Aki Aleong and his Licorice Twisters were probably fine people who, in the 1960’s simply enjoyed rock ‘n’ roll, or at worst, were out to make a buck. But in my mind they are forever the poster people of sham, hoax and conning innocent children… which means, of course, that I’m pointing one finger at someone else while three fingers are curled back pointing to me because I was so gullible, naïve and clueless about how the world of opportunism works.
Across the street from Karl’s shoes on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park in 1960 was a small record shop where I bought my very first Rock ‘n’ Roll Record for a dollar–“Alley-Ooop” - a 45 rpm Single Hit. At age 13 it brought me hours of enjoyment. I don’t remember what was on the “B” side, but I probably wore through the “Alley Ooop” side by playing it over and over again. There’s a man in the funny papers we all know… Alley Ooop, ooop, ooop, ooop, ooop. He lived way back a long time ago… Alley Ooop, ooop, ooop, ooop, ooop. The record had a large hole in it which needed a special plastic doo-hickey pressed into the hole so it could fit on the record player spindle. I didn’t have a special plastic doo-hickey, so I got good at centering the record precisely on the turntable – much like a potter centers clay on her wheel. When it was slightly off-center, the record would “w-a-o-w, w-a-o-w” which added to its charm.
With the success of that purchase under my belt, I went back to the record store and saw “Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Greatest Hits” -almost every song of which I wanted to have for my very own to listen on the big brown and white leatherette box record player – complete with carrying handle - which Mom and Papa Leo (her brand-new husband) bought me for my birthday.
Wow, all these neat songs on one thirty-three-and-a-third album! I plunked down my five bucks and an extra twenty-five cents for one of those plastic doo-hickeys to play forty-fives more reliably. I shelled out more than two weeks’ allowance for the whole package. I was puzzled by the photograph of Aki Aleong and his Licorice Twisters on the cover, but I figured they were just dancing to these popular tunes which I assumed were sung by the original artists. I was not into reading the fine print. I'd made up my mind this was a great purchase!
Before I could play it at home we went to visit my Aunt Nora and Uncle Bob. Imagine the depth of this 13 year old’s disappointment when my Cousin Debby and I listened at her house on the big stereo in Redondo Beach and heard these dreadful renditions that sounded nothing like the familiar originals! After the initial upsest drained from my stomach, Cousin Debby and I began to giggle over the situation. Laughter was our well-worn path to healing from yucky encounters with Life. We held our hands palm down out in front of us just like Aki and his Licorice Twisters (how chauvinist is that?!) and did our impression of their lame “Twist.” Fifty years later, when Debby and I are together, this hand gesture can still bring on the giggles.
In addition to being the poster people of hype, Aki and his back-up singers give me a reference point for how to discern music I really like. Original songs sung by the song-writer and jazz improve top my list of preferred music. Anything where the sound is immediate, intimate, the musicians are playing to me; singing to me rings my chimes. No wonder then that I do not like imitative, filtered, homogenized or digitized muzak.
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My beloved and I spend a lot of time on Interstate Five between our home in the L.A. area and the homes of our two daughters and their families in the Bay Area. Mark has gotten adept with technology and has always been generous with his time, so he’s put some recorded music on an ipod. (BTW… have you seen the new logo on T-shirts for newborns? “ipood.”) We’ve enjoyed listening to Broadway Show Tunes, Folk, Celtic and Pop songs on our five hour commute. On this recent trip, while I was driving and he was doing a crossword puzzle, I really listened to the Broadway tunes. It was Aki Aleong all over again! If that sounds like a contradiction because I “enjoyed listening to the Broadway Show Tunes,” it IS a contradiction to this extent: In the same way a photograph can give us a Gestalt of an experience or a fragrance can instantly throw our memory back to fetch and bring forward a very particular bit of personal history, so too can even a bad rendition of a favorite song conjure the memory of having enjoyed that melody before- including whom we were with when it was playing and maybe even what we were wearing the first time we heard it. I enjoyed the songs because they’re good songs – not because of how they sounded... which wasn't great.
Two things struck me as I listened to these over-produced (meaning too many tracks of canned orchestral frills) pieces. First, the singers, who were from England and were doing their best to sound “Amurican”, were imitating well known singers from the United States. One singer had nailed Streisand’s phrasing and volume. What went missing in the digitized rendition were the goose-bumps that Barbra’s version of “People” never fails to give me.
Driving alongside the golden hills dotted with sheep I thought about what makes a performance great. Again, for me it’s the intimacy, the immediacy and certain intensity that occurs when I hear something authentic. What makes Streisand great is that she embodies what she’s singing about and sings from somewhere below her feet - deep in the earth. It’s not “safe” or watered down or half-way. It’s all out, risky and takes guts to bring it off. You can smell the cologne of folks in the front row, the make-up and flop-sweat of her fellow cast members. When Barbra sings you know you’re privileged to be hearing a great singer. While the song in the mouth of even a brilliant imitator is… well, an imitation.
The second thing I thought about was the act of digitizing and how it steals nuance from an analog recording. A sweet curving line of ascending notes from a violin hooks our hearts and takes them soaring along on a continuous, coherent journey skyward. When that sweet curving line is digitized it forms a stair-step approximation of a curving line. The journey ends at the same place, but while soaring is breathtaking in a good way, climbing the stairs just gives us labored breathing. It is arduous and much less magical. Nuance goes missing. You can’t smell that front-row perfume or the pheromones. It sounds hollow.
The Robert Goulet imitator on the Broadway album was not convincing either. “If Ever I Would Leave You…” made me wish I could leave him… but no matter how fast I was driving, I couldn’t get away from this wanna-be Lancelot.
I turned off the ipod and enjoyed the quiet while I chanted one of my yoga chants softly and Mark finished his puzzle. The sheep continued grazing. We got to our daughter's house and were thrilled to see everyone.
Yesterday, during the Birthday Party for our now TWO YEAR OLD(!!!) granddaughter up north, one of the guests’ moms picked up my guitar and began a blues progression and sang a song from her old rock ‘n’ roll days. She had a five year old whining to take her outside and a two and a half year old wanting a plate full of fruit, but for the few minutes she allowed herself to be her rock singer self it was authentic and goose bumpy for me as I sat there on the floor and listened. She sort of reconstituted herself in that moment as a woman beyond just “mom.” Music has the power to reconstitute all of us and I believe it is best heard as close to the original source as we can find the well from which to drink it.
I wish I still had that old Aki Aleong album. While it’s true that he’s had a long and brilliant run as an actor with many credits to his name, I think even he may be embarrassed by that album with the Licorice Twisters. I would like to write across the shirt on his twisting torso, “ipood.”
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