Category: Music

Whistling Dixie

1963 Comet

Actually, these students weren’t whistling Dixie at all, because that term doesn’t involve any whistling. Whistling Dixie isn’t even racist, though the word might trigger you. I feel sorry for a former classmate with that name. Nope, whistling Dixie just means laying out your pipe dreams in idle chitchat, sharing your hopes as you’re shooting the breeze, with the connotation that you may not ever actually bring that dream to pass.

One could apply it to teens who forego college in order to, as they put it, “pursue dreams of being influencers.” One could apply it to endless promises of political candidates on either side of the spectrum. As you age, you may become more jaded and skeptical by hearing decades of unfulfilled promises, coming to think that most promises are just folks whistling Dixie, telling you what want to hear, but never making good on it.

However, if I tell my husband I’m doing two loads of laundry, the dishes, mowing the back yard, and fixing up a beef roast today, I’m not whistling Dixie. It’s not balderdash, rubbish, nor hogwash. It’s the real deal, y’all. Or as the kids simply say, “FACTS.”

So just make sure that when you start laying out your strategy, that you’ve got good intentions and a solid path to make it come to pass. Otherwise, folks might be inclined to disbelieve you, as they say. And I ain’t whistling Dixie.

From Dad’s To Diamonds

While I have partaken of Dad’s root beer (“tastes like root beer should”), I confess I’ve never heard of any of the top recording stars listed above. A quick YouTube search didn’t ring any bells, but one piece of footage did prove amusing. Several months after this ad was printed in the summer of 1958, the Diamonds visited Dick Clark on the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show to perform “Little Darlin’.” Evidently, they were kind of a big deal, as the clip has been viewed over nine million times. I think you will agree that they were quite the cut-ups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysVLzXWnTzA&ab_channel=NRRArchives

The video that immediately follows shows them singing a more recent version of the song, proving that they only improved with age. What a fun find!

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Elvis, NOLA, Aug 12, 1956 by Jay B. Leviton

What is going on here? No one is rushing the stage. Folks are in their seats. No Zippos in the air. No bra straps showing. Petticoats are full, waists cinched nicely. It’s a remarkable expression of containment and decorum, when you know full well those girls are about to. lose. their. minds.

And there is Elvis, prostrate, barely legal to drink, full of chills that are multiplying and sending electric shocks up the spines of the mostly female audience. I would say he’s all shook up, but that won’t come out till next year, the year he buys Graceland and is drafted into the military.

Fortunately, Elvis lives to tour again and continues the theme of lying down during set lists, even as his age doubles from 21 to 42. Yes, the sideburns and jumpsuits (and karate moves) are new. But some things never change.

How I Feel When I Drive Into South Austin

Documerica: Searching for the 70s

Actually, this isn’t Austin at all. It was in downtown Cincinnati at something called D’aug Days back in the 70s. I used to be more tolerant of weirdness in my youth. Perhaps this is just interpretative dance. But as I age, I understand all the feelings of that family of four. The moon goddess doesn’t need your shaken tambourine, hippies. Go stretch your hip flexors back at the commune. This ground is filthy, and you’re going to get hepatitis–and you probably don’t have insurance, even though that’s the law, so my tax dollars will be paying for your antibiotics. This is clearly not the safety dance. 

Let Me Soothe You With My Chorded Zither

Time Life “The Good Old Days’

It’s WWII. An injured soldier tolerates appreciates the twang of a skilled Red Cross Gray Lady, plucking the strings of an autoharp. Why Gray Lady, you ask? Because she has gray hair? No. Gray Ladies were volunteers who performed non-medical services to sick, injured, or disabled patients. They were not nurses, but they could read to patients,  write letters home for them, or in this case, perform talents worthy of an appearance on Star Search. My question is: why isn’t he donning an open-backed hospital gown? Instead, he sports a Chinese stand collar, frog button jacket, as though he is dressed for his shift at The Golden Tiger. I don’t get it.

Desi ‘Splainin’ How Many Wives He Had

Houston Chronicle Archives

So much is happening here. Desi Arnaz appears to be flashing the peace sign, which is entirely possible for the era, as it was Halloween night of 1968. Here he is strumming his guitar exuberantly for presidential nominee Richard Nixon, at the (get this) headquarters for “Good Latin-American Democrats for Nixon.” I guess that was a thing.  Enough Democratic Latinos despised Hubert Humphrey enough that they switched allegiance to support Nixon? Anyway, I love the look of the mariachi man with the sombrero. And while this Desi looks much more haggard and aged than the twin bed Lucy version we grew up with, I do want to point out that his age here is only 51, the same age that Jennifer Aniston is right now.

Twist & Shout & Shout & Shout

The Century by Jennings and Brewster

It’s February 12, 1964, and nobody in New York City cares a farthing that it’s Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The Beatles have just arrived in NYC, and frenzied Beatlemaniacs across the street from New York’s Plaza Hotel are losing. Their. Minds.

Put Another Dime In The Jukebox, Baby

72 Cactus

I’ve played several jukebox songs at bars lately, and I only play from the “discount” list because I can’t in good conscience pay more than $1 per song, which is what the cheap rate is. Some folks even pay $2 so that they can get their song played NEXT, which I feel is incredibly poor manners. Whatever happened to first come, first serve? I guess the rich win that round.

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