Mamma said, ‘Go to bed
And turn off all those lights
And please turn off that radio
‘Cause you listen to it day and night’
So I’ll go to bed
And cover up my head
So nobody can complain

And then turn on my radio
I’m gonna listen to those D.J. shows – The Supremes “Those D.J. Shows” (1961)

If you haven’t caught the drift yet, I’m pretty big into records too. I think last couple of rounds I’ve made it ‘heavy’ subject wise. To ward off concerns about my mental health, there’s more things I could write about. Photography is one solace, but those that know me best also know that I’ve kinda always kept to myself with either a stack of Vinyl, Tapes, CDs or something streaming in the background. Radio used to not suck.

There used to be librarians floating lessons across the mystery of broadcasting. There was once upon a time that the magic of voice just filtered into our daily lives with rich diversity. Sometimes it was of the current moment. Some of what was current looked back to older lessons. Some of the old stuff ironically punched into the possibilities of future. Do I think we’ve lost the fine art of reverence and recreation of auditory art? Yes. Too many of you don’t know how to sing, play or dance to any old blues joint or Tin Pan Alley standard. I’ve learned so much about how to find my own voice and understand so much of what others want to share with me through music.

This is so true that the creative boxing match that has stood longest with film photography and writing in my adult life has been vinyl DJing. I never got full onto being in my own little cover band, but as Marla Gibbs says, it’s never too late. She’s still making movies at 95, so what’s my excuse at 44? My voice isn’t ‘bad.’ I just lack the consistent training I left behind my sophomore year in high school. Also, my singing voice in that high school choir didn’t fit the ‘traditional’ sense of ‘Black masculinity’ that the white choir teacher (that forced us to sing songs from fucking Rent) thought was socially acceptable. I stood behind a baritone that didn’t challenge the caste system of race, gender and sexuality.

I also was raised a little too ‘call and response’ so it feels weird to sing by myself often. Fond memories of mastering “Armed And Extremely Dangerous” with my mom just sitting in the living room on the couch is one example. My mom had a more proper outlet in both high school choir, church choir and singing and jumping rope with childhood friends.

I’m definitely missing the church choir part because of the war of the Christians in my childhood home. Catholic Churches don’t really have it over the COGICs in that department. Then there’s that laughable shift into my mother going to Pentecostal churches by the time I was 10, and all of their hymns being some variation of the crap Amy Grant was releasing at the time. Give me The Meditation Singers or put me on the cross.

All the above said, of course there’s certain songs that are always gonna have a special place in my heart. There’s a select few songs that I have attached to certain people. Some of these people are still in my life, some aren’t. Each time I listen, and sing along to these songs, there’s a history there. More often than not, the narrative of the song may mirror why the melody, arrangement or lyrics are associated with that person. Often enough, the songs aren’t ones I’ve identified for them. They’re little shared nuggets of perhaps beauty, sometime sadness, all the while, deeply felt, between me and the other person on the other side of a set of speakers.

I’m gonna spend a bit of writing time over the next few weeks listing a ‘Top 10’ + a very special note, if you will, of some of those songs. I was going to try to do it as one big post, then I realized that as I spent a few hours writing on three so far, each one turned into their own little symphony. I don’t want to barrage you with too much. My intention is to give weight and significance to what, too often is considered ordinary flotsam.

We start in Chicago in September 1964 with:

1. Jackie Ross – Selfish One (1964)

I start with my middle school obsession with KDIA. The ‘big 1310-AM’ more or less held onto the ‘Lucky 13’ playlists that ranked records out of the big Oakland R&B station in the 1960’s. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, R&B music well into the mid 1970’s used to be a more regional affair. The eastern shores hosted Fantasy Records and recording studios well into the early years of my life. Most metropolitan areas had some recording studio system.

The bigger the city, the more likely you could actually carve out a living being a studio session musician. Berry Gordy notoriously bought up other Detroit labels as a proxy union busting operation. Yes, The Funk Brothers recorded with other Detroit labels and producers. Union work is Union work. Martha & The Vandellas got their break because Mary Wells couldn’t make a recording session where those union musicians were on the clock. They needed someone to be in the mic so the money paying the musicians wasn’t wasted. That’s where “I’ll Have To Let Him Go” came from.

Another clear indication of this is how well known The Royalettes “It’s Gonna Take A Miracle” was. Based on the number of covers alone, you wouldn’t think that the original recording only made #41 pop nationally in the Fall of 1965. Airplay as the record caught on was haphazard; it peaked in different markets at different times. Some cities, it was a Top 10 hit on various record station playlists while it hadn’t made it at all in a market a few states away.

This is also how the Florence Ballard led 1961 Supremes single, “Buttered Popcorn” was a regional smash in the Midwest that was their calling card well into early 1964 as their best known song other than “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Thru His Eyes.” There’s a lot to be said about the glut of music that was recorded and distributed in the 1960’s that can still be discovered with glee today.

This meant that regional playlists, especially for a radio market as far west as the Bay Area that were technically isolated from the mechanisms of pop culture generation lead to an interesting admixture of tunes that were popular with Bay Area Black audiences. The songs I would hear from approximately 1992 through the 1998 buy out of the station weren’t the typical hit parade of Columbia House Greatest hits by James Brown or The Supremes, even if some of their rarities were sprinkled in anyways. “A Breath Taking Guy” still delights on a warm July afternoon.

And so did “Selfish One.”

KDIA did their broadcasting in AM Stereo by the early 1990’s. The AC Delco AM/FM radio in the family 1975 Cutlass also had AM Stereo capabilities. There was something extraterrestrial about how the Riley C. Hampton string arrangement landed against the buffeting of wind as we sailed down El Camino Real at probably 45 miles per hour on a full moon in July. There was the warmth and crackle that is notoriously atmospheric about AM radio.

At the same time, there was the perfect mix down of elements standing out just right in stereo to the lushness of the strings. Truthfully, the elements are all there in the Mono mix I would end up DJing in adulthood. The elements are a little bit more sterling with that extra channel separation tho. Jackie’s playfully teasing the line between concern and running the dozens on a poor fella was a bit of witchcraft too. She played the rites of courtship being a little bit of a devil on the shoulder dressed up in gossamer.

I was in the passenger seat of the Cutlass as we headed down El Camino Real. Time has made me lose the reason why we were in Redwood City. My father hated shopping at Target, preferring K-Mart. I might have been full of strawberry milkshake and fries from a run to Dairy Queen. It was probably just a little too hot for us to be coming from dinner at Harry Hofbrau. The ‘other’ Miss Ross enters the event a good 20 or so seconds after we’ve been treated to some mellowing out of sophisticated honky tonk piano playing set against the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A little extra flourish, then Jackie enters with a series of questions:

Selfish one, why keep your love to yourself? Oh-oh, yeah

It’s like a souvenir that just sits on a shelf

It seems like you built a fence around your heart

And ya afraid that sharing might tear it apart

And ya pass up every chance at the start of romance….

I’ve spent the last 33 and a 3rd or so years singing along. I’ve egotistically put myself in Jackie’s shoes, seeing myself as someone that’s easily identifying the insecurities of someone else. No one has been wise enough to throw those accusations back in my face with such delightful teasing. If you’ve ever had the thought to, all you have to do is drop this song in my presence.

The point will be made really clear if you look me dead in the eye then smile.

I would be delighted. I’d be impressed with you trotting something so dramatically accurate and have me face up to the truth that I’ve been the ‘Selfish One’ all along. Until that happens, there’s always that early July evening as the moon rose over the trees on a wide boulevard somewhere in San Mateo County.