i played buddy holly in the worst movie of all time...
Great Balls of Fire!!! starring Gomer Pyle as JLL:
i was filming one of my scenes at the beautiful Memphis Orpheus watching gomer (the big DQ) burn the piana down to recreate the Brooklyn/freed/Apocrypha-myth, although in a Disney/bowler epithetless bastardization.
listen here my good man of darkened complexion, why don't you attempt to perform your sidepiece subsequent to my great pyrotechnic display...(that's Roland Jane's as the fireman put tin it out--for all you rockabilly freaks)
Jerry lee shows up to watch. he gets out of the limo in flip flops and a Sherlock Holmes pipe while me and chuck berry are getting our pictures snapped with all the extras. and the producer, Adam fields, starts to introduce me to the killer, and Jerry lee looks at this dumb shit-bio pipsqueak-Rockne' roll-desecration-phony-type cat and says to Adam killer:killer, i know killer...
and Adam killer says:he's playing buddy holly.
Jerry lee gives me the once-over twice, pops the meerschaum out of the side of his leering suck hole and in a dilaudid meets Friday accent, slurs in my direction:killer, buddy holly was my best friend in the world...
and then to Adam killer:killer, if you had enough sense to get killer here to play buddy holly you got more sense than i thought you had...
and then to me killer again:son, you look more like buddy holly than buddy holly ever did!
*18 yrs old: won Elvis Costello lookalike contest at kingfish/baton rouge, la 24 yrs old: cast in GBOF/first as Steve Allen, then Steve Allen steals the role/then as buddy holly 27 yrs old: first Broadway audition/the houseman theater/production of BUDDY/ lose out to real actor 28 yrs old: convince Patrick Mathe of new rose records in Paris to let me hire Linda Gail Lewis out of obscurity to sing a duet on OH Boy! for Patrick's buddy holly tribute album, EVERY DAY IS A HOLLY DAY, featuring new rose artists including OFB/our favorite band she's married to husband #6, Elvis impersonator, Bobbie Memphis, playin (12midnight to 7am) at world's greatest defunct honky tonk: kenny roger's (not that one) hernando's hide-a-way one mile from graceland 28: produce INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR, Linda Gail Lewis' first solo album since the 60s and only one that will ever feature covers by Dylan, Rockpile, Gram Parsons... at Doug Easley's old studio in Memphis for New Rose Records: released 1991 28: get to hang out with a not-yet-dead bonnie lee bakely who is hangin out at linda gail's apt., doing a little mailorder project in between stalkin jll and superimposing herself into pics with elvis at graceland photobooths 30: publish my first JLL piece in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER of the previously unpublished Memphis Police Dept. mugshots of Jerry Lee, from the infamous GRACELAND GATECRASH INCIDENT because enquiring minds want $700 and to have an ENQUIRER photocredit 36: get my first tabloid write up about Rockin' LEE BONNIE's cassette-only release of Heaven's Rockin' Band which i cherish as presented to me by her/written by Michael Musto who had already written up Ms. Gail's little association in the "side project" before Bakeley's death.
"Buddy Holly and I were good friends. One time we were playing at the Paramount Theatre and Buddy came in me while I was jacking off Anon titty gel Sue. Well, she was doing that to me and Buddy's thong-o. He was ready, so she opened up her legs and he pot IN her. He was Half Wang single, I was jacking off, Always Sticking when they entered his name on messed! He finessed nudity, the sly fag, stiffening him satisfying. I'll forget that. Queenie andante!"
-Little Richard, 1984
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"An undetermined number of women have filed a class action suit against Chuck Berry, charging that he made videotapes of them when they were undressing and using bathrooms on his property at Berry Park. The suit alleges that Berry used secretly placed cameras to videotape these women as they undressed, used the toilet, dressing rooms, and a bedroom in his home and restaurant."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch July 30 1990
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"I'll spare you the details about Chuck Berry's 'toilet tapes,' as revealed by Spy magazine, but suffice it to say that no rock writer will now use lightly the words 'shit eating grin' to describe his legendary on-stage ebullience; nor could anyone listen to Chuck's once popular B-side, "The Wee Wee Hours," and kid themselves that it's a song about insomnia."
-Time Out November 1998
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Yeah, that Chuck Berry sure has written some funny songs-especially the one where Chuck gets some on his finger and then wipes it on the wall, huh? But seriously, I remember reading that article in Spy and thinking: gee, they're sure dumping on Chuck. Then I saw the accompanying color video stills and realized that Chuck Berry was used to being dumped on. And here I always thought that it was Eddie Van Halen who originated the famous 'brown sound.'As for the pancaked Mr. Penmen, don't go thinking that the all-time living queen of rock 'n' roll was somehow misquoted or disingenuously taken out of context because that little slice of immoral oral history appears in Richard's own authorized biography The Life And Times Of Little Richard, The Quasar Of Rock. Magnanimous of him, I know. But from such humble beginnings as these we' ve finally arrived at this singular point in time. So consider yourself warmly welcomed not only to the 35th anniversary of CRIME, America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine, but to the 50th anniversary of rock 'n' roll itself.
This month's festivities begin with the reissue of these three albums; two of them the very first records made by Bud and Chas, with the third being a seminal release from the little Dick. Of course, it goes without saying that all three albums are indispensable additions to your collection. But if you're pressed for money or space, here's how I handicap the three, starting in order of least critical importance.
Despite having a surfeit of famous songs like "Oh Boy," "Not Fade Away," "Maybe Baby" and "That'll Be The Day," Holly's debut Brunswick album of 1957 sounds the most dated. Mainly it's because the Picks' saccharine barbershop backing vocals threaten to turn The Chopin' Crickets into a Sing Along With Mitch album. Which is why you'd be much better off trying to find a copy of the original tracks without the overdubbed backups. Besides, there's really nothing special here that you can't get on any number of greatest hits collections.
And since you're going to be giving your hard-earned cash to Holly publisher Paul McCartney either way, you might as well spring for something a little more comprehensive. Chuck Berry anthologies are also a dime as dozen, but they usually tend to omit Berry's more obscure instrumentals. His first album, also originally released in 1957, contains three such selections which are almost worth the price of admission alone: "Deep Feeling," "Replay," and "Berry Picking." I say "almost" because you also get the following overabundance of archetypal rock songs: "School Days," "Too Much Monkey Business," "No Money Down," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," the aforementioned "Wee Wee Hours," plus bonus tracks " Maybellene" and "You Can't Catch Me." All that's missing are "Roll Over Beethoven," "No Particular Place To Go," "Bye Bye Johnny," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Carol," "Run Rudolph Run," "Little Queenie," "Reeling And Rocking," "Memphis Tennessee"…
On second thought, maybe you'd be better off with a greatest hits album after all. Which leaves us with the expanded reissue of Little Richard's Get Down With It: The Keg Sessions. Of the three, this is the one album that you can't get parts of anywhere else, seeing as it how it contains just about everything that Richard recorded for the Keg record label during a four month period between February and December of 1976. And don't let the late date fool you: this soulful album of creaming' standards and originals-along with its companion piece, the equally hard rocking Little Richard's Greatest Hits which was waxed for Ole live in the studio shortly thereafter on January 25, 1977-is Little Richard's finest final moment to date. Along with Ace's definitive six disc box set of his early Specialty sessions and outtakes, these two Keg discs serve as perfect bookending latter day platters to be played anytime anyone should ever wonder what the big deal is about Little Richard. On Get Down With It, you'll hear a deep warmth and mature vitality in the man's voice that was lacking during his strident early years with the Upstairs. Artful editing and sequencing has transformed a random series of recording sessions into a fully functioning album that dozen't have a bad take on it. But rather than have me waste your time by tediously running down the track listing, better you should just go out and get it and then get down and get with it.
If you'll pardon the expression. And speaking of pardons, how about that Chuck Berry, huh?
Boy, I wanna tell ya: Isn't he something'?
