DOO WOP The Orioles I Cover The Waterfront RED VINYL 45rpm orig VVG+

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This description is not just about the Orioles, "I Cover The Waterfront," 45 RPM. It's about life. My life. I have had this record since the late '60's and I turn 80 later this year. What you see in one of my photos are images of me as a senior in high school, graduating in 1963, wearing my horn rim glasses and whatever I could do, to get the goo in my hair to go straight up. I won best dressed and best dancer. Best dancer and the records I bought changed my life. And the record included in this auction is one of them. Until the age of 8, I was a New York City kid living in the Bronx. Then we moved twice in the next two years. Once to Mount Vernon, New York and then to the suburbs of Rockland County, in a small town called Spring Valley. There in '56 it was like living on a movie lot.  But most of my relatives still remained in NYC, in every one of the boroughs.

When I went to visit them and I would go out on the street to play, I didn't only play. I went to whatever the main Street area was in the section I was visiting and bought clothes and records. The records I sought out I had already heard on my staticky transistor radio,  listening to my three favorite DJ's: Alan Freed, Jocko Henderson and Alan Fredericks. Yeah, there were others but none compared with their playlists of rarities. And in those days Fredericks was sponsoring Time Square Records! Owned by Slim Rose, affectionately and secretly called "Mole Man," because he seemed to just live underground!

Eventually, by the time the photos were taken for my yearbook I was already a steady customer of Cousins Record Shop on Fordham Road in the Bronx, Times Square Records, at the crosshairs of the universe at 42nd and Broadway, and by then the beginnings of the Relic Rack in Hackensack, N.J. It wasn't long until I became a "hanger on" at Relic and I can say that I became friends with the owner Eddie Gries and his brother Mike. Many years later, Mike worked on a few of my jukeboxes at my homes and eventually set up a great 1950's baseball pinball machine, that I bought from Eddie, back in the early eighties. Included, as you can see, are pics of my 1948 AMI model B, cammed down to play 45s, my Seeburg '54 model "R" (my fav), my Seeburg 222 "Channel '59" stereo, and what is missing are pics of my AMI 1961"Continental model. Great too look at but then the minute you danced it went off kilter and so did I!  

At one time I had a collection of about 800 hundred pristine, well-kept and hardly played, R& B and Rock & Roll records, with the majority of mine being considered, Vocal Group Harmony. Which by the late '60s & early '70's, was renamed by Gus Gossert (DJ), or mostly Christened, as Doo-Wop.  Because I won best dancer in junior high and then later in high school, as you can see, I more or less always considered, "When You Dance" by the Turbans, to be the main influence on calling that genre of music, Doo Wop. Although, Doo-Wop backup vocals appear in many songs prior to Turbans. So that is a little background to this particular record, that I bought at the Record Museum, a record shop at 10th and Chestnut St. in Philly, when I was attending Tyler School of Art in the '60's.

The condition of the record is as follows; it has been double sleeved since I have had it. First in a old thick green sleeve and then in newer white paper ones with a plastic sleeve for over 20 years. The record is a brilliant shiny red. There a very few high surface scratches which do not affect the sound. At least on my old vintage recorder player. Which you can see and I've also had, it seems, like for a hundred years!?

Free shipping, and packed like I'd want to receive it.

p.s. at a local radio station where I occasionally guest host a Doo-Wop show with the DJ, I attended a Christmas party on Dec, 3rd. My wife and I and another gal danced for 45 minutes straight without taking a break! We're not dead, we just got old!

and my story below fills in the rest!

I was Born In 1957 At The Age Of Twelve

jay eisenberg

 The line at the New York Paramount stretched completely around the block and then some. Police were everywhere with Billy-clubs in hand, some acting more like ushers then cops.  Many were mounted on beautiful chestnut horses and even they looked like they were decked out for the holidays.

 By Christmas of 1957 it was already the beginning of a very cold winter and like hundreds of other kids I was dressed to kill not for warmth.

 My hair was green gooed-up in an Elvis style Pompadour. Always hating to wear my glasses, I finally had a pair of the coolest Buddy Holly style horn rims, with three steel dots on the front of each corner. I was wearing a maroon gabardine shirt-jack with an elastic sweater band at the waist and navy blue slacks with white top stitching down the side seam. The black flip-top shoes I wore called Flap-Jacks, had no laces; and were kept closed by a strange mechanical device that kept them tight and from falling off your feet when dancing. My top coat which looked just like my father's covered this all up, but it didn't matter, I could show off my duds once I was inside.

 My uncle who chaperoned me was twenty years older. He told me he had stood right “here”,  ten years earlier to see Frank Sinatra. Now he was taking me to see an Alan Freed Rock & Roll Show.

 We stood on line for well over an hour without moving an inch and we were frozen. In spite of that I was determined to get in and see that show. Finally my uncle gave out. No matter what I said it didn't make a difference to him, my whole life was just ruined. We weren't going and that was that..

 We slowly walked away, crossed the street and proceeded north of Times Square on Broadway. He pointed out The Metropole, a once popular Jazz and Big Band Swing club. Even on this freezing day, its doors were wide open so the music could lure the tourists and passersby into the club.

 My uncle was a great but unsung Be-Bop musician and was still trying to make a living playing drums. Stories about his teenage years echoed and bounced off the walls, the neon light signs,  movie and theater marquees; while above us the huge face of a man blew smoke rings at us from the Camel Cigarette billboard. Uninterested, I was still in a stupor of not seeing the Rock & Roll show.

 We soon arrived at a movie theater which had huge cut-outs and posters of soldiers all around the entrance and marquee. Instead of a good old rock n roll show I sat down to watch the classic anti-war movie, "Paths of Glory", starring Kirk Douglas.  The movie was dreary, depressing and thought provoking. Not what my twelve year old eyes and ears expected to see and hear earlier that morning.

 The movie was followed by Chinese food at the famous House of Chan also on Broadway. The maître 'd  made me wear a sports coat they had on a rack for jacketless kids like me. The size was perfect for some four inches taller but without it there'd be no fortune cookie. So I wore it, my uncle smiled and we ate.

 It was now late and approaching 8 o'clock and I was less depressed and ready for the subway ride back to my uncle's apartment but that wasn't to happen until much later.

 We walked a little further up Broadway and at 52nd Street made a right turn. There right near the corner was a big neon sign that read, "Birdland, The Jazz corner of the World". As we walked down the stairs I could already hear recorded music. Waiters were moving chairs through clouds of smoke and noise, while my uncle was greeted at the door by his first name by a short black guy he called Pee Wee.

 It was clear to me I was the only young kid in the place. As I was introduced and greeted by Pee Wee, he pointed to an area he called the "peanut gallery". Named for the kids TV show Howdy Doody;  it was a corner in the club where liquor wasn’t served. So not being any shorter than Pee Wee, at least I felt comfortable when we were seated.

 The room filled up quickly and when most of the tables were full Pee Wee approached the mic.  He greeted the audience, told what he thought were a couple of funny jokes and then announced, "without further ado, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers". I was hooked and soon my rock & roll anxieties faded away and I couldn't sit still.

 The set lasted well over an hour and my uncle just looked like he was in drumland heaven.

When it ended there were a lot more people squeezed into the place. As late as it was for me, it was obvious we were here to stay; and just when I thought it was over, we weren't going anywhere.  And my uncle, I don't even think he even spoke to me, he just kept smiling.

 About half an hour went by and Pee Wee, the Master of Ceremonies, was back at the mic. He cleared his voice right into it and then introduced Count Basie and His Orchestra. 

I had seen him on TV, on the Ed Sullivan Show, or Steve Allen, or some other big entertainment show, but I really didn't know what to expect? His first tinkling on the piano keys brought forth a raucous blast of trumpets from the horn section which soon blended into a beautiful harmony, then a tune my parents loved called, "One O'clock Jump."

 They played about four more numbers and then the Count introduced Joe Williams. He had the most mellow, deep, melodic, sultry, voice and his breath seemed to penetrate and clear the clouds of smoke that encircled him. He finished with his signature song called "A Man Ain't Supposed to Cry"; and I had to cover my ears because the audience wouldn’t stop clapping. It was quieting down and the set was about to finish when Basie jumped up at the piano nodded to the band and to someone in the audience. The band played a few bars of "Round 'bout Midnight', which by now it was, and I asked my uncle who the guy in the audience was wearing the sunglasses.

 "Man, that's Miles Davis" he said, "he used to play with the Basie band", he continued with a giggled laugh. I nodded as if I knew that all along and agreed with him and sighed from exhaustion.

 I don't remember anything after that and probably was asleep as soon as we sat down in the subway car.

 The next day my parents drove into the Bronx, from the northern suburbs of Rockland County to pick me up. It was still pretty rural there; or let me put it this way, I had a weekend job on a chicken farm.

 What I remember most about the ride home and the next few days was I couldn't stop whining about how I never got to see the Alan Freed Rock & Roll Show. For now the whole Jazz experience was a blur as was all that adult music. Finally after days of unrelenting begging, my parents gave in and allowed me with an older friend, he was almost thirteen, to go into the city by bus to see the show.

 The line was obvious again but this time I was undaunted and we got on the end of it with determination. The wait time now was much shorter. Being near the end of Christmas vacation and not being as cold, the crowd kept us warm. In less than forty-five minutes we were in the theater and found seats.

 There were some shorts, a newsreel, cartoons and a forgettable movie. When it ended Alan Freed walked out on stage, raised a baton and the orchestra; that I hadn't even seen take their seats, led by Sam "The Man" Taylor, began to play. They started with Freed's radio show theme song, "Right Now, Right Now",  with Sam playing that wonderful screaming sax and joined by King Curtis. It was a rhythm and sound which I can still hear in my head and gives me the chills.

 The headliner, if there was one, was Fats Domino, the oldest performer and less than thirty years old. It was one of his records "I'm in Love Again" that was the first Rock & Roll record I ever bought, a 78rpm, in 1956. 

 For years I couldn't remember all the artists but of course I remembered some of the other big acts. Then recently I picked up a copy of a coffee table book at a flea market, titled, “Doo Wop.”  It was written by a longtime DJ from New York, Bruce Morrow, otherwise known as "Cousin Brucie"; and he is still on the air somewhere. As I thumbed through the book and flipped past the numerous photos there it was, a photograph of the marquee of the New York Paramount in 1957. Overlaid on top, as an insert, was an image of the original poster for the show. All the names were there and all was revealed.

 The other performers who appeared along with Fats were:  Frankie Lymon and the Teenager's, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, The Everly Brothers, The Rays, The Sheppard Sisters, Jo-Ann Campbell ( I fell in love), The Dubs, Little Joe and the Thrillers, Thurston Harris,  Paul Anka, Lee Andrews and The Hearts, Danny and The Juniors,The Kalin Twins, The Twin Tones, and Terry Noland.

 Kids in every row were clapping, screaming, crying and dancing in the aisles. When the show ended all of the audience got up, were ushered out and left. We got up too, moved back with the crowd and then just stayed flat up against a wall and tried to be invisible. We must have been because no one talked to us, made us move, or asked us to leave. Then like a torrent the next wave of kids rushed into the theater. We joined them, sat closer and now had better seats. 

At the end of the show, and unannounced, Little Richard appeared as a guest performer. And he tore the house down!

 Of course we had to sit through that movie again, but what did that matter in the week in my life that I was born.

 The influence of that experience was something that ignited what was to happen to me over the next few years. As a graduating 9th grader from junior high in 1959, I won best dancer and best dressed and designed the yearbook cover. Then three years later as a senior in high school, I designed the yearbook cover again and won the same senior superlatives when I graduated in 1963. The music never left me nor I the music. And like my comfort blanket when working in my art studio today, I listen to that music! I do cross over and love Jazz, Folk and Latin music as well. But with my oldies time merges with reminiscing and I seem to have the energy to work with the same passion that I did when I was young while just getting lost in the Rock & Roll.

The Jazz experience too has also stayed with me throughout my life. On the night of my senior prom most of my friends were heading, "down the shore", to New Jersey to see the sun rise. My sunrise was more of a Tequila kind. My date and I and another couple drove into the city where we first went to Birdland. 

I had become a regular there from the age of fourteen. Having the good fortune to work weekends as a busboy, then a waiter, at a catering hotel not far from where I lived, made it possible. My parents allowed me to stay there overnight. Everyone I knew who was over 16 could drive. Most of them had their own car’s and with no curfew, that made it easy.

 Most of the other waiters and bartenders were themselves only a few years older than me and then the drinking age in New York was 18.

 Many of these guys were friends of my older sister, so we were as friendly as a younger brother could be, only I could get them into Birdland. Later on, with just a note from Pee Wee, we got into other clubs as well. Basin Street, The Village Gate, Smalls, The Vanguard and more. On his Birdland card it said "take care of Jay & the boys,” and it was signed “Pee Wee Marquette".

 When we arrived at Birdland on prom night I hadn't said a word to my date or friends.

We walked down the stairs, I waved to Pee Wee who came over and this time I was greeted by name.

 He smiled and just said "you're in". He knew the price of admission would be his tip and more, so we had great seats. All dressed up in my iridescent Sharkskin dinner jacket, and mimicking Jean-Paul Belmondo I lit up a filterless Gauloises cigarette. Soon a bottle of Champagne was brought to the table.  The headliner that night, Dinah Washington, brought tears to the eyes of my date.  A few sips of Bollinger’s graced our lips and at seventeen years of age I had more than stardust in my eyes as we looked around the room and noticed some famous people watching as we did, this extraordinary woman perform.

 After my sophisticated triumph of that part of the evening, with my date and my friends all impressed, we left and drove downtown.

 We had a bite to eat in "Little Italy" at Vincent's Clam Bar and then drove to the Staten Island Ferry where we crossed back and forth and managed to keep our eyes open until the sun came up.

 By the end of that year the world had changed dramatically. President Kennedy had been assassinated, and Dinah Washington died of an overdose. Just one of many. What we now think of,  and consider the “sixties,” was born then and so was I, once again.