Sal,
I know I am late with this response, but your little post got me to thinking. While there is much music that could be called "summer music," it is always very subjective. Creating a memory is fleeting but, as the name applies, lasts a lifetime.
So, as I was thinking what would be my "summer songs," it stirred a lot of memories. It became hard to narrow down a lifetime of summers into just a few songs. But I did come up with a way to reflect both on the season and the music.
Rather than dwell on the music alone, I tried to decide what the best summer for songs was. It would have been easy to pick 1968, as it was the "Summer of Love," but I dismissed that as too lazy a pick. Besides, I don't think it was. In fact, I picked my favorite "summer" of music, because it was the peak of the AM radio as an assembly hall of teen mores, as the following year, the working class youth of England would arrive by the planeload, and popular music would change forever. My chosen summer era is 1963. And I have a list to back up my theory. But first, here's a little background:
I grew up on the Jersey Shore. My hometown had a base population of 7,000 people in the winter that exploded to 17,000 between the end of the school year and the Labor Day weekend. Add the plethora of bars and bungalows, and the crowds would swell even more on weekends and holidays. I grew up in a true beach town environment.
The beach was literally minutes from my house. My Mom was a real beach nut, and how she didn't pass on from melanoma, I'll never know. We would go to the beach almost every day, and my brothers and I were nut brown long into the fall. In older pictures, our cousins from Westchester, who came down for a few days, maybe a week, and us would demonstrate what "back & white" photos were all about.
When the Japanese invented the transistor radio we began to carry one with us, and while we were in the water, Mom would listen to WNEW with its Sinatra and swing style. When we took control, it was WABC or WMCA, and at night in my bed, I could turn the radio and get Jerry Blavat from Philadelphia.
The summer of 1963 was nearly carefree because the only thing that would interfere with the summer's sun was a rainy day. I caddied at the golf club that summer. It was in the caddy yard, the summer before my freshman year in high school, that I learned about smoking, gambling and sexual braggadocio and, as Bruce suggests, I was a boy of 14 who tried to look so hard, laughing at sexual innuendo with no idea of what they were making fun of.
It was during this summer, when not carrying the bags of gawd-awful golfers during the morning, that "The Beach," (as in, "Where are you going?" "To…") now included the beaches of Belmar, Spring Lake and Sea Girt because that's where the other kids, classmates and summer visitors, would hang out. Now the beach was a playground and a social activity. It was yellow polka dot bikinis highlighting tan young women who stirred new emotions. I didn't know what or why but found that I had to stay in contact with those creatures. It was a few years later I finally understood the caddy yard discussions.
There was no need for public address systems on the beach, all the radios on our blankets were tuned to the same stations. You could walk the entire beach and never be out of earshot of the music of that summer. I guess that's another reason for the memory. In the pre-Walkman era, the music was the connecting strand of our youthful society. Everybody of a certain age understood the language of AM Radio as spoken by Dan Ingram and Dandy Dan Daniels.
On balmy nights, we would go to dances sponsored by the CYO, or some social clubs, like the Elks. Madras, shorts or shirts, with low cut Converse or penny loafers with no sox was the dress code for we lads. The girls no longer smelled of salt water and coconut oil, but were aromatic, smelling of soap, vanilla and jasmine in their sleeveless summer dresses and pumps. Like an Irish dance, the boys would gather on one side of a gym or pavilion watching girls in groups looking and giggling as they decided their acceptable partners for the walk home. We boys would watch them dance in pairs, with buddies ratcheting up the pressure by saying things like, "Well, are you gonna or not?" pushing you a few feet onto the floor of uneasiness. Most likely, you had asked one of those creatures from the beach if she was going to the dance and upon hearing her answer in the affirmative, you would say something like, "Well, I'll see you there, then." Now that you both have kept up your ends of the agreement, you have to act on it, as you DID sorta ask her here.
The clock moves, and as I've nodded and waved and smiled the night away, the chaperone now announces that the dance will end at 11 pm and as it's 10:45, you pray for a slow one and, sure enough, it's the Shirelles, "Baby, it's You."
I went over and asked her to dance, she nodded and took my extended hand. My mother had forced me to take some dancing lessons a few years before, and my humiliation then turns to an appreciation of Mom, as I gather my partner into a proper dance position, right hand on the small of her back, and the fingers of my left intertwining with her right with her left sitting lightly on my shoulder.
It's amazing the emotions that can tear through you during a 2:30 song. Now, I have both arms around her back and hers loop over my neck, resting her head on my shoulder. The pounding in my ears is building to such a point that the music dims, as the hormones and her fragrance and the nearness of her are creating a pressure that forces me to do something.
I bend my head down a little, she picks hers up off my shoulder, and, as the girls sing, ("It doesn't matter what they say. I know I'm gonna love any old way. What can I do? What 'bout you? Don't want nobody, nobody. Baby, it's you. Baby, it's you,") we look at each other and we kiss, as innocent as two young kids can. The pressure is lifted as I am escorted into the Promised Land.
Her lips are soft, tasting slightly of strawberry and my lips tell me I can stay here forever. Until they scream, "Oww! What are you doing?" A roughness rubs and twists our lips apart.
Opening our eyes, a sense of dreadful mortification sets in, because one of the parish priests has inserted his "consecrated" fingers between my dream and I. Chastising us for our "boldness," and expecting to see us in the confessional, he walks off with our innocence and young thrill sucked up in his departing wake like dried and shriveled leaves tossed and turned behind an accelerating car in the late fall. I stood hopeless on that floor, too young to show my indignation, and old enough to know I couldn't, anyway.
I also realized there would be no slow walk home that night with another kiss on the porch-maybe. I think she had run off, humiliated, with her friends. In fact, I never saw that girl again. I'd be amazed if she ever reads this, more so if she even remembers me, but I would like to thank her for those few seconds. I now believe more in the goodness of those few seconds of bliss over all other ideologies. That feeling only happens for the first time once. Her actions allowed me to never forget that tender time.
Sorry…what was that? Oh…the music, well, here's exhibit "A" why I think this is THE best summer of music.
1963
The Orlons - South Street - 03-63
Mary Wells - Two Lovers - 03-63
The Beach Boys - Surfin' U.S.A. - 04-63
The Chantays - Pipeline - 04-63
The Drifters - On Broadway - 04-63
Peter, Paul & Mary - Puff The Magic Dragon - 04-63
Mongo Santamaria - Watermelon Man - 04-63
Lou Christie - Two Faces Have I - 05-63
Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night - 05-63
The Shirelles - Foolish Little Girl - 05-63
Jimmy Soul - If You Wanna Be Happy - Jimmy Soul - 05-63
The Chiffons - One Fine Day - 06-63
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron - 06-63
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me - 06-63
The Dovells - You Can't Sit Down - 06-63
Lesley Gore - It's My Party - 06-63
Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki - 06-63
Bobby Vinton - Blue On Blue - 06-63
Marvin Gaye - Pride And Joy - 07-63
Rolf Harris - Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport - 07-63
Jan & Dean - Surf City - 07-63
The Jaynetts - Sally Go Round The Roses - 07-63
The New Christy Minstrels - Green, Green - 07-63
Peter, Paul & Mary - Blowin' In The Wind - 07-63
Elvis Presley - (You're The) Devil In Disguise - 07-63
The Surfaris - Wipe Out - 07-63
Doris Troy - Just One Look - 07-63
Little Stevie Wonder - Fingertips, Part 2 - 07-63
The Tymes - So Much In Love - 07-63
The Angels - My Boyfriend's Back - 08-63
The Four Seasons - Candy Girl - 08-63
Inez Foxx - Mockingbird - 08-63
Lesley Gore - Judy's Turn To Cry - 08-63
Trini Lopez - If I Had A Hammer - 08-63
Wayne Newton - Danke Schoen - 08-63
Randy & The Rainbows - Denise - 08-63
Allan Sherman - Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh - 08-63
Kai Winding - More - 08-63
Excellent post. As good as Sal's posts. Also like your selection of music. Hadn't realized how many I recognize from that list. Just may have to try to compile this for myself. Thanks for the great summer post.
ReplyDelete