Welcome to our big Labor Day singles spin-a-thon … I believe I mentioned earlier that the first single I ever bought was “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. Naturally, I still have it in a box some place. So yesterday I’m looking for it, and as I flipped through the stacks of old 45s a wave of memories came flooding back to me.
My grandmother on my mother’s side and her second husband (not my grandfather) 
owned a pool hall/dive bar back in the 1960s, in Catahoula, Louisiana. Called Knott’s, the place was a ramshackle building on brick pilings (to keep the bayou waters out) with plywood floors. Even in broad daylight, inside it was usually dark as a cave. And in one corner there was a jukebox.
As kids we’d go over to visit with my parents, and because my grandmother was usually tending the bar and cash register, we’d hang out in the pool hall. She noticed we always asked for nickels for the jukebox, so once when the guy came over to change out the records she asked him for the old ones. Naturally my brothers and I played the shit out of those singles, and later I shared them with my friends in high school.
There were some regional acts, playing traditional Cajun music but there were some swamp rockers and blues guys too. Some golden oldies from the 1950s stayed on the jukebox but the record guy had to frequently replace them with fresh copies. Plus the occasional Tom Jones 45, some country (which we never listened to) and of course Elvis. Usually they came in the wrong paper sleeve, sometimes with a simple handwritten notation in the corner: “Knott’s.” There was one from the early ’70s, a single of the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which said it was from the motion picture Lifehouse. At the time I didn’t realize there was a Who’s Next album, with an even longer version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Maybe the LP hadn’t come out yet, I don’t remember for sure. When those 45s came in what appeared to be the correct paper sleeve, you could guess the record didn’t get much play on the Knott’s jukebox.
Even after I grew a little too teenaged-cool to visit Catahoula regularly, we still got those records. Well into the 1970s, my grandmother remembered how we liked the music so she’d usually send a stack back with my parents. Knott’s eventually shut down, Knott himself died and finally my grandmother passed about five or six years ago. I could probably try to play those old 45s but they’d crack and pop so bad you wouldn’t hear the music. Or I could just close my eyes … and remember.
But I want you to hear them too. So I downloaded ’em!
Rockin’ Sidney was Sidney Simien, a zydeco musician who also played everything from blues to country. He had a big hit in the 1980s, “My Toot Toot,” which was a payoff for Sidney’s years of kicking around the roadhouses of South Louisiana and Southeast Texas. I always liked his old stuff, which rocked out. Recording sometimes as Count
Rockin’ Sidney, he put the blues into the swamp and it came out nothin’ but fine, fine, fine. This one’s from 1961, when Sidney was recording for Floyd Soileau’s Jin Records.
MP3: “You Ain’t Nothin’ But Fine,” by Rockin’ Sidney
I didn’t need Knott’s Pool Hall to alert me to Jivin’ Gene Bourgeois. He was actually our neighbor in Groves, Texas. When I was about six or seven, my dad pointed him out on TV – it turned out to be either Jan or Dean; my old man didn’t know shit about pop music. But we’d go hang out at Gene’s house and listen to him rehearse with his band. When we tried to form our own band in the late 1960s, Gene would come over to the garage and tell us to turn it down. Then he’d give us a bit of advice that we quickly forgot. And there you go – I was never a rock star. Jivin’ Gene was, and he is at his best in 1959 on “Going Out With The Tide.”
MP3: “Going Out With The Tide” by Jivin’ Gene and the Jokers
30 Days Out 