Also during this period I discovered the music press. It was near the end of sixth grade, before my keyboard lessons, so though I still had pop music ambitions, all I had was a transistor radio and my imagination as instruments. Contact with CEP had diminished since his move across town and our schooling occurring in different buildings. On a drizzly day in early spring I called him to catch up. He said he had learned a few chords and had learned a version of the opening riff of The Stones’ Satisfaction. All I had to say was that I’d heard some groovy songs, and had watched some fine television. After that we talked mostly about girls until hang-up. I needed more information.
One day after school I was in the drug store looking through the magazine rack. It’s the same place where I used to buy comics, though by this time they had fallen out of favor with me, so I can’t remember what I wanted, but found Song Hits, a magazine that had stories about musicians and musical events, and contained lyrics to many of the hits of the day. I hadn’t realized that such a publication existed. What a wonderful thing! I could immediately see how song lyrics would be useful and time saving. I bought it (actually, I might have bought one just a bit later because I probably didn’t have any money on the day of discovery). I studied it carefully. My two favorite songs at the time were Tell It to My Face and Happy Together. The lyrics to both were inside. Pretty soon CEP and I were buying copies every month.
Being far more thorough than me, CEP found an advertisement for a cache of magazines that contained music and lyrics to recent popular songs as well as articles about music and musicians. He said we each needed $3.50 to make an order. That was a lot of dough for a kid in those days, so I mowed lawns and clipped hedges (I was paid a dollar for a lawn and the same for a hedge row) until I’d earned my share. We got the mags in about a month. They were back issues of a title that I cannot remember, and all the songs within were things that were formally popular on the charts, but for the most part were still popular with us. Many of the songs would later be considered standards. We’d struck big.
CEP and I split issues, and then traded so we had the full benefit of our purchase. One thing I noticed was that the articles tended to be harder edged and oriented more toward rock than pop. Sure, a few popish songs were included (folkish songs too), but most info was about bands rather than singers, which was perfect for us. I wish I still had those publications, not to sell on Ebay, but to occasionally reexamine and see what they would teach me now. Can’t keep everything, though. I doubt that many issues survived the summer.
A week or so after seventh grade began, CEP, Lawman, and I were going to a football game. We made a run through town (about a two minute from the football field) before the game, and I bought a special rock explosion issue of Hit Parader magazine, which touted the new British Invasion and the new direction in rock music. Now we’d been hearing this new direction all summer, but now I’d positioned myself for the inside dope (that word being more appropriate than I knew at the time) on the workings of it. So on the following Saturday morning I sat in granny’s living room floor and alternated between Space Ghost on television and articles about all manner of musicians and their groups. Some of the stuff I learned was shocking (Brian Jones quoted as saying he didn’t believe in God), but most was pure pleasure. The knowledge made me feel a part of the music world, and the habit of reading such publications (Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone a few years later) and related books has stayed with me to the present.
The world began to open to me via the music. I began to consider ideas that were very different than what I had been brought up on, and I began to act accordingly through my questioning of the status quo, even questioning the musical status quo. Something new was happening and I wanted to be a part of it without knowing what that entailed. From my standpoint, only one piece of the puzzle remained, but soon it would be in place as well.
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