Rock and Roll In Early Bloom

Go, Johnny Go! (1959) Glows On DVD

Now why would I have gone to the Liberty for Go, Johnny Go! on April 20, 1963? Answer: it played with Rodan, the trailer of which I saw but days before at parent-endorsed (and accompanied) To Kill A Mockingbird, latter satisfactory enough for child-scares sprinkled throughout, but no match for thrill that was glimpse of Rodan. These were days when you'd sit through a bum feature for sake of the good one you paid admission for. Go, Johnny Go!, however, had rock and roll numbers one after another, which was OK if heard off transistor radio, but no visual match for dinosaur birds hatched from mammoth eggs. Still, there was one song that struck lightning, and set me upon neighborhood search for anyone who had the 45 platter. It was Please Mr. Johnson, by the Cadillacs, which I thought the niftiest tune since David Seville and the Chipmunks did Witch Doctor in 1958. That was all I'd remember of Go, Johnny Go! at the theatre until Kit Parker released a widescreen (and stunner) DVD of this 1959 jive-jumper near invisible for the fifty-seven years since. Parker you'll recall gifted us of late with When Comedy Was King, and here is more of much-fun same (seen his site? Great stuff there). Go, Johnny Go! was the sort of show that jammed Saturdays once upon spent times, reliving it as here an especial joy thanks to Parker transferring off the original camera negative and including audio commentary to enhance our sit.

Rock/Roll movies were miser cheap, except where majors took a dip with Elvis or satiric dissect of youth culture like The Girl Can't Help It. Triumvirate of experts Richard M. Roberts, Randy Skretvedt, and Brent Walker tell us that Go, Johnny Go! was shot in five days. Work ethic among low-budget filmmakers must have been immense. We could learn much from them beyond making of fast films. Go, Johnny Go! has oodles of acts on crisp B/W and wide (proper 1.85 for a first time since theatrical). There is Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, aforementioned Cadillacs, Eddie Cochran. Ill-fated Richie Valens gets a look-in but months before plane-crashing with Buddy Holly and others, he plus Cochran a remind that R&R often walked tandem with untimely death. Ringmaster of these is Alan Freed, another of short life (d. 1965), but immortal as sandpaper reverse to clean-living Dick Clark, who'd pick up marbles Freed dropped or threw away during mutual climbs to Big Beat summit.

My favorite R&R is better called RR&R, or fuller put, Raffish Rock and Roll, as in all of rough edges there, these performers sprung from the street w/ precious little of handling to sap out talent that made them distinctive. Remember politeness imposed on pop acts from early 60's on? I'd play my hard-acquired single of Please Mr. Johnson, then ponder my sister's latest Bobby Vee album, where he'd exalt orange as a favorite sweater color (and to think, Vee was promoted to ease loss of Buddy Holly). Go, Johnny Go! seems to me a last call for mastodons of music served raw till corporate sent small labels and their artists to extinct-ville. I choose this over what came to displace it, Go, Johnny Go! a museum walk through rock and roll before dread harness was slipped round its throat. Trouble, of course, was corrupting smell of dollars R&R gave off where marketed on big enough scale. A movie like Go, Johnny Go! just couldn't be made once big dogs joined the hunt. A wonder such stomped-out goods, with later-depleted talent (those partings plus Berry jail-bound on morals charge) kept playing at least NC houses right through the mid-60's. Bet Go, Johnny Go! could be had for $10 by time it rode Rodan's back for me and youngsters who'd barely recall rock and roll when it was still a big enough tent for all who first made it vibrate.