Drummer Boy

By Larrywomack.com 

Kim Novak was no ditzy blonde actress.  She was smart, sexy, and always seemed in charged.  I was 15 when I saw her in Picnic at the Knickerbocker Theater in downtown Nashville.  I stumble out of that Saturday matinee knowing that I would always be in love with Kim Novak.

Stopping at Woolworth’s for a soda before catching the bus for home, all I could think about was Kim Novak.  She was sophisticated. I like that in a woman.  She was cool and quiet.  I liked that too.

Once on the bus, I realized that in my daydreaming about Kim Novak, I had forgotten to go by Miller Music Store to look at the drums in the window.  Ever since seeing a movie short subject with Gene Krupa playing the drums, I always stopped when near music store to admire the drum set in the window and imagine myself play Sing, Sing, Sing like Gene Krupa.  My father told me that no one else could play wild like Gene Krupa because he was a drug addict.

I wondered if Kim Novak and Gene Krupa knew one another.  They both lived in Hollywood.  From the newsreels of Hollywood, it looked like everyone probably knew one another.  I’ll bet Kim Novak would have nothing to do with a drug addict.  She was too cool.

“Cephas Street!  You gettin’ off here Larry?” said Mr. Otto, the bus driver.  Jolting me into the present.

“Oh!  Yes Sir Mr. Otto.”

I must have been in Hollywood playing the drums or looking at Kim Novak.  Someday I’m going to Hollywood to be an actor or singer or master of ceremony, or maybe even a drummer.

The next Friday evening, my parents were out.  And, I was on the phone, as usual, harassing some girl, when I saw their car pull up in front of the house.  I hurriedly ended the conversation.

Realizing it was taking them longer than usual to get to the front door, I went to see what they were up to.  To my shock, I saw my dad coming up the front steps with a large bass drum and heard my mother banging on a tom tom.  By the time we unloaded the car, I had been surprised with a full complement of drums and accessories including a snare drum, bass drum, floor tom, Indian tom tom, and a ride cymbal.  There was also a stand for the snare drum, and a foot pedal for the bass drum – lacking the maul required to  make it boom.

The set was also missing a stand for suspending the ride cymbal, drumsticks and brushes, and a high hat cymbal set, used by the left foot to play a clicking off-beat to the bass drum’s boom boom.

Earlier in the summer, I asked my parents for a snare drum just to bang on.  This, full drum set, just like Gene Krupa’s, was more than I could have imagined.

My brothers gathered around my dad and me.  We all banged on the drums and the cymbal with our hands.  My dad put a tennis ball on a stick for a makeshift bass drum maul.  My mother sat at the piano and played a few songs as accompaniment to our rhythmic chaos.

My father, who was a fireman, had asked around the fire hall if anyone knew the whereabouts of a used snare drum.  A fellow fireman, who lived in a rooming house, said that a former resident left a set of drums with the landlady, as collateral for back rent.  He thought she might be willing to sell the drums.

When my folks went to talk to the lady, she said she’d sell them everything for ten dollars.  My dad said he give her five dollars.  She surprisingly agreed and they headed home with the bootie.

Saturday morning, I hurriedly completed my window washing chores, at several area retail establishments then, caught the bus for downtown.  My first stop was Woolworth’s to buy 78 recording of Louis Armstrong’s latest hit Mack the Knife.

Next I entered Miller Music Store for the first time.

Mr. Miller, a small quiet man, asked, “May I help you son?”

I’m sure I told him more than he wanted to know about my newfound treasures, but he was cordial and patient.

Mr. Miller put a pair of drumsticks and drum brushes on the counter and went into the backroom.  He returned in a few minutes with a metal cymbal stand, a bass drum maul, and a fully assembled high-hat cymbal set.

“All this is going to cost you twenty dollars,” he said.

“I only have fourteen,” I replied.

He thought for a moment and said, “If you’ll bring me the six next Saturday you can take it all with you now.”

“Thank you sir, I promise I will,” I said excitedly.

He said, “I always like to help you young hepcats get started.  It’s good for business.”

I struggled aboard the next bus for North Nashville with my purchases.  Mr. Otto got to hear the entire story of my new musical adventure.  I missed no detail.

My drums were brown wood, not sparkly like those in the store window, but they were beautiful to me.  Setting up the drums was harder than expected. I played the Louis Armstrong record in the background more than twenty times until I completed the task.

Moving about in the small living room became even more difficult with the drums.  Thank goodness it was summer and my brothers were playing outside.  I brought in a chair from the kitchen and sat down to play along with Louis Armstrong.    I must have played the record fifty times.

About three in the afternoon, my mother opened the living room door and said, “You are doing fantastic!  Would you like for me to play with you?”

“That would be great!”

She played (or should I say, we played Cow Cow Boogie, Bugle Boy from Company B, and Blue Skies.  I really liked playing the drums and could feel that first day that drumming was something that I would do the rest of my life.

We left the drums in the living room for the entire summer. My father and my brothers occasionally played them, sometimes along with my mother on the piano.  And I played them every day; mostly along with records.  I was determined that I would one day be a drummer to be reckoned with.

Shortly after Labor Day, when school started I went to the high school band director and told him I wanted to play snare drum in the marching band.

He said, “I’ve heard you sing during assembly, but I never knew you could play the drums.”

I said, “I couldn’t until July.”

He invited me to play for him.  After one short drum cadence he said, “You’re in!”

Though I was already busy with senior studies, choir practice, serving as president of the student body and as announcer for the football games, I was happy to add marching band drummer to my list.  On the nights of the football games, I didn’t play the Stars’ Spangled Banner or the opening pep song, though I proudly marched in every halftime show.  Another student introduced the band to the crowd at halftime.

Earlier in the summer my mother had taken a job at the YMCA, as secretary to the director.  Since my dad often worked Saturday nights as a guard at the Grand Ole Opry, she also made extra money on Saturday evenings taking tickets at a Y-sponsored dance.

One night I asked mom if I could go with her to hear the band.  She agreed and I heard my first live dance orchestra.  The Dick Dorney Orchestra had seven players with the usual complement of instruments.  When they began, however, I couldn’t hear the drums, so I moved up closer to see why.

There were no drums, only a guy with drumsticks hitting on a chair. When the music stopped I asked Mr. Dorney about the absence of drums. He said the drummer had planned to borrow drums from a friend, but the friend got a gig and needed the drums himself.  I told Mr. Dorney I had a set at home, and I’d be happy to let him use them.

They took a quick break, Mr. Dorney talked to my mother, and in a wink I was on my way home with the drummer to get my drums.  I was elated!

For the rest of the evening, I sat on just off the stage watching the drummer’s every move.  On the last break, I asked Mr. Dorney, if I might play just one song.  He hesitantly agreed and I sat down to play Sentimental Journey, a song that I had sung many times to my mother’s accompaniment.

As I started to get up, he said, “Stay there, you’re doing just fine.”

I played several more songs.  When someone requested Tiger Rag, he suggested that the regular drummer return.  My mind was spinning.  I had just played with a real professional orchestra and the leader said I had done just fine.  This was too real to be true.

After the dance, Mr. Dorney thanked my mother.  They talked for a few minutes.

When he came to where we were taking down the drums, he said, “I asked your mother and she said she would bring you back on Thursday night to play a rehearsal with us, if you wanted her to.”

Dazed, I think I said something like, “Yes sir, that will be fine.”

He helped put the drums in my mother’s car and we left.  I don’t have any recollection of a conversation on the way home.  I’m sure I was too dumbfounded to speak.

The next Thursday I literally ran home from school.  Before mother had arrived from work, I had already disassembled the drums.  After supper, we loaded the drums into the car headed downtown to the Y.  Though Mr. Dorney had called it a rehearsal, I noted that people were coming into the ballroom preparing for a dance.  I found out later he called it a rehearsal instead of a gig so he wouldn’t have to pay me.

My heart was in my throat. The dance lasted for three hours.  We took two breaks and on each Mr. Dorney and others in the group complimented my playing.

As I was packing up the drums at the end of the evening, he came to me and said, “Larry, how would you like to become the regular drummer for the band?”

I was astounded!

He said the next engagement would be Saturday night at the Old Hickory Country Club and for playing I would receive $17.50.  I must have hesitated with my answer because he asked me if that was enough money.

I replied, “Oh sure, that will be fine.”

It was arranged that my mother would take me to the country club and that the trombone player, Bobby Whiteside would bring me home.

I knew about country clubs from the movies.  Country clubs were where rich people went for a night on the town – to dance and drink champagne and party.  Next Saturday, I would be putting on my Sunday suit and playing drums for rich people to dance.  It was like a dream come true.

The Old Hickory Country Club was not quite as elegant as the clubs I had seen in the movies.  It was nice, however, with colored streamers everywhere, decorations on each table, and a silver ball handing over the dance floor.  Only a few partiers were at their tables.  More people were out in the hallway at the bar having cocktails.  It was the first time I had ever been where people drank alcoholic beverages.  As I sat up the drums the other members of the orchestra reintroduced themselves to me.

The opening theme song for the orchestra was Sentimental Journey.  Dick Dorney’s wife sang the song.  Her voice was weak and nasally, but she was pretty. The second song we played was Undecided Now, an up tempo jitterbug song. I knew the lyrics to both songs and was chomping at the bit to sing them.

It was difficult for me not to compare the Old Hickory Country Clubs to the ones I’d seen in the movies.  In the movies, there were elegant chandeliers, ball gowns and tuxedos, and the people most drank champagne.  At the Old Hickory Country Club, the room was dark, people wore dresses and suits, and they drank mixed drinks made with Coca Cola, Seven Up and liquor that they kept in paper sacks on the table.

Though I was disappointed with the setting, that evening, playing with the orchestra, was the most exciting of my life.  When Bobby Whiteside took me home, he asked if my grandmother once lived at 11th and Buchanan.

I said, “My grandmother did.”

He said, “You are not going to believe this.  When you were about four years old, I saved your life.”

I said, “When I fell in the fishpond?”

He said, “Yes.  We lived next door and when I came out of the house, I saw you lying face down in your grandmother’s fishpond.  I rushed over and pull you out.  You were blue.  I laid you on your back and pushed on your stomach until water came out and you started breathing.  Your grandmother came out screaming.  I carried you down the street to Dr. Duff’s office with her running behind.  He kept you there the rest of the day to make sure you were all right.”

“I can’t believe that was you.  I never knew who that was who saved me.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied.  “You would have done the same, if the situation had been reversed.

We unloaded the drums on the front porch and I quietly moved them into the living room.

My mother came in, ‘How did it go?’

“I had a great time, I said, showing her the seventeen dollars and fifty cents.  Did you that the trombone player is the person who saved me when I almost drowned in Mam Maw’s fishpond?’

“Is that Bobby Whiteside?’

“Yes mam.’

“I didn’t know that.  I’ll have to thank him when I see him next.  I never got the c            hence when it happened.”

I slept until 9:30 the next morning and almost didn’t go to church.  I was glad I did, however, because I got the chance to tell everyone one about my first job as a drummer in a real professional orchestra.

I was happy when football season ended, for I had grown weary of marching band.  I continued to work with the Dick Dorney Orchestra and played a variety of venues – American Legions, VFWs, and some private dances in hotel ballrooms.  We also played a couple of dances at the Knights of Columbus Club. It was a private club for Catholics, which I found intriguing.  My first New Years Eve dance was at the Old Hickory Country Club.

During this time I also continued appearing in area talent contest imitating famous singers.  One such citywide contest was held at Father Ryan High School and was sponsored by the public library.  I won first place beating out the Vanderbilt University quarterback who sang The Lord’s Prayer; a boy named Pat Boone who came in third, and a little girl with a big voice named Brenda Lee who came in fourth.

First prize was a small, engraved trophy and a record album of music from The Glenn Miller Story movie.  Winning that contest and the record album was a life-altering experience.

No one in my family had ever been to college.  There was little discussion around home about the possibility of me going to college.  I had discussed college with a Methodist preacher at church camp that summer, and told him I wanted to be a preacher.  He said I could probably get a scholarship to Martin Methodist Junior College in Pulaski Tennessee.

I liked concert band much better than marching band.  There was more variety in the music and more interesting things to do in the percussion section.  After rehearsal one day, Mr. Webb asked if I had seen the Glenn Miller Story and heard the Saint Louis Blues March as played in the movie?  I told him that I had not only heard the rendition of that song, I had learned the drum solo within it.

He said, “Great! We are going to play that for the citywide concert band competition and you are going to be featured on that solo.”

Our band came in third in the contest.  As we were loading our instruments back on the bus, an older gentleman with red hair, a beard, and a mustache approached me.

He said, “I’m Lew Bodine, the band director at Austin Peay State College. That was some mighty fine drumming up there.”

”Thank you sir.”

“You have college plans?”

“I’m thinking about going to Martin College to become a Methodist minister.”

“How would you like a music scholarship to Austin Peay to become a high school             band director?”

“That sounds very interesting.”

“Here’s my card.  Have your high school send your transcripts to me as a way for applying for the scholarship,” he said, as he walked away.

Several weeks later, when I was discussing my alternatives with my parents,

My father said, ‘Well you have two opportunities – to become a Methodist minister or a honky tonk musician.  I chose the latter and accepted the scholarship to Austin Peay.”

It was hard telling Mr. Dorney that I was leaving the orchestra.  He understood because his day job was as the band director at Dupont High School across from the Old Hickory Country Club.

He said, ‘With your talent, someday you will probably be my stiffest competition with your own orchestra.’