The Jukebox by Staunton Cottrell

 

Being the frugal person that I am, it has not unexpectedly been a very long time since I have donated money to a jukebox.  I knew that it was my turn, though, and I approached the machine somewhat hesitantly.  I had this odd feeling that those in the small drinking establishment called “The Forest” were just waiting to hear what type of songs I was going to select.  It was as though they would be able to use this soon-to-be heard information to judge what kind of person I was, or what type of upbringing that I had.  To decide whether or not I fit in or even belonged there.  Was I prepared for this challenge?   

 

Not everybody at “The Forest” that night knew my name.  Well, actually, no one at “The Forest” knew my name, though a few of the bartenders did know what I wanted to drink without me having to tell them.  Having enjoyed the coziness and great air conditioning of this bar about a dozen times during the previous few summer months, I knew that country music was favored by most of the patrons, and, truth be known, I did enjoy listening to this type of music as well.  It seemed to belong there, though this was not a “cowboy hat” kind of a country bar, but rather, more of a “city slicker at a dude ranch” type of establishment.   

 

I did not appoach the jukebox with it’s glistening CD’s with any preconceived idea of what I would play, nor was I fully aware at the time of the wide variety of music that it offered.  In fact, I was a bit overwhelmed when I discovered that it held approximately 100 of the discs with anywhere from 15 to 20 songs on each one.  Most of them were CD’s by a single artist, but some were compilations of songs of a particular category, such as “Rock and Roll Songs of the Fifties.”  

 

Only after approaching the jukebox was I able to tell that, unlike the earlier massive machines of my childhood, this one was actually suspended from the wall, perhaps designed this way to make it easier to keep the floor clean underneath.  At the place where the sound used to emanate in the past from the mighty old Wurlitzers with the rounded top and bubbling colored tubes accenting the front edges there was only the bare pine paneled wall from which this machine was hung.  It was as though it’s legs had been amputated.  The sound now came from speakers tucked away near the ceiling in various locations throughout the bar.    

 

As a novice using a CD jukebox for the very first time, I initially chose the “4 songs for $1” option, rather than “9 songs for $2,” or the rather amazing choice of “25 songs for $5.”  I did not feel that it was appropriate to subject my fellow bar patrons to more than fifteen minutes of the music that I personally enjoyed, plus, I did not want to dawdle and appear incapable of making decisions as I perused the vast array of songs available.  Did I also mention that I was frugal?

 

I was surprised at how quickly I reached a decision about what songs to play.  Flipping through the CD selections I realized that this machine actually was my friend - it liked the same kind of music that I did.  I did not get far into the selections at all before I began pushing the buttons that sent my instructions to the gagetry that made the music happen.  It seemed like a good idea to listen to an old favorite while I was deciding on the other three selections.  Especially when this first old favorite carried with it such intense memories of my past.

 

“Mack, the Knife,” sung by crooner Bobby Darin, absolutely jumped out at me when I saw Darin’s face on the CD cover.  There was no hesitancy here - I immediately knew that this would be one of my selections, and it was most appropriate that it be the first.  Without a doubt  there was no song played as often or as loud at my parent’s many parties than this one.  Nor was there a song that was danced to there with more enthusiasm and enjoyment than this.  The version that they listened to was from an album called “Darin at the Copa”, a marvelous 1960 classic of an album that really captured the spirit and essence of live nightclub performances of the that era.  It was an album that demonstrated the talent and versatility of this performer who has just recently been featured in a full length biographical movie called “Beyond the Sea.”  Darin had successfully graduated from pop music (e.g., “Splish, Splash,” “Dream Lover”) and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could more than hold his own in the world of jazz, big band, and swing.  Indeed, at the end of this version of “Mack the Knife” recorded live at the Copacabana, Darin bellows out “Look out, old Mack, he is back!” to the accompaniment of the horn section of the band.  Like those fortunate ones in attendance that were heard and recorded loudly applauding his  performance that night, one hates to hear the song end and is left longing for more.    

 

The next “must play” song that I encountered was also a tune that was more than forty years old and one that has endured equally as well as “Mack the Knife.”  When I spotted the song “Crazy,” penned by none other than Willie Nelson in the early sixties and made famous by singer Patsy Cline, I had to invest.  Though she died prematurely in a plane crash on March 5, 1963 at age thirty, to this day there are those who question whether there will ever be a woman who can sing with more feeling than Patsy Cline.  It’s not that I was a big fan of Patsy’s when I was growing up - her songs were not part of my father’s record collection and were not heard in the household.  Nor do I really recall hearing her astoundingly beautiful voice over the radio back then.  Actually, it has only been during the past ten years or so that I have come to truely appreciate the music that she left for us to enjoy.  Though the song “Crazy” does contain lyrics that some who know me might consider apropos to the demise of my marriage (e.g., “crazy for loving you”), I do hereby dismiss these observations as being irrelevant to my attachment to this song.  My interest is not nearly so complex as that, but merely a reflection of my admiration for a simple song that was well written, meaningful, and sung exceedingly well by a woman with a beautiful voice.  It was a scotch-on-the-rocks kind of song in a Budweiser kind of establishment that night at “The Forest,” but “Crazy” went really well with my tall glass of Legend’s Lager, nevertheless.  I enjoyed and savored them together immensely, wishing only that I could somehow share with a close friend the comfortable feeling they produced in me. 

 

I imagine that there are those who would offer their own observations as well as to why I choice the third song to be “By With a Little Help From my Friends,” not as recorded originally by the Beatles, but the much more enthusiastic and hard-driving Joe Cocker version.  It is very true that friends have been a major help to me during the past two years as I endured the pain of divorce proceedings and a family torn asunder. This is not why I chose this song.  It’s importance and influence on me date back much further to the winter of 1971.  Without researching the discology of Joe Cocker, I can make an educated guess that  the song and album were current at that very time, when college roommate Joe Smith and I were sharing a 10 ft. x 50 ft. house trailer on Lot 52 of Shelor’s Trailer Park in Blacksburg, Virginia.  This was his final year at Virginia Tech, and would have been mine as well had I not flunked out of the School of Engineering after the Spring Quarter of 1969 and gone to a local community college the following school year.  In the evenings at the trailer we enjoyed playing records that were pumped from the Garrard turntable through my old tube Fisher amp to a pair of KLH-6 speakers.  Every night was a weekend night to us.  Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Guess Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young,  James Taylor, Judy Collins and many, many others lifted the old green trailer from the doldrums and into a fond place in my memories.  I particularly remember that Joe Cocker song and it’s relevance to me because of our next door neighbors at the time, Karen and Richard.  Though their last name escapes me now, I do recall that Joe and I jokingly referred to them even then as the “Carpenters.”  They were a few years older than we were and actually owned our smaller and older trailer, located probably fifteen feet or so from theirs.  Playing “By With a Little Help From my Friends” too loud with it’s driving bass guitar resonance would apparently cause items in their trailer to vibrate and rattle.  Way too many times we received a late night telephone call from them politely but firmly asking us, not to turn the VOLUME down, but to turn the BASS down.  Anyway, this song pretty much put Joe Cocker on the map, and I am proud to say that Joe Smith and I were there at the beginning with him.  If ever I want to hark back to my college days, this song will do it for me every time.     

 

I took a bit of a chance with my final selection, thinking that “The Forest” patrons might not really appreciate what I was going to play, and surprising myself that I pushed those buttons anyway.  I really couldn’t remember the last time I had even heard the song “Please, Please, Please” by the legendary James Brown, but did immediately remember one very memorable time back in 1966 when I saw it performed live.  It was at the City Stadium in Richmond Virginia on a sultry summer night when James Brown performed for what was mostly a black audience.  Some friends and I had come to enjoy “soul” music a little earlier than most of the caucausian race and took the opportunity to see the now “Godfather of Soul” when he made an appearance here.  James Brown has always been quite the showman, and wisely chose “Please, Please, Please” that night to be his final song of the evening.  He knew his business and how to keep a crowd entertained to the very end.  As the song played out with Mr. Brown down on his knees at the edge of the stage pleading and singing the title words a band member approached him with a cape fit for a king, draped it tenderly over his shoulders, and consoled the apparently despondent singer, accompanying him  towards the rear of the stage.  The horn section bellowed out notes that added to the intensity of his apparent sadness.  Just as he reached the rear of the stage, however, he would throw off the cape and return to the front, pleading again, “please, please, please” to his imaginary lover.    Once again the assistant returned, with a different beautiful cape this time, to comfort the singer and assist him back to the rear and, once again, Mr. Brown would toss off the cape and return to the front of the stage to beg his woman for yet another chance. This continued on through several more efforts for forgiveness, and the crowd would go more wild each and every time Mr. Brown returned to the front of the stage.  I have never forgotten that piece of showmanship, though time has not been as kind to this song as to others I selected to hear.  No one in “The Forest” had a clue as to why I played that song.  They did not need to know that I played it for my benefit alone and not for them.

 

My fifteen minutes of fame at “The Forest” was overwith much too quickly.  All of the music that I selected that night was very meaningful to me for a variety of reasons, although I certainly did not anticipate at the time of selection that I would analyze myself later to determine why I had made the jukebox decisions that I did.  I do not anticipate doing so again, but know that there is a reason for the decisions that we make, whether they involve something as simple as selecting songs from a jukebox or something as complex as family matters or career choices.  Sometimes one wonders why we do the things that we do.  Sometimes it can be helpful and theraputic to take the time, do some reflecting, and find out.