Jack / Laursen Have Mercy!

Confessions of the Original Rock 'n' Roll Animal - Wolfman Jack
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61842-431-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 362 Seiten

Wolfman Jack is the most famous radio personality of all time. This is his autobiography!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jack, Wolfman

Laursen, Byron

Leseproben

Introduction
Folks, I’m real nervous about getting this book right. I’ve ranted and raved, screamed, shouted, and even crooned at you all through microphones jacked into the pumped-up, megawatt transmitter towers of the world’s biggest radio stations. I’ve danced, sung, and clowned in front of hundreds of nightclub and Vegas showroom crowds, and before the blissed-out faces of ocean-sized, bigger’n-Woodstock festival audiences. Not to mention my thousands of hours of sweaty, valuable experience in front of television and movie cameras. But one thing that I’d never, ever done before—which has made me more scared than the most nervous virgin you ever met—was to sit down in a quiet place in front of blank paper and try to make sense of my life. A great musical pal of mine, a Texas rhythm and blues man by the name of Delbert McClinton, once wrote a song that said, “It ain’t what you eat, but the way how you chew it.” Well, I ate up all kinds of wild experiences so far in this crazy life of mine. I’ve spent my time living for music and other sensual thrills, instead of doing the sensible things that everybody tells you you’re supposed to do. Some of my experiences, I had to chew on for a long time before I knew what they were all about. But once I got started with the writing of it, I realized there could be only one name for this book. “Have Mercy!” is something I’ve said more than a million times in my life—yelling it over the final notes of a classic rhythm and blues tune, whispering it under my breath at the first bite of a juicy T-bone steak, moaning it softly to my sweet Wolfwoman in a moment of bedroom ecstasy. “Have Mercy!” It’s a simple expression of amazement, and gratitude for all the stimulating satisfactions that come from being alive. I needed a title, and those two words just popped into my head. I liked them there. Whenever inspiration comes along, it’s best to just latch on to it. Explanations will reveal themselves later on. Eventually, I realized that there are several reasons why “Have Mercy!” is perfect. First of all, in these pages I’m trying to pull together more than half a century of living—some of it very fast living, indeed. By and large, I remember what happened. And I definitely remember what it all felt like. Sometimes I remember things even better than I really want to, if you know what I mean. But I’d already seen a lot of water pass beneath a great many bridges, and burned several of those bridges behind me, too, before I ever dreamed that there’d come a time to put my life down on paper. So it has been hard to pin some things down, or to recall exactly who was there in the room with me, and whether we went out for barbecue afterward, haunted a funky, smoky nightclub until closing time, or hopped the red-eye to Las Vegas. I’ve asked a lot of my old friends to help me recall the days gone by, when we all dipped into the electricity of the moment. When rhythm and blues made its transition into rock ‘n’ roll, and rock ‘n’ roll into the music that suddenly shook up the whole world. Some of my old pals were a little worried: “I dunno, Wolf. It’s been a long time, but they still might press charges, y’know?” Thankfully, some of the many reprobates I’ve known were willing to open up their minds and their hearts and help me recall what a long, strange, and exhilarating trip it’s been. Even so, the story line may run through a patch of fog here and there. So please have a little mercy on me, ‘cause I’ve tapped those old memory banks as deeply as I can. And I promise that some of these memories will amaze you. Now, you might get shocked here and there by some of the stuff I’ve been into during this life. I believe that I’ve got a good heart. I even think there’s actually something pure about what has motivated me along the way. If that wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have stayed with this Wolf-man trip as long as I have, all the way since rock ‘n’ roll was just a gleam in the eyes of sexy Miss Rhythm and restless Mister Blues. But it hasn’t been a choirboy’s life. It hasn’t been my nature to let many chances for pleasure pass me by. As Oscar Wilde—or some other wild cat— once said, “I can resist anything except temptation.” That’s me all over, baby. The Wolfman is a sensualist: I like my sugar sweet. If someone was to nominate me for the Supreme Court it would be a shame, because with my two-toned wolfish goatee and all I’d probably look great in those dignified robes. But I would never get past the preliminary phase, where they check your closet for skeletons. ‘Cause I’ve got enough bones kicking around in there to build my own dinosaur. Please don’t misunderstand, though—I’ve always been good, as good as I can, to the people around me. And I have a strong sense of religious faith. In fact, as you’ll learn in the pages ahead, at one time in my life the proper way to address me was as “The Right Reverend Bishop Wolfman Jack.” That’s right! Right Reverend Bishop! You can almost see those blue and purple rays of heavenly light radiating from my countenance. But—as far as certain of life’s rules, regulations, and standards of conduct go—I’ll admit there have been times when I have done what I shouldn’t ought to have. Pretty soon in these pages you’ll see me transporting marijuana from town to town for shady nightclub operators, and handling client connections for ladies who put bread on their table by laying booty on the mattress. And you’ll see me generally going overboard in a number of foolish ways, including the pursuit of business opportunities in a slightly slicker way than the law allows. When the curtain is lifted on these dark deeds, please have a little mercy on me, and try not to pass judgment until you’ve taken in the whole picture. But there’s an even more important reason for the name of this book. “Have Mercy!” is a phrase that I picked up on a long time ago. I first heard it spoken by the inspirational people who played black and black-styled music on the radio. I’m a guy who was born white, but soon got captivated heart and soul by black American culture. That culture, especially the musical and verbal sides of it, has made all the difference in my life. “Have Mercy!” stands for the vibrancy and all-out expressiveness of African-American culture: how it points people toward the happy-go-lucky, good-times side of life; how it creates music that is sexy, funny, crazy, and wise all at the same time; how that music has the power to even make you feel good about feeling bad. At first, I was just another one among the countless legions of white kids who got amazed and irreversibly bopped on the head by the provocative, pulsating, and wonderful music that African-American culture has given us all. The deep and ultimately joyous sounds of Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine, Ike and Tina Turner, “Good Rockin’ “ Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, Big Joe Turner, Freddie King, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Otis Redding, Roscoe Gordon, Fenton Robinson, Louis Armstrong, Louis Jordan, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters … the list goes on forever. I keyed in to their art, drew pleasure from it, and used it in my attempts to find a cool world to live in—away from the morose hang-ups of “real life.” Because in my philosophy, nothing is more unreal than being unhappy. Eventually, that great music wasn’t just something I used, it was something I merged with and even served a little bit—by introducing lots of dark-skinned artists to millions of pale-skinned listeners via some of the most powerful radio stations that ever sent signals around Planet Earth. Of course, I didn’t perform that service because I’m a noble guy, or even a crusader. I did it because the music got me so excited—and I knew that kind of excitement could rock the radio world just as powerfully as it resonated in my own soul. As one result, some great black artists got a little further into the mainstream than they might’ve, maybe a little sooner than they might’ve. As another result, their music lifted me beyond being a bummed-out little teenage boy named Bob Smith who was going through nasty times in Brooklyn, to a fresh incarnation by the name of Wolfman Jack—who has known happy times in several corners of the world. The one thing I’ve learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the “civilized” world wish—either secretly or openly—that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I’m-so-glad-to-be-me spirit that black folks have made a part of American life. I stood in a club one hot summer night in a faraway land, several years back, watching a crowd of local teenagers tearing it up. They were all doing their best booga-loo while a DJ played Motown sides nonstop. The dancing looked pretty good at first. But if you watched for just a few minutes, you realized that those dancers were repeating precisely the same...