jukebox memories

Subject: jukebox memories
From: topical tom
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 12:56 PM

In the town where I went to high school there was a diner and movie theatre named "Beys" after the owner's family.The diner and the theatre were , of corse, separate but in the same building.
    What drew me to this "hang-out joint" as a teenager was a pin-ball machine where I invested a lot of money but won a few free games.
    There was also one of those coloured rays jukeboxes and the songs played the most often were Mack Wiseman's "Love Letters In The Sand" and Dean Martin's "That's Amore".I can still hear the music as though it were yesterday.
    I thought it could be interesting if others could share like memories. How about it?

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:03 PM

I had a paper route as a kid. Six days a week about three miles walk from home. When the weather was cold I'd go to a restaurant that had a jukebox and the longest playing song on it was the song that started, "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso . . .". When I went there to thaw out, I would play that a few times because it meant I could stay a bit longer and get warm before the walk home. It was cheaper to do that than have a hot chocolate. Ol' Marty and I became good friends during that time. However, having listened to the song lots, if I don't hear it but once a decade, that's OK by me.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:05 PM

The juke-box in the café I hung out at in the 60s had Country Line Special by the late great Cyril Davies, and Spoonful by the Cream, along with some other great classics like Hendrix. I used to play a Cream track called Pressed Rat and Warthog, which I never heard since. It had a tune like the Cutty Wren song.
Oh where are you going said Milder to Molder ♫♪

G.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:30 PM

So many...

El Zamba in Exeter down a little arcade near Bill Greenhalgh's music store on the hill on South Street. They had a single on the juke box of Alex Campbell singing Been on the Road So Long.

Also in Exeter, there was a coffee bar above the Left Bank Record Shop in Paris Street. I used to read all the record sleeves and fantasise being able to buy one. No wonder the place went bust. Favourite music played there..anything by Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray. (I was 17)

Bet ya Georgian Silver remembers those places. He was a police cadet sometime round the same time I was at the technical college - learning how to be a wastrel.

The Shades Coffee Bar, Reading - Mike Cooper and Derek Hall used to have a folk club there on Saturday nights. Favourite Record Um Um UmUmUm by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbender.(I was fifteen)

Totally favourite juke box though has to be the Ship Tavern in Boston. Cyril Howard was the landlord. There was this photograph on the wall - one of the locals meeting Brenda Lee. I was doing a teaching practice - 54 days in the coldest January I can remember, and I couldn't hack it. So the pub was my refuge. The digs the college put us into were so cold steam came out of your mouth. Coldest winter ever. I was reading War and Peace, and I can remember thinking the Battle of Austerlitz would have been a piece of piss compared to thirty eight thirteen year olds (with a reading age of eight) for thirty five minutes nine times a week, and no clue as to how to interest them. Favourite records on that box ...Nina Simone singing To Love Somebody, Doris Troy's What you Gonna Do 'Bout It.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:34 PM

The titles on our pub jukebox were hand typed... we had such classics as 'How seep is your love', 'Nights in white stain' and 'Your the one that I went'.

LTS

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:38 PM

I leartned one of my all-time favorite C&W shmaltz numbers from a jukebox. It was called "Will Your Lawyer Talk to God for you?" Complete white-trash sentimentality of the most extreme 1955-era country sort. I think Kitty Wells did it.

Oddly enough, the jukebox was in Boothbay Harbor, up near Portland, maine.


A

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:43 PM

Gosh Amos, did you used to live somewhere civilised then?
G

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 02:06 PM

Poor bugger doesn't even have below zero temperatures and snow. Like, what's THAT about, huh?

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 02:13 PM

Survival does not necessarily depend on toughness, larger muscles, or fat reserves. Sometimes intelligently-designed choices make for better evolution, eh? :D


A

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: ranger1
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 03:23 PM

My favorite jukebox was in the neighborhood bar just around the corner. They had Schoonerfare and Don Campbell. Then they sold the place and "new and improved" it and there went the local tunes in the jukebox. Actually, I think the jukebox went, too.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: jacqui.c
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 03:42 PM

I was at college, training to be a hairdresser in the mid sixties. Worked in a Wimpy Bar at weekends to earn enough money to go to the pub across the road from the college and have a ham roll, half of lager and one song on the jukebox. The one song was always House Of The Rising Sun by the Animals. Loved it then, love it now.

It's a good job we didn't get carded in the pub. In spite of the fact that I know I looked younger than my age at the time (16) that pub never asked for proof af age.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 03:58 PM

"Survival does not necessarily depend on toughness, larger muscles, or fat reserves. Sometimes intelligently-designed choices make for better evolution, eh? :D"

Ya say ya want an evolution, well, ya know . . . .

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Ythanside
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:06 PM

Hey Peace, what about poor old WLD? He's experienced a 54-day January, the coldest one he can remember, at that. Puts those cushy Canuck 31-day jobs into perspective, eh? :-D

Juke box favs? Jimmy Jones' version of 'Handy Man', Cathy's Clown by the Everlys, or 'Here Comes Summer' by Jerry Keller.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:11 PM

Yeah, that's true, Ythanside. But remember, the Brits are CRAZY. They go through weather and temperatures like that and just don't KNOW it's happened to them until years later.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:25 PM

Spot on, Peace. It's a bit like our political views in that we don't know what they are until we read them in the tabloids. :-D

Heard 'Honey' by Bobby Goldsboro once in a greasy spoon cafe. It was more emetic than the food.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Ythanside
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:28 PM

Sorry, that was my post. Will sort out the 'guest' thing.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 08:02 PM

The only time I was around a juke box consistently was the summer of 1966 when I was thirteen. We had one in the mountain hotel/cafe my parents ran for the summer. When it closed for the winter, my brother met the rental company guy and bought some of my fav. 45s from him, for me. So, I still have The Lonely Bull by the TJB; Where Were You When I Needed You?; Paperback Writer; Red Rubber Ball; and, a few others and I do get them out every once in awhile to listen to.

Giok, my brother has the Cream album with Pressed Rat & Warthog! I loved listening to that one. Also, of his LPs, I could not get enough of Iron Butterflies' InAGaddaDaVida!

Fun thread!

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: topical tom
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 09:59 PM

Great memories and comments, folks! Thanks a bundle!

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 10:07 PM

Reynoldsburg was a tiny semi-rural community 13 miles outside of Columbus, Ohio in 1958. Owing to a new plant from Western Electric, a new North American contract, and a change in status for Lockbourne Air Force Base, the little town grew from 700 to about 12,000 by 1960 and 35,000 in 1970. Although our move there in '59 had nothing to do with any of those things, I am simply pointing out that the influx was from all over and all backgrounds.

Don's Briarcliff Drive-In opened in that same year. A classic art deco looking joint with many oranges and shades of turquoise, montrous glass windows, booths in areas somewhat separated by stone planters, a low horseshoe counter, car hops outside (at first, they were gone by '64), and the most catholic selection on the Juke Box that anyone could imagine. From Perry Como to Otis Redding, Dean Martin to Hendrix, over the years there seemed to be something for all. At times you'd realize there was a war in progress as a kid would load up the three for a quarter Juke with 75 cents worth of rock and his parents would charge it with 2 bucks of easy listening. You could also tell what time of day it was by which music played because "that crowd" had arrived and Billy Vaughn's Golden Saxophones were in battle with Patsy Cline.

For some odd reason there was one song you could be guaranteed to hear at any time of day on every day for many years. I often have wondered how many copies of the 45 had been worn out. Why leave this song when others came and went? The song in question was Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman." It played every time I think I was ever in there and to this day just the sound of anyone doing one of those argling growls takes me back to the orange naughahyde booths and turquoise tables of Don's.

Don's Briarcliff Drive-In was missing when I returned to Reynoldsburg in the mid 80's and indeed much had changed. Back in '59, Don's was a new place for a sort of new town and I suppose it was never going to survive as the community became more stagnant and "settled." Over the years it had been the hangout for several generations of kids, the monthly meeting place for most of the civic groups, and the morning stop for the coffee clatch. A Burger King on that corner just isn't the same......and no Juke either.....................

Spaw

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Beer
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 10:11 PM

Yep, sure do remember a few. If I remember 25cents gave us 6 songs. Some of them we would dance to and sing along as well were:
The Hucklebuck
The Limbo
Rave On
Purple People Eater
Something or other by Connie Francis
Elvis of Course
a Few Johnny Horton and Jim Reeves
But my favorite of that time was Sweet Dream of You by Patsy Cline.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 11:07 PM

Spaw, that was plumb beautiful. I love reading all of these!

And then, there's Mudcat's own Juke Joint. Have fun reading!

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 07:50 AM

And the worst part of that 54 day January, as my tears splashed into the winter snow and turned into treacherous black ice.....

I was in love with
Trish

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 10:23 AM

That's great, wld, I love the driving beat and what a Dish she was!LOL!

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 10:49 AM

I spent some of my adolescence on a farm in Vermont, a school, and when the confusions of existence (which seemed incredibly bewildering at that age) grew too much, I would slip away and walk a couple of miles into the nearest village, slip into the town diner, and drop a dime into the table-top Wurlitzer extension that graced every booth back in those days.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Now the only girl I've ever loved has gone away.
Looking for a brand new start!
But little does she know that when she left that day.
Along with her she took my heart.

Rain, please tell me, now does that seem fair
For her to steal my heart away when she don't care
I can't love another, when my heart's somewhere far away.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Interlude

Rain, won't you tell her that I love her so
Please ask the sun to set her heart aglow
Rain in her heart and let the love we know start to grow.

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain,
Telling me just what a fool I've been.
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain,
And let me be alone again.

Oh listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter, Oh
Listen, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter, Oh
Listen, listen to the falling rain
Pitter patter pitter patter ...

Then I'd get a refill, in those thick white china cups with the chips missing that seemed to be native to all diners, drag out another dime and play it again...

IT never solved any of the confusion, but it made me feel better for reasons I could not begin to explain.


A

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 11:07 AM

WLD, I seem to have heard that somewhere before :)

Amos I sang my way through that, and I remembered most of the words too.

G

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 12:23 PM

The Cascades - - I saw them at The Gliderdrome, Boston in another life.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Tweed
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 12:50 PM

There was a big aboveground swimming pool down at the town park where I come from and there was an open concrete slab adjacent to it, for dancing etc., with a jukebox in a sort of custom built jukeboxshack. The park people'd open the doors up on the weekends and people would play "In the Ghetto" by Elvis over and over. It was sorta odd, as there were no black people in the whole county, but the girls would play that and cry for some reason or other.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: fat B****rd
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 01:55 PM

In 1957 I would change a shilling piece (a bib bit) into 4 threepenny bits, go to an arcade near Cleethorpes Station and always play;Ready Teddy by Buddy Holly, Tutti Frutti by Little Richard, Come Go With Me by the Del Vikings and I'm Not A Juvenile DElinquent by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. In the spring of 1960 the girl next door and her friends (headscarves, white macs and stilettos) asked me if I wanted to go to "Tin Pan", a small grubby corner of a larger arcade "on the prom",with a bench round and a Jukebox. Red River Rock was out by Johnny and the Hurricanes, which I liked, but the real treats were two singles on the London Label by Chuck berry; Little Queenie and Let It Rock. I'd never really heard Berry before but he became a quest as his records weren't that common in England.
Later I got a holiday job as change boy and mechanic in the"Humber" arcade. This place was quite long with a jukebox at either end, Helen Shapiro's Please Don't Treat me Like A Child was played incessantly and as I was stuck there from 9am till 9pm I got to dread the bloody thing. I once actually got on my knees and begged a family of trippers not to play it. They did, naturally.Happy days.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Brakn
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 02:17 PM

Places - year - songs

Cafe, Church Street, Calne - 1969 - I Get So Excited - The Equals

Cafe, Commercial Road, Swindon - 1970 - Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache - Johnny Johnson and The Bandwagon

Cafe, High Street, Wooton Bassett - 1973 - Now Be Thankful - Fairport Convention

The Moss Trooper, Timperley - 1977 - The Days Of Pearly Spenser - David McWilliams

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 02:42 PM

Just remembered the Italian café in Motherwell when I was even younger, where I played Piltdown Rides again, and Bubbles in the Tar, by Bee Bumble and the Stingers.
G

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: fat B****rd
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 02:54 PM

By the Piltdown Men, actually Giok. Yourds pedantically fB.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 03:02 PM

Sorry I was thinking of Nutrocker, which was also on there, along with Red River Rock, already mentioned.
G

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: fat B****rd
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 03:11 PM

Did you know that the group B. Bumble and the Stingers had to be formed after the record was a surprise hit. It was a studio thing with the wonderful Earl Palmer on drums (Yo Poppagator)and other sessioeersNo more nerdness, I promise.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 03:22 PM

Hoots Mon, was another one.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 05:47 PM

Its a few years later, about 1968, and I'm in school at Berea College in Kentucky. You were limited to say the least on where you could go at Berea since cars were not allowed. The "Snack Bar" in the Alumni Building was very large and the glassed in room looked to the mountains over the Field Hockey field. There were perpetual running Bridge and Hearts games going on from opening til closing but the two games never intermingled and there were about 20 avid players in each group. The Juke Box played continually and whether I recall these so strongly as coming from the Juke or from someone's room, the following songs were pretty much in the air several times a day at least. Not all my picks of course, but these were the ones that are stuck in my memory and can take me back 40 years in an instant......even the ones I can't stand.....like "Honey."(;<))

The Letter
Norwegian Wood
White Rabbit
Requiem for the Masses
Dock of the Bay
Lady Madonna
Scarborough Fair
Different Drum....I love her...the Barefoot Contessa
I'm Gonna' Make You Love Me
Lady Willpower
Got To Get A Message To You
Honey
The Unicorn
Hey Jude
Piece of My Heart
Whiter Shade of Pale
To Sir With Love
Light My Fire
As Tears Go By ........and of course........
Ode to Billie Joe

Spaw

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 07:11 PM

great selection of links there, Spaw, well done.

'course, I'm way too young to remember them first time round, but great to see and listen to them nonetheless...

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 07:27 PM

:-) Great, there goes my plans for Sat. night. I'll be glued to the "tube," thanks to you, Spaw!

Really IS a great list, thanks for the links.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 07:35 PM

In 1964/5 or so, the most played songss on The Coop jukebox, were Ride of the Valkeries/Prelude of Act 3 to Lohengrin (I think the was the other side). That was at about the same time as Walk Right In was very big. That was at UCLA on the Sunset Coast.
Y'know, I think we had a similar thread to this some years ago.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 08:28 PM

My gawd, that Janis Jop;on was a PIECE of WORK!! Sweet Jesus.


Thanks, Spaw.



A

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Billy
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 08:58 PM

Somehow, I discovered that the key to my 1953 Ford Anglia (bought it from a buddy for 30 quid) would open the hood of the jukebox in the lounge of a local bar - it didn't work the cashbox lock, though, so all we got was free music. Old Roddy, the landlord was an alkie (his wife also worked the bar and tried to keep him from drinking) and you'd have to ring a bell to get him to tend the lounge from the public bar. We were all 16 year-olds and were not old enough to drink (let alone DRIVE) but this was rural Scotland and nobody gave a shit. We'd order our pints and while Roddy was off getting them we'd open the jukebox and flip all the levers to play our favorite tunes. Back came old Roddy with a tray full of beers and surprisingly, there was always a large scotch extra. "Did nobody order this?", asked Roddy. When nobody claimed it, Roddy would say "Well, I guess it's mine!" And down him it would go.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: RangerSteve
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 11:07 PM

I was stationed in Norfolk, Va, in the Navy back in 1969 - 72. During that time, topless bars were legalized. Just about every bar in town had topless dancers, even the small neighborhood places. They had to, in order to compete with the bigger places. Since most of the small places barely had room for a stage for the dancers, there was never room for a band, so they relied on the juke boxes to supply music. I was just at that age where topless dancers seemed like a great idea, but I soon realized that most of the dancers should have remained topful. My friends and I would sit at a table and load the jukeboxes with undanceable tunes; The theme from "Exodus" by Edith Piaf, anything by Johnny Mathis, "Release Me" by Tom Jones, and the two standards in every Jbox - "Happy Birthday" and "The Anniversary Waltz". We had more fun watching the bartender running to change the record than watchin the dancers.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 06:02 AM

I didn't realise Edith Piaf had recorded the theme from "Exodus" tntil I read RangerSteve's post. It was never released as a single in the UK, as far as I am aware. We got the dual piano version by Ferranti and Steicher, (or something like that) which made it to #1 in the charts (or "hit parade" as it was called back then).

not that it matters greatly, but "Release Me " was recorded by Englebert Humperdinck, not Tom Jones.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Lindsay in Wales
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 09:41 AM

30 years ago I used to drink in The Crown at Weston, a splendid old pub on the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire border. The juke box was very old and the records much loved. When I went back in the early 90s the old juke box and the old records were still there, but sadly they have all gone now. Those I remember are:

Norman Greenbaum "Spirit In The Sky"
David Essex "Silver Dream Racer"
Deep Purple "Smoke On The Water"
The Who "Substitute" and Others
Fleetwood Mac "Albatross" and others

I moved to a village near Bicester and in the late 80s started to go to the Rose and Crown at Blackthorn, kept by the wonderful Mick The Hat who now keeps the Peyton Arms at Stoke Lyne, which is the best pub in the WORLD...

Mick had a juke box in the Rose and Crown and he used to alter the record titles or band names to suit himself ; i.e. Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" became "Positively Blackthorn" and
a band such as Brian Poole and the Tremeloes became "Brian Poole and the Blackthorneyites"....

One of the earliest jukeboxes I can remember was in a harbourside cafe at Brixham in Devon, where I was staying with my parents in the summer of 1961. Every day Helen Shapiro's "You Don't Know" was played and whenever I have heard it since, I am transported back to that cafe and the pretty harbour at Brixham...

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 01:33 PM

Murray - it's a little known fact that Engledink Humperbert and Tom Jones are the same person.

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 01:36 PM

It's not unusual

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 01:40 PM

you never see them together....

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 01:45 PM

Well he died in 1921, that's why.
G

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:43 AM

Many years ago I frequented a bar caslled the HobNob because my friends girl worked there. Most of the customers were into Country music, so for a respite I'd drop a couple books in and play what few Rock and Roll songs they had, some twice. A couple I remember were "Runaway" by Del Shannon and "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians.
I must have had a thing for the sound of early 60's electric keyboards. I still love "96 Tears". I always wanted to get that guy's autograph. I was going to change my name to ! but I didn't want be confrontational. (:^))

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 12:34 PM

Here ya' go Neil......


96 Tears
Runaway

Spaw

Subject: RE: jukebox memories
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 02:37 PM

Thanks Spaw. As soon as I get home to a computer with speakers (assuming I can edge my wife off of E-Bay and GSN), I will listen to these and most of the other songs (all great) that you linked us to.