Tony Visconti: The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy. Morrissey
He wrote them in keys that were easier for a beginner guitarist to play.
After a few months Leon Block said, ‘I want you to try this out, you’re a good reader now.’ He opened a piano book called Two Part Inventions by J. S. Bach; this was a whole new level for me. They are quite difficult pieces for above average intermediate piano students. They have independent melodies for the left hand and right hand; each ‘invention’ was in a different key. The fifteen pieces teach independence for each hand, which is tricky on the piano, and even more difficult on the guitar, even though Segovia had adapted some. Leon Block would tell me to learn the treble clef part for the right hand and then he’d play the left hand bass clef part, so that we played a duet.
The first time I played one of these pieces my mind made a quantum leap—this was real music, I thought. During lessons I forgot about Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. I had been quite unaware of the guitar’s versatility until Leon Block pointed out that it was capable of being a mini orchestra with almost the same potential as a piano. After we went right through Two Part Inventions I began learning the bass clef and we reversed our roles. During the two years I studied with Leon Block I got into classical music, flamenco and jazz—his musical influence, the first major one I’d had, has stayed with me always.
I worked away at home practising every day to improve my playing. My ear-training made it easy for me to learn the cute little solo on ‘Party Doll’ by Buddy Knox in a couple of minutes. The same was true of Buddy Holly’s songs, although the intro to ‘That’ll Be the Day’ took a little longer as it was quite tricky. At 13, I began playing in a couple of different bands, one of which was called Mike D and the Dukes, and played my first paying job with them, an Italian wedding for which I was paid five whole dollars.
Like most other kids growing up in this golden era of rock and roll I was riveted to the radio by the great music that was being played. I worshipped DJs Alan Freed and Jocko. I couldn’t wait to hear the next single from Little Richard, Fats Domino, groups like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and The Cleftones. I was thrilled by a song called ‘Little Darlin” because Freed would play the ‘white’ version by The Crewcuts and Jocko would play the ‘black’ version by The Gladiolas. Rock and roll was an alternate universe where I wanted to live.
As a singer I joined a doo-wop group on my street called The White Bucks, named after the shoes that Pat Boone made popular. Our best song was also called ‘White Bucks’. Besides singing doo-wop I loved dancing to it, especially the slow songs, and particularly with a girl named Rosemary. We were part of a little neighbourhood gang of kids, not a real gang, but just a bunch of friends; there were about a dozen of us. On Friday nights we would go down to my friend’s basement and unscrew the white light bulb in the ceiling and screw in a red one. We’d play 45 rpm records and dance. Two songs I particularly remember dancing to were ‘In the Still of the Nite’ by the Five Satins and ‘Pledging My Love’ by Johnny Ace, probably due to the fact that they aided my erotic stimulation. They were played over and over again and we would dance ‘The Fish’ which evolved to ‘The Grind’, which leaves nothing to the imagination. You would just hold your girl as close as possible and grind your hips together while pressing your chest against her chest; it was as close as I got to real sex at twelve.
Best of all was the chance to dance with Rosemary. She had very rounded hips, an Italian beauty with dark curly hair, a sweet face and very ample breasts (us guys would debate whether they were a C or D cup—a favourite pastime). It was always a fight to get to dance with her and she knew it—we all knew it. One or two dances with Rosemary in an evening were the closest thing to heaven. I once casually, and totally accidentally, brushed my hand on the side of her breast while we were dancing and she slapped me in the face so hard, I heard bells and saw stars. It was okay to grind erotically but not to touch. It was at an early age I started learning the rules of sexual etiquette on the dance floor. It was at this time in my life that I learned what ‘blue balls’ were. I will always associate slow dowop with teenage sex—or lack of.
Alan Freed would host rock ‘n’ roll shows at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre. I went as often as I could, as soon as I could take the subway by myself. I usually went in a mixed group and we had to queue from about 6 a.m. to get into the first show, which started at 9 a.m. We would be kicked out after the show because there was a new group queuing for the second show. On one occasion I managed to hide in the men’s room and saw the show all over again. I saw Fats Domino, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry all in the same show. With hindsight I find it totally amazing that these guys performed show after show all day long. Usually it was six shows a day with each of them performing a couple of numbers. Sam the Man Taylor led the house band, which was more like a Count Basietype band playing Be Bop, big band and jazz. They would back artists like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Cleftones, Mickey and Sylvia and The Cadillacs. Many of the ‘cats’ were top session players who played on the original recordings made in New York.
Most of these records were 12-bar blues or the famous ‘Heart And Soul’ chord changes. C-A minor-D minor-G7—no one played them better than these guys. Of course not everyone was backed by Sam the Man’s house band. If in the darkness you heard a buzz from an amp on the stage you knew it was either Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley because someone was plugging in their guitar; kids would scream because they knew that one of your three guitar heroes was about to come out. If it was Buddy Holly he would come running on stage followed by Jerry Allison and the other Crickets and launch into ‘That’ll be the Day’, or ‘Oh Boy’. Afterwards we would go around to the backstage door to try and get autographs: I got Little Richard’s and Mickey ‘Guitar’ Baker’s; Mickey and Sylvia had a big hit in 1957 with ‘Love is Strange’. Later these shows moved to the New York Paramount and so it was a longer subway ride. Alan Freed stopped doing the shows and Murray the K, another DJ, took over. Both venues have since been torn down, but I’m left with vivid memories of an exciting and magical time in our musical history.
In High School I auditioned for the orchestra and was assigned the double bass. I picked it up immediately because the top four strings of the guitar are the same tuning, it was a no-brainer. We played Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess suite in an arrangement for a high school orchestra. Besides the orchestra I played in the marching band but instead of plucking I was blowing, I played the tuba. During the lunch period in my senior year I took a string class and I would sometimes play the cello, which I taught myself. However, most of the time there were too many cello players and I would be the only bass player, which meant I played the cello part of a string quartet, but an octave lower.
In my second year I took music appreciation classes with Dr Israel Silberman who would play us classical music and tell us why we should like these pieces. He really was a great guy who also gave the string classes during the lunch break. In Music Theory class he would play us a string quartet and then say, ‘Now listen to the next sixteen measures carefully. I want you to write out the second violin part. Ignore all the other parts, the first violin, the viola, the cello part, write the second violin part.’ This was fantastic training for my ears. I had three glorious years of this, while everything else about school was horrible—I hated it. If it had not been for Dr Silberman I’m not sure I’d be in the music business today. He was the second greatest musical influence in my life.
We did an annual show called Sing. I was the leader of the pit band in my sophomore and Junior years and then in my final year I was President of the senior Sing—I was in charge of the whole thing. A friend of mine, David Geffen, who later formed Geffen Records, Geffen Music and Geffen Films and generally became an all around music industry legend, took the role of treasurer. One of the main guys in Sing was Gary Lambert, a talented trumpet player. He was so handsome; girls adored him. Tragically, like a lot of my friends, Gary died in the Vietnam War. His father was a top New York session violinist and I’m sure Gary would have become one of the world’s greatest trumpet players. (He died of a heroin overdose in Vietnam; ironic, really, as he never used heroin before being drafted.)
In my senior year I met my teenage sweetheart, Bunny Galuskin. She came from a Jewish family and for the next four years we lived our version of West Side Story. Although my family loved her, our relationship had to be kept a secret from her parents. Ironically her