Eddie Cochran, Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer

I got rid of my 45rpm record collection from the 50s a few years ago. Katie and I were getting ready to move and we were pairing down our stuff. I didn’t own a record player, so I had no way of playing vinyl records. Besides, if I wanted to hear these early rock ‘n’ roll songs, I could easily stream them. It all made perfect sense at the time. The guy in the used record shop hastily flipped through my cherished stack of musical gems as if he were shuffling a deck of cards. When he got to the last one, he looked up at me and said, “They’re not worth anything”. I couldn’t believe it. I pointed out that some of these records were the beginning of a musical revolution that’s still going on today. “Nobody wants 45s and nobody’s buying them.” He pushed my pre-teen record collection across the counter as if it were garbage. I picked a record off the stack and held it in front of his face. “Here’s the original ‘Summertime Blues’ by Eddy Cochran.” “Never heard of him,” he replied. To jar his memory I added, “The Who covered it on their ‘Live at Leeds’ album”. The guy just shook his head back and forth. “And they performed it in the Woodstock documentary” I added. “Didn’t see it.” I could tell he’d had enough of me. He turned away to do something behind the counter, so I took my stack of records and left. I think he was probably a Millennial. I dropped my records off at Goodwill on my way home. I hoped some baby boomer who still had a record player and an adapter for 45s would discover them. As a pre-teen white boy growing up in the Midwest suburbs in the 1950s, the impact of early rock ‘n’ roll was huge. I think it was one of those “you had to have been there” times. Before the rock ‘n’ roll revolution, some of the popular songs were “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” by Bill Hayes, “Autumn Leaves” an instrumental by Roger Williams, “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Tweedle Dee” by Georgia Gibbs and “Moments to Remember” by the Four Lads. Then in the summer of 1956, Elvis burst onto the radio like a lightning bolt. I immediately bought the 45, “Hound Dog” side-A and “Don’t be Cruel” side-B. In the still segregated 50s, the radio stations in the Midwest did not play the black “race” music of the time. A young Elvis listened to this music on the radio and was able to see live performances after his parents moved to Memphis when he was 13. When Elvis began playing the guitar and singing, he blended this “race” music or what we now call rhythm and blues and Gospel with the hillbilly and western music of the time to create Rock-a-Billy which was the earliest form of rock ‘n’ roll. A host of young musicians imitated Elvis, later finding their own voices in this new genre, and none of them did it better than Eddie Cochran. Eddie was already a working musician by the time he became aware of Elvis. At age 14, he bought a blond Gibson cutaway acoustic guitar and modified it with an electric pick-up. The guitar became his passion. He taught himself to play blues guitar as well as the finger picking styles of Chet Atkins and Merl Travis. In 1953 his family moved to southern California from Minnesota. That summer, Eddie and a high school friend named Chuck, experimented with recording techniques on a two-track tape recorder. They fooled around with over-dubbing, multi-track recording and distortion techniques. Eddie became an extremely proficient guitar player and he also learned to play the piano, bass, and drums. Eddie dropped out of high school in 1955 when he was 16 to pursue a music career. He teamed up with another musician named Hank Cochran, who was no relation to him, but they called themselves the Cochran Brothers. They played pure country like the musicians on the Grand Ole Opry and performed at club gigs and dance halls. They even landed a few appearances on local TV shows. The Cochran Brothers cut a couple records at a local Hollywood studio, but didn’t have much record sales. Their songs featured their tight harmonies and Eddie’s guitar prowess, which later helped their careers. They started touring the south and landed an appearance on a Dallas TV and radio show called Big D Jamboree. According to Bobby Cochran, Eddie’s nephew, the show was broadcast from the Dallas Sportatorium, a huge “airplane hangar size Quonset hut.” According to Bobby, Eddie and Hank noticed a police officer standing to the side “covered in scratches”. They asked him about it and he told them some kid by the name of Elvis Presley had played there a few nights before and he explained “…all them gals nearly scratched us to pieces tryin’ to get to him.” After their tour was over, Eddie and Hank went to Memphis where they witnessed a Presley gig. “They were knocked out. When charismatic Elvis hit the stage, it was dynamic, like magic. The young women in the audience went wild.” Eddie believed they were witnessing “the world’s next musical hero.” After the concert they went backstage and briefly talked with Elvis. Eddie began to incorporate Elvis’s style into the duo’s performances. The next year he quit the Cochran Brothers and teamed up with Jerry Capehart who became his co-songwriter and manager. Eddie became a solo act, playing and singing strictly rock ‘n’ roll, which was just starting to take off around the country. Songs like “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets, “Maybellene by Chuck Berry and “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard, began to get airplay around the country. Eddie’s first successful song was “Twenty Flight Rock” written by Ned Fairchild. He recorded it in 1956 and performed it in a cameo appearance in the movie “The Girl Can’t Help It” starring Jayne Mansfield. In 1957, a 15-year-old Paul McCartney performed the song for 16-year-old John Lennon when he auditioned for Lennon’s band the Quarrymen. Soon after his movie appearance Eddie was signed to Liberty records and recorded “Sittin’ in the Balcony” which became a top twenty hit and rose to #18 on the Billboard chart. He “lip-synced” the song on Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show. “Summertime Blues” was written by Eddie and Jerry and released in August of 1958. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard top 100. Recorded in Hollywood at Gold Star Recording Studios, Cochran played all the guitar parts and sang both the high and low parts of the song. He and his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley did the hand clapping in the background. The low voice in the song was meant as a tribute to the black character of Kingfish on the Amos and Andy show. Connie “Guybo” Smith played the electric bass and Earl Palmer played drums. Eddie’s career took off and he spent the rest of his short life playing his music in rock ‘n’ roll concerts around the US and in England. He died in a car crash in England on April 17, 1960. He was 22 years old. He was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Summertime Blues has been recorded many times over the years by a variety of artists. Alan Jackson had a #1 hit, Buck Owens recorded it and Brian Setzer’s cover was in the movie “La Bamba”. The Who made it a staple in their concerts and gave the song new life. But Eddie’s version even today sounds great, a perfect example of early rock ‘n’ roll. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and ranked #77 on the list of greatest Guitar tracks by Q magazine. It is #73 on Rolling Stone magazines greatest 500 songs of all time and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum lists it as one of the songs that shaped rock ‘n’ roll along with his song “C’mon Everybody”.

At the Hop

 

One of my favorite early rock & roll songs is “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors. It was released in June of 1957 when I was nine years old. What I love about the song is the blending of the Doo Wop harmonies and progression with early rock & roll that Elvis most famously popularized.

The original group consisted of Danny Rapp, the lead singer, Dave White, 1^st tenor, Frank Moffei, 2^nd tenor, and Joe Terranova (who later changed his last name to Terry) baritone. The group got together in 1955 when they were classmates at John Bartrum High School in Philadelphia. They called themselves the Juvenaires. Harmonizing in the Doo Wop style, they performed at school functions and local events in the area.

Doo Wop music originated in the Black communities of the major cities in America in the 1940s and became widespread in the early 50s.  Young black men got together and harmonized in the style of the Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots and Barber shop quartets. They practiced on street corners and under bridges and areas that had good acoustics. The Italian youth picked up on it and formed their own groups, the most famous example being Dion and the Belmonts who were early rock & roll pioneers.

According to Joe Terry in a 2010 interview, one day the Juvenaires were practicing on the street corner and a young man from their neighborhood, the projects in South Phillie, named John Medora, walked up to them and said “You guys are pretty good. I’d like to take you to the guy who recorded me.” At that time Medora was an up-and-coming rock & roll singer and song writer. Earlier that year, he cut a record on the Singular label, owned and managed by Artie Singer. The song written by Singer was called “Be My Girl” and recorded under the name Johnny Madara.

Artie Singer started out as a bass player, playing with some of the big bands on the radio and on a TV show called Paul Whiteman’s Goodyear Review. He and his brother Harold became vocal coaches, and they had some famous students including Danny Kaye, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker and Al Martino.

David White was the song writer for the Juvenaires. He and Medora wrote a song called, “Do the Bop”. Medora took the Juvenaires to Singer and Artie liked a couple of their songs. They recorded, “Do the Bop” and “Sometimes When I’m All Alone”. Medora sang lead with the Juvenaires backing him with their vocal harmonies.

Singer suggested they take the record to a local DJ, Dick Clark. In addition to being a radio DJ, in July 1956 Clark took over a local television show called Bandstand. The original host, Bob Horn, was fired following a drunk driving arrest. It was a half hour show where they played current records and the kids danced. Clark told the group that he liked the song “Do the Bop”, but “the Bop” was a dance that was on its way out. He said these dances went out of fashion very quickly and suggested changing the song from “let’s all do the Bop” to “let’s go to the Hop”.  He told them “Record Hops are going to be around for a long time.”

According to Joe Terry, the group went back home and rewrote the song. Clark also suggested they change their name from the “Juvenaires” to “the Juniors”. So, they re-recorded the song with Danny Rapp singing lead and under their new name, Danny and the Juniors.

According to Singer, Clark agreed to play the record if he got half of the proceeds, which was a common practice and not illegal at the time. In 1960 the Payola hearings took place, and it became illegal for DJs to demand a cut of the profits. Clark sold his share in the song just prior to the new law going into effect and did not continue the practice after that. Singer said in an interview that he didn’t like the financial arrangement with Clark but always credited Clark with launching his music career. The song became a local hit in the summer of 1957.

In December Clark called the group because he needed a substitute band on Bandstand. The TV show, now renamed American Bandstand, had recently expanded to national coverage on ABC. Danny and the Juniors lip-synced the song on the show and for the first time were seen all across the Country. ABC/Paramount bought the master recording in January of ‘58 and it became a national hit reaching #1 in the US and Canada and #3 in the UK. It also made it onto the Country and the Rhythm and Blues charts. It remained #1 for 7 weeks, breaking a record for vocal groups.

Danny and the Juniors followed up the song with “Rock and Roll is here to Stay” which went to # 19 on the Billboard top 100 and #16 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. It became an anthem for rock & roll at the time. It sounds very similar to “At the Hop”, and in my opinion is not as good.

In 1969 Sha Na Na performed “At the Hop” at the Woodstock festival and in 1973, George Lucas put it in the soundtrack of his movie American Graffiti. In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it is on the list of the 500 songs that shaped Rock & Roll.

The Winter Dance Party, 1959

The Buddy Holly crash-site memorial

The Winter Dance Party of 1959 is best known for the tragic plane crash and deaths of three popular rock & roll musicians, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. Don McLean’s famous 1971 song, American Pie, immortalized the tragedy as “the day the music died”.

Rock & roll music took off in 1956 when Elvis had a string of hits and influenced just about every rock & roll artist who came after him. The major pioneers of Rock were Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. But by the end of 1959, all of these musicians would be gone from the music scene.

The Winter Dance Party tour began on January 23rd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These concerts lasted a total of 24 days, crisscrossing six mid-western states in the dead of winter--Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky. The musical acts were Buddy Holly, Dion and the Belmonts, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper and Frankie Sardo.

Buddy Holly was the most famous of the tour group musicians, already having a string of hits. His first hit single with The Crickets was That’ll Be the Day in February 1957, others being, Every Day, Not Fade Away, Peggy Sue, Maybe Baby, Oh Boy and Rave On.

Dion and the Belmonts was a quartet from the Bronx, a white Doowop group with three songs on the Billboard top 100, I Wonder Why, No One Knows and Don’t Pity Me. They were on American Bandstand in early 1958 and after that appearance their records began to get national airplay. Their first major tour was in late 1958 with The Coasters, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Bobby Darin. But their most famous songs, A Teenager in Love and Where or When, didn’t come out until after the Winter Dance Party. In the early 1960s, Dion would go on to become one of the most popular recording artists of the time with hits like Run around Sue, The Wanderer and Ruby Baby.

Richie Valens at 17 was a performer on the rise. He had three hit songs on the charts at the time of the tour, Come on Let’s Go, Donna, and his biggest hit La Bamba, a Mexican folk song that Valens sang in a rock & roll style. La Bamba is on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

The Big Bopper (JP Richardson) was a popular DJ from Beaumont, Texas. He was also a musician and song writer. He wrote the song White Lightning for George Jones which became Jones’ first number one hit on the country charts. He also wrote Running Bear for Johnny Preston, which became a hit after Richardson’s death in the plane crash. Richardson recorded Chantilly Lace for Mercury records and followed it with Big Bopper’s Wedding. Both songs were still actively playing on the radio at the time of his death.

Frankie Sardo was from Brooklyn and had a regional hit with Fake Out. He was not nationally known and was the opening act of the Winter Dance Party concerts.

Buddy’s original band, The Crickets, were not part of the tour. In 1958 Buddy moved to New York City and met Maria Elaina, the secretary for Southern Publishing. They fell in love and on August 15, 1958, Buddy took Maria back to Lubbock to get married in a private ceremony. Separating from his manager and the Crickets, Buddy and Maria returned to New York city and moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village. Maria was pregnant at the time.

Buddy recruited a new back-up group, which would also be the back-up band for the other musicians on the Winter Dance Party tour--Carl Bunch on drums, Tommy Alsup on guitar and Waylon Jennings on bass.

Waylon was from Littlefield, Texas, a small town 36 miles northwest of Lubbock, Buddy’s hometown. The two met in 1958 in a restaurant in Lubbock and became friends. At the time Waylon was working as a DJ and performer at KDAV, a local radio station. Buddy was already an established recording artist and produced Waylon’s first record, Jole Blon.

In 1956-57 Buddy and Jerry Allison were a country singing duo that played at the Lubbock, Texas Youth Center and shared bills with well-known artists that passed through the area. At one concert they were the opening act for Elvis, who was not yet nationally known. According to Allison, before that concert they were country musicians, but seeing Elvis changed everything. They became enthusiastic converts to this new style of music, rock & roll, and “Buddy began writing songs with a new intensity”.

In March of 1958, Buddy Holly and the Crickets did a month long tour in England and was a major influence on the early rock & roll scene there. The Crickets’ records in the UK sold faster than the record company could produce them.  Young John Lennon and George Harrison, in part, learned to play guitar by listening to the Crickets’ records and Lennon wore Buddy’s style of glasses for a while. The Quarrymen changed their name to the Beatles, inspired by Holly’s band the Crickets, and The Rolling Stones’ first hit song in the U.S. was a cover of Holly’s Not Fade Away.

In January and February of 1959, the Midwest was extremely cold. The musicians traveled from one venue to another in reconditioned school buses with faulty heaters. They had no “Roadies”, so the musicians had to heft their own equipment. Sometimes there were as many as 300-400 miles between shows and the temperatures were below freezing.

The 9^th concert was at the National Guard Armory in Duluth, Minnesota on January 31^st, three days before the fatal crash. A sixteen-year-old Robert Zimmerman, from Hibbing, Minnesota, who later changed his name to Bob Dylan, was in the audience, right up in front of the stage. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Dylan writes about seeing Holly perform:

 “From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. Buddy played the music I loved. He was the Archetype, everything that I wasn’t and wanted to be. I saw him only but once and that was a few days before he was gone. If I had to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I’d have to start with Buddy Holly. I had to travel a hundred miles to see him play and I wasn’t disappointed. He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit, everything about him. Then out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me straight, dead in the eye and he transmitted something. I didn’t know what, and it gave me the chills.”

Two shows were scheduled for February 1^st in Appleton Wis. 336.5 miles from Duluth. With over 200 miles to go, one of the buses broke down outside of Hurley, Wis.  It was 20 below zero. The matinee had to be cancelled. Carl Bunch, the drummer, got frostbitten feet and was sent off to a hospital. Another bus came and picked up the musicians and took them the rest of the way. With Carl gone, Buddy, Richie Valens and Dion took turns playing drums for the concerts in Green Bay and Clear Lake.

Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa

The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa was the 11th concert on February 2nd. It was originally built in 1933, a wooden framed building on Witke’s beach on Clear Lake. Carl Fox wanted to create a ballroom that resembled an ocean beach club. He furnished it with bamboo and rattan furniture, murals of the ocean surf and pictures of palm trees on the walls. It was a venue for dancing to the big bands of the 30s and 40s. It attracted the popular orchestras of the time such as: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Glen Miller, Stan Kenton and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1947, the building burned down and was rebuilt in 1948 across the street. In 2009 the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame designated the ballroom as an historical landmark and in 2011 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

People who were interviewed after the Winter Dance Party, Clear Lake concert said they saw no signs that any of the musicians were suffering from the cold and poor traveling conditions. They all said they had a great time and enjoyed the music.

The next concert was at the Armory in Moorhead, Minn. just across the river from Fargo, North Dakota. Frustrated with the long, cold uncomfortable traveling conditions, Buddy chartered a plane for Waylon, Tommy and himself, to fly from Clear Lake to Fargo, North Dakota. After the Clear Lake concert, Carol Anderson, the Surf Ballroom manager, drove the three musicians to the Mason City Municipal Airport. The flight cost $36 per person.

The single engine Beechcraft Bonanza had room for only three passengers. JP Richardson (the Big Bopper) was fighting a bad cold, so Waylon gave him his seat. Richie Valens had a fear of flying, but did not want to spend another night riding on the cold uncomfortable bus, so he asked Tommy for his seat. Bob Hale, a local DJ and the MC for the concert, flipped a coin and Tommy lost, so Richie got the remaining seat. It was reported that after the coin toss Valens said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever won anything in my life”.

1947 Beechcraft Bonanza at the Mason City, Iowa Airport

Some of the fans were on the tarmac to see their heroes off. The three musicians boarded the plane at 12:30am on February 3^rd. As they were boarding, Holly jokingly said to Waylon, “Well I hope your damn bus freezes up.” And Waylon replied, “Well I hope your ol plane crashes.” Years later Waylon said in an interview that he felt guilty all of his life for saying that to his good friend Buddy.

The pilot, 21-year-old Roger Peterson, flew for Dwyer Flying Service. He had just over four years of flying experience with 128 flight hours in Bonanzas and 52 hours of instrument flight training. He had passed the written test, but was not certified to fly by instruments only. His training was on a conventional artificial Horizon instrument that displayed the sky on top and ground on the bottom. But the plane he flew that night had a Sperry F-3 altitude gyroscope that had the ground on top and the sky on the bottom.

That night there was low cloud cover with no visible horizon. Peterson had not heard about a blizzard warning. They took off and must have flown right into it. Being a rural area, there were no ground lights to visually orient the young pilot. The plane crashed in a cornfield five miles after take-off. It hit the ground going 170 miles per hour. The right wing-tip gouged the frozen ground for 57 feet before the plane spun into a cartwheel for 540 feet and finally stopped, resting against a barbed wire fence.

Because of the blizzard, they did not discover the wreckage until the morning. The bodies of the three musicians had been ejected from the plane and lay all night in the open field, not far from the wreckage. Peterson’s body was entangled in the crumpled plane and had to be removed with blow torches. The civil aeronautics investigator concluded that the probable cause of the accident was “the pilot’s unwise decision to attempt a flight at night that required skills he did not have”.  Holly was 22, Valens was 17 and the Big Bopper was 28.

Holly’s mother heard about her son’s death over the radio. Maria Elaina learned of her husband’s death by a television report. After only six months of marriage, she instantly became a widow. Shortly thereafter, she miscarried and lost their baby. In the months following the crash, authorities adopted the policy of not releasing the names of crash victims until the family members have been notified. The public did not find out about the marriage and Maria’s pregnancy until after Buddy’s death. One more song made the charts after Holly’s death, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore. It shot up to number 13 on the charts. The music industry had discovered that after an artist’s death, there was great opportunity for record sales.

Buddy Holly’s career lasted just a year and a half and he had only one number one hit, That’ll Be the Day. But his influence on popular music was immense. Buddy and his band The Crickets, set the standard for rock & roll bands. They were a self-contained band with two guitars, bass and drums and would become the blue print for later bands. Buddy wrote and produced all of his songs, which was unheard of at the time.

The Winter Dance Party continued after the crash. There were 13 more concerts scheduled after Clear Lake and the main three acts were gone. For the next show in Moorhead, Minnesota, fifteen-year-old Bobby Vee filled in for Buddy and Waylan filled in for Buddy for the rest of the tour. Some of the other performers to fill in for the remainder of the tour were, Jimmy Clanton, Fabian and Frankie Avalon. These handsome young singers were more in line with the crooners of the previous generation. As the decade changed, the airways of the early 60s would be taken over by theirs and others’ soft pop rock music. The raw creative force of early rock & roll did seem to have died out.

Don McLean was a thirteen-year-old paperboy in New York City in the winter of 1959.  On the morning after the crash, he cut open a bundle of papers and read the front page headlines, “Iowa Air Crash kills 3 Singers”. In 1971 he wrote the song American Pie.

“But February made me shiver, with every paper I’d deliver, bad news on the doorstep, I couldn’t take one more step, I can’t remember if I cried, when I read about his widowed bride, but something touched me deep inside, the day the music died.”   

 

 

 

The mystery of Sinatra's gravestone switch

 Frank Sinatra is buried not far from the Twin Palms home that he occupied from 1947 to 1957. He lived there with his first wife Nancy and their three kids, and then with Ava Gardener after he and Nancy divorced. Katie and I drove by the house and peeked at the grounds from outside the gate, and then went over to the Desert Memorial Park cemetery to have a look at Frank’s grave.

  

According to Tony Oppedisano, author of “Sinatra and Me, In the Wee Small Hours”, Frank wanted his grave to be easily accessible to his fans. We found it not far off the main cemetery road just across from the office. It was a flat marble slab with the name Francis Albert Sinatra and below it, “Sleep Warm, Poppa, 1913-1998”. One single flower drooped in front. 

But this was not the gravestone that I expected. Every picture of his grave that I saw on-line had “The Best Is Yet to Come” and “Beloved Husband and Father” under his name. It looked like it had been recently changed, but why?

I found an article by David Lansing in the online magazine “Palm Springs Life”.  He too wanted to know why the gravestone was switched. When Lansing asked the manager of the cemetery, she said she knew what happened, but didn’t want to tell him.  He asked why and she said she didn’t want to get “in the middle of it” and suggested he ask Frank’s daughters or the police.

Lansing next requested the records from the police department, but when he got the records back, everything having to do with the incident had been redacted. Frustrated, Lansing asked his editor to formally request the records from the Palms Springs Public Records Department. He wanted two questions answered, who authorized the headstone change and when did it happen? The editor received a letter back that basically said they have the record but are not going to release it because “the public interest served by not releasing the record clearly outweighs the disclosure of the requested record.”

Lansing attempted to contact Frank’s daughters, but got no reply, so he tried contacting his granddaughters. One declined his request and the others didn’t respond. No one wanted to talk about it “…not the cemetery, not the police, not Frank’s daughters, not his granddaughters.”

Then out of the blue, Lansing was contacted by a person who was “connected to the Sinatra family for over 45 years”. All this person would say was that someone took a hammer to the gravestone and tried to chip out “Husband”. Because of the damage, the gravestone had to be replaced and “The best is yet to come” was changed to “Sleep warm poppa”, which didn't seem appropriate for someone who was dead and buried in the cold ground. But then "The Best is yet to Come" didn't seem all that appropriate either. 

In the article, Lansing talks about the animosity between Frank’s wife Barbara and his two daughters, Nancy and Tina. He gives several examples of the problems they had with each other. Lansing draws on information from Tina’s book about her dad. In the book Tina says that Frank used to always carry a roll of dimes in his pocket “so he’d never be caught short at a pay phone.” Before Frank was buried, Tina slipped a roll of dimes into his pocket with a note that said, “Sleep warm Poppa-look for me.”

Not only did Frank enter eternity with dimes for a pay phone and a note from his daughter, but also someone slipped a full bottle of Jack Daniels and a pack of Camel cigarettes into the coffin as well. Frank was buried like King Tut, having everything he needed for the afterlife.

Lansing quotes Tina from the book, “While I missed my father desperately in those months, I could hear him saying: Don’t despair honey, don’t despair. I could also hear him saying: Don’t get mad, get even.” And that’s where Lansing left it. So, it’s still unclear what actually happened, and I guess it will remain a closely guarded Palm Springs secret.

Frank was one of the most popular entertainers in the world. He had fame, fortune, many loves and a career doing what he loved to do. As I stood over his grave in the intense summer sun, the cemetery seemed eerily quiet. No one was around except for a few workers in the distance tending the grounds. The lonely, wilted flower next to the grave, made me think how fleeting and impermanent this life is.

 

Sinatra's Twin Palms House

 

Near the end of June Katie and I drove north to get away from the Arizona heat and to visit family and friends in Washington state. We take our time on these trips and stop along the way to view local sights or hike in beautiful areas. Besides, our aging bodies demand that we get out of the car and move around at regular intervals.

Our first night’s stop was Palm Springs. For years I’ve been interested in the history of Palm Springs as Hollywood’s favorite get-away destination and playground. This exodus of the rich and famous to the desert began in the 1930s, a time when gossip columnists like Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper could derail an actor’s career by revealing details of their personal lives. The newspapers of the time paid travel expenses for columnists for up to 100 miles and Palm Springs was just over the limit. Famous people wanting to get out of the limelight could drive to Palm Springs from LA in just a couple of hours and be out of the paparazzi’s reach.

Before leaving on our trip, I had just finished reading the book, “Sinatra and Me, In the Wee Small Hours”, by Tony Oppedisano. I was a total rock & roll fan growing up in the Midwest in the 50s and 60s but later in life my taste in music expanded and I became a Sinatra fan. Tony O’s book is not so much a biography of Frank but a memoir of Tony’s experiences and close friendship with him.

Tony O was a singer and musician and performed periodically at Jilly’s night club in Manhattan where many of the rich and famous hung out, including Frank. One night in December 1972, Frank came into Jilly’s and Jilly introduced him to Tony.  They became friends right away. At the time Tony was just 21 years old.

Jilly was Frank’s confidant for about 40 years, accompanying him on tours. “He was there for Frank for anything he needed”. In 1992 on his 75^th birthday, Jilly was broadsided by a drunk driver and died. Frank was devastated. Jilly’s death left a big hole in his life. Tony worked his way into filling that hole, becoming Frank’s “road manager” and confidant.

Frank was the most popular entertainer of his generation. Before Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, the Beatles and Elvis, in the 1940s, Frank had legions of girls screaming at his concerts. These young women were called “Bobby Soxers” by the media, because of the way they dressed--loose skirts, ankle socks and black and white saddle shoes. At the time this was a rebellious way to dress. The Bobby Soxers’ music was jazz and swing and their favorite singer was Frank.

In 1952 Sinatra's career tanked and Columbia records dropped him. But he revived his career in 1953, after making the movie “From Here to Eternity” and subsequently winning the Academy Award and signing with Capitol records. He began recording with Nelson Riddle and he and Riddle had a great working relationship. Together they produced many of Sinatra’s most popular recordings. It was this era of Frank’s music that turned me into a fan.

According to Tony O, Frank felt most at home in the southwest desert. I could identify with that feeling. In 1947 Frank had a house built in Palm Springs as a get-away for his young family. He had just earned his first million and signed a movie contract with MGM. He originally wanted architect E. Stewart Williams to build him a Georgian style house with brick façade and columns. Williams and his business partner brother thought this was just wrong for the desert and suggested a design more in harmony with the desert environment. They showed Frank plans for a “Desert Modern House”, a mid-century modern design. He liked it, and so they started work on what is now called Sinatra’s “Twin Palms House”.

Frank, his wife Nancy, and their two children, Frank Jr. and Nancy "Jr." occupied the house just prior to the Christmas holiday in 1947. In 1948 their daughter Tina was born, but later that same year Nancy and the kids moved out because of Frank’s affair with Ava Gardner. Frank and Ava married in 1951 and she moved into Twin Palms with him. It was quite a volatile marriage and ended in divorce in 1957. Frank sold the house and bought another property up on a hill subsequently called "the Rancho Mirage compound". It became his home base until he and his 4^th wife Babara sold it in 1995. He was briefly married to Mia Farrow, his 3rd wife, sometime in the 1970s.

Twin Palms was not far from our hotel, so Katie and I drove by to have a look. It was in the middle of a sprawling, upscale suburban neighborhood. We couldn’t see past the front wall, so we went around to the back and peeked through the gate.  There are plenty of photos online of both the outside and inside of the house which can be rented through Luxury Vacation Rentals, with emphasis on "luxury". Katie and I will not be staying there any time soon.  

 When Sinatra occupied Twin Palms there were no surrounding houses. The views of the mountains in the background are spectacular. I could imagine the peace he found that Tony O describes, sitting by the pool on still, warm nights, drinking Jack Daniels and smoking Camel cigarettes.  It was definitely a different era.  

 

Andy's Gang, a favorite children's TV show from the fifties

 Mr. Peabody instructs Sherman to set the Wayback machine to the year 1955

 While driving through Kingman, Arizona, on our way back to Washington state, Katie and I noticed the street we were on was Andy Devine Avenue. Andy Devine was a character actor in movies and television shows and died in 1977. When I looked him up online, I found out that he was born in Flagstaff, and grew up in Kingman. He is the town's favorite native son. In the Mohave Museum in Kingman, there is a whole room devoted to his life and career.  

Devine started his career on the radio in the 1930s, then transitioned into movies and television, acting in over 400 films, mostly Westerns. He played Roy Rogers' sidekick, Cookie, in ten films and was in several John Wayne movies. But I mostly remember him from Saturday morning television. "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock" ran from 1951-1958. Devine played Jingles, Wild Bill's sidekick. In the opening of every show, Wild Bill, played by Guy Madison, is galloping on his horse, shooting his pistol at who knows what, and Jingles is pulling up the rear, trying to keep his hat from blowing off.  Jingles yells in his unforgettable high raspy voice, "Hey Wild Bill, wait for me," as if Wild Bill would slow down and let the bad guys get away just so Jingles could catch up. 

"Andy's Gang", or "The Andy Devine Show" ran from 1955-1960. Andy took over the show that was originally called, "Smilin' Ed McConnell and his Buster Brown Gang". It was first on the radio and then became a television show. In 1954, Smilin' Ed suddenly died of a heart attack. This popular children's show needed a replacement and Andy took over in 1955.  Buster Brown Shoes continued to sponsor the show. Buster Brown was a comic book character created in 1902 and adopted by the Brown Shoe Company as its mascot in 1904, along with his creepy looking dog Tige.  Buster was an effeminate looking boy in a weird costume. 

Andy inherited many of the same characters from Smilin' Ed's show; Midnight the cat, Squeaky the mouse, Grandie the talking piano and everybody's favorite, Froggy the Gremlin.

When Andy said, "Pluck your magic twanger Froggy," in a puff of smoke, Froggy would appear on top of the old clock and say in a low voice, "Hiya kids, hiya, hiya, hiya," and the kids in the audience would go wild. There were no actual kids in the audience, but like "canned laughter", clips of the audience laughing were cut in where appropriate. Froggy appeared in skits with a teacher or a French baker, who would be instructing the audience on how to do something. In the middle of his instruction, Froggy would rudely interrupt, and the instructor would become flustered. In one skit I remember, the baker was teaching us how to make a cream pie. When the baker said what he was going to do next, Froggy interrupted saying, "and you put it on your head." and the befuddled baker put the pie on his head, and it dripped down all over his face. I thought this was hilarious. 

But the best part of the show were the stories about an East Indian boy. Andy would pick up his big Story Book, sit down in an overstuffed chair and begin reading. As his voice faded out, a film began running with the latest adventure of Gunga Ram and his best friend Rama. The boys' job was tending the elephants used in a Teak lumber company. They also helped the Maharajah when he got into some sort of jam. I felt as though I was transported to an exotic land and envied the boys riding around on elephants and having adventures in a land filled with wild animals like tigers, pythons and monkeys. 

 Frank Ferrin produced both Andy's Gang and a movie called "Sabaka" which was filmed partially in India and partially in LA. What we saw on Andy's Gang were clips taken from the movie and developed into their own mini stories for the show. Gunga Ram was played by an Italian actor named Nino Marcel. At the time I watched it, I wouldn't have cared about any of this motion picture gimmickry, historical inaccuracy or inauthenticity. I thought the show was great.

 

The End of Innocence

 1955

1965

1968