Save The Last Dance For Me

(by Bill Glahn)

Capitalism has sure put a screwing to the word "save" during my lifetime. I mean - if you listen to the words of Poor Richard's Almanac, the mantra is "a penny saved is a penny earned." The notion was that if you put your money into a capitalist venture like a bank, real estate, or maybe a stock, you'd end up having more than what you started with. Of course, that almanac was written well before Black Tuesday in 1929. And if "ancient" history isn't convincing enough for some people, most anyone reading this certainly was alive during the housing meltdown of 2007 and the economic crash that followed. There is plenty of evidence that high risk is an inherent part of Capitalist theory. And little is left to the imagination as to why Mr. Richard was "poor." Remember this the next time someone tells you that Social Security (a Socialist concept and one of the greatest programs this country has ever developed) should be privatized for the benefit of our citizens.

If you play your cards close to the vest and invest prudently, you may well increase your monetary value. But for the average investor of the working class, this almost never means that you will increase your purchase power. These days, a dollar bill ain't worth one thin dime.

A Capitalist will leave you to die when things turn sour. That's my general beef. But that's not exactly the one I'm writing about today. It's the way the word "save" has been turned on it's ear by marketers to mean "spend."

I mean, shit. I get reminded maybe 50 times a day that I can "save" $5 by buying some thingamabob that normally costs $50 for a mere $45. Do I still have $45 for a rainy day? No. I have some piece of shit that is worth less the minute I walk out of the store (it ain't just cars) than it was before I walked in and my pocket is $45 lighter for the privilege. I will eventually pay even more money to have whatever crappy toy or appliance removed from the clutter of my home to a landfill. Whereupon I will spend even MORE money for a water purifier when the landfill springs a leak and contaminates the water supply. Gee, I wish I still had that $45.

Still, I live in this Capitalist society and try to do the best available things to just keep my head above water. That always means thinking twice when I am approached about "saving" this amount or that amount. Big screen TVs? My eyes aren't that bad yet. Smart phones will be joining all those flipper cell phones, which joined all those message beepers, which joined all those wall-mounted home phones and message recorders, which joined all those standard black Bell Telephone home units in the next available landfill. Wanna save something? How about the earth? You can still call me, if you wish, on my $5 home unit.

A message to retailers: No, I don't want your $1,000-a-piece triple chrome plated 18-inch wheels to put on my $2,000 clunkermobile. Even if I can "save" $250 each when they're on sale for $750 if I buy 4. No, I don't want to spend $2.00 for your can of beans with the fancy label and the branding licence from the "Smokey Joe's BBQ" chain of "upscale" dime-a-dozen restaurants. The farts they create don't smell any better than the ones with the generic no-frills label. I have a small tattoo. No, I don't need two full sleeves and a figure from this week's favorite gaming character plastered all over my back. And most certainly, not a snake tattoo creeping out of my pants onto my abdomen. I'd rather buy a lifetime supply of salts for that water purifier. And that includes if you are offering a "savings" of 25% off of your competitors price. Insurance companies? Save a forest and stop sending me those mailers for "cheap" funeral expense policies. Even if you offered that crap for free, I'd be the loser in the end. And for god's sake, will you communications companies STOP telling me I can "save" on my Internet service by upgrading to the next super duper service that you come up with. Mine works well enough to do a few blogs every year.

In fact, there may only be one place in American society where saving can still reap truly substantial rewards.

Bonus link. (Thanks John Floyd!)

Apparently, the copyright maximalists at Warner-Chappel have some objection to the original Platters link without first getting their pound of flesh. Here's an "official" link to The Drifter's version.

What God Sounds Like (a remembrance of Chuck Berry)

(by Bill Glahn)

Ours wasn’t really a rock ‘n’ roll household when I was a toddler. The earliest songs familiar to my ears are the soft orchestrated tunes that my Mom favored – things like Pat Boone’s “Love letters In The Sand,” Johnny Mathis’ “It’s Not For Me To Say,” and The Platters’ “Twilight Time.” My Dad leaned towards the country side of things – usually with a doleful outlook on things – Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me,” Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons,” Guy Mitchell’s version of “Singing The Blues.” I suppose my Dad, who spent his youth in Catholic Schools, connected with the idea that this world wasn’t supposed to be a kind one. My Mom? A converted Catholic who HAD to believe in whatever fantasy world the Church was offering up – no matter how unfounded - and with all the fervor of a Donald Trump supporter.

But those aren’t the songs that connected with me at the time. I liked things like Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat Song,” Frank Sinatra’s “High Hopes”  and Patti Page’s “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window.” “See You Later Alligator.” “The Purple People Eater.” The Chipmunks’ “Witch Doctor.” Fun songs that were fun to sing along with.

My Dad was in the military and in 1959 we moved to England for 3 years. I don’t remember a radio in the household and those were pretty barren years for my personal music consumption. Towards the end of our stay, my folks won a stereo console at Bingo and soon brought a batch of new records into the home. Mom catered to fluff like The Jackie Gleason Orchestra (white bread soft classical for the new sophisticated working class) while my Dad started branching out. British Elvis Presley Eps. A Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen album (a side of each – I liked the Buddy Knox side). But most of the music I remember from England came from my Dad. Dad could always sing a talking blues called “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette” – do it word for word start to finish. It had been a hit in 1947 for Tex Williams and I'm sure that's where my Dad first heard it.

It probably meant something to him, coming out the same year he left home and probably the same year he started smoking. And one thing Dad always retained was a sense of humor. But when he returned home from a temporary duty assignment in Germany, Hohner Chromatic in hand, it was an Elvis Presley tune he loved to play the best. Sticking true to his already doleful mindset, it was “Wooden Heart.” But still. It was Elvis! Dad’s worldview would expand dramatically over the years, as would his musical tastes. Mom’s, not so much (Percy Faith Orchestra – yech!). But even Mom would expand a little, latching eventually onto Willie Nelson – so much so that she can now even overlook his pot smoking.

The first song for me that would extend beyond entertainment into one that “spoke to me” was Johnny Rivers version of “Memphis.”  

When that song came out we were living in Florence, SC. There were two local radio stations – one country and one Top 40. There was one TV station (CBS affiliate) Being Florence, a hotbed of anti-integration sentiment, Chuck Berry was NOT going to make it onto either radio station’s playlist. With no “race music” station within earshot (no WDIA for example), the only place you might hear black artists was on the Ed Sullivan Show. There was no national Top 40 on the “Top 40” radio station. The weekly countdown was decided by local listener requests and local DJs. And maybe a little Payola in there somewhere.

But if you have to hear Chuck Berry through the voice of a white man, Johnny Rivers is the one - a genuinely effective voice who introduced the (white) world to a much looser approach to recorded music. Probably the fact that it was recorded live, as were 3 out of the first 4 Rivers albums, had a lot to do with my appreciation of live music – something that would eventually lead to my publishing and editing a magazine called Live! Music Review. But it was the words to the song that made the biggest connect. After 3 years of rare once-a-year trans-Atlantic phone calls from my grandparents, a costly and difficult connection at the time (you had to go to the military base NCO Club to receive the call), the emphatic importance Berry placed on a long-distance call meant something. Kids mattered. Add the hand claps and audience response, clearly visible on the Rivers recording, and it was an epiphany – Pentecostal in nature. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones may have been active in the revival of Chuck Berry tunes, but it was Johnny Rivers that made the introduction for me. So I continued to follow Rivers just as closely - through the hits “Mountain of Love” and “Secret Agent Man” - and when I was old enough to get a paper route, I joined a record club and bought all those Whiskey A Go-Go albums. And the feast of Chuck Berry tunes they contained.

Fast forward to 1969. Chuck Berry isn’t in the charts anymore but The Stones are on tour. I’d had my fill of Catholic indoctrination and Catholic school. Especially the year previous, where the nuns - certainly aware that most of the students in 8th grade were experiencing or soon-to-be experiencing puberty - took it as their mission in life to beat the hell out of their students. Both psychologically and physically, to rid them of the concept that any human being deserved a pleasurable or sexual life here on earth. And with no chance of the latter in the aftermath either. That didn’t sound like heaven to me. It sounded like hell.

Now located in Trenton, NJ and back in public school, my Father having left the military in late 1967, I had a new friend named Ray Smith, who’s grandparents lived across the street from us. So he was a frequent visitor to our neighborhood and lived up the road closer to the Trenton Reservoir. He had been a fan of Ten Years After for several years, and that band had recently made an impact on FM radio programmers after Woodstock (and would make an even bigger one once the film came out). One day we decided to walk to his parents house to check out his albums. I saw Ray for the first time in decades last April and we both clearly remembered that day. Besides the Tens Years After records, Ray introduced me to his parents’ Chuck Berry records. And they spoke! The sexual anguish resulting from an seat-belt that just wouldn’t cooperate in “No Particular Place To Go.” “You Can’t Catch Me.” (Bye-bye New Jersey, I’ve become airborne) The girl songs – “Little Queenie,” Carol.” And a jet to the Promised Land. Which just happened to be here on earth. Screw Catholicism.

Late in 1969, the first live bootleg was released – a set by the Rolling Stones recorded a month earlier called Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be. Harkening back to those Johnny Rivers records, the audience participation nature of the recording had a special attraction to me. And the Chuck Berry tunes, “Carol,” and “Little Queenie,” were the highlights of the album.

I had a lot of backtracking to do - a lot of new additions to the record collection. Lots of Chuck Berry.

Equal amounts of Bo Diddley. (introduced to me through the music of Quicksilver Messenger Service)  

A new interest in Mississippi John Hurt and early acoustic Blues. By 1971-72 when I first started singing in bands, Chuck Berry tunes always seemed to make up half the setlist.

And if John Hurt’s soothing voice and guitar picking, whether playing “Nearer My God To Thee,”
 or “Candy Man,” can make me feel all the comforts of what heaven’s supposed to be, it’s Chuck Berry who comes to me as the very voice of God.