Saturday Guest Post: Ted Plank

Tonight in Los Angeles 2 rockabilly legends are playing, Glen Glenn and Mac Curtis. By this point in time most practitioners of that particular subgenre are under the sod. Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Feathers, Johnny Burnette, all gone. There is an upcoming Las Vegas conclave of the Last Survivors Of Sun in October, with near great luminaries Billy Lee Riley and Sonny Burgess atop the bill, and Jack Earls, Carl Mann and Hayden Thompson (all of whom had regional Memphis hits that eventually became semi-classics) rounding out the roster. Living legend Jerry Lee Lewis, the last of the label's heavy artillery, is not scheduled to attend.
Mac Curtis had a Dallas area run of hits as a high schooler back in 1956. "If I Had Me A Woman" and "Grandaddy's Rockin" have become minor staples of Roots Rock lore, a couple of toe tappers that only slightly stick in one's skull in comparison to Charlie Feathers or Gene Vincent. Once finishing high school he was drafted off to Korea only to come home in 1960 to a universe dominated by Pat Boone and Bobby Rydell. He was able to penetrate the nether regions of the Country / Western charts in the late 60's before playing sporadically to Rockabilly revival audiences from the 80's up to present.
Glen Glenn, on the other hand recorded two flat out classics: "Everybody's Movin" and "One Cup Of Coffee," both of which one must hear to appreciate. Esteemed connoisseur of fine Americana Bob Dylan himself considers "Everybody's Movin" essential enough that he's been playing it in concert the past few years, even hauling Glenn up onstage to open his shows.
Glenn came up under the tutelage of white trash genius Fred Maddox, who introduced him to Elvis Presley backstage at a San Diego gig in 1956.Like most white musicians of the time, Glenn (real name Troutman) started off as a hillbilly picker, playing the Hometown Jamboree out in El Monte, CA. With the Maddox Brothers And Rose circling the drain due to sister Rose splitting off solo, Fred had ample time to pump into fresh meat like Glenn and guitar picking sidekick Gary Lambert. Realizing that Presley had changed the dynamic of show biz forever (and that girls were far more inclined towards the dashing new rocker than old tobacco chewing fuddy duddies), Glenn embraced the stripped down, revved up mishmash of Country music and R & B.
There is a unique quality to Glenn's recordings unduplicated elsewhere. Where Gene Vincent's initial Capitol tracks had a dreamy echo wafting throughout, and Sam Phillips used the effect at Sun to round off his artists frequently rough edges, Glenn's recordings take echo right up to the line of ridiculousness. It's as if echo is it's own member of Glenn's primitive band. Yet, it works. And it doesn't hurt that Glenn's voice rises above the rockabilly norm, in a way that Mac Curtis's voice does not. Not a howler like Johnny Burnette or Billy Lee Riley, Glenn instead caresses the lyric while letting the band control the pace. "Everybody's Movin" in particular is the definition of minimalism, right up there with Slim Harpo's "Got Love If You Want It." The verse features just a walking bass with a hypnotic two note guitar line, kicking in with a snare on the chorus and an austere guitar break. Broken down into parts it looks unlikely. Assembled it becomes a minor American musical classic.
"One Cup Of Coffee" also firmly bolts itself into your mind on the first listen, another crude masterpiece that sounds like no one else. Pedestrian versions of songs such as Presley's "Baby, Let's Play House" and Vincent's "Be Bop A Lula" round out Glenn's 50's recordings, with a lukewarm nod to the upcoming Frankie Avalon / Fabian craze in the tune "Laurie Ann." Oddly, the third song Glenn recorded that could be considered timeless was a version of Mac Curtis's "If I Had Me A Woman," which in my opinion blows the original out of the water.
With singles now under his belt, Glenn went out on tour with Porter Wagoner, who futilely tried to steer him back into the hillbilly fold. Country music in the wake of Rock And Roll was going the way of the dinosaur, and Glenn's upbeat repertoire won over young crowds to the point where Wagoner could no longer argue. Just when Glenn's career was beginning to get some traction, along came the bane of 50's Rock And Rollers - the draft board. Like Curtis and Presley, Glenn was whisked off to the Army.
When Dick Clark wanted to feature Glenn singing "Laurie Ann" on American Bandstand, Glenn's commanding officer in Hawaii refused to give him leave. And so ended the first phase of Glenn's career.
Like Curtis (and unlike Elvis), the music business that Glenn came home to after his army stint had no place for him. He got a job at General Dynamics and spent the next thirty odd years driving a desk. In the 80's, the Ace reissue label out of the UK started putting "Everybody's Movin" and "One Cup Of Coffee" on their rockabilly compilations, eventually giving Glenn an entire album. Horror punk purveyors The Cramps were known to work "Everybody's Movin" into the odd set, and college radio stations had a fondness for it as well. I first heard the song on KCMU in Seattle back in the late 80's, and it was one of the rare occasions where I had to pull the car off the side of the road, find a pay phone (those were the days...), call the station and find out who it was. Glen Glenn. Like many artists from the days of Blues, Country and Rock And Roll yore, I found that Glenn didn't quite have an album's worth of good songs. Nonetheless, I turned many people on to "Everybody's Movin."
A few years later, I was the Jazz, Blues, Country and Oldies buyer at Aron's Records in Hollywood. Catering to the informed snob clientele of showbiz LA, I kept sections chock full of obscure German, UK and Japanese imports. There was a burgeoning roots music scene in the late 80's / early 90's centered around Ronnie Mack's Barn Dance at The Palomino club in North Hollywood. Artists such as the Dave And Deke Combo, Big Sandy And The Fly Rite Trio, The Hyperions, Dee Lannon And The Rhythm Rustlers and Russell Scott all played carbon copy versions of the 1956 Hit Parade, without any of the corny cutesiness of The Stray Cats. Though derivative, it was a good time, with quality music and dedicated crowds.
One day Glen Glenn walked into the store, along with his old guitar player Gary Lambert. He'd heard I was stocking his albums and CD's. Happy to meet such a source Rock And Roll greatness, I was stunned to hear him go on at length about his career at General Dynamics, when what I really wanted to hear was more stories about madman Fred Maddox and popping pills with Porter Wagoner. It was deflating, to say the least.
A couple nights later he got up onstage at The Palomino, and again, whatever greatness had blown through his lungs some 35 years past had well dissipated. As a novelty it was pleasant enough, but riveting it was not. He seemed rusty and not very sure of himself, as if he couldn't quite believe anyone would be interested after all these years.
And that was it.
Roughly a decade later I heard Dylan was doing the song in concert. Then, that he was actually having Glenn open for him. Interesting. Glenn had retired from General Dynamics, maybe to find new focus reliving his brief window into Rock stardom.
Perhaps tonight will be a new Glenn. I'm on the fence as to whether to go or not. Having seen a bleak percentage of truly stellar shows from the Godlike Greats Of Yesteryear (I blew a thousand bucks to travel to Brooklyn to see The Sonics, who were painful to behold - a near myth shatterer), I'm wary. A decade and a half older since I last saw him onstage, Curtis and he will probably not be setting the woods on fire.
Then again, I can always stay home, put on the iTunes playlist, sprinkle "Everybody's Movin" and "One Cup Of Coffee" in with some Wanda Jackson and Ricky Nelson and rock out to the man in his prime. There was a time when an innocuous California teen in thrall to a mutant from Memphis could unwittingly blow a hole through the mountain of fake bullshit that surrounds us almost all of our lives, and cut two songs that exemplify Greil Marcus's phrase "The Old Weird America" as well as any Appalachian hoedown or Delta Blues tune strummed by some illiterate farmhand back in the 20's. My impression was that he himself barely comprehended it, just like inept Palestinian terrorists that blow themselves up with explosives.
In George W. Bush / American Idol America, where even punk rock and hip-hop is sterilized and marketed to the point of pasteurized flavorlessness, where the music industry is dying hard while the virtual (ie., fake) reality / video game industry is booming, it's easy to forget that we live in a world created by freaks. Freaks like Elvis, freaks like Fred Maddox, freaks (though I'm doubtful he'd enjoy being called such a thing) like Glen Glenn.
If anything gets me out of the house tonight, that will be it.