ø - Razorcake

SEAN CARSWELL
SEAN CARSWELL
My Mom the
Rock’n’Roller
(Sean’s note: My mom used to go to
all of the Alan Freed rock and roll
shows back in the mid to late fifties,
and when I was growing up, she
would tell me stories about them.
I’ve always thought that they were
great stories, so I got my mom to
tell me about going to her very first
show. I did a bit of research to fill in
the details that she couldn’t remember,
and I wrote out this story from
her perspective [so as you’re reading,
the “I” in the story is not me.
It’s my mom. I was never a thirteen
year-old girl]. For all of us who
still go to rock’n’roll shows, here’s
an account of what it was like fifty
years ago, when rock’n’roll was
just a baby.)
Cathy Lobasso’s uncle agreed
to take us all to the show. I was so
excited. My father would ordinarily
never let me go. I think it was
because I was the only girl in a
family of three boys. My brothers
could do whatever they wanted, but
whenever I asked my father if I
could do something, his automatic
answer was, “No.”
This was different, though.
Cathy and I could take the bus to
the Long Island Railroad, like we’d
done a hundred times before, and
her uncle would meet us at the
Jamaica station and take us the rest
of the way to the Brooklyn
Paramount, where we’d see our
first Alan Freed rock and roll show.
Since we’d know where we were
going and we had adult supervision,
my father couldn’t say no.
He did say no, of course. My
father hated rock and roll. He
always used to tell me, “That god-
damn music will never last.” He
would only let me listen to it in my
room, with the door closed. But
almost every night after dinner, I’d
go into my bedroom and tune in
Alan Freed’s rock and roll radio
show on WINS New York. Alan
Freed was the best. He had a good
4 ear for music. If he
A MONKEY TO RIDE THE DOG
...she came out on stage wearing a skin-tight silver dress, looking very ladylike.
Then, she picked up her trombone and started blowing. The crowd went crazy.
liked a song and he played it, you
knew it would be a hit. He was one
of the first white DJs to play music
by black musicians. He didn’t seem
to care what color you were, as
long as the music was good. He
was also one of the first DJs – black
or white – to play guys like Little
Richard, Fats Domino, and Chuck
Berry on the radio. Remember, this
was before record companies made
cheap forty-fives. The only records
were the big seventy-eights, and
they were expensive. We never had
enough money to buy records, and
even if we had had the money, my
family didn’t have a record player.
So the only way I could listen to
rock and roll was when Alan
Freed’s show was on the radio. And
I listened to it all the time. I learned
to dance while listening to his show
in my bedroom.
In late 1954, he started promoting
rock and roll shows at the
Brooklyn Paramount. He’d book
ten or twelve acts to perform over
the course of about an hour and a
half. There was a house band that
would play the music for all the
acts, because the show was mostly
doo-wop bands. They could sing
and dance, but they didn’t play any
instruments. Sometimes there were
musicians like Jerry Lee Lewis and
Chuck Berry who played the piano
or guitar, but even they needed the
house band to round out their sound
with drums and guitars and all.
Each act would do one song, and, at
the end of the show, a feature act –
whichever act had more than one
hit – would play two or three songs.
The shows always sold out.
Everyone at my high school went to
them, and they always talked about
how much fun they were. So when
Cathy’s uncle said he’d take us, I
couldn’t wait. I talked to my mom
about it. I told her how much I
wanted to go and she told me, “You
can go. I’ll talk your dad into it.”
Cathy and I met her uncle and
her cousin at the Jamaica station.
Her cousin was our age – thirteen
or fourteen – and she was dressed
in the typical teenage uniform of
the time. We all wore jeans and saddle
shoes and cardigan sweaters
that we wore backwards. Cathy’s
cousin also wore a scarf. Her uncle,
though, looked like the typical, little
Italian man you used to see
around New York in the fifties. He
wore a suit even though it was
Saturday, and he had a copy of the
Daily News tucked under his arm.
He nodded to us and steered us onto
the subway. As soon as we got on
the train, he opened up his Daily
News and started reading. He didn’t
say a word to us.
We got off at our stop and
walked up to the Brooklyn
Paramount. We were more than an
hour early, and a line had already
formed outside the Paramount. We
got in line. Cathy, her cousin, and I
were so excited that we couldn’t
stop talking about the acts we were
going to see and all. Cathy’s uncle
just pulled the Daily News out from
under his arm again and stood there
reading it.
As more people got in line
behind us, more activity started to
build around the Paramount. A lot
of the singers in the rock and roll
shows were guys and girls who’d
started by singing on the street corners,
and who were discovered
there. That’s how Dion and The
Belmonts – the guys who did
“Little Runaway” and “The
Wanderer” – got discovered. They
used to stand on a corner on
Belmont Avenue in the Bronx,
making up songs, and a record
company guy heard them there and
signed them to a record contract. It
seemed like every corner in the
Boroughs had five guys standing
there, singing doo-wop songs in
those days. All of those doo-wop
guys dreamed of being discovered,
of having one hit song and playing
the rock and roll shows. So different
groups of doo-woppers hung
out outside the Paramount, singing
songs for everyone in line, hoping
Alan Freed or someone would discover
them.
While we were standing there,
we could also see the different acts
coming in. We didn’t know who
was who. We knew their music, but
we’d never seen any of the musicians.
We didn’t know what they
looked like. There was a group of
girls behind us, though, who had
been to these shows before and
knew who everyone was. We’d be
standing there and one of the girls
would say, “There’s The
Flamingos,” and everyone would
be talking at once, trying to get the
attention of one of the guys in the
band. The band members would
smile and wave and sometimes stop
to sign an autograph or two. You
could tell the performers loved all
the attention. They were just kids a
few years older than us, and this
was their way off of whatever street
they were from.
With all the activity, the wait in
line didn’t seem too long, and, at
one o’clock, the doors opened. You
couldn’t buy tickets ahead of time.
It was all first come, first serve. It
was the same way with the seats.
You could just take whatever seat
you wanted, so we raced up front.
We wanted to be as close to the
stage as possible. We ended up sitting
in the third or fourth row from
the stage. The seats would be great
for the show, but not so great for the
movie. You see, before the rock and
roll show started, they’d always
show a full-length movie.
Because they charged so little
to get in and they had to pay all the
performers, they didn’t spend any
money getting a good movie. They
always showed the worst movies in
the world. I remember this one had
something to do with giant
grasshoppers taking over the world.
No one watched the movie.
Everyone in the place seemed to be
talking. Everyone except Cathy’s
uncle, who fell asleep as soon as
the lights went down.
We talked all through the
movie. We were so excited; we
couldn’t wait for the bands to start.
I’d like to say that we ignored the
movie, but when you’re in the third
row and these giant grasshoppers