Rock
What Motivates Us to Work? For Bruce and Me, It’s ‘Abandonment of the Self’
At a show at New York’s legendary Apollo Theater a few months back, Bruce Springsteen joked that he was the “hardest working ‘white’ man in show business.” Bruce made this remark in homage to one of his idols, the late James Brown, the soul-funk sensation long known as the “hardest working man” in the business. James, the Apollo apostle, often performed up to 330 one-night shows per year, in extravagant bop-till-you-drop style. Growing up in extreme poverty may have driven James Brown to work till exhaustion, but what inspired a middle-class white boy from Long Branch, New Jersey, to rock his heart out onstage for four hours, night after night, from beach bars to coliseums? “His love of his fans” is one easy answer. But it goes much deeper than that, as I was reminded after reading a fascinating profile of Bruce in the July 2012 issue of “The New Yorker” magazine.
And the Score is Love-Love: A Teenage Tennis Tale
“Where the boys are, someone waits for me,” Connie Francis once sang. And just where were they waiting in my sleepy little hometown in the slow, sweet summertime? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t at our old cracked-concrete tennis courts. But for me, it was someplace to go, and go I did – back in my pre-car, pre-cash teen years. Every night after dinner, my friend Ann and I would dress to impress and make our way up cemetery hill to the courts to see and be seen. Alas, not much came of our tennis trolloping. Once or twice a guy friend would offer us a ride home, but it was never the guy we hoped for. Weren’t we pretty enough, clever enough, or popular enough? Such thoughts would consume our high school years.
We All Will Be Received in Graceland — Except for Bruce
All the king’s men. That’s a royal court that could include every seasoned rocker whose creative spark was first lit by the sight and sound of Elvis Presley. They started out wanting to be him, and spent their lives dying to meet him. Most artists had to wait till they were big league players before even contemplating a face-to-face with Elvis. And even then it wasn’t easy to enter his well-guarded world. But one late night in 1976, a young musician on the cusp of superstardom had the chutzpah to drop by Elvis’s Graceland mansion, and pay The King a personal visit.
Roll Up, Roll Up — for the Greyhound Bus Hippyland Tour!
So, you’re trippin’ with your blue-jean baby down a marijuana-scented street, wearing your tie-dyed shirt, love beads and huaraches, when you hear an announcement blaring from a packed tour bus: “Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your left you’ll see a hairy hippie passed out in front of the Phật Phúc Noodle Bar. Ahead on the right you’ll notice a parade of shaved-head Hare Krishnas — such a happy lot, wrapped in their orange gauze! Oh, and do you see those scraggly kids carrying signs that say ‘drop acid, not bombs’? They’re the pinko-loving, un-American war protestors. Now, just up ahead on your left is a store where stoners buy things called zig-zag paper and roach clips. They call it a ‘head shop’….don’t ask me why!” Ah, what better way to take in the sights, sounds and aromas of the Summer of Love than to book a reservation on a Greyhound Bus Line “Hippyland Tour” of the famous Haight-Ashbury district!
Motor City Mavericks: The Pleasure Seekers and Suzi Quatro
When a group of sisters got together in the early ’60s to come up with a name for their rock and roll band, they turned to that greatest of reference guides — the dictionary. Leafing through the large tome, they came across the word “hedonist.” Definition: a pleasure seeker. Bingo! Formed in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in 1964 by 17-year-old Patti Quatro, The Pleasure Seekers were born of Beatlemania and bred on Detroit muscle. They paid their dues in clubs and music festivals across the U.S., opened for a slew of big name rock stars, and became one of the first all-female bands to be signed by a major record label. But their biggest contribution to the world of rock came in the form of a 5-foot firecracker named Suzi Quatro.