Million Dollar Quartet Celebrates Famous Jam Session

Some dates in rock and roll history stand out more than others. February 7, 1964, for example, is the day the Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show and were introduced to America audiences. August 16, 1969 is the day the Woodstock Festival opened and February 3, 1959 is known as “the day the music died” due to the tragic plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper among others.

 The writers of a hit Broadway musical would have you add December 4, 1956 to that list. That is the day that four future stars jammed in a small recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee.

The musical is called Million Dollar Quartet and it celebrates the true life events that led to Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis all performing one night and one night only at the Sun Records Studio. According to Phillips, the December 4th recording session was reserved for Carl Perkins and he invited Lewis to play piano. Elvis unexpectedly stopped in at the studio and Phillips called Johnny Cash to complete the one night quartet.

The Tony Award winning musical is a combination concert and history lesson as the audience is transported back to the small storefront recording studio operated by Sam Phillips.

Phillips, a popular DJ in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, moved to Memphis in 1950 and opened the Memphis Recording Service. He embraced the mix of blues and country music that musicians brought to his studio and started Sun Records in 1952. He is best known for launching the careers of the million dollar quartet members but he also is credited for recording the first rock and roll record in 1951; a number called Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats.

The Million Dollar Quartet musical tells the story of that famous night and offers some insight into the personalities of the musicians but the storyline frequently steps aside for the music. Popular hits such as Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Whole Lot of Shakin’ and Folsom Prison Blues are incorporated into the show. In all, audiences are treated to twenty-one early hits by Cash, Perkins, Lewis and Presley.

In the style of Jersey Boys, the show’s four stars are first class vocalists and actors who keep the show from becoming just a musical revue. They are also accomplished musicians that capture the style of those early Sun Record days.

While much has been written about the four music pioneers portrayed in the musical, Sam Phillips was the man who recognized the talent and taught his artists how to make hit records. They all moved on to successful careers away from Sun Records but for one night the stars aligned over 706 Union Avenue in Memphis and the Million Dollar Quartet gives you a front row seat.

Million Dollar Quartet is playing at the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas as part of the Dallas Summer Musical Series. The show runs through March 18. For ticket information visit http://www.dallassummermusicals.org/ or call the DSM ticket office at 214-691-7200.

The Most Classic Rock Song

The first time I heard it was just before Christmas in 1971. I was at a friend’s house and her older brother had brought the album home. He had already played it through several times but he wanted us to hear one song in particular – “Stairway To Heaven.”

The band Led Zeppelin was all over FM radio in 1971 and my group of friends were more than familiar with their first three albums. “Stairway To Heaven” and the untitled album referred to as Led Zeppelin IV did not change my life or even my opinion of Led Zeppelin but I knew it was one of the best rock songs I had ever heard.

Apparently I was not alone. The song was voted #3 by VH-1 on the list of 100 Greatest Rock Songs and was ranked #31 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In celebration of the song’s 20th anniversary, Esquire Magazine published these facts which show how big the song became.

As of January 7, 1991, the "Led Zeppelin IV" album had been certified platinum times ten (ten million copies sold). Also, “Stairway to Heaven” remains the biggest-selling sheet music in the history of rock. An average hit sells 10,000 to 15,000 copies. "Stairway to Heaven" has sold more than one million copies of sheet music.

The Esquire article offers a rough guess as to how many times it was played between 1971 and 1991. They figured that “the song was played five times a day on each AOR station in America during its first three months of existence; twice a day for the next nine months; once a day for the next four years; and two to three times a week for the next fifteen years.”

By 2001, the song had been played more than 3 million times on the radio, according to radio industry sources.

The song was so popular in the mid 70’s that it became uncool among the college crowd to like it. I tuned it out for many years but eventually bought the CD reissue and grew fond of it all over again - even without the scratches.

It’s certainly not the lyrics that made it popular. Even diehard Zeppelin fans are challenged to find meaning in lines like “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow don’t be alarmed now; it’s just a spring clean for the May queen.”

Musically, it may not be the greatest rock song of all-time and a lot of music has come and gone in 41 years but baby boomers and their teenage kids still download the song and play air guitar to the climactic guitar solo. I sat in a parking lot once forcing my then 11 year-old son to wait for the “Stairway” to end before I turned the car off. It just wouldn’t be right to cut this song off, I explained.

Guitarist Jimmy Page grew tired of the song and publicly announced he would no longer perform it live. With a few exceptions he has held to that but the song continues to make best and worst lists. The song has served as the theme for thousands of proms and been performed at both weddings and funerals. It’s become more of a phenomenon than a popular song.

That’s why I am a little embarrassed to say I still listen to Led Zeppelin IV often and might be found in the Krogers parking lot strumming my air guitar as Robert Plant reminds us that “she is still buying a stairway to heaven.”

Country Radio Days - Rock & Roll Nights

The Voice of Country Music in Paris, Tennessee?

  I would say it was more of an ambition than a lifelong dream but I always wanted to be a radio DJ.

  In the days before the Sony Walkman and Apple IPOD, teenagers in the 70’s spent most of their time either spinning records at home or listening to the radio. The DJ determined what music you listened to and ultimately what records you were buying.

  It was that ambition that led me to “study” radio and television in college. The classical format of the radio station at Murray State University wasn’t exactly what I imagined. It was harder learning how to pronounce the composers than pushing the buttons but it was a start. The payoff came after 10 pm when WKMS was turned over to late night rock and roll. Only the upperclassmen who had served their time with Mussorgsky during the day could spin Emerson, Lake and Palmer at night.

  I finally got my first late night shift in 1977 and did my best imitation of DJs I had heard on WNEW FM in New York in high school. No recordings of those historic radio shows exist and that is probably a good thing.

  That same year I answered an ad for a DJ position at WTPR AM-FM in Paris, Tennessee. It was a weekend job that included spinning country music on the FM station on Friday nights, playing top-forty music on Saturday afternoons and airing church services on Sunday mornings.

  My vast exposure to country music was a 45 rpm recording of The Battle of New Orleans that my brother owned. So here I was 90 miles from Nashville trying to pass myself off as a country DJ each Friday night. It didn’t help that some of the lamest country music of the past 50 years made the charts in the late 70’s. First there was Heaven’s Just a Sin Away which was pushed out of the number one slot by Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue which was then buried by the classic Convoy. I think you see my point. “Breaker, breaker…we got ourselves a long hair Jersey boy in the control room!”

  Saturday mornings I got to spin 70’s top-forty music on the AM station which was only a little better than the country experience. The station’s program director created a formula that required a top 5 song to be played every ten minutes or so. That meant you could hear Barry Manilow’s Copacabana about 5 times too many in one shift. A frustrated colleague at the station extinguished a cigarette on the Manilow record one day but a new copy appeared the next morning. It was a losing battle.

  Anyone who has ever worked at a small town radio station has stories. My favorite was the night I put on a long playing record and ran down the street for some barbeque. I returned to find the station locked. The album eventually ended and so did my pride when I called the station manager from a pay phone to come back and let me in.

  Then there was the night the control board started smoking and the time I literally fell out of my chair while on the air. Another gem was the morning I played Beatles music over the First Baptist Church of Paris services. It was an honest mistake but it was not my finest radio moment.

 Despite the bad music, working as a DJ was still a blast and that short stretch as the voice of country music in Paris, Tennessee led to many more years of radio highs and lows. Tune in to The Flipside next week for radio daze, part two

Tommy James, Greg Allman & My Mother

A long forgotten cassette tape resurfaced in my office last week. The sound quality was horrible and it was held together with old dried out masking tape. Still, I was glad to see that it had survived in a box of old stereo stuff buried deep in my closet.

The tape was recorded in May of 1968, the year I received my first cassette recorder. Years later I would become a stereo snob and switch to a dual cassette deck. This was not a dual cassette deck though – it was a cheap $30 Panasonic player/recorder but it opened up the door for a lifetime of musical enjoyment.

The old cassette tape actually came with the recorder and is labeled Panasonic C-30. One side is marked “Demonstration Tape.” The other side simply says “For Recording.”

I popped the tape into my 25 year-old cassette deck and heard the familiar voice of Chuck Leonard, a DJ with 77 WABC radio in New York and my mother. I had obviously held the crude microphone up to the radio’s speaker and you can faintly hear my mother talking on the phone in the background. The player apparently did not come with a “recording in progress” flashing red light.

Halfway through the first song, I Think We’re Alone Now by Tommy James and the Shondells, the music cuts off and the opening notes of Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers cuts in. Readers who are unfamiliar with the song should know that Whipping Post is a 23 minute jam on a record that was released in 1972. I probably recorded it over my first cassette in college when I ran short of tapes not realizing its historical significance.

Despite the lousy sound, I continued listening and was a little surprised when the guitar solo was cut short by a recording of Sussidio by Phil Collins. The hit song was released in 1985 and I remember recording it from an Lp I borrowed at the public library. Side one of the tape ended with more of the Allman Brothers song and finished with Chuck Leonard and my mother.

If a future civilization had uncovered this one tape and their spaceship happened to have a cassette player in the dashboard, Tommy James, Greg Allman, Phil Collins and my mother would represent all of the musical culture of our 20th Century. I admit that I am probably placing too much importance on this but an audio archeologist could peel off the different layers of recordings from the past 44 years and learn something about our culture or at least about my musical tastes.

Since that cassette tape was made I have recorded thousands of songs on tapes, discs and hard drives but I never worked so hard to capture music. I carefully held the cheap microphone up to the speaker of my cheap transistor radio and hit record at just the right moment – almost. I could only dream of a day that music came without DJs and commercials.

Today my I-Tunes playlist includes much clearer versions of every song on that old cassette with the exception of my mother’s voice. There is no compelling reason to play this old cassette again but I just don’t have the heart to toss it out. Instead, I will stash it back in the closet where some advanced civilization may find it and… never mind.

Seeking A Slice Of Life (Or At Least Pizza)

Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth. I set my sights a little lower and simply sought the pizza of my youth.

The journey for a perfect slice of pizza was part of a recent trip to the land of pizza; New Jersey. I was joined on my quest by my daughter Susan and her boyfriend Adam, a native of Glen Ridge, NJ who was familiar with the local peoples and their strange language.

Rather than study ancient maps, I searched “best pizza, north Jersey” on my IPad and immediately found enough recommendations to keep us on the road as long as Ponce. The journey began at Maggie’s Town Tavern in Little Falls (NJ). Even though I grew up 10 miles away, I had never been in the place. One reason would be that my hometown of Bloomfield had 26 pizza restaurants or pizzerias of its own.

Maggie’s thin crust pizza met with our approval although the no slice policy forced us to eat an entire pie. While that seemed like a good idea at the time, it would catch up with us later.

For no good reason, we took the word of Canadian goaltender Martin Brodeur, for our next pizza location. We figured since he played his entire NHL career with the Jersey Devils, he must have had a few good slices of pizza. According to New Jersey Monthly, “the Brodeur family visits Famous Ray’s Pizza in Verona at least once a month.” It was very convincing.
Officially called The Famous Ray’s Pizza of New York, the pizzeria was a classic slice joint with steamy windows, countertop stools and no tables. The pizza was amazing.

We headed west to the town of Caldwell where the number seven rated pizzeria in north Jersey was located. It was clearly a hit with the locals who were standing out on the sidewalk waiting to get a table.

My Allen American press credentials did not impress the crowd in front of us so we moved on to The Pizza and Sandwich Barn just up the road. This classic pizzeria was recommended by Allen resident Chris Tripucka. The local owner of Eagle Designs grew up in nearby Essex Fells (NJ) and claims to have spent many a teenage afternoon at the Pizza Barn. The pizza couldn’t compare to Famous Rays but apparently the sandwiches are to die for.

Next we circled back to Totowa (NJ) and Dominick’s Pizza. I had been to the pizzeria exactly two times before over the past 5 years and the elderly Dominick still recognized me as that guy from Texas (sort of). The pizza was probably very good but our taste buds and appetites were starting to fade from the oregano overdose.

The final destination for the night was Mario’s, a restaurant in Clifton that was a favorite from my teenage years. My plan had been to compare the previous four pies to the pizza of my youth. Instead, my two companions refused to eat another slice and I didn’t eat my crusts which is an insult to a good pizza. Like the Chicago pizza favorite – we were stuffed.

While the thrill from this pizza parade wore off quickly, we did learn that you can get a good slice of pizza just about anywhere in Jersey. We also learned that Canadian goaltenders know something about pizza (Rays was our favorite) and the next we will leave room for dessert. Spumoni anyone?

Misguided Purchase Sets Standard For Bad Gifts

What was I thinking when I bought that Christmas gift? I’ve reflected on that fateful day for years and I still can’t find a reasonable answer to the question.

It wasn’t a bad gift. I would characterize it more as a misguided gift from a loving but somewhat lazy son.

It wasn’t even entirely my fault. My friend Tom Casey nodded in approval when I picked it out and I think he even considered buying one himself. Fortunately for him, I bought the last one so he had to settle for a classier gift at Spencer’s Gift’s Emporium.

There had been “misguided gifts” before like the drug store perfume and the decorative ashtray but this one was so off the mark that it was never actually displayed in our home. Even the tacky decoupage plaque with Joni Mitchell lyrics found some wall space for a few months.

In my defense, many people have selected misguided gifts for their parents. Among the better tales I heard around Allen this week was one boy’s gift of men’s hair color for his graying father. Other memorable gifts presented by teenagers to their parents included garden rakes, a carton of cigarettes and giant Kermit The Frog slippers.

For years gift giving in the Carroll household was a supervised activity. It started with “here – give this to your brother.” Later, mom gave me money to buy my father and brother a gift. I had the money but it still had to pass the “mom test.”

The gift selection process went downhill when I had my first job and the ability to buy whatever I wanted. Tom and I made our way to the mother of all New Jersey shopping destinations - Willowbrook Mall. It was Christmas Eve (of course) and we needed to start and finish our shopping. We wandered the mall searching for gifts that met our needs and price point.

Panic set in as the mall’s early closing time approached. Certainly the nation’s largest mall had something special for my deserving parents.

“We’ve got to beat the traffic out of here,” Tom encouraged.

I made a quick decision and purchased the item that would set the standard for poor gift giving in northern Jersey and possibly the nation in 1974.

It was a large wooden plaque that you might find in a trophy shop. Its surface was covered with “antique” pounded copper and large rivets. Attached to the plaque were two crossed swords with a mace hanging down across them. All three of the medieval weapons could be removed and used in case of a barbarian home invasion.

My parents politely accepted the misguided gift but could never find the right spot to hang it. It traveled from the dining room closet to the basement a year or so later and hid itself inside my father’s workbench for the next twenty-five years.

Cleaning out the house after my mother died, I found the offensive gift. Other than some dust and extra scratches, it had survived fairly well. I considered hauling it back to Texas but I knew the FAA and my wife would have strongly objected.

Instead, I tossed it the trash – something my mother never had the heart to do.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Finish your shopping before 3 pm on Christmas Eve and think carefully before you buy any weapons for your parents.

Send your comments and column ideas to flipside@tx.rr.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

There's No Place Like Home (From College) For The Holidays

As the song says, “there’s no place like home for the holidays.”

I never fully appreciated the song’s sentiment until this year when both of my kids rolled in from college to reclaim the upstairs as their own.

It’s been great having them home and we had a wonderful Christmas but I never realized how small our house was or maybe how big my kids had become.

This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for me since I traveled home from college for five years. I was glad to be home but I think I was more grateful that the twenty-one hour drive in my twenty-one year old car was over.

After the initial greetings, my first observation would be how small the house seemed. Almost nothing had changed but the ceiling seemed lower and the stairs shorter. The illusion soon wore off and I hauled my stuff up to my old bedroom.

Home cooking was certainly appreciated but my own room was the thing I appreciated most when coming home from college. It was big and quiet and had the most comfortable bed in the world even if was old and lumpy.

Another vivid memory of coming home from college was waking up to the familiar sounds of my parents puttering around in the kitchen and rustling the morning newspaper. I’m not much of a coffee drinker but the sound and smell of percolating coffee can transport me back to that small upstairs bedroom.

Now that the roles have been reversed, I find myself hearing the familiar sounds of children, make that young adults, upstairs.

There was a time when I could hear the sound of two tiny feet hitting the floor above us – even in the dead of night. I would wait for the sound clues to determine if I needed to get up. There might be the patter of feet coming down the stairs followed by a soft knock on the bedroom door. Then again there might be more of a moaning sound followed by a sad call for mom, which meant she would comfort and I would clean up.

Now the late night sounds upstairs come from my son John and his friends as they cheer through games of FIFA Soccer and episodes of the Jimmy Fallon Show. Even my ritual of waiting up for the kids has changed. It is a losing proposition trying to stay awake as they operate on college time so I now go to sleep hoping the phone doesn’t ring.

My daughter Susan, who just returned home from her first semester at Texas Tech, admitted that the absolute best part about being home was sleeping in her own bed. I would have been offended if I hadn’t sat on her rock hard dorm bed last October.

One thing that hasn’t changed from my college days to theirs is the juggling of social time with friends and family. Vacation may be time to spend with family but it’s also time to catch up with high school friends and stay connected to new college friends. Add girlfriends or boyfriends into the equation and the quality time with mom and dad quickly gets divided.

After a few weeks my thoughts would start turning away from home and back towards my alternate life at college. I am sure my kids will feel the same way in a few weeks as they look to return to their own routines.

For now I am just going to enjoy the sounds of late night TV while my kids wake to the smell of our Keurig coffee maker and the rustle of the newspaper. In truth, they are more likely to wake to the smell of soup for lunch and the sound of dad raking leaves but that’s a column for another day.