... Me gotta add.

When revising the previous entry and searching for more images online I came across the very LP of cherrypicked Armstrong/Russell Decca sides whereof I spake, so shall reproduce it here, along with the tracklisting. I borrowed this not from Motherwell Library, but nearby Hamilton, some ten years later - don't know whether there was some kind of Okeh/Decca reissue turf war going on there. 

Not every side has the Russell Orchestra backing him, but the whole is very listenable. Ev'ntide and another song, can't remember which, are by Hoagy Carmichael.

Side 1 : Thanks a Million / Lyin' to Myself / Ev'ntide / Swing That Music / Thankful / The Skeleton in the Closet / Jubilee

Side 2 : Struttin' With Some Barbecue / I Double Dare You / You're a Lucky Guy / Ev'rything's Been Done Before / Hey Lawdy Mama / Groovin'

Thanks a Million is probably not the best song in the world, but sung from the heart by Armstrong for a moment it seems to be. And it's a perfect example of what he once said about only needing to play the melody. No real fireworks on display but it's enough to explain why the young Humphrey Lyttleton enjoyed the Decca sides. The clip embedded below seems to be of a 78 with a few bumps along the way, but it still sounds pretty good to these ears.



Here's one of those Hoagy Carmichael songs. You will search for it in vain in Carmichael songbooks (I know; I've tried), and Armstrong's performance may not be the best guide to the composer's intentions, but I'd imagine he approved anyway.



The version of Struttin' With Some Barbecue here comes from 1938. I read on the sleevenotes that one musician had been mistakenly instructed to take a solo and so a better performer was left out: a note had been left on the wrong chair. Presumably that referred to the clarinet, which sounds okayish to me, but I'm no expert. I will mention a few experts at the end, so hold on if you are already becoming annoyed and frustrated.



The next side I'd like to bring to your ears is Hey Lawdy Mama. This is the number which caused Max Jones to write: "When Louis plays the blues - hold everything." This is a small group, sort of a group-within-a-group, a la Benny Goodman, though I don't know whether this would have been a regular thing when Louis played live with the Russell Orchestra. As Jones implies, this is fairly sedate but pleasant until the trumpet solo. No, make that sedate-but-sprightly:



I have just looked up Hey Lawdy Mama on Ricky Riccardi's highly recommended Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong blog. Apparently it came from one of two 1941 Decca session which may have been put together as a way of cashing in on recent reissues of original Hot Seven sides: The 1941 group-within-a-group was indeed a septet and called the Hot Seven. You can read more here, although Riccardi's focus is on some other songs from those two Decca sessions. The lineup is as follows:

Louis Armstrong, trumpet, vocal; George Washington, trombone; Prince Robinson, clarinet; Luis Russell, piano; Lawrence Lucie, guitar; Johnny Williams, bass; Sid Catlett, drums.

It's nice to hear Luis Russell given a piano solo on Hey Lawdy Mama - not great but pleasant. And the guitar's good too.

 And finally, in this skim through the LP, the final track, which places Armstrong in a swing context where he doesn't quite fit, though he goes for it like a good sport. This youtube clip sounds as though it's been taken from a fake stereo source, unlike the Decca album, but that added whiff of phoniness also fits - and besides, I can't find an alternative:



Rather than embed all the other sides on the album, here are a few of my favourite Armstrong numbers from elsewhere. First, another small group, with some Russell sidemen, from 1929, when Luis Russell's orchestra was still a powerful force in its own right. Good sound on this clip too:



And another from the same period, Dallas Blues. I love this one in particular, more than the other side of the original issue, St Louis Blues. As I may have written elsewhere, I once put the radio on and heard this for the first time, but knew immediately it was Luis Russell's band, even seemed to recognise the "room."

And lo, the track ended and "Chuckles" Larkin, he who had named St Louis Blues the Hottest Record Ever then seemingly recanted, was speaking.

Maybe, like me, he realised that Dallas Blues was just ... better. Dunno why. Oh no, wait a minute, I do. Sort of. Larkin wrote that St Louis Blues was more than "mere rhythmic excitement" and cited a comparatively leaden Cab Calloway version to bolster his case. But with Dallas Blues, there's an interesting tension between gutbucketty things and musically, jazzy things. (As, I fancy, Max Jones might have put it.) What I mean is that there are decorative details in the arrangement of Dallas Blues which are about more than raw emotion, although the emotion is there too.

Well, that's as precisely as I can put it, and as the balance of probability is that your eyes will only be flicking past these words as you scan the post for non-existent downloads I don't suppose it matters too much.



Finally, a couple of  Armstrong sides which I heard when young and grew to love. Indian Cradle Song, in particular, is an example of a song which would probably mean very little handled by anyone else, but becomes affecting because Armstrong appears to be investing something in it.



Indian Cradle Song is described in detail in The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong, here, and you can hear the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra's version too.

And finally, Body and Soul, which is undoubtedly a good ol' good one. I would also have liked to include Walkin' My Baby Back Home, but couldn't find a youtube clip.Those two sides are familiar to me from a cassette on the Neovox label, issued by Norman Field, my constant companion (the cassette, not Mr Field) in my university days: I would often walk at night round a country park with those recordings from just over fifty years ago playing through my walkman, carrying their brightness and warmth through the dark and cold of a Scottish winter night.




That previous posting was the first piece here which can't offer any pretence to be about doo wop or rock'n'roll-related matters, so I suppose this is not going to be the doo wop-dedicated blog I intended after all. My apologies to those who only want to read about that, but it seems right to have that material here rather than start a separate blog; it's music I discovered around the same time and still love. My interest stops around 1945 (Charlie Christian is my limit), so it all fits neatly into place: there's Too Soon to Know by the Orioles in 1948, so I've just got three years to fill ... Oh, and of course, the first version of Gloria Mk. 1 was in 1945, as you can check in these very pages (additional notes for Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 39, here), sung by Herb Jeffries, former lead singer with Duke Ellington, so (rather to my surprise) it all stitches together rather neatly.

Besides, as I've just realised, with the mention of that Cheapo Closed pic, I'm still grieving over the loss of Cheapo, despite my brave attempts to pretend otherwise at the top of the previous post, so you've got to cut me some slack anyway.

Back to rock'n'roll - plus at least one (count 'em) tender doo wop moment from otherwise inarticulate males, guaranteed - next time, when we leave the vinyl of Motherwell Library to travel, oh, a good twelve miles at least, for a solid slab (clue) of screwball comedy from the man who dared to rewrite Little Richard without being Pat Boone.

[revised December 2012]

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 75

pismotality
(51/M/London, England)

The piece about the Letter, from 1st October 2000, is the last printout I have from the Doo Wop Shop board.

Ending on that unceasing Ulyssean quest for the perfect record provides a neat conclusion - but I didn't stop posting, although it may have been the last of that flurry of extended pieces between Clarke and me. Thank you to those, then and now, who indulged us.

I can't check the board for other messages, however, as Steve's Kewl Doo Wop Shop was removed in its entirety from Yahoo in August 2001. If anyone has any more posts (especially Clarke's description of Gloria) please get in touch by clicking on my profile. I'd also love to hear from anyone else who contributed or just read it at the time; if nothing else, these messages reinforce the point that audiences are participants too.

Messages which may forever circle in cyberspace include a discussion of the Dells' Sweet Dreams of Contentment with much speculation about the mystical word intoned at the end (the posts' unreachability is poetically apt, perhaps), and my reference, in one message which was saved here, to the shameful British group Showaddywaddy led to an unexpected discussion with Alexandra about shared memories of Top of the Pops and kitsch 70s British pop. Equally baffling to me, with the whole range of American harmonisers past and present to choose from, someone else seemed quite unnaturally keen on UK doowoppers Darts (shades of the British Invasion groups firing Chuck Berry anthems right back at the Colonies ... ).

Other than those it's hard to recall particular posts, although what does remain is the sense of absolute immersion I felt writing, waiting for the quickly-appearing responses which would trigger off more thoughts ... They were things, as I wrote at the end of the piece on Golden Teardrops, I'd been needing to say for years, and the internet finally made it possible to connect with a likeminded group of people. I hope that some of that enjoyment, at least, has been transmitted through the static.

The piece about the The Letter was also published at the start of this blog as a taster for the series. You can click on that earlier version for additional notes plus links to arcane discussions about the meaning of "pismotality," if you have a few hours to spare ...

I'm joking. Sort of. But given that this has been a dialog[ue] between the US and the UK, perhaps it's fitting that what may be the simplest and best description of the word coined by the late Vernon Green for his immortal song can be borrowed from a British pop song of the period:

"Nothings that are meant for my love alone to hear."

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 55

clarkedavis
(M/Dover, New Jersey)

Ahh, sweet mystery of youth, that bygone day that lingers in memory like stale champagne the morning after, with no fizz left in the elegant half filled glass. Where has it gone? Is it really out of our lives forever, or can that sense of beauty be rekindled from a dying ember faintly glowing in the fireplace of our life? Has the mystery been solved by the passing of time?

No, I think not.

The fact that we cannot solve our "mystery" is the key factor in the process we call evolution. Everything evolves, and decays at the same time. As we grow and learn our bodies wither and weaken. Nature's cruel joke. Is there a point somewhere between youth and death at which we may find the optimal pivot point to balance the two opposing forces? Are we lucky enough to be at that place now, as the drama of middle age unfolds around us? Can the sense of wonder be restored now to bring our senses to reveal mysteries, even greater than first imagined?

If we as a collective entity can enrich our existence to the pitch of joy achieved in our youth, and then surpass it, is that not a miracle?

I believe it is possible. A secret revealed to very few; only those LUCKY enough to have the innate knowledge that transcends "conventional wisdom". Elite thought processes? Possibly, but more likely an open heart, an alert but relaxed mind, and a balance in life attained by understanding how the decades have given us opportunities to discover our real selves, is the reason.

Are you in this class? If you are still reading this, and fit the age category, you may be one of those, who despite what life throws at them, can conquer adversity, and use it to advantage.

You probably have a rich understanding of life's evolutionary process and can use memories of time past to help guide you to your future. One of shining brilliance, in the shadow of slowing echoing decay. Can we not, at this advanced moment in our time, still hope to be with Gloria In the Still of the Night?

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 40

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

I want to add a memory of a novel that seems integral to an understanding of Gloria and, through that archetypal song, the genre as a whole. (Mighty big claims, Stranger...)

The book is The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary, which I read and reread as a teenager. An artist painting a mural of Adam and Eve is trying to explain the concept of imagination to his protege; he links it to Humanity's need to pick up the pieces and get on with things after the Fall, that all we need is just that - imagination. The boy doesn't get it, so the artist takes an example from his own life: he went out with a girl and everything was fine; then they had an argument and suddenly they're two devils hissing smoke at each other, making all kinds of allegations about personal hygiene and other stuff - which, the artist tells his listener, was all true.
But he eventually decides to make it up, gives her some flowers, and suddenly she's calling him an angel again. Nothing has changed, but that newfound ability to see through, or beyond, what's there in some way ennobles (or "embiggens," as they say in The Simpsons) both sides and allows the possibility of the relationship growing.
As a teacher I frequently have to do King Lear - not the most fun Shakespeare text. But I'm always moved by the moment he remeets the daughter whose life he's practically ruined. He tells her she has cause to hate him; she replies, "no cause, no cause."
Like the artist bit, it's not true, and yet saying it, and trying to believe it, seems a whole lot better than letting Daddy have it good, crown or no crown.

Now, I'm not saying Gloria is precisely like that, and obviously there are dangers in dreams not attached (however insecurely) to at least some semblance of reality, but the wish to believe in a better world, in the possibility of a love untainted by all the complex selfishnesses that dog us - think of that strangely chaste-seeming embrace of Fred Parris's in In the Still of the Night, a "precious" love he has to "pray" to keep [I typed in "pay" on first go!] - all that seems a good thing, even if those thoughts in undiluted form are invariably dashed on the rocks of adulthood.

This is getting too complicated, even for me, so I'll try to sum up what I think I'm saying, though I have a sneaking suspicion I've expressed this before - a sign this dialogue is finally drawing to its natural end? Anyway, here goes:

Gloria, like so many doowop songs, is ridiculous and touching at the same time. Ridiculous, because the singer, to judge from the sound of his voice (and GRR888888! performance, as Brian would say) is loading so much in the way of hopes and dreams onto this girl there's bound to be some industrial-strength disappointment somewhere along the way, even in the unlikely event of their getting together.

But it's touching, of course it's touching, because it's also about that profound need we all have to reach out to another living being and to feel that we might be – to quote View from the Bridge out of context again - wholly known. With the doowop singer, it's as though he's taken those cringe-making love letters the rest of us hide away and scattered them in the street for the world to gawp at. It might be ill-advised, but it's also an act of courage, risking public mockery at such self-exposure (it's no accident that so many songs, including the one I take my handle from, are couched as letters), but trusting that people will understand and feel the same. Wholly known.

A final thought, and this has the feeling (subject to your response) of a larger ending. I chose “pismotality" because there was already a 'Tony" on Yahoo. The word is Vernon Green's own coining in that parallel adolescent universe where the tenderest emotions are exposed to the light. You won't find it in any dictionary – not that I've looked.

But, damn it, shouldn't that word exist?

Tony

aka "pismotality"


Here is the relevant clip from a 1997 National Theatre production of King Lear with Ian Holm and Victoria Hamilton as Cordelia; the image above shows her at the moment of uttering those words.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 39

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

Clarke,

I read your Gloria piece again while listening to the Cadillacs. It really is a wonderful, precise piece of writing; I found myself listening to that extended "meee" with more pained enjoyment than ever. Again, you're so lucky that this was the soundtrack to your youth, there to enhance each experience rather than something you had to seek out. I went to a rock'n'roll club as a teenager but it was all in the frantic, jitterbugging mode favoured by the Brits, and no doowop ballads. Much the same in London now, sadly.

Anyway, as a sort of appendix to what we've been discussing about Gloria, I've now found the reference to the original song in the book by Gribin and Schiff I referred to. Because of the distinction I made (don't know if you agree yet) between Gloria as the ultimate expression of aching teen sensibility and GT as adult, it’s worth quoting the lyrics in full:

Gloria, it's not Marie, it's Gloria
It's not Cherie, it's Gloria
She's in your every dream

You like to play the game of kiss and runaway
But now you find it's not that way
Somehow you changed it seems

Wasn't Madeleine your first love
It was just hello goodbye
Wasn't Caroline your last love
It's a shame you made her cry

What a fool you are
You gave your heart to Gloria
You're not so smart cause Gloria
Is not in love with you

(Leon Renne, 1946)

The authors say "Whether the borrowing was accidental or purposeful will never be truly known," but the fact that Esther Navarro's name didn't appear on the first pressing of the Cadillacs' version (she was their manager) suggests she did. But the differences - and apparently the melodies are different, too - are fascinating. It's not first person, so you don't get a direct route to his subjective experience of his anguish, and it's hardly first love and all that wonder and innocence we've been talking about - more like poetic justice: as Bob Dylan, that poet (arguably) outside our remit (unquestionably) might put it: "How does it feel?"

That memory of the live performance of Gloria seems more appropriate here, where he gets what he deserves: not malign fate but karma. Gloria Mk.1 reads like a song aimed at adults, and because we're not privy to the guy's inner emotions, we can't feel the sympathy in GT, because we've got no idea how he responds to this blow (unless there's an even more obscure answer song waiting to be unearthed).

But it helps to show what a great piece of work Esther Navarro's conscious or unconscious borrowing of elements led to. As you say, even the title puts the emotions on a par with religious fervour and suggests the purity of that longing: Marie and Cherie are not his cast-offs but girls who did not awaken in him that divine longing.

Put that way, the word sounds camp (as in: "Too too divine, Dahling !") but I mean precisely that: that the wish to make contact, the ability to perceive beauty, maybe where others don't, in another, probably equally flawed, individual is a triumph of that imaginative power we all have that links us to some higher power, whatever you want to call it, or at least brings out our potential to be better than our workaday selves (I'm a long-lapsed Catholic, people, so I'm not particularly selling anything here).

The flip side of the coin, of course, is raging hormones and erector sets and hey, maybe this girl would be incredibly pretty to any pair of teenage male eyes straining at their sockets (“Va va VOOM!" is, I believe, your singularly infelicitous American term) and it's also about the naive belief that someone else will be the quick-fix solution to all your problems as opposed to bringing a whole new set of their own ... but there still seems something noble going on in that longing.

(I'm almost done here but will switch to a new post to avoid having to cut for length. Back after these important messages...)


"... suggests she did" puzzles me as I reread it. Suggests she did what? Know that the borrowing was deliberate? In the Matt the Cat interview cited a few posts ago Earl Carroll, perhaps diplomatically, says that she was "She was a business lady, lovely lady. She was a lady, number one, but she was a business lady and she knew the business." He praises her professionalism in knowing exactly what her artists needed: Cholly Atkins, introduced to them by Navarro, "took us under his wing" - and there is a reference in Nowhere to Run to the young Ben E King's heart thumping as he watched the Cadillacs' dance routines up close.

The relevant bit from my review of a Mills Brothers CD, The Anthology (1931-1968):

Of particular note, if you are interested in their effect on later vocal groups, is the song Gloria, a distant relative of the doo wop standard (associated with the Cadillacs); but without the abject pain and idealisation in the reworking (this early Gloria is cheating on, rather than spurning, the lovelorn adolescent). This is, I believe, the second recording of the song (the original was by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers).

But according to wikipedia there were two other recordings of Goria Mk. 1, one recorded the same year as Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (featuring Charles Brown) by Ray Anthony (above), and one recorded the previous year, 1945, by ex-Ellingtonian Herb Jeffries as part of the Buddy Baker Sextet.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 38

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

Clarke,

I didn't intend to write so much - I suppose I'm still in the process of discovering how much I need to say, though I think that having disgorged such a gargantuan chunk the worst may be over ... I was also lucky enough to have a free, sunny (and silent) morning to get those impacted thoughts out uninterrupted rather than losing focus over some longer, more disjointed period.

So doing that was right for me but please don't feel there's any urgency about the speed (or length, come to that) of your reply as a result. Knowing that there is someone reading this, that I'm not flinging my words into a void (unless I press the wrong button) is the most important thing. You most of all, of course, as my fellow conspirator but also our invisible audience (whom I thank if they lasted the course with my three-parter. No skimming!)

What really extended it was I wasn't just rehashing stuff I'd written down at the time of the play but suddenly seeing more clearly why that play was the way it was through the enhanced sense of the music which has come from this happy struggle of trying to articulate my responses during our conversation. So not just our different backgrounds: two separate ways within me of coming to an understanding of the music (a four way conversation if you include our vocal audience!).

On the Gloria front, I can see that I haven't even gotten on to the fact that it appeared in a different guise some years earlier, sung by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (presumably not the Drifters guy ... Brian, can you help?) and covered by the Mills Brothers.

I think there's a grey area about whether it's the same song - vaguely remember reading about about Esther Navarro's name being whipped on, or off, the credits for reissues of the Cadillacs' version, but I'll need to dig out my Doowop: Forgotten Third ... book to check. Think they've got lyrics too. (Has anyone reading, possibly a native Picksburgher, heard either of these Gloria Mark Ones? Is it the same tune?) When I've checked the lyrics, it'll be interesting to see if they have the same teen sensibility - suspect not, but can't remember. Anyway, need to rest from my labours awhile...

Re Golden Teardrops: The Movie - or 30 minute radio play, anyway. It wasn't produced in the end. A BBC producer asked for rewrites on spec, which I did and learnt a lot from - especially when pruning - but no development money changed hands. Still, it proved a good calling card, so no harm done, though I also learnt the wisdom of Doowop Collection Theft Victim Lou Reed's dictum: "First thing you learn is that you always got to wait." So no tape. But email me your address and I'll be happy to send you a copy of the script. You've helped me to understand it myself so it's the least I can do.


I then added a postscript which I'm too ashamed to reproduce here, in effect touting for doo wop tape compilations in return for my play. I say "ashamed" because I can't now remember which items I may have received as gifts around this time and which ones had been sent specifically in order to get a copy of the play. I certainly sent one to Clarke, who was very complimentary about it; I kept intending to send a copy to Alexandra, aka alex_lowlands, who features later, and was very helpful when I was researching the song Stand By Me, but I never did. To her, and other readers such as Pam, who sent me a wonderful CD compilation, I thank you very much and I regret my behaviour.

I hope to put a link to a copy of the script soon - subject to finding the relevant disc. The only recording which was made of the play is too rough (believe me) for any other ears, but now that I'm aware of the magic of compressed files, and inspired by a British comic who's been putting material directly online rather than wait for a yea or nay from the BBC, I hope to arrange a new recording very soon. Watch this space - if, at this late stage, you can awake your faith.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 36

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

(continued)

The girl in the play, who becomes the woman the singer marries, is only referred to as Gloria," a fact which regally pisses her (. ..off, as we say in UK) - decades on, he still can't see the reality of her, just as he can't accept he's on the skids in his career.

As you know from earlier postings, I'm fascinated by the collision of past and present, and I kept thinking: what is it like to be singing those songs, especially the Gloria-type yearning ones, forty years on? Assuming you're not just the musical equivalent of a cab for hire, presumably part of you buys into the myth: the audience's need for the comfort of illusion is no greater than your own. And there is, as I've said re Dion and the Spaniels live, a dignity and a grace about sharing those needs, those vulnerabilities, with an audience, if you can see them for what they are. Brit playwright Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven) said you should look back at your past with "tender contempt," but stressed the importance of both parts.

But what if you're too caught up in those dreams - the grown man, as it were, still singing Gloria without that sense of distance? So I decided to make my lead character a fantasist who desperately needs those songs as a retreat from understanding life in the here and now, not a way of integrating the man and the boy.

Some details I took from the chapter on Ben E King in [Gerri Hirshey’s] Nowhere to Run, but King seems to me a very grounded individual: I saw him, reunited with the Drifters in the early 80s (pre the moderate resurgence of fame with the reissue of Stand by Me), and while the late Johnny Moore and the others were comporting themselves like so many manic starfish, projecting like crazy throughout, King sort of hugged himself as he quietly, naturally, sang his hits: "Hey, I can't be that person anymore," he seemed to be saying, "but this is as much as I remember. I'm not gonna embroider or patch it up, but what I tell you will be true for me now. If I made it any bigger, I couldn't feel it, so what would be the point?" And it worked; I remember the sense of him giving himself as a real person that night.

But that play was also a variant on my attempt to do the impossible earlier on this board, ie to pin down in words the experience of listening to Golden Teardrops and the mystery (to me) of its coming into being. Without any attempt to reflect the little I knew of the Flamingos as people (ie virtually zilch) I imagined the guy hurting his wife by some thoughtless remark, seeing her tears welling up, and being torn at that moment between the wish to comfort her - and the idea that is suddenly welling up, insistent, inside him. The idea wins; he assembles the guys - the stairwell they used to practise as kids - and Golden Teardrops bubbles joyfully into being: "We got together on a key and just - floated." They rush on to the prearranged session, he comes back late that night with an acetate of the song, exuberant, thinking she'll understand, be dazzled by the sheer beauty of this guilt-framed apology ... and she's gone.

There's not much else to say, except that the enormity of what he's done to her hits him at the end, as he hears GT properly for the first time. It’s about selfishness as well as love, two sides of him. A lifetime away from that first fine "Gloria" ...

Tony

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 35

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

This is not, at all, to put Gloria down: we all forget (perhaps it's an act of kindness) the gale force of those adolescent pangs until the trigger of records like this one.

The full meaning of it came to me when I saw, about four nights running, the great New Jersey acappella group 14 Karat Soul perform it in Glasgow c.1983: the bass, "Briz" (?) loomed as the lead sang, one last time, of his yearnings, intoning over him those doomy notes that spelled out just one thing: You're alone, Bub; get used to it. The bass was reality, just as he often takes over on "baser" group sides (Pookie for the dreams; Gerald for the down'n'dirty), and his notes here were a death knell for the lead's tattered vision of togetherness ("Maybe she'll want me... "), a bell to toll him back to his sole self, alone in the less than tender night.

Briz was singing right into his face, with a sort of evil glee: maybe this message from the Reality Zone had to be given, but he was certainly enjoying the task, and the "teenage" lead was not much liking it, protesting his love and need to the end (similarly, is that last "Gloria!" on the Cadillacs' version - can't remember if same for Passions' - about acceptance of the situation, or a refusal to give up hope?).

This collision of dreams and reality, with that particular performance and image of the bass singer quashing all hope, were very much in my mind as I shaped my play which took Golden Teardrops as a title, and the distinction I've made in this posting (ie inc. Pt. 1) between Gloria and GT comes, I can see, from the way I employed the songs there. As a teenager, the protagonist does exactly the same as in Kat ... newly accepted into a group, he sees a girl walk by and launches into Gloria: "It wasn't her name but it was her."

Do you now see why I'm impelled, at least for the moment, to go on with this correspondence? Because there is so much of it - correspondence in our writing, that is. Which suggests we're trying in our different ways to work the same things out, and that in turn makes it likely that as we're connecting then others, whether content to look over our shoulders or join in, are too.

This is a bit of a digression from what I was going to expand upon in the play, but in a way this dialogue is a mirror of the doowop process: the initial, half-formed idea (vague thoughts of composing a song); the need to be inspired to greater heights by someone else (the group); the need for a wider connection, touching other lives (records and performing).

Maybe if I could carry a tune I wouldn't need to do all this but, as you say, the member of the audience has a role to play, whether it's bringing their rapt attention to the concert hall or - but this is the same thing, really, isn't it? It's saying to those groups: We really listen. And we care. Going back to 14 Karat Soul, maybe nobody else apart from the other group members noticed the night that the lead really tore into Annie had a Baby during that residency in Glasgow, making it a cry of anguish that far surpassed Hank Ballard's version, when I eventually heard it.

But I was there. I did.

(continues)

Go to the start of this blog for a brand new post about 14 Karat Soul and a mysterious onstage gesture. Image from Beaudaddy's vocal group site.

IMPORTANT: Beaudaddy's site links to what had been the official site for the later incarnation of the group, which includes the wording 14ksoul and dot and com. This was legit (I've opened it in the past) but recently I have received several anti-virus warnings when trying to open it. So don't do it.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 34

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

Clarke,

You excelled yourself on that one. Really lovely, and saying exactly what that feeling is when we hear any version of that song. Yes, this is the Long Goodbye (to be followed by the Big Sleep?) but don't blame me - you will keep insisting on writing about things that strike a chord in me, and I have all this reading and listening and love for the music bubbling up inside me that has never found a place to go. As Beatrice says in View from the Bridge (rather different context, admittedly), "Whatever happens, we all done it." Including our readers for encouraging us. So you can't pin this one on me! Not exclusively, anyway.

Yesterday I missed the writing recommended as a daily limbering up by Julia Cameron for the first time in six weeks. But I realise that these are, in effect, my Morning Pages for the moment: I can't think of anything I want to put down on paper (or up on screen) more strongly than this right now. And I have to trust that other stuff (like the play) is simmering away and that this is part of the process. (Denial? Me?) I certainly do have an ache to be read/heard right now, and the act of playwriting is delayed gratification, bigtime. (Only exceeded by Development Hell in Hollywood ...)

So ... Gloria. Yes, it's the only one l’d personally consider putting up there with GT. It feels more of an archetype, and the many recordings (Vito's a treat as yet denied to me) suggest that as a song, as a blueprint, it's more successful than Teardrops. (Or is it just that other groups realised you can't improve perfection? Even the Flamingos didn't remake it like they did lots of others...)

For me GT, as a performance, a recording, is more personally moving, and feels more "adult" – the knowledge of love and loss, the accepting of responsibility for the great hurt done, despite the attempts at self-exoneration: "I never realised... never knew.. ."

Obviously it's pointless to play winners and losers with two great songs; they're about different things. Gloria is the fiery passion of youthful longing captured to perfection (and yes, that includes a generous side order of self-pity, as you say); in Golden Teardrops, to use Nabokov's phrase about his later writing, "the fire of youth mingles with the ice of experience.... Whatever age Sollie McElroy was, he'd learnt: the chilly realisation that life is about causing pain - not deliberately, but the result is the same- and that happiness, love, isn't hanging around forever, so grab onto it for dear life, even though the odds are it'll go anyway, and you learn that for a moment but you keep forgetting it and putting yourself first and messing up again.

The teenager pining for Gloria has all that to come - oh, his pain is real enough to him, but the man would give anything to change places, to be back at the point where the unattainable idea had not transformed itself into that ugly mirror of his own shortcomings. Or he thinks he would. He can't, now, remember the full taste of that pain, evisceratingly real at the time.

(continues on separate posting)


Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, The Right to Write and other publications in the same vein (extracts here) can be useful in stimulating creativity, although her big idea is very simple: like a tap running clear, three sides of free writing first thing in the morning before selfconsciousness kicks in can get petty anxieties and other creativity-clogging thoughts out of your system - in her words, "minimise the censor" - increasing the possibility of genuine creativity later in the day. It's not a quick-fix solution but I've found it useful when I've adhered to it. Especially useful when you're trying to work out just what it is you want to write about. There's a religious or spiritual element underlying her approach but Ms. Cameron ingeniously invites you to see the word "God" as an acronym for "Good Orderly Direction."

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 33

clarkedavis
(M/Dover, New Jersey)

[...] familiarity of someone you know, and still love, yet she, having moved on to someone else, still has a lingering affection, which she can't hide from you, and communicates freely. A momentary, fleeting, kiss, perhaps the last you and she will ever have, is being made even more significant, by the Passions singing in glorious, fully realized dynamic harmony.

Doesn't matter what her name is. She really is Gloria at that moment. And she's not in love with you.


I deeply regret to say that I have lost the printout I once had of the first page of this piece, a detailed description of the Cadillacs' recording of Gloria. If anyone can help, I'll be most grateful. I've included what remains as the piece is referred to in several subsequent posts.

A reminder that the Matt the Cat interviews referred to earlier include Earl "Speedo" Carroll; he discusses Gloria and you hear part of a new recording of the song.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 15

clarkedavis 9/21/00
(M/Dover, New Jersey)

Tony, there is a mistake in the first paragraph of my previous post. I got my plays mixed up. The Pet Clark play was not the one that contained the streetcorner group launching into Gloria. Instead it was a play called Kit and the Kats, which I also saw on Broadway. Somehow I mixed the two up. I think both plays were big in London as well. Cheers!


The play was in fact Kat and the Kings, which I caught when it was revived in 2003 at the Tricycle Theatre in London. I have to say that I was disappointed, although the rest of the audience (and the cast) seemed to be having a great time; me, I slouched off at the interval. Maybe it's because of the weight of my expectations: I was hoping for some ideal doo wop musical, which this certainly wasn't - and the pastiche numbers (not acapella) didn't sound all that authentic to my ears.

But also this was not about the American experience of streetcorner singing; it was set in fifties South Africa. Ample scope there, you'd think, for exploring prejudice as well, but the relentlessly upbeat nature of the show - at least in the production and the half of the performance that I saw - didn't seem to leave much room for it. I feel mean-spirited for saying so, but it felt like an hysterical party into which I, Scroogelike, had stumbled by chance, and where I didn't fit.

I avoid all productions of Grease for a similar reason; the sight of a middle-aged man standing up in the stalls all through a performance of that much-loved entertainment and repeatedly yelling the word "travesty" decorated by a string of expletives would, I accept, mar the enjoyment of those who have elected to be present, in the full knowledge of what is about to transpire.

At least one reviewer shares something of my reservations about Kat - although, in fairness to the show, Terri Paddock, who saw the same revival as me as well as an earlier production, talks here about a second half "which builds and builds to a euphoric crescendo."

But what really pains me is the thought of what might have been. I can't remember the source - possibly Jay Warner's book? - but I'm sure I remember reading (unless it was all publicity flim-flam) that a musical intended as an African American companion piece or retort to Grease was in the planning stages. I even seem to remember the line selling the projected show: "Before Grease there was Conkalene."

And just who was being mooted to star in this extravaganza? Only an exciting young New Jersey act garnering a lot of plaudits in America and Europe called ... 14 Karat Soul.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 14

clarkedavis
(M/Dover, New Jersey)

Tony, the source you couldn't identify where there is a group on the corner who sees a girl walk by and jumps into an acapella rendering of Gloria when she passes is the beginning of a play called Blood Brothers. Pet Clark starred in it on Broadway, and it was extremely fine.

Regarding the idealized versus the actual in that era. Having lived through some of it (the later part), I can only say that it was only in retrospect that one could recognize that it was indeed a fleeting moment in time. At the time, it was as if each of us had all the time in the world, and there were infinite "girls next door" with pony tails and warm lips.

The record hops, or dances at the local High School Auditoriums were amazing Friday and Saturday night events. They actually turned the lights way down low, if not virtually off, in order to give the right atmosphere for the lovers/dancers. Teachers rarely acted as more than shadowy chaperones just there to keep an eye out. And it wouldn't be unusual to actually walk up to a girl, say hi, ask her to dance, and have an instant new girlfriend! Compared to today, isn't this an amazing description of a high school dance? The DJs were local radio personalities, and if a record was number one on the charts, you might hear it four times that night. This was a very peaceful scene usually without any fighting, except once in a while, two guys would be after the same girl, and something would break out after the dance.

And speaking of after the dance, well, legends are made of those nights. Autumn nights under the stars, parked at the beach with the moon shining down with your favorite girl sitting beside you in the middle of the car seat, because bucket seats were just not in vogue then. Doo Wop tunes swimming around in your head, all excited because your girl had her hand on your leg the past ten minutes you were driving. A moment frozen forever when you managed to actually kiss your dream girl. A trip to the moon, by simply brushing your lips against those of another. Back to the music......There's a moon out tonight...sounded like it never sounded before when circumstances such as those framed its playing on your favorite AM radio station. Forget about limited bandwidth, and static. The music jumped out of the speakers anyway, and became a living entity attaching itself to your brain for the rest of your life.

Special music for special times? You bet. A Golden Era of Rock n' Roll? You bet. But not when you were living it at the time. It was just another weekend night out having a good time. Who knew how very special those days and nights would become as the world would change and romance would diminish on those terms. Of course, romance did not die, just changed form, reflected by a culture that was more self-oriented, and weighted toward individual success as a barometer of attraction.

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 5

pismotality
(42/M/London, England)

Clarke,

Many thanks - I'm touched by your kind comments. I wrote a radio play about a doowop group - the first piece of serious writing I did - and during that process tried to articulate what it was about the music that moved me so much. One thing which I didn't mention in my previous posting is the male bonding thing - that these emotions which couldn't be articulated directly to each other by adolescent males are "safe", able to be exposed and shared when turned into this rough, vital art form.

I'm also fascinated by the contradictions: the Dells, self-professed "stone hooligans" outside the studio yet capable of that achingly tender, ridiculous yet touching song I referred to. And the idea of the spontaneous, direct outpouring of emotion – can’t remember the source but the image of a group singing at a corner, the lead turning to see a girl go by and launching into "Gloria" became the starting point of the play: the protagonist's unreal dreams of this girl and the gradually unfolding reality of the less than perfect relationship he develops with the flesh and blood woman.

And the poignancy of a frozen, perfect moment also seems at the heart of doowop for me: One Summer night, In the Still of the Night: I think Fred Parris had to add "(I'll Remember)" to avoid confusion with Porter's song title but that parenthesis is a clue to that sad pleasure in this music: its importance, its transience, and therefore its preciousness, is only fully appreciated in retrospect: "I never realised," sings Sollie McElroy in Golden Teardrops. Even that Dells song: sweet dreams "bring back the memory of you." As you might deduce I go for the ballads ...

A final thought. Doowop, lyrically, is often ridiculously naive - and I'm aware my distance from it both in time (b.1958) and place lends enchantment/romanticisation. But (much as I feel about the music of Donovan at his best) it's about looking at the world, at the possibility of love, with a sense of wonder rather than cynicism. Back to Dave Marsh: he tells of a hip record store customer mocking the Students' I'm So Young. Marsh says: "That's somebody' life. Who cares if it's corny and misshapen?" Amen.

Tony



Listen to I'm So Young and learn about the Students here.

14 Karat Soul

I feel like saying: does anyone else actually know or remember this group? Sometimes it seems they were only a thing I dreamt: an unattainable vision (and sound) of doo wop perfection, never seen by waking eyes or heard with unclogged ears (I'll explain later).

And yet there they are, a glimpse of them, anyway, on youtube; CDs can be bought; there's an official website which hasn't yet been taken down, even though I believe they called it a day in 2003. They're even mentioned briefly in Jay Warner's Billboard book of vocal groups.

[update: caution is advised when checking out the official website,14ksoul (dot) com. For a while it was not safe to access, although at the time of writing - November 2011 - it seems okay.]

Perhaps it's simply the oddness of the situation: an accomplished act, who I saw time after time slaying live audiences, never made it truly big in America or the UK, only attaining the scale of recognition they deserved in Japan. Whatever the reason, I want to commemorate 14 Karat Soul. They should be revered all round the world.

I first came across them in 1981 at the Edinburgh Festival, an annual celebration of the arts in Scotland's capital. The beauty is that anyone can perform at the so-called Festival Fringe, which over time has become much bigger than the festival itself.

Studying Greek tragedy at university in nearby Glasgow, I was intrigued by the idea of a production of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus with Gospel music. I can't remember if the word "doo wop" was mentioned in the Fringe brochure (each act is given two or three lines to sell itself to potential audiences) but what I got for my gamble in the staid setting of the Assembly Rooms that evening in Edinburgh was what seemed to me doo wop heaven.

As well as The Gospel at Colonus, as the Sophocles adaptation was called, there was a piece called Sister Suzie Cinema which was all about atmosphere rather than plot (five young men enter a cinema, are beguiled by visions of fifties starlets, then leave). The university student in me ought to have dismissed this as the slighter piece; the burgeoning doo wop fan, however, was only aware of the most gorgeous, soaring harmonies, unimpeded by any instrumentation (The Gospel... had a piano), and a growing sense of entering a trancelike state which was partly the production's intended effect - the characters were in a place which peddled dreams - and partly because I had never imagined that the essence of those scratchy fifties recordings could be brought so vividly to life.

And as this is a blog, I don't have to omit the indelicate detail that I was having ear trouble at the time which meant that I had to pull down sharply on one lobe in order to hear anything which didn't sound as though multiple layers of cotton wool had been interposed between me and the sound source.

So there I am, soaring in doo wop heaven, drinking in all this acapella perfection, taken to heights of aural ecstacy such as I have never known before ... and all the while head to one side, forever tugging on that lobe. Fate can be cruel and kind.

I'll spare you the details of the subsequent syringing, except to add that as sounds - wonderful bright, clear three-dimensional sounds - poured into my head once again, I could only mutter to the nurse: "Too late."

Living in the UK with no internet in those days, I had no easy means of finding out afterwards about the group's career in America, though I do remember thinking: "Hey, don't they realise they could use that singing ability to perform actual doo wop oldies? Now that I would pay to go and see." It never occured to me that Lee Breuer, creator of the two pieces, had chosen 14 Karat Soul precisely because, young as they were, they already had a reputation as ace doo wop revivalists, championed by Stan Krause and others.


My chronology is now a little vague, but around a year later I was delighted to find that the group, who had toured The Gospel at Colonus and Sister Susy Cinema around Europe, were having a week long residency in the unlikely spot of the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow.

I say unlikely because although Glasgow audiences are known for their warmth - Green's Playhouse, later the Apollo, was a renowned UK venue for rock acts - the small Mitchell Theatre was part of a recent extension to Glasgow's main reference library, so it had no history or particular atmosphere, although very pleasant. Possibly it was cheap, or possibly it was a handy place to try things out away from the glare of too much publicity. Maybe it had state of the art sound, as that was certainly very good. The visit may also have coincided with Mayfest, Glasgow's modest attempt to start a festival of its own to rival Edinburgh's, as I remember 14 Karat Soul performing as part of that festival around the same time.

Anyway, I booked to go to the Mitchell Theatre, normally home to local amateur theatre groups, just about every night of their stay. I saw them quite a few times afterwards but that week at the Mitchell Theatre is how I remember them. Aspects of the act changed from night to night, suggesting that it may have been a tryout base, although these were fairly minor. Essentially, they were good to go from the first night - and the first number - onwards.

I'm now going to try to remember as many of the songs featured in that week as I can. Quite a number are available on CD, although I cannot stress enough what a long way those antiseptic studio recordings are from hearing (and seeing) five figures with nowhere to hide blasting out at you. I think this is what draws me to acapella doo wop, and acapella in general: the knowledge that you're watching a balancing act, and if there is one weak link in the troupe they will all topple. You're seeing something vulnerable and human.

At around the same time, a lecturer at Glasgow University was trying to explain the twentieth century to us - a good trick in precisely fifty five minutes. His main point was that in previous centuries people were in touch with the objects which surrounded them - eg a door handle would have been carved out of wood, and you could visualise how it was made: by a man, as you were a man. You could have made it. (Unless you were a woman, of course, but that was a whole 'nother lecture.)

Come the twentieth century, however, the advent of mass production and the development of new, artificial materials meant people were surrounded by objects which they didn't really understand and so they lost a secure sense of their place in the world which led to social alienation and lots of depressing - I mean, challenging - literature.

The tutor probably put it better (it was over twenty five years ago) but when I see an acapella group onstage, vulnerable in way that no overamplified rock band can be, all I know is that I feel in touch with something fundamental. There's sense of intimacy involved: the directness of the human voice, rather than a lump of metal in front of the face, to provide the music; the self-exposure and risk in the sharing of that voice, in offering it to others for judgement. Then the magical-seeming, yet utterly human, way in which a group of people can temporarily subdue their egos to create a single entity. To go back to the image of the balancing act: when nobody falls - when, in fact, they all seem to soar - then that is a joyous moment which affirms your faith in humanity. And as the listener, you feel like an intimate part of that group.


As part of my job I've had to do some research into folk music in Britain. I'd always known about the fifties folk revival in America and Britain but didn't realise that all through the twentieth century and earlier collectors had been trying to preserve what they could of ballads handed down through the generations. I don't know enough to discuss it in detail, though I believe part of the impulse in Britain would have been as a response to the growing dominance of imported American culture. Interestingly, however, on a visit to Cecil Sharp House (the UK's Folk Music Central), when I mentioned my interest in doo wop to the assistant librarian Peta Webb, she likened it to folk music. Which I suppose all comes back to that phrase which struck me all those years ago in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia: "music you or your lover could have made."

Back to the show, as the audience is getting impatient. The group kicked off with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and it was very heaven, what with both ears now fully operational and tuned in. The bass singer had, I believe, been a drummer, and was miming a double bass; but the moment I really knew this was something special was at a particular blending of voices around "And now the company jumps when he plays reveille ..."

I can't describe precisely what was being done; I can only say it sounded grainy but right, rough but undoubtedly polished, not accidental. And a million miles away from barbershop. Or, come to that, any white doo wop group I'd heard. The nearest match I've heard on record is towards the end of the Spaniels' Get Away Child (You Don't Move Me). Sadly, although you can hear Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy online (see below), it doesn't really convey what I heard on those successive nights at the Mitchell Theatre. The sheer attack of that opening number (cannily chosen from outside the genre), and the promise of an evening of joy to come, is something I'll never forget.

I can't remember the order in which other songs were performed; there may have been a bit of juggling around from night to night. Operator opened the second half in a change of costume and I became aware of the old-fashioned curtain backdrop and lighting, as though this could have been any night in the fifties; Trickle, Trickle was performed near the end, as was, I think, The Morse Code of Love.

But one of the highlights for me was Farewell, My Love, which I'd never heard before. I subsequently found out it's an old Temptations number which was as much doo wop as soul; on the original recording the bass voice echoes (or is echoed by) an actual bass all the way through, so really one or the other is redundant, and the song was eminently suited to an acapella rendering. I'm presuming it was a favourite of Stan Krause's, as the Royal Counts also recorded it.

There was also a number called, I think, Take Me Back Baby which included the line "Try me one more time," which I haven't been able to locate. But the biggest thrill, perhaps, was seeing Gloria acted out rather than merely sung. Rather than repeat myself, I'll quote the relevant part of a Doo Wop Shop discussion:

The full meaning ... came to me: the bass, Briz, loomed as the lead sang, one last time, of his yearnings, intoning over him those doomy notes that spelled out just one thing: You're alone, Bub; get used to it. The bass was reality, just as he often takes over on "baser" group sides (Pookie for the dreams; Gerald for the down'n'dirty), and his notes here were a death knell for the lead's tattered vision of togetherness ("Maybe she'll want me... "), a bell to toll him back to his sole self, alone in the less than tender night. Briz was singing right into his face, with a sort of evil glee: maybe this message from the Reality Zone had to be given, but he was certainly enjoying the task, and the "teenage" lead was not much liking it, protesting his love and need to the end.

You can read the above in its original context here.

Whether it was before or after that residency, I was with some friends at the Mayfest festival and 14 Karat Soul were queueing in the communal cafe (no Edinburgh elitism in good old leftwing Glasgow). I wanted to go over and say It's great what you're doing - I love the Dells, etc - but I didn't.

Fast forward a few years and I'm living in London, going to see 14 Karat Soul at the Fridge in Brixton. I'm near the front of the stage, immersed in the performance, when I find I'm one of the people called up to add a few extra dum dums to Come Go With Me.

This is a task into which I throw myself with relish - only at some point one of the singers, grinning, makes a gesture. He slashes his throat with his index finger, which I know now almost certainly means "Shut the *&%! up as you cannot carry a tune in a bucket," but I thought then, and even now would like to present as a remote possibility, that it meant he envied my vocal command, joshingly indicating that he wished my prowess could be curtailed so as not to expose his own limitations quite so cruelly when he next stepped up to the mike.

But I admit it's a bit of a long shot.

I also saw the group in the more sedate surroundings of Ronnie Scott's Club (a legendary London jazz venue) some time later and I think that that was it. It had been on mind to record one of the Glasgow concerts with my very basic cassette recorder but I didn't, partly because I assumed there would be recordings very soon, much better than I could manage. I'd even heard them sing Sixteen Candles on the radio, possibly to publicise the residency, so I'd just sit back, enjoy the shows and wait for the LPs.

What I hadn't anticipated was that although songs from their live repertoire would gradually be doled out over a series of albums, these would be in the form of polished studio recordings which only hinted at the raw excitement of the same songs live.

And as the group - possibly because the great, and much deserved, breakthrough in the West hadn't happened? - went to Japan to develop a career there, recordings were difficult to obtain, although thanks to the magic of a certain auction site I now have several Japanese CDs. What I don't have is the original Catamount LP which I suspect may be nearer to the live group, although their album That`s Doo Wapp Acappela!! which, I think, followed the Catamount LP, has a fair amount of their live numbers but again sounds too clean. If only I had smuggled in my little cassette recorder - especially as there is a noble tradition of lousy-sounding doo wop recordings which are somehow magical at the same time - In the Still of the Night being the most famous case in point.

Talking of which, there is a long discussion of that Five Satins recording in the Doo Wop Shop posts (see blog intro for a pdf file link, or wait till I post them in expanded form here). It was particularly enjoyable because lots of people got involved, not just Clarke and me, and one of the questions raised was would you want to listen to some pristine mastertape of that fabled Connecticut church basement recording if it ever surfaced? Opinions differed, but I think the majority felt that the sound quality associated with that recording was now part of the experience.

Another point, raised by Bruce Woolf (who very kindly sent me, gratis, tapes of his old radio shows) was that there were only four group members at that basement recording session. To which the only answer could be: we are that Fifth Satin. In the same way, by the act of listening to them, and celebrating their memory as best as I can here, I'd like to think that I am that extra member of 14 Karat Soul ... er ... guys? Guys?

At any rate, without any available recording by the group which fully captures the pinned-to-the-seat impact of that week in the Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow (if you know differently, please get in touch), all I can do is try to remember what it felt like to be in that audience. And for someone whose exposure to live doowop up till then had been the music hall (vaudeville) version provided by the UK group Showaddywaddy it felt pretty good.

I'm still haunted by that singer's gesture. I know, because I was cajoled into singing a kind of Karaoke Abba over Christmas (there, I've said it and I'm glad) that my voice is not, perhaps, the most versatile of instruments (the machine, I think like that new Beatles game, actually rated each note but I don't want to talk about it). Could it have been he was saying: "Yes, your voice is terrible. But it's alright. You're here onstage where you belong, so go ahead and keep murdering the Dell Vikings, what with you being our extra unwanted member, and all"?

But maybe it's best - in order to pull some tattered shreds of self esteem around me - to look up from the gesture and fix instead on his grin, which seemed conspiratorial. So it could have meant - oh, I don't know what it could have meant, but whatever was going on, I was part of it, I loved what was going on, and the odds are I didn't actively ruin it.

Someone even complimented me at the bus stop afterwards: "That was great, man. Do it again!" But maybe he was tone deaf too.

So what does survive of 14 Karat Soul other than my possibly self-serving memories?

As mentioned, there's an official website, but as that favours the Japan-era group with personnel changes (founder Glenny T. appears to be the only constant) I'd recommend instead Beaudaddy's 14 Karat Soul page on his Vocal Group Harmony site which has a link to the official site [which, to repeat, is unsafe at the time of this update: August 2010]. The site, which covers many doo wop groups and is well worth a visit,   features promotional photos which I have plundered for this article and reviews plus a link to a York Times article about the TV version of Sister Suzie Cinema which was part of the Alive from Off Center series.

Scroll down the page to hear three live radio performances including Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. The audio isn't that great and unless I'm remembering through rose-tinted earlobes the performance here sounds a bit rushed; you can't really hear that graininess I talked about. But I'm very grateful to Beaudaddy for preserving these mementoes. Photographs for this post have been taken from his site. Access Beaudaddy's main page here, with lots of links to vocal groups - click on Persuasions, for example, to be taken to Jerry Lawson's blog.

According to the Mabou Mines website Sister Suzie Cinema came to London in September 1982; assuming it was in tandem with The Gospel at Colonus once again, this may have been when The South Bank Show (a prestigious non-BBC arts documentary series which, coincidentally, broadcast its last episode a few days ago) devoted half of its one hour running time to The Gospel at Colonus, including some clips of the production. I only remember a theatre critic saying something along the lines of its being well-nigh perfect. The good news is that I believe plans are afoot to make The South Bank Show's entire TV run available in some form, so I shall update this page if there is any more news. [updated info here]

It is possible to find an off-air recording of Sister Suzie Cinema on the net. Alternatively, here is what seems to be a place to rent it legitimately (Electronic Arts Intermix, "a nonprofit resource for video art") and presumably in far better technical quality, but it is not cheap.

The larger subsequent production of Oedipus at Colonus, featuring well-known performers from the golden age of gospel, has recently been issued as a DVD and is widely available. There is also a CD of that production. If anyone knows of sheet music, please let me know.

Right, I think I'm done for the moment. If anyone has any other 14 Karat Soul memories or information, I'd to hear from you. But to close, a youtube clip which illustrates the circular nature of my doo wop journey as the group do Frankie Lymon. Or, staying with the Lymon theme, if you too yearn to be that extra group member, try this other clip ... though having watched it, you may wish you knew of an internationally understood gesture meaning: "I revere the group you're miming to but, believe me, it would be an enormous boon if you could, er, stop, man? And, most emphatically, don't do it again."


Other posts about 14 Karat Soul: 

Try Them One More Time here.
Reginald "Briz" Brisbon here.
Greece is still the word here.