Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky

"Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
U2

Actually, it was 6:01 PM. Not that we’d expect Irishmen to get it right.

Not that we’d expect Americans to get it right, certainly not white Americans.

I was sitting at my desk, doing my algebra homework, transistor by my blotter blaring WABC when the broadcast was interrupted, stating Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed in Memphis.

And I remember our rabbi leaving the temple to go down south to be a freedom rider. The sixties were a time of tumult, but much of it happened down south, off the radar, when I was small. We saw it on television, but when you go to the National Civil Rights Museum, you see it up close and personal.

It’s in the Lorraine Motel. Where Martin Luther King, Jr. was cut down. With a garish multicolored sign and two stories, the edifice screams nothing so much as SIXTIES! And that was a long time ago, when African-Americans chided that there could never be a black President.

Oh, how far we’ve come.

But not far enough.

Racism is still rampant. Barack Obama is the new Jackie Robinson, the new MLK, because he refuses to fight back, to the taunts essentially calling him BOY! I don’t care if you agree with his politics or not, they’d never treat a white President this way, nor have they. Jan Brewer getting in his face, after saying she felt threatened by him? If you don’t think the vocal right hates Obama because he’s black, you’re ignorant.

Still, the younger generation is different. Because of MTV. That’s what changed their perception. Seeing different colors on television, different sexual persuasions. That’s a point they make over and over again in the museum, that images count, that they change public opinion.

And what the corporations and government hate most now is we, the public, own the Internet. We’ve finally got a voice. We’re upending the edifice. It may be playing out in cyberspace as opposed to the streets, but the message is just as powerful.

That’s what SOPA was all about.

That’s what posting a mashup on YouTube is all about.

We’re fighting for freedom. They say we’re renegades, disruptors, that we don’t respect rights. It’s barely different from black sanitation workers staging a strike over working conditions. Did you know the white workers got compensated when it rained and the blacks were sent home without pay?

That’s what instigated the strike, that’s why Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis. The mayor said the strike was illegal. Who won?

Who won when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus?

Who won when James Meredith decided to enroll in Ole Miss?

Who won when the black community refused to ride the bus in Selma, FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR!

Individuals beget change. It starts with just one. That’s what’s wrong with the younger generation, that’s where the baby boomers have it right, the older generation is willing to act individually, the youngsters need the affirmation of the group.

The group comes last. Free thinkers step out, and when they’re right, people fall in place behind.

It’s no different in music. What we’ve got is a bunch of me-too Top Forty junk. Everyone’s afraid to do something new. Except for those producing indie crap, clamoring for attention. You’ve got to create something UNDENIABLE!

So I’m tracking through the exhibits when I come across a group of school children, with a docent telling the story.

And I was stunned to find out how little I knew. This is not only their history, but mine. I’m an American.

But Black History Month is the shortest one of the year. And the average person has got no idea who George Washington Carver is, never mind Booker T. Washington. They think Marcus Garvey is the patron saint of marijuana, they’ve got no idea he went to jail for advocating for black power.

And on the balcony a square of concrete has been removed, the one that contained Martin Luther King’s blood. He shed it for you. Both black and white. He had a dream that all men are created equal, that we all deserve equal rights.

The right to a good education, the right to a job.

But the rich and the racist want to leave the poor behind. Saying it’s their own damn fault. That they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, just like they did.

But how many of them were born rich? How many of them had parents who helped them do their homework?

Incredible progress was made in the sixties.

Incredible progress needs to be made today.

Let these icons of the past be our beacon.

The National Civil Rights Museum

Utterly astounding! They’re playing Monday night at Hotel Cafe. GO!

With too many bands and too little time I’m relying on recommendations. And the problem is you can’t get into the hot rooms. Which are literally hotel rooms, which creak and cramp if you try to inject twenty people inside.

But I did get to see Malcolm Holcombe, who seems like he was beamed down from outer space. And to hear the Bluhms harmonizing while backed by the Wood Brothers was positively staggering. But I didn’t make it in to see Sam Baker. And Mary Gauthier never showed up in the room she was supposed to. And when I got back to the Swallow Hill space to see the Dunwells…

They were stacked up in the aisles.

Now this is folk music. It’s supposed to be niche. But wasn’t Mumford & Sons one of the biggest acts of the year? What was it, the acoustic instruments, the real voices, the honesty, the integrity, the vibe?

WELL THE DUNWELLS ARE SELLING THE SAME THING!

But it’s different. Just a bit rockier. A bit less folk and a bit more British Invasion.

I was sitting inches away and my jaw dropped. FIVE PART HARMONIES?

They sang about love, they sang about hope, and I’m electrified just thinking about it.

What I love about the new model is all bets are off. If you’ve got the goods, you can go, that rocket ship to stardom is available to EVERYONE!

Don’t ask me why the greatest groups come from the U.K., why they’re so rehearsed, why they’re so polished, why they seem less concerned with fads and more concerned with music. Just check these lads out.

The album just came out in the U.S. It’s coming out in the U.K. in March.

I haven’t heard a note of music until tonight. I just pulled up the album on Spotify, my favorite track from tonight, the one I had to ask the singer the name of, it’s entitled "Elizabeth".

And it’s good on wax. But live, the boys are less concerned with getting it right, there’s an extra dose of emotion, you’ll be closed IMMEDIATELY!

Spotify playlist

It was devastating.

You’ve got to understand, my first record was "Martian Hop", I loved the Four Seasons, in 1964 I became a Beatle fanatic. Elvis Presley was for old farts, even when he came back.

Still, I remember exactly where I was when I heard he died. Waxing my car outside my apartment on Carmelina. It was shocking. What we’re unprepared for always is.

And then we endured the sightings, the impersonators, Elvis became a national joke, an almost kitschy touchstone for what once was.

People e-mailed me in droves telling me not to go. That it was an over-commercialized tourist trap. Proving that you’ve got to go your own way, do what your heart says, and inside I felt if I went to Memphis and didn’t visit Graceland I’d be incomplete.

Not that my mind was blown until I got inside. Where I found a house preserved in 1977, a year I lived through that I thought I truly knew but had already forgotten. The appliances were dated, the TVs were not only not flat, they weren’t even square. Time passes quickly.

Right inside there’s a living room where you know the King entertained. With a piano and paintings of mom and dad.

And across the hall is the dining room. Formal, but it’s the only one. And then, on the other side of the redecorated shortly before he died kitchen, was the Jungle Room.

Whew!

You hear about these things, you don’t realize how well you know them, how they’re in your DNA even though you didn’t even think you were paying attention. The Marc Cohn song started playing in my brain. I didn’t want to leave. I figured if I stood there long enough Elvis would descend the stairs and begin to speak.

You never go to anybody’s house anymore. That’s the saga of being an adult. Abodes are private. Invitations are rare. So to go into the lair of this famous person not only felt like a privilege, it felt like the lid was being removed from a box of secrets. What stories these walls could tell. This is where it all went down. Where Lisa Marie was raised.

Now there’s a museum full of gold records, a timeline of his career, but that didn’t kick me in the gut. Not like going into the racquet ball pavilion to see the piano where Elvis sat and played two songs the day he died. Right there.

And I picked up a few tidbits.

His dad had spent time in jail. They’d lived in public housing. Vernon and Gladys were from that generation before high school graduation, never mind college, where you eked out an existence by your hands and wits. And they gave birth to this kid with great looks, great talent and great desire.

Elvis wanted success. More than anything. He’s the embodiment of the American Dream. He made it and spent it. Back when an entertainer could be richer than any banker, when music was still king.

1. The Auto Museum

A minor attraction, but to see the video of Elvis riding his modified skidoo over the front lawn is to evidence the child, the hillbilly he was at heart.

Also riveting was the video of his parents in their pink Cadillac in the snow.

2. The Airplanes

The small jet is not much different from the tiny private planes celebrities fly in today. But no one can afford a full-sized, four engine jet. Yes, the big plane was totally customized, with frivolous accoutrements, like 18k gold-plated sinks. And like the house, the plane is frozen in the seventies. There’s a pair of Bose 301 speakers. And a pair of JBL 4311s. And an SAE equalizer. As well as two TVs that were definitely Sonys, despite having their logos removed, a departure from the U.S. equipment in evidence almost everywhere else.

3. The Basement

This is obviously where it all happened. There were the legendary three TV sets, so Elvis could watch all the network news broadcasts simultaneously, just like President Johnson. And a pull-down screen for movies, we always heard Elvis loved watching movies.

And across the hall was a room with a pool table that was completely covered in fabric. Like the rest of the decorating, it seemed overblown and dated. But one thing you’ve got to know about celebrities is they redecorate on a whim, if Elvis was still alive the room would look nothing like it does.

4. The Office

There’s a video of an interview with Elvis after he returned from active duty in Germany. We forget there was once a draft, that no one was above the law. He references Priscilla, but if you saw the clip you’d have no idea they were going to get married.

5. The Graves

Strangely unaffecting, knowing he was originally buried somewhere else. The tombstones are too modern, too spiffy, unlike the rest of the premises.

6. The Pool

Someone lived here. This is not a showplace gussied up to put up a good front. Then again, despite all the jumpsuits, there’s no evidence of fat Elvis.

7. The Help

I only saw one white person. Everybody else was African-American. Utterly fascinating.

8. The Descriptions

You’d see misspellings, like "peddle" instead of "pedal". All these years later you wonder why they’ve never been corrected.

You learn about the King’s generosity, they’ve got tons of checks to charities. But really, it all comes down to the music. The clips of the ’68 comeback special. The jumpsuits from Vegas… It’s like it all happened yesterday, it’s that fresh in our minds, but it was so long ago.

Meanwhile, although you learn that Elvis didn’t write his own material, he produced his records himself.

And you wonder if he would have been as big without Colonel Parker and RCA. Despite their flaws, the Colonel made the deal, and RCA broke "Heartbreak Hotel".

It’s an American story. One I’ve never seen better told. It gives the downtrodden hope that they too can break through. Even better, at the core is the tunes, which live beyond the man who made them.

P.S. In one of the videos on the plane, I learned Elvis was an avid reader, he traveled with a trunk of books.

P.P.S. You can go to Washington, D.C. and see the monuments. Or you can travel to California and see Hearst Castle. But if you want to really learn about America, the best place is Graceland. It’s not only the story of the King, but those in attendance. A cross-section of this great country of ours. Not all lookers, not all rich, it’s very different from television. These are the people who believed, and still do.

1. "What Comes After"

This is one of the most beautiful songs you will ever hear. The original album-ender, you feel like you’re in heaven, but still alive. You want to conduct the orchestra with your hands, even though there’s limited instrumentation. This is the apotheosis of the Michael Brown/Ian Lloyd collaboration. This is the analogue to "Walk Away Renee". Don’t play it with anyone else in the room, but when it’s just you.

I don’t know what comes after, but listening to this song I don’t care.

2. "Love Is In Motion"

This is almost as pretty, and even more infectious.

If you’ve never heard this, you’ll absolutely freak when you hit the chorus. The sweetness and then the throaty exclamation. Whew!

The spacey intro, the handclaps, the changes, this is a masterpiece that demands replay…again and again and again.

So what’s the story here?

The band is called "Stories". And you know them for their one big hit, "Brother Louie", which dominated the airwaves during the summer of 1973. But that wasn’t on the album originally. It was stripped in after it became a big hit. And therefore, most people have no idea what the original band sounded like. Sure, it was the same players, but with different influences, it was closer to the Beatles than the retro soul of Hot Chocolate.

3. "Hey France"

The banging piano immediately hooks you, and then the straining vocal evidences an immediacy that grabs hold of you and won’t let go. And despite the Rod Stewartesque vocal, the track sounds nothing like the Faces, there are strings, more of that piano.

4. "Please Please"

There’s a cathedral-like intro, and then the song pops all over. This is the opposite of all those tracks where the guitarist just vamps. The track’s a roller coaster.

Yes, Stories was a joint venture between vocalist extraordinaire Ian Lloyd and keyboard legend Michael Brown, who wrote the legendary sixties hits "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina" for his band the Left Banke. If you’ve ever had a hankering for more of that sound, this is not only the best place to get it, but one of the only places to get it.

The rock press wrote about Stories. But their first album went unnoticed, and after this, their second, "About Us", came out, Brown promptly left the band. Before the aforementioned "Brother Louie", before all that TV exposure. It was kind of like the Zombies hitting with "Time Of The Season" after the band broke up. There was one more Stories album, but without Brown it was stiff on arrival.

5. "Darling"

This is a tear. As if a madcap classical composer made a rock track. It doesn’t grab you immediately, like "What Comes After" and "Love Is In Motion".

I bought "About Us" on a whim at Sam Goody’s in Westport, Connecticut. It was in the cut-out bin. I think I purchased the Kinks’ "Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One" the same day. That album was much more than the radio hit, and so was "About Us".

And although I put parts of "Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One" on the end of a ninety minute cassette containing "Preservation Act 2", "About Us" got its own forty six minute Maxell, both of which I made for my cross-country trip after graduating from college.

And there were moments of extreme loneliness on that journey.

And when I was sinking I’d put on "About Us" and it would lift me away to that special place only music can take you and everything would be all right in the world.

Some know "What Comes After" and "Love Is In Motion". Mentioning them makes their eyes light up. And now you do too. Maybe you’ll spread the word, but just maybe you’ll keep them for yourself. Because that’s what they are, personal.

If you ever laid on your bedroom floor dreaming of a better life, "About Us" is for YOU!

Spotify link

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