DO YOU REMEMBER THESE
By The Music Man
This is a story about the two things a truck guy wants to hear when he's behind the wheel of his ride. The first is always the sweet sound of the cylinders coming to life through those open chamber mufflers. The second is the cruising tunes, the music, and sounds of yesteryear. You know the tunes, the special ones that send you back in time to that particular moment when life was easier. A time when your friends encouraged you to try and score with the girls at the Saturday dance and/or back to the weekend drive-in theater adventures when the last thing on your mind was watching the movie. Can you remember what song was playing on the radio for that first kiss with your best gal? These are the songs that instantly transport us back to the best of times. These are the songs that mark time for all of us, and we naturally want to relive them through music.
Think back to the cars and trucks you have owned or the ones that got away and the songs that were on the radio back then. Can you put a list together of the songs that take you back to the good old days? Remember when you woke up to Saturday morning serials on TV, remember penny loafers, cigarettes rolled up in your t-shirt sleeve, flat top hair cuts, sock hops, Studebaker, Hudson, Kaiser, and Henry J. If you can remember them, then think back to what was playing on the radio as you and your buddies finished working on your new mill and got ready to fire it up for the first time.
My first car was a 1955 Ford two door coupe. She was oxidized blue with Tijuana tuck and roll. It didn't run but what was on the radio in 55 was Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets. 1955 was a transition year for music, songs like Sincerely, by the McGuire Sisters were being replaced by the upstart rock and rollers like Elvis and DJ's like Allan Freed who broke the color barrier with songs like Speedo by the Cadillacs or Maybellene by Chuck Berry. Good music, Peddle pushers, Buffalo Bob, and Cracker Jack prizes were all part of the good times.
Stars and Stripes, my 55 panel truck would come much later and by then I was listening too, you guessed it, oldies but goodies. Earth Angel by the Penguins helped make Doo-Wop king of the radio. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers with Why Do Fools Fall in Love and the Rays, Silhouettes had all the guys checking addresses. The Crests had 16 Candles and Dion and the Belmonts hit big with the Wanderer. There was Little Richard pioneering pop crossover R&B with Lucille and Good Golly Miss Molly. The king busted on the scene in 54 with That's Alright (Mama) hit again in 55 with Mystery Train and followed in 56 with Heartbreak Hotel and the rest is history.
I had purchased a 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, just about the time my Uncle Sam came knocking, which caused me to cut short my love affair with the 390 backed by a B&M hydro in what had become a real sleeper on the street. What better song to remember than Jackie Brenston's, Rocket 88. It's a Grammy winning hall of fame song that went something like this, 'You women have heard of jalopies, you've heard the noise they make, well let me introduce my new rocket 88, yes its great, just won't wait, everybody likes my Rocket 88'. Do you remember The Tennessee Waltz by Patti Page, Goodnight Irene by The Weavers and Mona Lisa by Nat 'King' Cole? If you can remember the Hit Parade, the Sadie Hawkins dance, duck tail hair and the seam on the back of nylon hosiery then you are on the right 50's track.
I built a 1955 Chevy 210 post solely for the drag strip. It had a fiberglass tilt front end, trunk lid, and bumpers. The rear wheel wells were radiused to make room for the slicks and the frame had been cut and boxed. It had a straight axle up front with Pontiac 31 spline axles. The power plant was a 396 big block, bored 30 over and balanced and blue printed. The mill wore air research heads and was topped off with a Wieand tunnel ram with dual 750 CFM Holly carbs. A Muncie rock crusher made everything go. What better to listen to than Jan & Dean's with Drag City or the Beach Boys, Shut Down, 409 and Little Duce Coupe.
About midway through the sixties two Volkswagens infected my life. This was as close as I got to the hippy, God help me what am I doing phase. I tried to make up for it by installing an under dash 45 RPM record player in the 65. Space was a problem in those bugs and so the record box went behind the rear seat when old' Sol smiled on them and you guessed it, the records melted. So what records were I spinning as I putt, putt, putted down the highway? I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher, You've Lost That Loving' Feeling by he Righteous Brothers, My Girl by the Temptations, Eight Day's a Week by the Beatles, I can't Help Myself by the Four Tops. The British invasion was in full swing so groups like Herman's Hermits, Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Rolling Stones, Yardbyrds, and the Animals filled our ears with the Mersey Beat.
There was a 1960 Chevrolet truck that I called Suzy. A 1968 Mustang fast back and a 1969 Road Runner 383 (wish it was the Hemi). A 1970 Chevelle, a Dodge custom van, a Corvair that Ralph Nadar failed to confiscate as well as a 1956 F100 and later a 1971 F100 and many others that don't bear mentioning. I had other toys like a chopped 750 Norton Commando, a jet ski boat and just for fun a lawn mower powered scooter. My tunes played on everything from the AM radio's KHJ and KRLA to the onboard record players and first four track and then eight track tape players that blasted out our favorite tunes. We have gone from the youthful exuberance of blasting out tunes that we knew everyone around us wanted to hear, like The Duke of Earl, The Loco Motion, Big Girls Don't Cry and Pretty Woman, too hey, keep that boom box quiet.
We have gone from simple storied lyric's sung by legends and backed by real musicians playing real instruments, to synthesized music filled with lyric's that defy explanation. This is nothing new; in 1934 Cole Porter wrote a song called 'Anything Goes'. The lyrics go something like this, 'Times have changed and we've often rewound the clock….In olden days a glimpse of something was looked down on as something shocking, now heaven known anything goes. Good authors too, who once knew better words now only use four letter words when writing pros, anything goes'. I've lived in an age when dress length and morals were lifted but still had a limit. When music went from suggestive to grinding it on the dance floor, and I still prefer to remember; Rock and roll sock hops, lemonade stands, coonskin caps, howdy doody, root beer floats, secrete codes, turtle neck shirts and white buck shoes.
You'll know it when you hear it, the song that puts a smile on your face and instantly takes you to that happy place. I'll end this with the immortal words of the great singer, song writer Barry Mann; 'I'd like to thank the guy who wrote the song, that made my baby fall in love with me. Who put the bomp in the bom-ba-bomp ba-bomp, who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong....and my baby every time we dance too dip, de-dip, de-dip dip de-dip she always says she love me so…. My honey, rama lama ding dong and when I say dip-de-dip-de dip I mean it from the bottom of my boogty, boogty shoo.
Until that time…Dan
The Music Man
By The Music Man
This is a story about the two things a truck guy wants to hear when he's behind the wheel of his ride. The first is always the sweet sound of the cylinders coming to life through those open chamber mufflers. The second is the cruising tunes, the music, and sounds of yesteryear. You know the tunes, the special ones that send you back in time to that particular moment when life was easier. A time when your friends encouraged you to try and score with the girls at the Saturday dance and/or back to the weekend drive-in theater adventures when the last thing on your mind was watching the movie. Can you remember what song was playing on the radio for that first kiss with your best gal? These are the songs that instantly transport us back to the best of times. These are the songs that mark time for all of us, and we naturally want to relive them through music.
Think back to the cars and trucks you have owned or the ones that got away and the songs that were on the radio back then. Can you put a list together of the songs that take you back to the good old days? Remember when you woke up to Saturday morning serials on TV, remember penny loafers, cigarettes rolled up in your t-shirt sleeve, flat top hair cuts, sock hops, Studebaker, Hudson, Kaiser, and Henry J. If you can remember them, then think back to what was playing on the radio as you and your buddies finished working on your new mill and got ready to fire it up for the first time.
My first car was a 1955 Ford two door coupe. She was oxidized blue with Tijuana tuck and roll. It didn't run but what was on the radio in 55 was Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets. 1955 was a transition year for music, songs like Sincerely, by the McGuire Sisters were being replaced by the upstart rock and rollers like Elvis and DJ's like Allan Freed who broke the color barrier with songs like Speedo by the Cadillacs or Maybellene by Chuck Berry. Good music, Peddle pushers, Buffalo Bob, and Cracker Jack prizes were all part of the good times.
Stars and Stripes, my 55 panel truck would come much later and by then I was listening too, you guessed it, oldies but goodies. Earth Angel by the Penguins helped make Doo-Wop king of the radio. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers with Why Do Fools Fall in Love and the Rays, Silhouettes had all the guys checking addresses. The Crests had 16 Candles and Dion and the Belmonts hit big with the Wanderer. There was Little Richard pioneering pop crossover R&B with Lucille and Good Golly Miss Molly. The king busted on the scene in 54 with That's Alright (Mama) hit again in 55 with Mystery Train and followed in 56 with Heartbreak Hotel and the rest is history.
I had purchased a 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, just about the time my Uncle Sam came knocking, which caused me to cut short my love affair with the 390 backed by a B&M hydro in what had become a real sleeper on the street. What better song to remember than Jackie Brenston's, Rocket 88. It's a Grammy winning hall of fame song that went something like this, 'You women have heard of jalopies, you've heard the noise they make, well let me introduce my new rocket 88, yes its great, just won't wait, everybody likes my Rocket 88'. Do you remember The Tennessee Waltz by Patti Page, Goodnight Irene by The Weavers and Mona Lisa by Nat 'King' Cole? If you can remember the Hit Parade, the Sadie Hawkins dance, duck tail hair and the seam on the back of nylon hosiery then you are on the right 50's track.
I built a 1955 Chevy 210 post solely for the drag strip. It had a fiberglass tilt front end, trunk lid, and bumpers. The rear wheel wells were radiused to make room for the slicks and the frame had been cut and boxed. It had a straight axle up front with Pontiac 31 spline axles. The power plant was a 396 big block, bored 30 over and balanced and blue printed. The mill wore air research heads and was topped off with a Wieand tunnel ram with dual 750 CFM Holly carbs. A Muncie rock crusher made everything go. What better to listen to than Jan & Dean's with Drag City or the Beach Boys, Shut Down, 409 and Little Duce Coupe.
About midway through the sixties two Volkswagens infected my life. This was as close as I got to the hippy, God help me what am I doing phase. I tried to make up for it by installing an under dash 45 RPM record player in the 65. Space was a problem in those bugs and so the record box went behind the rear seat when old' Sol smiled on them and you guessed it, the records melted. So what records were I spinning as I putt, putt, putted down the highway? I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher, You've Lost That Loving' Feeling by he Righteous Brothers, My Girl by the Temptations, Eight Day's a Week by the Beatles, I can't Help Myself by the Four Tops. The British invasion was in full swing so groups like Herman's Hermits, Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Rolling Stones, Yardbyrds, and the Animals filled our ears with the Mersey Beat.
There was a 1960 Chevrolet truck that I called Suzy. A 1968 Mustang fast back and a 1969 Road Runner 383 (wish it was the Hemi). A 1970 Chevelle, a Dodge custom van, a Corvair that Ralph Nadar failed to confiscate as well as a 1956 F100 and later a 1971 F100 and many others that don't bear mentioning. I had other toys like a chopped 750 Norton Commando, a jet ski boat and just for fun a lawn mower powered scooter. My tunes played on everything from the AM radio's KHJ and KRLA to the onboard record players and first four track and then eight track tape players that blasted out our favorite tunes. We have gone from the youthful exuberance of blasting out tunes that we knew everyone around us wanted to hear, like The Duke of Earl, The Loco Motion, Big Girls Don't Cry and Pretty Woman, too hey, keep that boom box quiet.
We have gone from simple storied lyric's sung by legends and backed by real musicians playing real instruments, to synthesized music filled with lyric's that defy explanation. This is nothing new; in 1934 Cole Porter wrote a song called 'Anything Goes'. The lyrics go something like this, 'Times have changed and we've often rewound the clock….In olden days a glimpse of something was looked down on as something shocking, now heaven known anything goes. Good authors too, who once knew better words now only use four letter words when writing pros, anything goes'. I've lived in an age when dress length and morals were lifted but still had a limit. When music went from suggestive to grinding it on the dance floor, and I still prefer to remember; Rock and roll sock hops, lemonade stands, coonskin caps, howdy doody, root beer floats, secrete codes, turtle neck shirts and white buck shoes.
You'll know it when you hear it, the song that puts a smile on your face and instantly takes you to that happy place. I'll end this with the immortal words of the great singer, song writer Barry Mann; 'I'd like to thank the guy who wrote the song, that made my baby fall in love with me. Who put the bomp in the bom-ba-bomp ba-bomp, who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong....and my baby every time we dance too dip, de-dip, de-dip dip de-dip she always says she love me so…. My honey, rama lama ding dong and when I say dip-de-dip-de dip I mean it from the bottom of my boogty, boogty shoo.
Until that time…Dan
The Music Man
No comments:
Post a Comment