900 Pound Banana

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            I must backtrack a bit. I’d forgotten that I did have a couple of albums in 1966. My parents joined the Columbia Record Club. The club was a great idea for those who loved music but, like us, lived in a town where the pickings were slim when it came to buying records. The deal was that the club sent a number of records for a penny or a dollar as a teaser, after which the contract stated that 12 additional records, one per month, must be purchased at the regular price. My parents allowed me to choose some of the first batch and would allow me to choose a record every two months or so. I was happy with that. Of course I liked my selections, and my mom’s selections weren’t so bad either. She ordered The Dave Clark Five’s Greatest Hits, and a couple of Herb Alpert records. Dad got Johnny Cash and other country records, probably by Jim Reeves. Two of my selections, Paul Revere and the Raiders’ Greatest Hits and The Blues Magoos’ Psychedelic Lollypop (a favorite to this day) brought many hours of pleasure.

            The summer after sixth grade was little more than a long listening session. CEP had moved from next door to a place about a mile away. I was accustomed to walking everywhere I went so that was nothing. He and I and another guy, Lawman, who had not long lived in my neighborhood, were big basketball players and music lovers. Many Sundays were spent walking the three miles to and from Hiwassee College where we often had the gym to ourselves. A lot of the rest of the time was spent in my family’s living room listening to my small record collection. Lawman really loved a Blues Magoos’ cover of I’ll Go Crazy, a James Brown song. CEP and I used these sessions to pick through various songs we might want to do if and when we were able to put together a band.

            The local scene really exploded during the Summer of Love. Not so long after school let out, Madisonville’s local band played a gig in a laundry mat, and later performed a series of dances at the city swimming pool. I loved those engagements. What could be better than listening to a band and being in the pool with a bunch of high school girls? I don’t know how I stood it. Another band, from Sweetwater, Madisonville’s top rival in Monroe County, played the pool. CEP and I screwed up the courage to approach the lead guitarist/singer and the keyboard player and asked if they’d be interested in instructing us in those respective instruments. The two guys, brothers we discovered, said sure, and so a time, place, and fee were agreed to. We took a total of six lessons, enough to learn a few songs and acquire chord charts for our instruments.

            Along the way that summer CEP invited me to stay overnight at the home of his cousin in the Mount Vernon community. The cousin’s mother worked nights and we were left alone with just a very old grandmother in charge. She went to bed early and two of cuz’s friends came by to hang into the late night. We drove around a bit in the country before the other guys went home. They were both great fellows and it was fun to be with them. After goofing off in the yard until two or three a.m. we went back into the house where, using CEP’s guitar (unamplified), cuz’s drumsticks, and an ironing board as props, we mimed a few song playing from cuz’s singles collection. We felt stupid afterwards, but all agreed that it had been fun.

            As the night began to dwindle away and we became tired and sleepy but unwilling to give up, something totally unexpected happened. CEP was picking around on the guitar when he came up with a little, nice sounding sequence. Damn! That sounded like a song. I got very interested and moved close to the guitar. CEP standardized his creation until he had put together a couple of parts. One of us came up with a line and we began to build on it. In 40 or so minutes we had a fleshed out song. We were shocked, as much because of the division of the invention as anything else. We’d always planned to write songs as part of the big idea, but the plan had been that I would work on the music and CEP would cover the lyrics. What happened was the reverse in that it was me who supplied the lion’s share of the words. “You know, you’re pretty good at lyrics,” CEP told me. I was very proud. The song, as could be expected, was junior high in every aspect, but hell, we didn’t know anybody else around who wrote, so we felt really good about it. We’re on par with The Beatles now, we reasoned.

            Several other bands came to Madisonville during the summer and I saw and learned as much from all of them I could, though I still liked the town’s local group the best. They had a wide playlist of radio hit covers, and they had steps, lifted from Paul Revere and the Raiders I later discovered, along with their dazzling equipment. Some of the songs they played still impress me. They always opened with You Can’t Sit Down. It was perfect. And the bass intro to Night Train, which they played at breakneck speed, blew me away. They seemed very professional and I liked them very much.