Many great memories on you list Bruce. I’m a bit older and my love started with Ivory Joe Turner, “Since I Met You Baby”, William Bell “You Don’t Miss Your Water”, LaVern Baker “Jim Dandy” - which speaking of ‘B’ sides, was in fact the flip side of the ‘A’, Tweedle Dee”. My Dad was doing his evening shift in Akron when the phone rang and it was Jerry Wexler calling to read him the riot act. “You’re Playing the wrong side of the single. You’re playing Jim dandy, you’re supposed to be playing “Tweedle Dee.”“With all due respect Mr. Wexler, that’s not what my audience is telling me.”
Growing up a few hundred feet from Somerton Springs Swim Club - just across at-that-time 2 lane County Line Road dividing NE Philly from Bucks County with Montgomery County just one block west it was always a welcome treat to hear the echoey music that the DJ played at the otherwise notoriously stoic owner's summer pool party dances.
Early to mid 1960's.
On the site of a former rock quarry (!) the music had to travel up & over a significant grassy hill used for car parking in season, some sledding in winter.
Would have been rare to catch a familiar hook or bridge but that kinda kept it exciting.
Traffic was minimal on weekends aside from a scheduled PTC 59B bus.
My family didn't belong to the swim club, didn't play golf - another part of the Platt family biz so I knew nothing about what took place inside the gates aside from the music that would waft my way and later, by the early 1970's some anecdotal information from dues paying friends.
Did partake of public mini-golf and if memory serves maybe even billiard tables.
Would supplement my front yard excitement with a borrowed transistor radio from my mom.
Famous 56 WFIL balanced with The Big 99 WIBG that dominated, pretty sure that the WDAS signal would drift in my geographical location so it got a bit less love.
My father had no tolerance for any of this, did his best to ignore my mother's attraction to those early AM radio gold hits.
As a radio engineer musically he embraced largely country & western and was reportedly even fired by the late, great DJ Hy Lit for spinning "Canadian Sunset" - guessing the Hugo Winterhalter version?
Apparently Hy had to step out of the studio, gave my father specific orders for three consecutive 45s to play.
Obviously that didn't go very well. Anarchy vs naivete or good old-fashioned self victimization, I have no idea.
Little would I have imagined, fast forward decades later and I would be offered a book & screenplay deal on Hy Lit's rather colorful life in the radio business. Fittingly 33 1/3 in perpetuity had been on the proverbial table with Sam, Hy's son acting as the third principal of that jawn.
Not entirely sure if timing & faith are everything but those things must count for something.
Learned quickly that Hy was in the legal battle of his life by the time we met.
Having travelled around the Philly radio dial since capturing a documented 71% of all AM radio listeners early on, then on-air as a senior at Oldies 98 management learned of his Parkinson's and cut his hours and medical benefits forcing the sale of his McMansion in Merion PA to pay legal fees to fight CBS corporate ownership for age & health discrimination.
The caveat being that I would need to provide my own Intellectual Property lawyer just to scribe an equitable contract.
We were seeking a $100,000 advance for the book & a screenplay replete with my advising a licensed soundtrack.
I'd been a successful music & program director of a community radio station during those interim years and had gone on to help run a non profit music organization's local chapter, published in any & every regional newspaper or magazine as recipients of my music themed story pitches.
Interviewing my hero was a blast, entrusted with their visual archives to take home to have my then partner, Linda scan to file in high res.
Legal advice suggested no one would be protected with just a two or three page contract which is all that the Lit's felt they could afford to have reviewed.
Yeah like Frank Sinatra before me I decided to do it "My Way" .
In other words it was maybe a 12 or 15 Page Long contract and I had been optimistic that as the interviews poured out with our weekly visits that perhaps maybe just maybe the invisible walls would break down in such a fashion that the Lit's would also come around to my way of thinking which seemed to be just common sense.
Otherwise, thematically everything that I proposed both father and son loved.
21 chapters and each one with a somewhat esoteric song title as a theme.
And the closing scenes of the film were to be Hy walking alone on a popular southern New Jersey beach with a copy of his favorite paperback wedged into his back pocket - 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' - a 1970 sleeper metaphysical tome - as the credits rolled and "Theme From A Summer Place" (Hugo Winterhalter created the soundtrack, Percy Faith took it to #1 Billboard) built up as the camera zoomed up slowly tracing actually seagulls into a dissolving sunset.
After maybe 8 months of this I was asked to reveal my rough notes chapter by chapter.
Again, this was just the beginning as I had yet to interview Chuck Berry and countless other at-that-time living music icons for the project.
What didn't fly was the multi page contract.
Instead we parted, they self published the digital images, limited commentary.
Heartbroken but I had to be practical - a labor of love but to be at the mercy of a fateless contract more suitable for a used car sale perhaps seemed counter intuitive & counter productive.
As best I understand it both father and son have transitioned.
Sam with his father's blessing had purchased a business known as Pam's Jingles just prior to my entry onto the scene.
Basically that was an archival package of many different AM radio stations coast-to-coast that Sam in-turn used to create online music feeds around his father's legacy.
Treasure the people, treasure the time and the music of course.
The rest is for Substack posts that hopefully make others smile.
Many great memories on you list Bruce. I’m a bit older and my love started with Ivory Joe Turner, “Since I Met You Baby”, William Bell “You Don’t Miss Your Water”, LaVern Baker “Jim Dandy” - which speaking of ‘B’ sides, was in fact the flip side of the ‘A’, Tweedle Dee”. My Dad was doing his evening shift in Akron when the phone rang and it was Jerry Wexler calling to read him the riot act. “You’re Playing the wrong side of the single. You’re playing Jim dandy, you’re supposed to be playing “Tweedle Dee.”“With all due respect Mr. Wexler, that’s not what my audience is telling me.”
Butterball
Love Grant Green’s version of Ain’t It Funky Now on Green Is Beautiful. Blue Note just re-issued the vinyl. Great playlist!
Very cinematic and very cool.
Growing up a few hundred feet from Somerton Springs Swim Club - just across at-that-time 2 lane County Line Road dividing NE Philly from Bucks County with Montgomery County just one block west it was always a welcome treat to hear the echoey music that the DJ played at the otherwise notoriously stoic owner's summer pool party dances.
Early to mid 1960's.
On the site of a former rock quarry (!) the music had to travel up & over a significant grassy hill used for car parking in season, some sledding in winter.
Would have been rare to catch a familiar hook or bridge but that kinda kept it exciting.
Traffic was minimal on weekends aside from a scheduled PTC 59B bus.
My family didn't belong to the swim club, didn't play golf - another part of the Platt family biz so I knew nothing about what took place inside the gates aside from the music that would waft my way and later, by the early 1970's some anecdotal information from dues paying friends.
Did partake of public mini-golf and if memory serves maybe even billiard tables.
Would supplement my front yard excitement with a borrowed transistor radio from my mom.
Famous 56 WFIL balanced with The Big 99 WIBG that dominated, pretty sure that the WDAS signal would drift in my geographical location so it got a bit less love.
My father had no tolerance for any of this, did his best to ignore my mother's attraction to those early AM radio gold hits.
As a radio engineer musically he embraced largely country & western and was reportedly even fired by the late, great DJ Hy Lit for spinning "Canadian Sunset" - guessing the Hugo Winterhalter version?
Apparently Hy had to step out of the studio, gave my father specific orders for three consecutive 45s to play.
Obviously that didn't go very well. Anarchy vs naivete or good old-fashioned self victimization, I have no idea.
Little would I have imagined, fast forward decades later and I would be offered a book & screenplay deal on Hy Lit's rather colorful life in the radio business. Fittingly 33 1/3 in perpetuity had been on the proverbial table with Sam, Hy's son acting as the third principal of that jawn.
Not entirely sure if timing & faith are everything but those things must count for something.
Learned quickly that Hy was in the legal battle of his life by the time we met.
Having travelled around the Philly radio dial since capturing a documented 71% of all AM radio listeners early on, then on-air as a senior at Oldies 98 management learned of his Parkinson's and cut his hours and medical benefits forcing the sale of his McMansion in Merion PA to pay legal fees to fight CBS corporate ownership for age & health discrimination.
The caveat being that I would need to provide my own Intellectual Property lawyer just to scribe an equitable contract.
We were seeking a $100,000 advance for the book & a screenplay replete with my advising a licensed soundtrack.
I'd been a successful music & program director of a community radio station during those interim years and had gone on to help run a non profit music organization's local chapter, published in any & every regional newspaper or magazine as recipients of my music themed story pitches.
Interviewing my hero was a blast, entrusted with their visual archives to take home to have my then partner, Linda scan to file in high res.
Legal advice suggested no one would be protected with just a two or three page contract which is all that the Lit's felt they could afford to have reviewed.
Yeah like Frank Sinatra before me I decided to do it "My Way" .
In other words it was maybe a 12 or 15 Page Long contract and I had been optimistic that as the interviews poured out with our weekly visits that perhaps maybe just maybe the invisible walls would break down in such a fashion that the Lit's would also come around to my way of thinking which seemed to be just common sense.
Otherwise, thematically everything that I proposed both father and son loved.
21 chapters and each one with a somewhat esoteric song title as a theme.
And the closing scenes of the film were to be Hy walking alone on a popular southern New Jersey beach with a copy of his favorite paperback wedged into his back pocket - 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' - a 1970 sleeper metaphysical tome - as the credits rolled and "Theme From A Summer Place" (Hugo Winterhalter created the soundtrack, Percy Faith took it to #1 Billboard) built up as the camera zoomed up slowly tracing actually seagulls into a dissolving sunset.
After maybe 8 months of this I was asked to reveal my rough notes chapter by chapter.
Again, this was just the beginning as I had yet to interview Chuck Berry and countless other at-that-time living music icons for the project.
What didn't fly was the multi page contract.
Instead we parted, they self published the digital images, limited commentary.
Heartbroken but I had to be practical - a labor of love but to be at the mercy of a fateless contract more suitable for a used car sale perhaps seemed counter intuitive & counter productive.
As best I understand it both father and son have transitioned.
Sam with his father's blessing had purchased a business known as Pam's Jingles just prior to my entry onto the scene.
Basically that was an archival package of many different AM radio stations coast-to-coast that Sam in-turn used to create online music feeds around his father's legacy.
Treasure the people, treasure the time and the music of course.
The rest is for Substack posts that hopefully make others smile.