hand, rubbed his eye till it watered, and proceeded to cleanse it by putting it on his tongue and washing it with saliva. As Mandle went on, the Am-Par A&R man pulled up his eyelid and snapped the invisible hemisphere of optical glass back in. Satisfied, he settled back, an expectant tilt to his head. If there was anything here, he was going to get it on paper; he caught the female executive of one of the other majors staring at him, gauging him. He intended to beat her out. Mandle was still talking.
Whatever it was that Bob Mandle said, in announcement of the mystery guest, Shelly did not hear it; only that all-pervading warmth filling the gym. Mandle snapped his fingers, the combo struck its intro notes — monotonous, infectious, basic — and the curtain swept back to reveal Stag Preston.
"Boys will be boys," Sid Feller murmured, sizing up Stag Preston with a cool, promoter's eye.
"Here he is," Mandle pontificated, " Stag Preston !"
It was a mixture of disappointed ah's and damn's from the youthful crowd, intermingled with applause. The great American tradition of applauding any thing, by habit, not merit.
Then Stag Preston came on:
Like Gang Busters …
Like Attila The Hun …
Like Quantrill and all his raiders …
Like Stag Preston under full steam and I'm goin' all the way and get outta my line of fire because this is it , baby, it with nitro!
He belted out "Car Hop Angel" with a drive that won the kids immediately. It was a good number, combining all the demanded idiosyncrasies of rockabilly, but with style; a little — not too much — imagination; room for vocal tricks; and enough leering suggestiveness in the phrasing to make the hipper ones titter. He went over. Big. Very big.
When he broke, and slid to one knee for the finish, they came up out of their seats as though electrocuted. They stamped and screamed and demanded more, banging their hands together and whistling, clapping the seats of their wooden chairs, hooting. The A&R men's jaw lines hardened; Sid Feller let a vague smile tilt at the corner of his mouth.
The combo began a soft comp, swaying in on the opening bars of Stag's flip-side record, "I Don't Know You Anymore."
They settled back to silence, bright-eyed, letting him prove himself again.
He sang. Lord, how he sang , Shelly thought, later.
He sang with something more than his gonads. He sang with his … what the hell, use it … his heart. He sang so that every pimply-faced adolescent in that audience knew he was singing about him … about her. About the great affair that had just ended. About the tears in the back seat. About the look of youthful desire. About experiments on summer beaches with the others around the fire toasting the marshmallows, unaware. He sang about every sloppy, inept, melodramatic relationship indulged in by every fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-year-old there. He had it down pat. He had it all right there, and they took it from his extended hands. They didn't bother to examine it … the smell and the sound and the tough touch of it was right.
When Stag Preston finished that number, his success was a foregone conclusion. The A&R men did not stay for the nine more songs he sang, nor for the fifteen encores.
Fifteen encores, and when he left the stage, the name Stag Preston no longer brought ah or damn to the teen-aged lips. It was the beginning of the underground whisper campaign so necessary to a rock'n'roll singer's success. Shelly knew it by heart, knew every inch of the self-devouring tapeworm of mouth-to-mouth promotion. As a small time DJ, before his path and Freeport's had crossed, he had experienced the dynamiting done by flak-merchants. Now he knew what he had to do.
While Stag and the A&R men and Freeport cavorted vocally (Kid, you've got it knocked ! You are only the greatest!) in the locker room, Shelly sought out The Ringleaders.
Only Shelly thought of them that way. To Dick Clark they were "his regulars," the kids who made up the nucleus of his
Whatever it was that Bob Mandle said, in announcement of the mystery guest, Shelly did not hear it; only that all-pervading warmth filling the gym. Mandle snapped his fingers, the combo struck its intro notes — monotonous, infectious, basic — and the curtain swept back to reveal Stag Preston.
"Boys will be boys," Sid Feller murmured, sizing up Stag Preston with a cool, promoter's eye.
"Here he is," Mandle pontificated, " Stag Preston !"
It was a mixture of disappointed ah's and damn's from the youthful crowd, intermingled with applause. The great American tradition of applauding any thing, by habit, not merit.
Then Stag Preston came on:
Like Gang Busters …
Like Attila The Hun …
Like Quantrill and all his raiders …
Like Stag Preston under full steam and I'm goin' all the way and get outta my line of fire because this is it , baby, it with nitro!
He belted out "Car Hop Angel" with a drive that won the kids immediately. It was a good number, combining all the demanded idiosyncrasies of rockabilly, but with style; a little — not too much — imagination; room for vocal tricks; and enough leering suggestiveness in the phrasing to make the hipper ones titter. He went over. Big. Very big.
When he broke, and slid to one knee for the finish, they came up out of their seats as though electrocuted. They stamped and screamed and demanded more, banging their hands together and whistling, clapping the seats of their wooden chairs, hooting. The A&R men's jaw lines hardened; Sid Feller let a vague smile tilt at the corner of his mouth.
The combo began a soft comp, swaying in on the opening bars of Stag's flip-side record, "I Don't Know You Anymore."
They settled back to silence, bright-eyed, letting him prove himself again.
He sang. Lord, how he sang , Shelly thought, later.
He sang with something more than his gonads. He sang with his … what the hell, use it … his heart. He sang so that every pimply-faced adolescent in that audience knew he was singing about him … about her. About the great affair that had just ended. About the tears in the back seat. About the look of youthful desire. About experiments on summer beaches with the others around the fire toasting the marshmallows, unaware. He sang about every sloppy, inept, melodramatic relationship indulged in by every fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-year-old there. He had it down pat. He had it all right there, and they took it from his extended hands. They didn't bother to examine it … the smell and the sound and the tough touch of it was right.
When Stag Preston finished that number, his success was a foregone conclusion. The A&R men did not stay for the nine more songs he sang, nor for the fifteen encores.
Fifteen encores, and when he left the stage, the name Stag Preston no longer brought ah or damn to the teen-aged lips. It was the beginning of the underground whisper campaign so necessary to a rock'n'roll singer's success. Shelly knew it by heart, knew every inch of the self-devouring tapeworm of mouth-to-mouth promotion. As a small time DJ, before his path and Freeport's had crossed, he had experienced the dynamiting done by flak-merchants. Now he knew what he had to do.
While Stag and the A&R men and Freeport cavorted vocally (Kid, you've got it knocked ! You are only the greatest!) in the locker room, Shelly sought out The Ringleaders.
Only Shelly thought of them that way. To Dick Clark they were "his regulars," the kids who made up the nucleus of his
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