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Some songs you just know.

And I don’t know how I know this one. But I’ve never forgotten its chorus. That’s a hook!

It’s hard to believe, but prior to the consolidation of the Warner, Elektra and Atlantic labels, music was a free-for-all. As in there were a zillion labels, you’d buy a single and discover a new one, you knew them by their logos, you’d watch them spinning around on your record player.

Actually, after the Beatles, when the British Invasion began, and then free-form FM radio in ’67, with album rock, the consolidation started, but before that…

My mother got a Falcon in the early sixties, a ’60. My dad bought it used, only after he brought it home did he learn that it had been a Hertz rental car, which was a no-no, this was back when turning back the odometer was de rigueur, never mind having a zillion people drive the automobile.

Before that…

My mother drove this monstrous green Chevy, I think it was a ’52. I can picture it in my mind, but this was before I became car addicted in the late sixties, when I turned the pages of car magazines and memorized the images and facts. Did your car have a Hurst shifter? And what exactly where headers anyway? But the image…you could tell all the cars apart, back when they used to redo them every year and every one looked different.

My father drove Chrysler, Plymouth and Dodge station wagons. I remember one orange and white, another blue. Word was that Chrysler products were the best engineered, and my father was trained as an engineer, but all those cars were dogs, one caught fire on the way home from the dealership.

But where I heard “Personality” I cannot tell you.

That Falcon? It had a radio without push buttons. And it would stay on even if the car was off. You had to make sure to turn it off or the battery would die.

That old Chevy? I don’t even remember it having a radio, although I do remember standing up in the front seat for the drive to Penfield Beach. My mother loved the beach, we used to go every day during the summer. You had a sticker on the car, you could get one if you lived in town, if you didn’t…you got one per car, and someone would always scrounge one up for friends in Trumbull, other towns without seashore.

And the Chrysler products? The radio push buttons were long thin slivers. Took me years until I realized you pulled them out to set them, and did and made my father go berserk, which was not that hard, but this was before then.

As for radio at home… We almost never listened to it. We had a slew of transistors, if there was a big news event my mom might turn it on, otherwise we just listened to the radio in the car. That’s where I must have heard “Personality.”

Or maybe it was at the pavilion, where we bought our hot dogs and french fries at the beach. Or maybe from someone’s transistor on a blanket on the sand. It was a hit back in ’59, I was only 6 years old, I don’t remember much from that era, but I do remember “Personality.”

Lloyd Price just died. And his hits were so long ago, most of the world just shrugged. Yes, the younger generations are notorious for not caring about the past. And to tell you the truth, I knew the name but I couldn’t place the songs either, until I read the obits.

Turns out Price was from New Orleans, labels went down there to capture the sound. “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” came out on Specialty, and became a rock staple. Scratch an English rocker, and not only do they know the song, they’ve covered it! Joe Cocker most famously in my mind.

And then there was Price’s version of “Stagger Lee”…

“Lawdy Miss Clawdy” was released in ’52, before I was born!

“Stagger Lee” in ’58, but that’s not when I cottoned to it, I think it was a later version a decade or so later.

As for “Personality”…

There were so many covers… I just listened to contemporaneous ones.

Maybe my mother played the Anthony Newley one, she was a big fan of musical theatre. But no, that wasn’t the one.

Pat Boone? Well, his wasn’t really a hit.

Patti Page? Definitely not.

No, the one I remembered was the Lloyd Price original. 

“Over and over

I tried to prove my love to you

Over and over

What more can I do”

These lines are not that memorable, nor are those that follow them:

“Over and over

My friend says I’m a fool

But over and over

I’ll be a fool for you”

It’s a swinging band, even with a splashy horn, the groove is clear, it’s almost something Billy Crystal would make fun of. But THEN!

“Cause you got personality

Walk (with personality)

Talk (with personality)

Smile (with personality)

Charm (with personality)

Love (with personality)

And plus you’ve got

A great big heart”

Personality…that’s what mothers said was important to their not so good-looking kids. Yes, sometime, usually starts in junior high, looks become important. And you look into the mirror and you ain’t got ’em. And in the back of your mind you try to amplify your mom’s voice.

Now the truth is today’s men want to get rich to get some eye candy on their arm, they think it’s the most important thing. But do you really want to marry an uneducated model? What are you gonna talk about?

But the girls…they know personality is important, that it trumps looks, at least once they reach their twenties, if not before.

Personality, in this looks-based world, you never hear any discussion of this. Why did this happen? Was it MTV, requiring everybody to be good-looking to get traction? Is it today’s social media?

But…

There are certain people who just glow, that you want to be around, because of their personality, you smile when you think about hanging with them.

And the truth is personality shines. Irrelevant of looks. With the right personality it doesn’t matter what you look like, not that those with said personality realize this, but personality is what we truly desire. Someone to get the conversation started, to lead us where we’re afraid to go, to enrich our lives.

As a matter of fact the only musical artists with personality today are the rappers. The statements, the shenanigans, that’s half of the attraction, the music is just part of the package. Rockers used to fill this role, before they all became focused on their outfits and stage presentation. We’re interested in your identity, we’re even more interested in what’s under the skin, how you think, how you talk, how you act, how you light up a room…PERSONALITY!

Lloyd Price was just not the face of the song, he co-wrote “Personality.” And this one song would be enough to retire on if…he retained ownership. I don’t know if he did, he was a serial entrepreneur, did he need the cash, or did he just like coming up with ideas and executing them? And the truth is back then musicians were entrepreneurs, you couldn’t survive on record royalties, the records were just a key to fame, leading to gigs and sponsorships and…it was nearly cottage industry. That’s when all the excitement comes, when a business is new, full of renegades pushing the envelope, before consolidation. When it’s got personality.