Electric Shock

by Peter Doggett

  This revolution took its toll. In the early 1960s, Ray Charles became one of an entire generation of R&B stars – each one a distinctly individual voice – to be wiped out or sidelined by accident or self-harm. Thanks to Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’, the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly is remembered as ‘the day the music died’. For aficionados of black music, there was no day of infamy, merely a procession of disasters. It began with the fatal car crash of Jesse Belvin in 1960; then the shooting of Jackie Wilson, the drug overdose of Dinah Washington, the arrest of Little Willie John, the heroin addiction that crippled Ray Charles’s career, the slaying of gospel star turned pop idol Sam Cooke, and finally the succumbing of Nat King Cole – a man who claimed that he chain-smoked cigarettes to ensure his voice retained its appealing huskiness – to lung cancer. In their place arose a new generation of black stars, who didn’t trace their roots back to jazz and blues, but to the vocal groups of the late 1950s, the gospel soul of Ray Charles, and the constant quest for new dance novelties which reached an insane peak with the twist.

  Just pretend you’re wiping28 your bottom with a towel as you get out of the shower and putting out a cigarette with both feet.

  Chubby Checker, 1960

  The World’s Wackiest Dance29 Comes to Britain – the wackiest, gayest dance since the Charleston.

  Daily Mirror, October 1961

  As late as the 1950s, many publications reviewed new pop releases using a single criterion: the appropriate dance step for each song. Until jiving and jitterbugging snapped propriety’s tight fetters, almost every tune was described as a ‘foxtrot’ (unless, of course, it was a waltz), and most casual dancers applied foxtrotting steps to everything they heard on the dance floor. The foxtrot was considered respectable, as it involved heterosexual couples maintaining physical contact without expressing sexuality. But dances in which the body was moved with total freedom were morally suspect. Hence the panic aroused by the Charleston and its successors, which was revived by the epidemic of jiving that greeted swing, R&B and rock ’n’ roll, and kept aflame by the purposeful swaying and grinding of the bop, the teenage dance sensation between 1956 and 1958.

  As the bop lost its momentum, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters offered America a new, unrelenting rhythm. It subjected the hucklebuck (a brief dance craze from 1948–9) to a streamlined makeover. Their instructional record, ‘The Twist’, charted only briefly in 1959, but maintained its popularity in Philadelphia, where TV impresario Dick Clark suggested that it deserved a revival. The song fell into the lap of Chubby Checker, a 19-year-old black kid. He would eventually find himself amidst the kind of media storm that would become an everyday occurrence in the Internet age, but had not been witnessed before in popular music. Not that this was immediately apparent: the Twist appeared to be nothing more than another dance craze, as it quickly killed off the Madison and the hully gully, though for a while the shimmy stood its ground. Every American teenager knew about it; every industry pundit assumed it would only last for a season.

  But Chubby Checker had canny handlers, and they presented him and the twist with a stay of execution. In 1961, he released ‘Let’s Twist Again’, to remind its audience of what ‘we did last summer’. Its success returned ‘The Twist’ to the top of the American charts, and suddenly the whole country appeared to lose its senses, and its inhibitions. Albums were retitled to cash in on the twist mania, and soon there were twelve twist hits in the Hot 100, five of them in the Top 20. What had triggered this madness? Simply a publicity campaign for the Peppermint Lounge, a bikers’ bar in midtown Manhattan with its own twist band. Within a couple of weeks, New York’s cognoscenti were sporting their pearls or leather jackets at the Peppermint, where English aristocracy mingled with pop artists, authors and even the reclusive actress Greta Garbo.

  By November 1961, the twist was being demonstrated on British television and in a top London ballroom. In Paris, it had ‘become a sort of national30 malady, infecting everyone from three-year-olds in rompers to middle-aged sophisticates at Maxim’s’. In South Africa, where rock ’n’ roll had been viewed by the majority population as a strictly white affair, the twist was welcomed as the authentic voice of black America. Melody Maker reckoned that in 1962, the twist would quite possibly ‘sweep big bands back31 into popularity’. ‘It is expected that in the skiing32 centres of Europe this year, it will be non-U not to know the twist’, one report claimed. You could buy twist slacks and twist shoes, but still hospitals reported a plethora of slipped discs from those twisting without due preparation. Moralists warned that the twist was ‘synthetic sex turned33 into a sick spectator sport’, the kind of publicity that only big money could buy. Even the Communist countries of Eastern Europe were not immune, as Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr concocted the cacophonous ‘Semafor twist’. As the Romanian state newspaper reflected mournfully, ‘How can we feel happy34 about the crazy jitterbugs and modern dances of today that make our young people look like victims of palsy?’

  Liverpool, it was said early in 1962, was proving equally resistant to the twist, although one of the city’s leading rock groups, Howie Casey & the Seniors, cashed in with their own variation, the ‘double twist’. They also came south to Ilford in Essex, where they played six nights a week in the Twist at the Top skyscraper room – but only for a month, after which the twist had lost its novelty. The death knell was probably the moment when 46-year-old Frank Sinatra, no teenager’s idea of a dreamy dance-hall date in 1962, belatedly jumped aboard the slowing bandwagon, declaring that ‘Everybody’s Twisting’. Almost immediately, they weren’t.

  Back in Liverpool, meanwhile, a rock group called the Beatles had adopted the Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist and Shout’ as their own, unembarrassed to keep the memory of pop’s first great publicity hype alive. The twist had proved that with blanket exposure, every age group and social class could be seduced into slumming in the world of pop. The Beatles would soon demonstrate the potential power of that strategy, on a global scale.

  Record companies create scores35 and scores of synthetic phonographic personalities every year … concocted from varying portions of human voice, and electronic manipulation … The sounds that are heard from their records may bear only a passing resemblance to those that were crooned into the microphone.

  Hi Fi/Stereo Review, August 1962

  As it stands today36, there’s virtually no difference between rock and roll, pop, and R&B. The music has completely overlapped.

  Leonard Chess, Chess Records, 1962

  Written at the end of a tumultuous, brain-scrambling decade, the first book-length surveys of rock ’n’ roll, published around 1969, propounded myths that stand to this day; and deserve to be questioned. At the most banal level, it is simply not true, for instance, that it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy that prevented Phil Spector’s legendary Christmas album from being a hit. (Elvis Presley’s Fun in Acapulco was issued on the same day, and sold more than a million copies.) The killing did halt the record trade for about a week, but when it resumed, there were healthy sales for dozens of seasonal records – but not Spector’s, which was the victim of financial disputes with his distributor, not a nation’s sorrow. (No country that could send the Kingsmen’s gloriously incoherent ‘Louie Louie’ to No. 2 in the singles chart immediately after the murder of its president could have been entirely overcome by grief.)

  With a wider perspective, America in the early 1960s has often been portrayed as a musical desert, waiting for the Beatles and their British allies to spring it to life. In fact, any level-headed study of the era suggests otherwise. It’s arguable, in fact, that the terrain was fertilised more richly before the arrival of the Beatles than it was after the so-called British Invasion uprooted flowers and weeds indiscriminately. Nor is it accurate to say that it took British bands to help Americans rediscover their own black music. Quite the opposite: the US charts in 1963 were full of remarkable music which you could call R&B, or soul, or pop. As Berry Gordy of Motown Records no
ted wryly of ‘Do You Love Me’, the Contours’ No. 3 smash from 1962, ‘It was recorded R&B37, but by the time it reached the half-million mark, it was considered pop. And if we hadn’t recorded it with a Negro artist, it would have been considered rock and roll.’ What happened between 1960 and 1963 was that rock ’n’ roll returned to its African-American roots; was reclassified as rhythm and blues; and then flowered for more than a decade to come as soul.

  It is tempting merely to provide a list of life-affirming, thrilling records, from Barrett Strong’s ‘Money’ to Chuck Berry’s ‘Let it Rock’ to James Brown’s ‘Think’ to Wanda Jackson’s ‘Let’s Have a Party’ to the Miracles’ ‘Shop Around’ to Cleveland Crochet’s ‘Sugar Bee’ – and we’re still in 1960. Rock ’n’ roll was dead? Teen-beat was offering productions of such quality – Roy Orbison, Brenda Lee, Gene Pitney, Ricky Nelson’s ‘Summertime’, which incidentally is where the riff for Deep Purple’s ‘Black Night’ originates – that it is a shame to categorise it with such a demeaning title. And the next three years still had the Beach Boys to come; Phil Spector; the golden era of Goffin/King, Mann/Weil, Greenwich/Barry and all those remarkable writing partnerships at 1650 Broadway; Burt Bacharach and Hal David; the Four Seasons; plus more soul, more girl groups, white and black; Aretha Franklin, Bobby Bland, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells; a dozen bizarre, hysterical dance crazes, with rock ’n’ roll gems to match; Latin soul, from Ray Barretto and Joe Cuba – the soundtrack, much of this, for the nascent British mod movement. Then there were hit singles from jazz artists (Dave Brubeck, Mel Torme), British groups (the Tornados, the Caravelles), Australian country singers (Frank Ifield), even a Singing Nun (whose sales certainly did benefit from JFK’s death).

  There were also strange signposts to the future, visible only in retrospect. The instrumental sound behind the Beach Boys’ early hits came from the Viscounts’ ‘Wabash Blues’ (and the vocal sound was influenced, arguably, by Gene Vincent’s ‘Git It’). Roy Orbison’s ‘Only the Lonely’ and Dorsey Burnette’s ‘Hey Little One’ presaged pop as melodrama, and careers ahead for Gene Pitney and P. J. Proby. (Not to overlook Connie Francis and ‘Malaguena’: flamenco as teen soap opera.) ‘Spanish Harlem’ by Ben E. King must have triggered Burt Bacharach’s penchant for sinuous, switchback melodies which only the most dextrous of singers could master. Paul Revere & the Raiders echoed the beatnik movement with the title (but not the music) of ‘Like, Long Hair’. ‘Underwater’ by the Frogmen (with frog noises to identify them) inaugurated the surf instrumental sound. Little Caesar and the Romans introduced instant rock ’n’ roll nostalgia with ‘Those Oldies But Goodies’ – in late spring 1961, no less, when only goldfish would have forgotten what had happened just a few months earlier. ‘It Will Stand’, the Showmen chirruped prophetically.

  Teen America was exposed to hardcore R&B, from the likes of Freddie King, Slim Harpo, B. B. King, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker – no apparent need there for the Rolling Stones to offer a history lesson. Gary ‘US’ Bonds created the rock ’n’ roll sound of John Lennon’s dreams with ‘Quarter to Three’, like a garage band glimpsed briefly through dense fog, while all Lennon’s guitar needs were supplied by Bobby Parker’s propulsive ‘Watch Your Step’. Teen movie starlet Ann-Margret’s ‘I Just Don’t Understand’ was soaked in fuzz guitar from the aptly named Billy Strange, and was soon followed by the Ventures’ even more raw ‘The 2,000 lb Bee’. Solomon Burke and Ray Charles combined country and soul as if they were first cousins; likewise Latin and soul, on the Impressions’ ‘Gypsy Woman’.

  Still looking forward: the Everly Brothers hit upon the jingle-jangle guitar sound of folk rock three years early, with the ironically titled ‘That’s Old Fashioned’, then anticipated the soon-to-come Beatles with ‘How Can I Meet Her?’. Session drummer Bobby Gregg worked up a credible funk precursor with ‘Potato Peeler’, echoed by Booker T & the MGs. Spector’s production of ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’, slowed to half speed before the vocals were added, was a gothic vision of pop as a Satanic plaything; and in that context, Rolf Harris’s ‘Sun Arise’ was eerie, anticipating the cosmic drone that would fuel the sitar-inspired records of the mid-1960s.

  Strange anticipations everywhere: the tune of Neil Young’s ‘Pocahontas’ on Carole King’s ‘He’s a Bad Boy’; the pre-teen vivacity of the Osmonds and Jackson 5 on ‘Killer Joe’ by the Rocky Fellers, a Filipino boy band; Jackie DeShannon’s ‘Needles and Pins’ merging Spector, folk, soul, rock ’n’ roll and teen-beat into one all-American noise; protest songs from Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary, before most people even knew that US troops were in Vietnam; and feminism, thank goodness, in the teen commentary of the girl groups, and the unashamed message of Leslie Gore’s ‘You Don’t Own Me’ (written by two men).

  Everything climaxed in the autumn of 1963, with Phil Spector and the Beach Boys’ leader, Brian Wilson, competing to compress more and more emotion and sound and rock ’n’ roll attitude and apocalyptic vision and ceaseless ambition into every record – resulting in the Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ from Spector and, more bathetically, ‘Be True to Your School’ from the Beach Boys. And then, in January 1964, fifteen months later than in Britain, the Beatles: after which nothing was ever the same again.

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  fn1 James Brown was an original, but an original with influences. Years before he learned to draw out the finale of his live shows into a portrayal of apparent hysteria, Billy Ward and the Dominoes had ‘the entire crew breaking18 down and sobbing for a full five minutes’ as they sang ‘Have Mercy Baby’.

  fn2 So compulsive was the fever he aroused amongst his fans that in February 1961 one of them shot Wilson outside his Manhattan apartment. ‘I didn’t want to hurt him24,’ she cried, as he was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, ‘I am all mixed up.’ He would not be the last pop star admitted to Roosevelt having been shot by a supposed admirer.

  fn3 One of the most startling arrangements of the 1950s, ‘There Goes My Baby’ was not the first R&B hit to feature strings. It was preceded by several Platters singles and also, depending on how you draw your genre boundaries, Nat King Cole’s ‘Nature Boy’, while the Orioles and the Cardinals also employed strings on several releases that didn’t chart. But it was arguably the first pop record to use strings as an additional, almost distracting element of the production, rather than as an extension of the mood already created by the song.

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  NEVER WAS THE ‘music is sex’ equation illustrated more vividly than on ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’, recorded by Frank Sinatra – Cole Porter song, Nelson Riddle arrangement – in January 1956. Sinatra rode the spiralling mid-section towards one climax, achieved by arguably the most thrilling brass crescendo ever captured on record, and then roused himself for a second climb. As Frank slipped cosily into afterglow, Riddle sprang his last surprise: a key change in the final chord of the arrangement, as refreshing as a quick shower, hinting that the 40-year-old Sinatra was ready to do it all again.

  ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ was one of the highlights of Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, a landmark 1956 album made in the same week that Elvis Presley first explored the echoing corridors of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Two artistic breakthroughs, signalling in precisely opposite directions: one bringing shameless sensuality to the teenage pop market; the other announcing the record album as a work of art. Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! is frequently tagged as ‘the first concept album’, although there wasn’t a concept beyond the unifying, sparkling brilliance of Nelson Riddle’s scores. Riddle had earlier arranged Sinatra’s Songs for Young Lovers LP, while previous Sinatra LPs had been devoted to the work of a single arranger and conductor. As early as 1939, Lee Wiley had anticipated Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbook series by issuing entire (78 rpm) albums by one songwriter. (Thematically, there is a case for proposing country Jean Shepard’s Songs of a Love Affair, also from 1956, as being more conceptually coherent than Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!.)

  The album – originally c
onsisting of several ten-inch shellac discs, contained within a single binding – had been a marketing tool for Sinatra since The Voice of Frank Sinatra (1946). Sing and Dance With Frank Sinatra (1950) was his first self-contained album, not comprised of earlier recordings, although by then Sinatra’s popularity was trailing behind rivals such as Frankie Laine and Perry Como. His networked CBS-TV series flopped; and his producer, Mitch Miller, was encouraging him to cut novelty songs. That’s why the Sinatra catalogue includes such dandies as ‘Tennessee Newsboy’ (with Speedy West making his steel guitar cluck like a chicken), ‘The Hucklebuck’ (slow-motion ‘dad’ dancing), and ‘Castle Rock’ (proving that Sinatra was making rock ’n’ roll records, albeit terrible ones, three years before Elvis Presley; in July 1951, to be exact).

  Then, in the familiar Sinatra legend, he leapt from Miller’s Columbia empire to the more receptive Capitol label, won an Oscar for his role as Maggio in From Here to Eternity, and set out for vocal immortality. He was still making hit singles as late as 1980 (‘Theme From New York, New York’), some of which reached people untouched by his albums: ‘Strangers in the Night’ and his father/daughter duet, ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ from the mid-1960s, for instance, and ‘My Way’ from 1969 (which stands alongside Sammy Davis’s contemporary ‘I’ve Gotta Be Me’ as a defiant generational anthem for the over-40s). But the best of Sinatra from the Capitol and Reprise years was in his LPs: frequently themed, sometimes on rather flimsy foundations, but often making an artistic statement. Those ranged from the mid-life laments of Only the Lonely and No One Cares to the song cycles of later years, Watertown and Trilogy. His albums were packaged and publicised as instalments in the life of a great artist and an emblematic human being – a lover, a father, a winner, a loser, an American ageing alongside the rest of what Tom Brokaw called ‘The Greatest Generation’.