“Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you’re gonna have to get used to it…” “Like a Rolling Stone” Bob Dylan
The next district over from the Old School’s is where you find the sacred halls of the School of Hard Knocks. In any and all of these places of rarified education, a basic knowledge of the street was mandatory if there were to be any hope of advancement.
Street smarts are as invaluable today in the Sixties, which is where this episode is headed. If you can deal with anybody anyplace anytime, chances are you soak up a lot of grit and soul from the music you hear in the Asphalt Jungle.
The Fantastic Johnny C had a name that would work in any era, as well as a song for the ages. No Ubers know how to Boogaloo Down Broadway, but it sure beats hitchhiking. Judy Henske is kind of creepy and forboding, but she’s steering you from the Road to Nowhere. Blinded in the headlights, Iggy and the Stooges ripped their shirts and spit blood “Down on the Street.” 1
Sweet Van Dyke Parks lulls us into a chamomile cocoon of childhood and baseball on “Vine Street” before Arthur Conley snaps us back for another dance on the avenue of broken dreams of “Funky Broadway.” If you’ve never heard Lou Rawls, think of him as an OG Yoda with the determination and the fire in the belly to get off this dead end street. Chicago baby. The hawk. Almighty hawk.
Sixties Streets Smarts. Let’s get some.
BOOGALOO DOWN BROADWAY Fantastic Johnny C
ROAD TO NOWHERE Judy Henske
DOWN ON THE STREET The Stooges
VINE STREET Van Dyke Parks
FUNKY STREET Arthur Conley
DEAD END STREET Lou Rawls
(Note that despite their release dates, the songs of this OLD SCHOOL curricula all leap from those late dirty sweet 60s streets. Iggy’s tune sprang forth in 1969 even though it wasn’t committed to wax until the summer of the 1970.)
Share this post