lone events...

A hunger to know the antecedents of things drives me to
listen to blues music to find where rock and roll came from,
to read Kerouac to see why Bob Dylan happened,
to look at the anti-war movement and see why Watergate happened.

The first time I remember being really blown away by the idea that music came from another, earlier, kind of music was in Boston -- or more specifically Cambridge.  On a warm, humid summer day, took a break from the laundro-mat, to walk across the street and go into an establishment called the Inn Square Men's Bar, because I could hear music coming out of there.

(In Watergate, they had to "follow the money."
I -- on the other hand -- follow the music.)

A band called The Jaguars was playing fast, exciting music -- they played
"Maybellene -- why can't you be true?
Oh Maybellene -- why can't you be true?
You done started back doin' the things you used to do!"
with that jumpy, bouncing guitar-playing style.

I thought that was excellent music -- couldn't even get my mind around it -- it was so much fun!  When the band took their break, I asked the leader, Bob-something (I think), What was that Maybellene song?  I never heard that before.  Did you write it?

He kind of smiled like he couldn't help it and said, "No -- no, that was written by Chuck Berry."
Then
"Hey Maynard!" -- to another guitar guy with thick, wild, curly hair:  "She though we wrote 'Maybellene'!"

I didn't mind, if they were amused....Who is this Chuck Berry? I wondered to myself....The following month, in time for sophomore year at BU, I moved to a third-floor room on Beacon Street (#357, I think) and there was a guy there, down on the second floor, who had a guitar -- he knew who Chuck Berry was, and told me which album to get, to start off with.  He also played Muddy Waters records for me, and showed me how blues was an antecedent to rock and roll.

Now things like that are just Lucky -- you know?  I mean, (to paraphrase Rick in Casablanca, "of all the gin joints in all the towns...") -- Of all the rooming houses in all the cities in all the world...I rent a floor above a BU grad who could gladly explain t' me where this dynamite music came from.  Fortune smiled.

When I watched the film Nixon, I kept in mind that some of the unifying ideas the scriptwriters and director put forward may not be just how it happened -- because no one's talking, or at least no one's talking off-script, so to speak, government-wise, [oswald-acted-alone-that's-our-story-and-we're-sticking-to-it] on some of those topics -- the assassination of JFK drives people crazy --
("Oswald didn't act alone!"
"Conspiracy theories are all wrong!")...

over the years, letting info sift through consciousness, two things I have come to feel strongly:
1)  Heaping scorn and derision on anyone with a "conspiracy theory" is not an answer; and
2)  Things tend not to happen "in a vacuum" -- at that level, of that magnitude.

(Some anti-any-and-all-conspiracy-ideas enthusiasts might wish to bop me over the head for saying that, but that's the way it seems, to me.  Sure, accidents can happen, that's true.  But -- I just don't think things happen -- in a -- total -- vacuum.  Rock and roll didn't just land on us, one day.  It was based on something.  It came from somewhere.  Same way with public events, I think.)

I wonder if the anti-conspiracy-folks would rush around saying, "Chuck Berry acted alone!  Chuck Berry acted alone!  Never mind Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and Robert Johnson!  Antecedents be damned!  Down with the concept of inspiration!  People just create their music in a vacuum, that's why they're so creative!!"

o-kay.

(Cadillac rollin' on the open road,
Nothin' out-run my v-8 Ford...)

-30-