Having Fun, Feeling Numb: The Everly Brothers: "The Price of Love"

The persistence of certain Fifties acts in the Sixties is interesting, mainly because pop music was so young there (I'm guessing) was barely a perception of time passing - I'm not sure when 'oldies' became 'oldies' as such, but then I tend to think of musical time as being quite different from regular time...in that the Everlys here seem to be rocking away as usual, only the context for what they are doing has changed.

Before they'd be onstage by themselves, or with a band, but here there's a near-riot going on, a riot that comes out of a mixture of joy and determination. It is as if - and this is just the feeling I get here - that through partying and having fun something is being avoided, but also there is a real joy in immersing yourself in the music that can't be denied. All this next to a song wherein a man who has lost in love is himself determinedly drinking and dancing with every girl he meets, but it's no good, the cost of his heartbreak cannot be paid that way, no matter how he tries. He's having fun trying, but he always ends up alone, with bittersweet memories and a vague sense that some things can't be solved by throwing yourself into fun. He has to think, but who in this time really wants to do that very much?

And so they are in time with this song they wrote themselves, still popular in the US and becoming even more popular in the UK; the Everlys still have that marmalade sting in their voices and doesn't the song sound...Beatles-influenced? Which would only make sense as they influenced the Beatles in the first place. What goes around comes around, or perhaps doesn't need to go anywhere in the first place...

"The Price of Love" came second to Elvis, another Fifties survivor - however, next we go back to the New, to a group whose importance and fame never quite matched up.

The Next Best Thing: Ricky Nelson: "Hello Mary Lou/Travelin' Man"

If you ever wondered where the music video started, you would be wrong to think it was in the late 60s, though certainly by then the idea was gaining some ground; no, it is right here in the summer of '61 that the first music video appears, appropriately watched (though surreally) by the performer's own parents on the performer's show - the performer being one Ricky Nelson, and his parents Ozzie and Harriet. That Nelson was gifted musically was something not too much of a surprise - his father was as well - but young Ricky had a rebellious streak (though he & James Burton here all look as if they are the fathers of flannel-flying grunge, when in fact they are helping to create country rock, not to mention Chris Isaak) and made rock music when rock music was going through what could best be called a 'phase'; the major players all away for various reasons, someone young, familiar, distinctly good-looking without being overwhelmingly handsome - that is, a younger version of Elvis without the oomph - was inevitably going to appear, and that he came out of Hollywood makes perfect sense, since Hollywood is all about (amongst many things) making popular things even more popular. That Nelson turned out to be better than expected was a bonus, not doing anything other than what he wanted to do, and doing it well. (Being enormously rich and having his father's help in these matters was essential, of course, but talent wills out in all matters, no matter what the connections are.)

"Hello Mary Lou"'s b-side was the rather risque (if I do say so myself) "Travelin' Man", a song is as casual in its promiscuity as "Hello Mary Lou" is in its faithfulness; there is a kind of yin-yangness to this double a-side (yea and verily that is the definition of a good one) that is the answer to the teenage girl's question - "Yes, but what is he really like?" Is he able to give his heart to one girl, or does he just aimlessly wander around, like, y'know, guys do? Nelson lets the girls decide here, (though I should note that "Hello Mary Lou" was the hit in the UK , the other the hit in the US...hmmmm).

I should also note that "Hello Mary Lou" was written by one Gene Pitney (fear not, dear readers, I do get to him in time), thus the line about 'wild horses' was no doubt heard by, amongst many others, a couple of young men just south of London who were still teenagers themselves and who for all I know were fans of good-bad boy Nelson himself; indeed Nelson lived a life that was a bit rough and casual and yet somehow, his rather innocent bull-in-the-heather good looks could make you forgive him for all that; and as a product of The Man (Hollywood also tends to be just that, despite itself) he was far more successful than anyone had a right to expect*. He wasn't Elvis, but then he was far more Elvis than Frankie Avalon, and for that rock 'n' roll must say thanks.


*Just think of all the rather lamentable albums tv actors have recorded over the years, some of which I will, even more lamentably, have to write about.

Who Wants To Be King?: Elvis Presley: "King Creole"

With this entry a fascinating and (on one side at least) long-running competition is close at hand; a competition that is in some ways nearly pathetic, in other ways quite moving and cheering.

By 1958 it was more than clear that rock 'n' roll had one overwhelming figure - Elvis Presley. To be sure there were others who were as important and vital (and I will be getting to them soon enough) - but none were as utterly there as Elvis. When he verily spits out the lyrics of "King Creole" (backed by a totally awake & into it Jordanaires), he is almost saying - this is it, this is what rock 'n' roll is, punks, try me if you dare. "He's a guitar man/With a great big soul/He lays down a beat/Like a ton of coal" he intones, as a tougher version of "All Shook Up" leaps and bounds like a prizefighter. The whole song, in fact, is like a knock-out punch; "When the king starts to do it/It's as good as done/He holds his guitar/Like a tommy gun" pretty much shows that the King means business and isn't interested in prisoners. Hip-shaking, pork-and-beans and jelly roll singing King Creole is an unstoppable fearsome force (Elvis here sounds like hip hop virtually) that inspires others, indeed has been inspiring others for years, including an India-born young man called Harry Rodger Webb. This is where the competition begins, along with a long lesson (for them, not for us) on the definitions of success and happiness. The overture is done, now time for the show.