31 December 2009

Doo Wop Dialog[ue]: 19

clarkedavis
(M/Dover, New Jersey)


Tony,

The verse from Thomas Hardy is perfect. I think the doo wop mentality and the sense of spirituality has been around a long, long, time. But it was never articulated so profoundly for the common man ... I can imagine the communication between privileged concert-goers in Vienna seeing Mozart perform. Lead East, Europe in the "real" old days.

Seriously, the feeling two lovers must have felt when sitting next to each other, perhaps holding hands, listening to romantic strains of a concert orchestra, must have been akin to what doo wop evoked for us. It's the quality of communication, and the sharing of something special that creates the bond.

There are those still among us, who lived through the highly romantic forties. Songs like Where or When, Again, A Tree in the Meadow were versions of songs made popular a decade or more earlier. The forties produced a heightened sense of romance coupled with the danger of annihilation (World War II) which forged premature relationships to blossom, due to time constraints of soldiers.

Romance and sophistication went hand in hand in the elegant forties, and some of that spilled over into the doo wop era. The sensibilities that allowed the awkward and the raw, to emerge as acceptable, if true of heart, successful commercial entities was truly what the fifties allowed. So we have the Moonglows Secret Love next to Rosie and the Originals Angel Baby on the jukebox. Sublime to almost ridiculous, with both garnering respect, because of where the music was coming from, in both cases, the heart and soul.

I am very pleased we were able to have this communication, begging the indulgence of others who might think this a bit off base for a board of this nature.

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