored as well as she did was a miracle, all things considered. An album that stuck to the present was After Bathing at Baxter’s, by Jefferson Airplane. I’d read a lot about the album when it had been current (a few years before), but had never heard it. I also got a couple of singles by The Doors, and one of the greatest singles ever released, The Memphis Train, backed with I Think I Made a Boo Boo, by the incredible Rufus Thomas. He soon had the nation prancing with his hit, The Funky Chicken.

            I’d dodged the coach and pretty much stayed out of the way rather than playing football in the spring. I never liked playing in the cold, and I figured a musical opportunity might come my way and I didn’t want to miss that, so football was a memory. I had no intension of playing the next year or any other time.

            Billy D came around to invite me into a new group he was about to join. He had left The Thumbers, who were themselves going through some sort of change, and was thinking of singing with a new group. To my surprise, The Truck drove us over to the first practice. In fact, The Truck was a little surprised to see me because his plan was for Billy D to play the organ, since he already had enlisted another guy to sing. We drove around for a couple of hours waiting on the bass player to get home so we could set up and practice. I think we ran through a single song when the guy arrived.

            No one contacted me for two or three weeks after that, but one night The Truck dropped by to haul me to practice. When I asked about Billy D, everyone in the car laughed. “He’s gone,” The Truck said. “Whatta ya mean, gone?” I asked. “He’s in the National Guard. He got married and joined to stay out of the draft.” This was news. I wasn’t ready for it. I’d always had Billy D to fall back on, to direct me when I was in a fix. I didn’t know what to do. The band rehearsed a few times, then fell apart. I liked all the members, and the rhythm guitarist seemed to want to mentor me, but there really wasn’t enough of anything to hold the group together.

            The local music scene played possum for a while. I saw The Thumbers playing at the Gudger Community Center as the house band for The Gudger Jubilee, a local radio show. The band’s former guitarist, on leave from the army and still in uniform, played on the night I attended. When he was discharged, The Thumbers bought some large, padded Kustom amps and a PA system and morphed into a Creedence Clearwater Revival-type cover band.

What Doesn't Kill Us, Kills Us

I love the music of early morning birds.

            To the people who know me this may come as a shock, but in truth, I’m quite shy, at least when I first meet people. I also am not a big fan of mass events or crowds of any kind. I have a friend who likes to go out with a crowd of people to dinner. He’s not happy unless several couples and whatever singles want to join in. And though I’ve gone to many such occasions with him and his posse, I feel mostly like retreating like a turtle into my shell because I never feel as though I hear or say anything that isn’t on a totally superficial level. No, I much prefer one on ones or just another couple to a crowd, especially since I’ve gotten old and find it difficult to decipher dialog over the din of loud music and hubbub in some restaurants. The same is true of parties, where I will often latch onto some poor soul and stick with that person for the entire event, or even of family (and I love my family and friends), or church dinners, or nearly anything along that line. Perhaps this marks me as selfish, but I don’t mind spending time alone. Since I’m such a loudmouth around people I know, it may be difficult to see me as I see me, which is as a pensive, introverted personality. In that light, much of my time at public events is spent as an observer, so the idea that there would be a lotta women at the square dance was more about experiencing the event through my eyes and ears than in a more interactive manner.

            When the music and dancing began, I just roamed around for a long time. Every so often I’d sit with CEP in the bleachers, then I’d roam about a bit more without asking anyone to dance, and without any appreciation for the music. I fancied myself suffering, feeling sorry for myself and the pitiful conditions I imagined myself subject to, and wondered why I’d let Lawman and CEP talk me into a second foray to Squaresville.

            About two hours in, I tired and went back to the bleachers for a sit behind where Lawman and his girlfriend and her friend sat. Lawman’s girlfriend turned and asked me if I had met her friend. Of course I hadn’t, so she made the introduction. I don’t remember the girl’s name (nor Lawman’s girl’s name, either), but I can remember how she looked, and I thought her quite attractive. I sat next to her and talked for awhile before asking her to dance. I’m incredibly white when it comes to rhythmic movement and there’s no way in hell I could ever impress anybody with that, but I wasn’t so removed from the rest of the pack, at least that night.

            The dancing went on for a few songs before we retreated to the bleachers as another call dance started up (some of those songs had lasted 15 to 20 minutes in a sort of unconscious and boringly repetitious homage to lengthy rock songs). Lawman’s girlfriend’s friend and I talked together for the rest of the evening. I found her interesting to talk to, and again thought her to be good looking (her hair was frosted a little). She revealed that she was a sophomore at Greenback High School (I guess Lawman’s girlfriend was as well), and before we left the two girls had invited us to play basketball with them early the next morning (Sunday).

            I felt a somewhat conflicted about the proposed basketball trip. First, I’d have to get up early and venture into the cold to play on someone else’s home court. That was a lot to ask. Then again, I knew that the girl I’d met and I had gotten along better than I would ordinarily have expected. Usually the girls seemed to leave me behind for CEP, so I was in unfamiliar territory. Lawman and CEP had definitely noticed the good vibes and had teased me (ridden me like a horse, in fact) all the way home, and I figured that they’d use any additional ammo generated by such a trip to ride me further (my skin was so thin in those days) because they knew the teasing really got to me (I’m no better in that I have picked on others in the same way). But I still hadn’t decided until the next morning when the fellows came by to pick me up. I begged off and they split. I figured that would be the end of it, but CEP came back by after the game. “She asked where you were. She’s got the sweet ass on you, man,” he said. That was kind of what I’d figured, but wondered if I’d made a mistake in not going. We’ll never know.

Fall Back

The history rolls on.

            I got a pretty good haul for Christmas. Apart from the essentials like clothing, of which I remember little, my parents bought me Are You Experienced, by Hendrix, and Goodbye, by Cream, and Near the Beginning, by Vanilla Fudge. I wore them out. My grandmother commented that she “couldn’t stand” the Cream song I’m So Glad, because I played the album a couple of times per day, and often listened to one side while dozing off to sleep for the night.

            The New Year began a little rocky due to the uncertainty at school concerning the demolished gym, a separate building connected by a covered walkway between it and the main educational side. The area looked like a mini war zone, as though a bomb or missile or huge meteor had landed on the building.

            The Pug-a-Nut had also crashed, at least as a business. There was some inner controversy, but I don’t remember anything about that. I’d also heard that Billy D had gotten married. Wow. I didn’t see that coming. With those developments I figured for a return to the earlier status quo, but The Heroes were still kind of on ice, partly because of the guitarist’s basketball commitment, but there may have been other reasons as well. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who missed the dance scene.

            One Friday night, CEP, Lawman, and another guy, TP, who had just gotten out of the army, showed up at my grandmother’s house. “Comon, we’re going to a square dance.” A square dance? Were they kidding? The optimal word is “square” and all the negative implications the word implies. Why go to a square dance? I wondered. “Be a lotta women there,” Lawman said. Really? I was having trouble grasping that concept. I was a youth music guy moving increasingly toward the more progressive side of that genre, so I just couldn’t see how this would be any fun. “I want you to meet my girlfriend,” Lawman said. I grudgingly consented to go.

            The particular square dance was held, I believe, in Athens, Tennessee. There was a band that played sort of down home country type songs, and every few numbers a guy would jump up behind the mic and start the calling. I’d seen similar things on television, but didn’t understand them any more than I understood an auctioneer babbling away. One problem that evening was that just a few people showed up, and so the squares were constantly lobbying CEP and me to join in. It seemed pointless to me since I had no idea what the calls meant, nor how to execute any of the moves. Still, the pressure finally got to us and we tried a couple of the call events, to a mostly mixed success rate, though the results were more inept than disastrous.

            When the next week rolled around, same thing. Lawman and CEP, minus TP, wanted to go to a like event in Lenoir City, Tennessee. “They’ll be a lotta women there,” Lawman said. “Yeah? That’s what you said last week,” I answered. “I’ll bet your girlfriend will be there, though.” “She’ll be there. She said one of her friends would be there, too.” We went.

            The dance was held in a fairly huge hall, which appeared to have some gymnasium-like qualities, and I recall it being referred to as a community center. The crowd, unlike in Athens a week earlier, was overflowing, with both dance floor and bleachers packed to the gills. I couldn’t believe it. Even more unusual to me was the crowd mix of all ages of people dancing together. I also noticed that young people danced the square and everything else. In that respect the event was very interesting to me. Best of all was that Lawman didn’t lie: lotta women there.