Saturday, June 16, 2007

"The '60's Sound I Remember"



"Comin to ya, on a dusty road,

Good lov'n, I gotta truck load,

and when you get it, you got someth'in,

don't worry,'cause I'm coming.


I'm a soul man!"


Sam Moore and Dave Prater = Sam and Dave backed by Booker T and the MG's. Now that was good bar music, danc'in music, get down get drink'in music.

I hear them and I immediately envision the old Swiss Inn and De Crosta's Tavern with the local band The Fabulous 4 Speeds; Jimmy Sinese, Dave King, Joe Vellano and Rick Bazowie playing fast and loud. Dancing the skate and the frug with any girl that would with us in our drunk'in state. I had to have that liquid courage to dance.

Draft beer was 25 cents a glass or 45 cents for a mug, $1.50 for a pitcher! I went to Bishop Gibbons with Dave and Joe and knew Jim through his brother Drew. No matter where they played we went. We always had a great time.

This was the day of the Chevelle SS, Corvette, Mustang, Hurst Olds 442, GTO and all other muscle cars. Many a night, I won or lost a weekly pay check racing my 1964 327 cu. i. 325 HP Corvette on the Crosstown; rubber burning, tires screaming, gears slamm'in with some screaming girl in the passenger seat.

I enjoyed being under age and bringing my equally under age date to a club for the first time. They were always excited and nervous. Little did they know that I knew each doorman or that they said the same thing each time,"Whoa, Glenn what's this Foxy lady doing with you?" (To be a Fox or Foxy was cool at the time)

The clubs were loud, smoke and people filled. A lot of daters but more singles both male and female. A couple times I went to one bar with a date at 9 took her home at midnight and came back out with another till the bars closed at 3 a.m.. I made the mistake of doing that once with girls that knew each other - "How could you have been out with him on Friday? I was out with him on Friday!"

1965 - 67 it was Soul music that was in the clubs. Some Stones, Doors, Mitch Ryder, The Temps, Four Tops, Sam Cooke, Righteous Brothers, Otis Redding - people wanted to dance!

When we went on a real bender we would go to Albany to the after hours clubs and get down with the brothers and sisters. That was real soul music; Bubba and Alena Dobbs, Cocco Diaz, Pops Brown and Missy Dufrain. Many a Saturday morning we ended up at Berical's Diner about 7 a.m. for breakfast totally trashed.

One time Ray Poteralski and I woke up in his 1966 Mustang Fastback parked in a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike. He remembered something about us wanting to go to Philadelphia.
It was a wild time!
"I'm a Soulman, day, da da, ta, da da da da da!
A Soulman!"


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