Don't Knock the Rock – or Granddad

By Fred Bruning

Sept. 1, 2024

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, is a music fan – Springsteen, Dylan, Prince (Walz is 60) – which means we are hearing a great deal about “Dad Rock,” a term to which I take great exception because it makes Dad seem irrelevant as a rooftop antenna or, no, wait, way worse, a person who thinks Telegram is Western Union. Hah!

Telegram, of course, is not Western Union, friends – not anymore. See how behind the times you are? Get with it, already.

Telegram now is another social media messaging service – exactly what we needed – co-founded by Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, who recently was arrested at a Paris airport and accused of allowing inappropriate material on the app. Durov insists he plays by the rules.

It’s probably necessary to say other companies offer actual telegram delivery, though, in the electronic age, if someone came to your door with one of those little envelopes claiming to be carrying a “telegram,” you’d probably slam the door pronto and hop on the neighborhood chatline to warn of the latest bizarro intruder.

Back to Dad Rock.

This is one of those cutesy terms intended to make the older person feel that, while everyone is glad he is still around, and willing to contend with his weepy Thanksgiving toasts and endless observations on the state of the union, and his passable, but limited, preferences in music –  despite everyone’s kind indulgence, the tribal elder remains a sort of cultural artifact, an emissary from a distant time, and maybe another planet.

Makes you wonder: What about Granddad Rock? 

Sometime around 1955, I was in my snug room on the third floor of 619 69^th St., Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a space that even Ralph and Alice Kramden might consider tight, wardrobe pressed against the bed, linens and blankets stored above, turning the dial of a Philco tabletop radio and by chance hit 1010 WINS and a deejay named “Moondog”Alan Freed.

Via the market-wise Moondog, now comes music like nothing on Make Believe Ballroom or the Lucky Strike Hit Parade.

Here was, “Sincerely,” by the Moonglows, “Gee,” by the Crows, “Gloria,” by the Cadillacs, “A Story Untold,” by the Nutmegs, “Why Don’t You Write Me?” by the Jacks, and then this great, moody piece, “Earth Angel,” by the Penguins, that made you feel, if you were 15, that someday, not today or tomorrow, maybe, but someday there would be a dark dance floor, a dreamgirl yet unknown and, then, at last, “Earth Angel.”

“I’m just a fool, a fool in love with you…”

It occurs to me at this point, listening to Alan Freed, homework easily set aside, that, oh, my, the world is just a little bigger – and a lot more interesting – than I had been led to believe.

The melody, and harmony, the sweet lyrics and deep reach into emotions, and, new to most of us in Bay Ridge, I’m afraid, the rich, stirring world of black America – wow, you know, rhythm’n’blues, something else, and important, I think, looking back, radical, even, you might say.

You really can’t love the Channels, Heartbeats, Valentines, Platters, Continentals, Flamingos, Chantels, Five Satins, Teen Queens, Cleftones, Drifters and Dubs – you can’t try to imitate (with your own little off-key a cappella  group) Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers or Little Anthony and the Imperials or Willie Winfield and the Harptones or Sonny Til and the Orioles…

…you can’t love the music so much and the people who made it, plaster your tiny bedroom with pictures of Little Richard and LaVern Baker and, when the time came, as it did, be less moved by  Martin Luther King, or the Freedom Riders, or Medgar Evers, or John Lewis.  No, you can’t.

Oh, I know, the web shows a few millennials saying, gee, that was some stuff, r’n’b, I was born too late, and, absolutely, folks, welcome aboard, but, really, it was our time, our music, 50s kids, Generation Doo-Wop.

Question is, will Granddad Rock outlast Granddad?

It should, don’t you think? It was music and more.

Earth angel, earth angel
Will you be mine?
My darling dear
Love you all the time
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you

Wanna dance?

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive