Elvis Presley

My interest in collecting records began with Heckle and Jeckle, the talking magpies.  I loved both their 40s and 50s cartoons as well as the Terrytoons TV show.  As with any kids' cartoon show, there were products.

On a small turntable the size of today's typical laptop, I played my first record--music from the Heckle and Jeckle show.  The phonograph record came with a pic sleeve (it was an EP rather than a 45). In the center of the record, there were the images of Heckle and Jeckle chasing something (or each other).  

The attraction of this record was that it came with a 4-sided mirror contraption that you put in the spindle after you'd set the record in place.  And so, when the record played, the cartoon magpies chased each others' reflections in the mirror. There was music--and there was motion.

At the age of 4, living in a small town in Texas, this was my most prized possession. In fact, the mirrored images somewhat replaced the televised images for awhile.  

But this was enough.  I was not yet a vinyl addict. I was content with this one thing.

 SEX: Noun, Transitive Verb, BOMB: Noun, Verb

I prefer, and choose to here, use the words as verbs.  Espcially when we're talking about how it relates to pop culture and rock and roll.  The two go hand in hand, where would rock be without sex and love?  Elvis started it I suppose, but Leadbelly and Robert Johnson were singing about it long before Elvis as were many others, in ways appropriate for the time.  It's an idea in music as old as time. Men, women and the proverbial sex bomb.  The good the bad and the ugly.

As music as evolved, sex has become integral. And we like it that way.  We get the blues, we get the burning love urge.  We wear our pants tighter, skirts shorter, hit the shows with glossy lips, drinks in hand just looking for it.  I appreciate my favorite artists and the work they do to combine the two, rock and roll is just very sexy.

In a magazine from the '80s called Southern, there was once a cartoon series entitled "Little Known Chapters in Southern History."  Here is the caption for one of them:  
Citing 'audience confusion,' the promoter cancels the remaining dates of the 1962 James Brown-Flannery O'Connor Tour after the first show in Florence, South Carolina.
Add to that the confusion of the accompanying drawing--O'Connor reading stiffly while JB kneels, shouting at her feet.

When Michael Jackson appeared on the roof of Woolco in Southgate Shopping Center in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1977, he had no idea that one day he would be wed to the daughter of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and that he would even vye for the King’s throne.

Then, Michael was not yet the beknighted King of Pop. In fact, he was more one of the Five, and not yet the grand amalgamation of pop cultural touchstones that he would become.

As the story has been told, the Jackson 5 were appearing that evening in concer and had just visited the South’s great R&B radio station, WDIA. Michael and his brothers were eager to please their fans, and that would mean going into the community to sign autographs. So WDIA planned a remote broadcast at a Woolco in the Southgate Shopping Center on South Third.

Although Woolco was selling Jackson 5 recordings, the manager of the store had never even heard of the group. As a result, nobody at this particular Woolco had anticipated what would happen when they opened the doors of the store despite the fact that the store was actually selling tons of their records.

Of course, hundreds, then thousands, of fans rushed in to meet the young pop icons. One estimate is that at least 10,000 people had been waiting in the parking lot to see the group.

The WDIA handlers decided to put the Jackson 5 on the roof for everyone’s safety.