The Daily Sentinel from Grand Junction, Colorado • 21

Senior Citizens 50s blue tunes were risque on subtle side Baseball Card SHOW SALE February 1 st 2nd Saturday 10-5 p.m. Sunday 10-4 p.m. Scott Bonarde Cox News Service SHAMPOO SETS Thru January Call now for an appointment FREE Cards Just for coming by Shopping Sprees every hour from noon Ramada Inn 1-70 Horizon Dr. FREE ADMISSION Daylene Beldon, Betty Brent, Brenda Rhodes Chris Staton Perms Haicuts Frosts Beard Trims Local-Long-Distance World Wide-Moving and Storage Complete Family Styling mm 434-4198 3002 1-70 Business Loop Open Monday-Saturday 8 30-5 30 vate parties and sold well in record stores. The song was No.

1 on the charts for seven weeks in 1954. Written about a Louisville, girl he was dating, Ballard originally wanted to call the song Rock With Me Annie or Roll With Me Annie. But at the time those titles were considered too suggestive. He substituted the word work because, in the ghettos of Detroit (Ballard was working on a Ford assembly line when he wrote the song) the word work meant sex. Many people thought I was talking about a husband and wife on the same job, Ballard said, then chuckled.

I knew in advance it would be banned from radio and knew that once it was banned it would create curiosity and cause people to break down doors to buy the record. Later Etta James did a version called Roll With Me Henry. Singer Georgia Gibbs would tame that a bit and call her version Dance With Me Henry, Ballard said. The song was so popular that record company chief Sid Nathan of King Records, asked Ballard to write some more of those dirty songs. Work is still selling, still making noise after all these years, Ballard said.

Bartholomew, who co-wrote many of Fats Dominos greatest hits, didnt have as much initial good fortune with his one attempt at a blue tune. The idea I had at the time was to entertain people in nightclubs. It was great in the clubs, Bartholomew said. In those days, when I first recorded the song, it was thrown in the trash can. It didnt come to life till Berry recorded it It was too suggestive in those days.

Berry recorded it in London in 1972. 1 was very surprised. Thats when things started changing. Bartholomew and Ballard say the change jias been too drastic for them. Weve come a long way, Bartholomew lamented.

Everythings changed. I liked it better then, than today. I dont want to be unfair to writers of today but I wouldnt do it 2 Live Crew, theyre too dirty for me, man, too far out, Ballard said. I know its about making money, but my morals are not that far down. Its not my kind of thing.

Im not knocking todays stuff, Ballard added. I wish them well. I had my day with the big fun." Rhino Records may not be done with the big fun. Risque Rhythm has surpassed sales expectations, according to James Austin, and the company is contemplating a second volume that would include rockabilly and blues times as well. Possible songs for for the sequel include Tampa Red's Let Me Play With Your Poodle and Bessie Smith's Put A Little Sugar In My BowL finalweek! Singer-songwriter Hank Ballards husky, jovial laugh is cascading over the phone lines from his southern California home.

Whats so funny? The song titles on the recently released Risque Rhythm: Nasty 50s (Rhino Records), an 18-song collection of the bluest rhythm and blues and early rock roll from 30 to 40 years ago. Theyre filled with humorous metaphors and double entendre: My Man Stands Out, It Aint the Meat, Keep On Churnin, Lemon Squeezing Daddy, "Sixty Minute Man, Work With Me Annie and others. Those songs are the forerunners of current hits like Naughty By Natures O.P.P., a seductive celebration of sneaking around to do the wild thing, and the more graphic hit Me So Horny by Miamis 2 Live Crew. The Rhino compilation reveals glaring differences between the sexual nature of songs from the dawn of rock roll and much of the bawdy rap and rock of today. In the 50s, the songs mischievously winked at listeners.

They were sly and subtle and had a playfulness and humor about them. I wrote those songs for fun; I was Having fun with lyrics, said the 55-year-old Ballard, who wrote the suggestive hit Work With Me Annie" in 1954 and followed with Annie Had A Baby and Annies Aunt Fanny. You can laugh at them. Im laughing now. Most of the stuff I did, you could read between the lines.

(Ballard is best known for immortalizing a dance with a song called The Twist) New Orleans songwriter Dave Bartholomew agrees with Ballard. His Toy Bell, written in 1952 and performed by The Bees, is also part of the collection. It didnt become a hit until 20 years after he wrote it, when the social climate changed and Chuck Berry recorded the song under the title of My Ding-A-Ling." We actually didnt say anything, Bartholomew, 71, said during a phone conversation fiom his home. In those days, it was all in the mind. You couldnt be explicit in those days.

Besides, In those days, I wanted to leave you guessing. Today, much of the guesswork and humor has been replaced by in-your-face explicitness, violence, misogyny and an-d ger. Its the difference between shock and titillation, said James Austin, the Rhino Records staffer who compiled the songs for the record. Back then, it might make someone blush; youd get a chuckle out of it It was about having fun with sex. It was as simple as that It was not mean-spirited or sexist Women singers sang it, too.

(The collection includes songs by Dinah Washington and Julia Lee Her Boy Friends.) Most of the songs on Risque Rhythm were banned from radio and denounced by clergymen. Ballard recalls priests and nuns in Boston running around the dty removing Work With Me Annie from area jukeboxes. But the tunes flourished in jukeboxes, nightclubs and pri 1-10x13, 2-8xl0s, 3-5x7s, 15 Wallets, 1 6 Portrait Petites and a Portrait Key Ring (petite size) how in ONLY jj Price includes $2 deposit payable at time of sitting Your choice of traditional, nursery spring or foil background $2 for eoch additional person in portrait White and Block backgrounds, Double Feature, Vignette and other Special Effects portraits not available odvertised package Poses our selection Use your Sears Credit Card or Discover Card Cannot be combined with any other offer Offer void where prohibited, taxed or licensed by law Cosh value I 2(X Coupon good through February 15, 1992 approximate size Adult A families wekomp. Also ovoaobUi Instant Color Passport Photos, Copy A Restoration and Transfer of Home Movies to Videotape. Foreign Tapes Converted R9.95.

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