Category: default || By jt3y

I learn something new every day. Last weekend, I learned that Roy Orbison had recorded a version of "Love Hurts" --- a big hit in 1976 for Nazareth --- back in 1961 as the B-side of a single called "Running Scared." But Orbison's wasn't the original version, I came to find out; a little online search determined that the first recording of the tune was by the Everly Brothers.

What a great talent Orbison was, and I didn't really appreciate him while he was alive. He just seemed like some weird old guy with sunglasses and a bad haircut who recorded "Oh, Pretty Woman," and 3WS was burning that out by playing it 20 times a day. But his catalog was deeper, and broader, than that, and included some really solid stuff, and he died way too early.

I also learned that "Are You Lonesome Tonight," a monster hit for Elvis the Pelvis' back in 1961 and the number two song that year ("Runaway" by Del Shannon was number one), dates back to the turn of the century. That I learned when Mike Plaskett played a 1920s version of it on WDUQ Saturday night. I emailed this to a friend of mine in radio; "the 'chairs in your parlor' line is a giveaway," he replied. In retrospect, I suppose it is.

Did people still talk about sitting in the parlor in 1961? I doubt it. The parlor had become the TV room by then, and people were sitting on the sofa, watching "Gunsmoke" and "Perry Mason" on the Philco. But no doubt Elvis had heard the song on a scratchy 78 while growing up in Tupelo, or else it was the kind of song his mother or aunts sang while doing laundry.

To digress for a second, though today's Almanac is nothing but a digression, Elvis' musical influences, and his ability to synthesize them, are truly remarkable. Here's a guy who was able to take everything from barrelhouse rhythm and blues jump music to gospel to 1920s pop and turn it into his own brand of rock and roll, with little or no formal musical education. I'm not a big Elvis fan, but you have to respect that.

My own music tastes are all over the map. Pop music and I parted ways somewhere around 1984. Even to my tender ears, the synth-pop and hair band music seemed so phony and artificial that I just couldn't get into it. Like so many yinzers who heard WDVE in utero, I drifted into 1970s guitar and folk rock --- Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Boston, Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf, Steve Miller, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Somewhere along the line, I started seeking out the originals of the old blues records that CCR had covered. That led me to enjoy '40s and '50s blues, which led me to sample jazz and swing. For a while --- and well before the swing-band revival of the 1990s --- I was heavily into the big band era. I was probably the only kid at Serra High School with a collection of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Woody Herman records. But R&B also got me into doo-wop; and doo-wop got me into rockabilly, which took me into old-time country and bluegrass. Someone (Ray Charles, I think) said that rock, jazz, blues and country are all only about a half-beat off of one another, and it's true.

(Ray Charles is like a god to me, by the way. I just happen to think that Brother Ray could sing anything --- a grocery list, assembly instructions for a swing set, the ingredient list from a package of Wonder bread --- and make it sound cool.)

I was lucky to grow up in a household where this kind of foolishness was tolerated, and it didn't hurt that my own family's musical tastes were eclectic. Dad was into Porky Chedwick-style oldies and country music, so a ride with him was likely to feature an "Alabama" 8-track or WIXZ or WEEP on the radio. Mom loved Motown and pop, so she'd be listening to 13Q or Stereo WTAE, featuring Don Berns and Jim Quinn, who was still a liberal back then. (I know, I know, you're asking: "How long ago was that again?") And my maternal grandfather, who I spent a lot of time with as a kid, loved '40s and '50s pop.

Pap also loved big cars, which probably was an influence on me, too. He had a Cadillac Coupe de Ville with a "Wonder-Bar" radio that could search for radio stations automatically. In the era before seek and scan and digital tuners, this was a marvelous thing for an 8-year-old geek to play with. You'd press the button, and the pointer would start moving along the dial, pausing on any stations it found. When it got to the end, it would "ka-CHUNK" like an electric typewriter and the pointer would shoot back to the beginning again.

We'd be riding along in his Cadillac with WJAS on the radio when "Round and Round" or "Wanted" would come on. "You know who that is?" Pap would say. "That's Perry Como. He's from Canonsburg. He's the greatest singer that ever lived."

Though I loved Pap, I couldn't stand that kind of music as a kid. But it's funny; recently I've gotten heavily into '50s pop --- Guy Mitchell ("There's a pawn shop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"), Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Patti Page, and yes, good old Mr. C. The music is so square that the records have corners, but I love it, and every time I hear "Papa Loves Mambo," I think of my grandfather.

None of this is of any relevance, necessarily, but it goes a long way toward explaining why I can't name any current artist on the Billboard Hot 100.