This was the first article I ever sent to Rolling Stone, on spec. I had just returned to New York for Thanksgiving after a six week sojourn in the Bay Area, as part of a year out of school after being invited to leave Bard College at the end of the spring 1969 semester. During that time I stumbled into the Rolling Stones concert at Oakland Coliseum in Nov. 1969, which became my first paid and published article for the Berkeley Barb, a well-known alternative/underground weekly. I was crashing in my sleeping bag in an unlivable hovel in San Francisco’s Mission District. When I got home before Thanksgiving 1969, my girlfriend and I went to see a concert at promoter and oldies lover Richard Nader’s second Rock and Roll Revival at Madison Square Garden’s smaller theater, the Felt Forum. I wrote 2,500 words about that one, and Nader produced dozens more, including the one immortalized by Rick Nelson (formerly Ricky Nelson), in the 1972 hit “Garden Party,” for which he was booed off the stage for singing his new folk-rock material rather than “Hello Mary Lou” and “Travelin’ Man,” from his younger days.
Rolling Stone had just covered the first Nader show so they couldn’t use my article. But their response buoyed me. Reviews editor Greil Marcus sent me a note saying the article was “excellent,” asking if I had “copied Philip Roth” on my first page, and invited me to send in more concert reviews. A few days later, Jann Wenner sent me a note saying “we dig your piece, can’t use it, send more.” Of course, I didn’t. For years I thought this was self-sabotage, that I just wanted the affirmation rather than doing more work and risking rejection. Recently, I realized it wasn’t that at all.
On Dec. 1, 1969, the Selective Service’s draft lottery went into effect. The numbers 1 – 365 were drawn; those with low-number birthdays would be first to be drafted for the Vietnam War. I was unlucky: No. 26. I was called to appear a month or so later to Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn. First time I got a six-month deferment: allergy letter from doctor. I had lost my student deferment, so was fresh meat for the war machine. My writing career would have to wait as I spent the next six months developing a strategy to “beat the Army.” That story is to be continued…But here’s that oldies concert review. Some of the language is archaic, in terms of sexism, race, class. I left some of it in for the flavor of its time.
It was a tease-haired secretaries/machine shop operator’s midwinter dream. Put in some years, and maybe you’re moving up the corporate ladder, a desk job on the factory floor.
You haven’t changed much since high school, though everything else has. You’re first love was that ‘57 Super 88, or that ring you wore around your neck that belonged to the captain of the football team or the leader of a candy store street fighting gang and singing group. Yeah, down at the candy store. Hanging out with Butch McGinty, Anthony Viscucci, and Carlo Santamonica, wearing those skin-tight pants, duck tail hair tucked neatly inside the starched tab collar shirts. Smoking Luckys, getting blisters on your fingers from snapping them out in the cold; getting the harmony right on “Story Untold”, by your favorite group, the Nutmegs, was more important than staying warm anyway.
Now that chick, Mary-Anne Pistalowicz, not outasite but real sharp, who hung out with you guys, or cheered as you scored a touchdown, who you married when you got discharged from the service, needs a girdle to keep herself together after three kids. You’re getting quite a beer belly yourself, buddy, as you down a six pack or two as you watch The Jets and the Oilers, or the 49ers and the Rams on Sunday afternoon, your biggest thrill of the week.
Yeah, life’s gotten a little more challenging since high school. You agree pretty much with the way President Nixon handles everything; a few of your best friends are cops; you even thought about being one yourself, and you don’t care much at all for hippies or demonstrators. Where you stand on Vietnam: My country, right or wrong.
You don’t need any screwy cigarette to get high, even though you once smoked a reefer at a party 12 years ago. Didn’t do much for you then. Things are more confusing, more complicated then they were then, I mean, who knows where the time goes, and there’s a whole lot you just don’t know. But there is one thing you know for sure. Come Saturday night, November 29, you are going to be at Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden, New York, at which time you will enter a mystical time warp to transport you right back to those good old days. The guides on this magical mystery tour are none other than Bill Haley and the Comets, Jackie Wilson, Shep and the Limelights, The Five Satins, The Penguins, Johnnie and Joe, the Mello Kings, Gary U.S. Bonds, The Capris and, wow, even the Spaniels, who are gonna sing it like it was, like it is, and always will be.
The first thing the visitor noticed about the sell-out crowd at Richard Nader‘s Rock and Roll Revival, Volume 2, was the almost total absence of long haired people, which can be really eerie at a New York rock show here in the Aquarian age. It was a competitive weekend in New York musically, with the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Laura Nyro, and Ike and Tina Turner all in town, picking up most of the hip money. Nevertheless, it was surprising to find that the highly publicized surge of interest in 1950’s rock had so little grass roots support, as we filed into our seats to the sounds of the Del-Vikings “Whispering Bells” and the Crests “16 Candles” coming from the loudspeakers.
New York FM disc jockey Scott Muni, who used to play all the “oldies but goodies” on his old WABC radio show, emceed the show comfortably, keeping the pace quick and the patter relevant. Muni was now at the forefront of playing the hip new album bands on the radio, the Iron Butterflies or whatever, but he had credibility in this room.
The Capris opened the show with their version of the Temptations “Get Ready”, which was appropriate only in title, for the song belongs more to the era of modern soul, and their job was undistinguished. Dressed in double breasted, eight button suits, and sporting razor cut, styled hair, they launched into their only big hit, “There’s A Moon Out Tonight”, which was respectable, though the lead singer seemed to have a little trouble hitting some of those gorgeous falsetto notes that made the song a classic. They followed this with a medley of other people’s hits, radio show style, doing imitations of Murray the K and Cousin Brucie between tastes of “Little Girl of Mine”, “Little Darlin”, “Little Star” and “Cara Mia”, and closed their portion of the show with thirty seconds of “Shout,” which everyone seemed to dig.
The Spaniels were on next, one of the fine old rhythm and blues vocal groups, who hadn’t been in New York for ten years. They came out with two go-go dancers, dressed in green glitter bikini tops, dark slacks, with red glitter designs on the backs. Their harmony was impeccable on “Peace of Mind” and “Stormy Weather.” Sadly, they didn’t sing their only hit, the historic “Goodnight Sweetheart.” Scott Muni came out, the timing seemed off, and dedicated the show to the late great Alan Freed, whose name received a strong ovation for the second time that evening, and introduced the Bobby Comstock group, who did an excellent job of backing up most of the acts that night. Unfortunately, the Capris bombed with Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business,” and were booed because the frantic lead guitar was out of context for the events of the evening, and also because they had long hair, with the drummer making a huge V with his drumsticks as some lame screamed “go score a touchdown,” a baffling heckle.
The bleach blonde chicks in front of me oozed and ahhed in anticipation as the Mello Kings came on. Looking neat as ever, also in double breasted jackets with razor cut trims, they sang one of their lesser tunes, though a fine song, “Chip Chip,” (a Gene McDaniels hit from 1962) to four totally dead microphones. The Mello Kings didn’t realize until the song was over. Politely, they sang it again, and followed immediately with their biggest hit and one of the biggest and finest of the entire era, “Tonite Tonite”, which brought out the expected squirmy reaction from the typing pool in front.
Though most of the performers seemed to hold their own, Johnnie and Joe were simply sad, a caricature of their old selves, giving a performance that can be described only as “camp.” The male/female duo struggled through one of their minor hits, “I’ll Be Spinning” (I like the flip side, "Feel Alright," better anyway), and then got into some pseudo-vaudeville stage show that was both pitiable and a waste of time. Joe came down on the floor, unraveling his microphone wire, teasing the audience, being obnoxious. Johnnie, who looks like, I’m sorry, Beulah, kept telling Bobby Comstock to begin the next song, and so he hit the opening chord of “Over the Mountain,” their 1957 top ten hit, perhaps a dozen times, before Johnnie walked off stage, lamenting that her partner “refuses to perform right.” Of course, as soon as she is off stage, Comstock hits it one more time, as Joe, sounding like a wounded cow, sings “Over the mountain/across the sea/there’s a girl waiting for me.”.They sounded pretty bad, but somehow, that was excusable. After all, they were once number one.
So were the Penguins, who had twice as many big hits as many of the groups we remember today. “Hey Señorita,” which nobody probably remembers, and “Earth Angel,” which no one will ever forget. Three men from the original quintet are gone, leaving a trio of two guys and a woman, a recent addition. Their last New York appearance was also centuries ago, and on a long, dull “Good Lovin’,” they sounded it, coupled with an equally weird stage presentation, in which one of the guys and the chick chased each other across the stage, pretending to be hitting one another. Hitting, not “hitting on.” But “Earth Angel” was magnificent, and they came back for two encores, singing “Earth Angel” both times.
Probably the youngest and most recent performer on the show was Gary U.S. Bonds, and he was the most pleasant surprise of the evening too. One forgets that Gary was making the best rock and soul music around during that otherwise desolate era of 1960 to 1963. “A Quarter to Three,” “New Orleans,” “School is Out,” “Dear Lady Twist,” “Twist Twist Señora” – Bonds had a great voice and band, and Legrand Records did a really good job recording him. He and Bobby Comstock’s band got it on beautifully, his voice better than ever, strong, with as much soul as anyone around. He seemed to be saying, over and over again, a line from ‘A Quarter to Three” – “Don’t you know that I never had it so good, yeah, and I know you never could/Until you get hip down with that jive...” The message is groove, and as a performer Gary is relaxed and relaxing, yet excited and exciting. Somebody should get hip to this dude right away, cause he’s gonna be a star again.
Shep and the Limelights are mighty old, and Shep seems to resent it, because he thought it was important enough to bring everybody down. The Limelights in white tuxedos, the man Shep in blue, opened with a respectable version of Chuck Jackson’s “I Don’t Wanna Cry.” This was followed by a moving “A Thousand Miles Away,” which was a million seller for Shep about in 1957, when he was lead singer of the Heartbeats. “Daddy’s Home,” by Shep and the Limelights, is essentially the same song, an answer song in 1961, sung by the same singer. After “Daddy’s Home,” which drew warm and fond applause, Shep looks at the audience, like it’s all our fault, and says, “if you don’t think these songs are old, take a look in the mirror sometime.” The audience gasped, one of the bouffant secretaries in front of me fainted, others murmuring, panting, heaving – whew, that was heavy, a punch below the belt, the air needs clearing.
Scott Muni to the rescue, introducing the next group, everyone excited again, because they were the style that was 1950s vocal rock, hibernating somewhere for years. They came out, in dark suits, all looking different, some with hair natural, one modified process, and there were six of them, belying the name, which everyone knew to be the Five Satins.
The Five Satins had two of the greatest doo-wop songs. From the first notes of “Wonderful Girl,” it was immediately known that they were right on top. “To The Aisle,” their second biggest, got a great ovation, harmony perfect, lead singer Freddie Parris as mellow as ever. When they began the classic “In the Still of the Night,” the audience want wild with applause, and kept it up through two encores of the song, perfect understanding between performer and audience and audience and performer.
The Five Satins were suddenly more than a memory, a five-minute standing ovation in 1969 because they still the same magic they had all those years ago. Scott Muni came out and expressed the hope that the group should re-form and join the Revival’s upcoming 30-city tour, which will be a much expanded five-hour show which nobody in their right mind should miss.
Jackie Wilson, who got top billing, was disappointing, a letdown after the revitalized Five Satins. His voice seemed unsure, more quaking than usual, and not really strong. Bobby Comstock’s backing did not seem right for the only time that evening, even though, or maybe because, they were led by Jackie’s traveling companion, guitarist Johnny Starr. “Higher and Higher” seemed to be missing something, “To Be Loved” struggled to be interesting, and “Light My Fire” – yes, the Doors song, which could have been an interesting hybrid if executed right, was a waste of time. Wilson and Starr were outstanding on a straight blues “Stormy Monday,” and at this point the blues seems to be what Jackie Wilson knows and sings the best. In spite of some fancy, though cliched, dancing, and a very professional confidence, he was a long way from the “Mr. Excitement” – and believe me, he was – of a few years back, when he was really on fire and would pack the Brooklyn Fox for one of Murray the K’s holiday shows and damn near burn the place down.
The wrinkles on Bill Haley’s face read like a roadmap of the world he’s traveled, and I mean the whole world, since “Rock Around the Clock” became the first chapter of the book of rock in 1954, when I was busy entering kindergarten. Spit curl firmly planted on his forehead, huffing and puffing, Bill Haley is old enough to be my father. (I thought this an anomaly until I discovered that he was just a year younger than my dad, Haley born in 1925. It is freaky, in retrospect, to realize that both Haley and my dad, which I considered to be old men at the time, were at the most, 45 or 46.)The Comets may have looked like the band that played at Stewie Weissman’s bar mitzvah reception in 1962. Except for one thing. They play rock and roll like they invented it, which isn’t strange, because in some ways, they did. Like a one-eyed cat, peepin’ through a seafood store, Haley and His Comets exhort us to “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” and as with every great rock group, once the music starts you have no choice. The momentum kept the place cooking with “Razzle Dazzle” and an instrumental from “Rock Rock Rock” called “Rudy’s Rock, ” featuring tenor player Rudy Pompilli blowing everybody’s mind with what might be called a really bad sax, as in, “with your bad self.”
Everybody’s standing now, through a hillbilly thing, as Haley called it, called “Guitar Boogie,” with the cleanest freshest rock and roll guitar I’ve heard in years, with the bass player, who must be pushing 50, doing with his stand up bass what Jimi Hendrix does with his guitar: playing with his teeth, humping it, flinging it (and it’s a big mother) over his head, all the while keeping his run perfect. One of the groups biggest hits, “See You Later Alligator” followed.
You might not believe this, because it couldn’t have been staged better, but this really happened, at the climax of a Bill Haley and His Comets set in New York City, 1969, with couples lindying, jitterbugging in the aisles: F*ckin’ A, a real fist fight breaks out on the floor, real hitters swinging it out to that real live rock and roll beat, and the beat, of course, goes on, cops rush in where wise men never tread, and haul the pieces of living history out into the cold of Seventh Avenue. “Kansas City” was the next number, sung by the lead guitarist who looks more like a junior high school teacher than the man who started all this, and one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock rock, oh, man, are we gonna rock around the clock tonite, standing screaming ovation, and now it’s Scott Muni, who comes out and tells the only truth: “This music brought us together, let’s keep it together.”
This article originally appeared in Wayne Robins’ Substack and is used here by permission. Wayne’s Words columnist Wayne Robins writes the Critical Conditions Substack: https://waynerobins.substack.com/.
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