[Dixielandjazz] Re: "Benny's From Heaven"

[Charlie Hooks]

On Sunday, August 21, 2005, at 10:58 PM, tcashwigg at aol.com wrote:

> That make you a Perfect Dixielander, who was taught that OKOM 
> stopped about 1939 ish, so you would have probably never heard of 
> much less used such things which after Marajewwanna, and Heroin, 
> which was Taboo, even though used heavily in the entertainment 
> industry by legendary entertainers but kept very discreet in those 
> Victorian times.

I began playing "nightclubs"--actually, since this was in Texas where 
mixed drinks were illegal, I was playing "beer joints" on the 
outskirts of Waco--in 1942 when I was 13 and all the real players had 
gone to war.  It was me or nobody, and several guys suggested that 
"nobody" would be an imporovement: I didn't know many songs and 
couldn't play the ones I "knew."  The leader would call a tune from 
someplace back in or before the twenties, and I'd say, "Man, I don't 
know that."  And the guy would say, "You wanna git paid, kid?  Take 
the second chorus!"  And I'd say, "Yessir!"

I kept the gig, and it was great experience.  And Wiggins is 
absolutely right about the hard drugs.  The guys drank booze, ate 
bennies, and some smoked at joint or two.  But never hard stuff.  
Never heroin.  Never, even, cocaine at that time.  We were dumb, but 
not bone stupid!  Mostly booze.  As Art Hodes told me about 
"boppers," they flatted their fifths--we drank ours."  Of course, Art 
went on the wagon in time: his last thirty years, maybe last forty, 
were spent totally dry.  I asked on one of the early jobs he hired me 
for, "Art, why did you quit drinkin'?"  "Had to," he said.

Good advice.  I'm still thinking it over...


Charlie
____________________________________________
"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug."--Jon Lithgow