Music Of My Years-Lincoln 1961-1965

Last week I told you about life in a small town before I was born.  Hard to understand what decides us to go to the places that we were born at.  I would loved to been born more toward the deserts or warmer places but it was decided that the journey begins at Lincoln Illinois.  Born to a teenage mother and a gas jockey dad.

Lincoln Illinois is a town that was a few years behind the times even when I born into that town.  Most everything was centered downtown in a square that housed the courthouse.  As I peered over old pictures and hardly remember how it was back then but we'll do our best.  My parents rented out a house about a block away from the Eisner's Grocery Store and then moved out to the outskirts of Lincoln on Route 121 which at that time was a two lane blacktop and not the four lane it is today.  The farmhouse was a rental and for the most part I remember my folks giving me a rocking horse on springs and a 45 player that I would play 45's and then jump on the horse to rock out.  I later would get a rocking chair that would be my constant buddy till it got wore out somewhere in the mid 70's. 

I do remember the nurses at the hospital that would actually rock me to sleep at times and they would hum a song or two.  I guess that's where the music side of things come to view but as for 45's, I have no idea of when everything happened.  I know my folks had a Symphonic Stereo to which they would play albums.  I would get certain 45's from the local booze store or go up to Woolworth's to which Mom would let me pick out a record or two.  That's how I remember getting Don Gibson's Oh Such A Stranger/Fireball Mail.

My mom would make a trip down Route 66, going through small towns like Broadwell, or Elkhart on the way to Springfield to which she would stop at the local discount cigarette shop.  Back in that time, with black and white TV, everybody smoked.  Including my folks.  There was times that I would be dropped off at Grandma Ambrose's house and I spent time playing games with Aunt Cindy and Aunt Virginia.  Some days would be spent over at Grandpa And Grandma Smith's house as well.  I think there was a drive in at Lincoln that we would go and watch a movie but most of the time the TV entertained us.

At that time, my father bought albums rather than singles and we grew up listening to a lot of Jim Reeves, Bobby Bare and Don Gibson's I Wrote A Song.  I think Mom bought the singles and most were given over to me to play.  For radio, I think country was more played than rock and roll, I don't recall hearing much of the Beatles invasion.  But in some ways, the all over the place 45s that Mom brought was basically how i buy things today.  The first 45 that I really loved was The Animals' Gonna Send You Back To Walker to which being a 3 year old I ended up breaking the record after playing it one time.  It would take me 45 years later to get a decent copy of.

I was the only child till 1964 when my brother was born into this world and all of a sudden I had to share things with him.  Hell I was a loner back then and for the longest time I was very jealous of the fact that the folks were spending more time with him then with me.  Granted I'll give him this, my brother looked up to me back then, even though years later he'd be the handy man around the house.  We didn't have many friends in Lincoln, there was Raymond and Aunt Cindy but it was me and bro against the world, or least Lincoln since most of the kids down there were pretty much jerks or assholes.  I never quite understood the mentality of them, since one day they would be your friend and then the next time tried to beat you up over some nonsense.   I recall a time, when Grandma Ambrose was still alive that I befriended some dudes in 1971 over by some abandoned building and then the next year they turned on me for riding my aunt's bicycle.   And to this day, I tend to have a bit of a grunge on the folks that lived there.  I remember one time in 1972 that me and my brother were walking back to Grandpa Smith's house when a bunch of hooligans tried to pick a fight and I started throwing rocks and calling them a few choice names and telling them to bring it on.  To which they scattered.

I barely remember Grandma Smith, she died about six months after my brother was born but I do recall her being a lovely woman that always enjoyed holding me on occasion.  My dad was manager at the old Clark station on the main drag until the bigshots had him transferred over to Waterloo Iowa in 1965.  Thus ending our association with the town of Lincoln Illinois.  There was a baby sitter that lived a block away from that gas station that I spent time with.  There was a sowing place across the square that sold those old Hit Records for 39 cents a piece, you know the 45 with people doing cover versions of hits made famous.  Leroy Jones covered Chubby Checker, The Jalopy Five did a mean cover of Paint It Black, Thomas Henry covered Um Um Um Um Um and Ed Hardin did Ricky Nelson covers.

I do remember the day JFK got shot.  It was a cold and blustery day and I spent most of outside crying about something on a old swingset.

When we moved to Iowa, we would come back to Lincoln on occasion and in 1971 the folks let me stay with Grandma Ambrose for a month, my brother came out a year later and in 1974 I think it was just me again.  Once Grandma Ambrose passed away we didn't see the need to return to that town 20 years behind the times.  It would be about 25 years that I would return to that damn town to once again deal with drunk hicks going through Carlinville on route to a Smith Reunion.  To which none of our kin gave us the time of day.

Either way I was born there, and there are grave plots waiting when we die but basically I rather much not be buried there although it would be close to the old Route 66 that used to take us out of town.  I did go back there one day about 4 years ago and it amazes me how little remains there.  The Woolworth's long gone, the Lincoln TV and Record Store long gone and Kresge's long long gone replaced by an antique store.  But what I heard from my mom, it used to be a fun town.  So she says.

The music of that time
Welcome To My World, Be Honest With Me, Moonlight And Roses-Jim Reeves
500 Miles Away From Home, Jeanie's Last Kiss, Lynchin Party-Bobby Bare
Oh Such A Stranger, I Can't Stop Loving You, Oh Lonesome Me-Don Gibson
Theme From Exodus-Ferrarte And Theatcher
I Who Had Nothing, Let The Water Run Down-Ben E King
Hallelujah Time, Hymm To Freedom-Oscar Peterson Trio
That Lucky Old Sun, Hit The Road Jack, Unchain My Heart-Ray Charles
Carol, Everybody Tommy Roe
Gonna Send You Back To Walker, Baby Let Me Follow You Home-The Animals
I Fall To Pieces-Patsy Cline
Hurt-Timi Yuro
Rubber Ball, Walking With An Angel-Bobby Vee
Ride!-Dee Dee Sharp
Wild One-Bobby Rydell
Popeye-Chubby Checker
Don't Hang Up-South Street-The Orlons
Do The Continental-The Dovells
Under The Boardwalk, He's Just A Playboy-The Drifters
The Big Hurt-Toni Fisher
Pride And Joy, Hitchhike-Marvin Gaye
Fingertips Part 2-Stevie Wonder
Hanging Up My Heart-The Marvellettes
100 Pounds Of Clay-Gene McDaniels
The Gamble-Roy Agee
Piano Nellie-Bobby Brant
Not Fade Away-The Rolling Stones