In Boston, It's 25 Cents
by Bill Russo
In the 1960s I was fortunate enough to spend a few years in Boston, once called the 'Athens of America' for its position as the nation's leading center of education. Even today, a sheepskin from 'Beantown' seems to be valued above one from nearly every other metro area. Seems like everybody wants to go to Harvard, M.I.T., or the Berklee School of Music.
There are more than 60 colleges and universities in the city serving some 250,000 students each year. In the 1960s, I was lucky enough to be one of those pupils, first at the venerable Huntington Preparatory School for boys; and later at Grahm Junior College.
At Huntington Prep, I was one of the few 'poor' boys among a student body that came from some of the wealthiest families in America. My best buddy at school was the son of one of the most successful mattress manufacturers on the East Coast. His 'allowance' was far larger than my Dad's weekly paycheck!
Though we had a cafeteria in our building on Huntington Avenue, my pal and I often went to lunch at the nearby 'Lobster Claw' or one of the other spots in the area. He always paid the tab and never made me feel bad for not being able to chip in.
My next stop on the educational ladder was Grahm Junior College, in Kenmore Square. The school focused on the performing arts, mostly radio, and television.
The star alumnus of our little college, now just a memory, is Andy Kaufman, also, sadly just a memory today. After leaving Grahm, Andy went on to a highly successful career, first as 'Latka' on the long-running TV sitcom taxi, and later as a comedy star on stage and screen.
Andy always said that he learned Transcendental Meditation at Grahm - but there was no such course. I got it though. I understood because I studied Jazz and Gloria Lynn at Grahm - but there was no such course.
I often chatted with one of the school's janitors. He was a very large, but quiet and gentle, African-American man who knew as much about Jazz as Louis Armstrong.
He also knew many of the top performers. Through him, I cut my teeth on the raw and gritty music that never really got into mainstream America, but gave birth to the material performed by people like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and many more.
You may not have heard of Gloria Lynn - whom I seriously studied, but she was a towering figure in Jazz and R & B circles. In 1964, it was no surprise to me when her song 'I Wish You Love' topped the Rhythm and Blues chart and put a pretty fair dent in the top of the Pop chart as well.
I had another connection to the music world of Boston. A much older cousin, was one of the leading brass guys in all of New England. He didn't have, or use, brass knuckles, but if you gave him any instrument made of brass, he could handle it as well as anybody in New York, New Orleans, New California or anywhere else in the New World.
Whether it was a Trombone, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, or Tuba, he could play it. He could even play a conch shell . He did it too, on a bet one night, at a club on Cape Cod. A conch shell is not brass, but the key to a brass player's ability is the 'lip'. If your lip is good enough you can play just about anything, even a shell.
My cousin had a job with a major manufacturer and never went into music full time - but he was so good, that he was often hired as an extra musician when big name singers like Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett came to Boston.
From my cousin I learned inside stories of many of the greats, from Judy Garland to Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and even Lawrence Welk.
So what all this is leading up to is this: Based on my Boston experiences many years ago, here's a mostly true tale of the golden era of Boston - from Blinstrub's Village, the biggest club in New England, to Sinatra himself; here's my story -
In Boston, It's 25 Cents
It's mostly true, but please don't put me on the witness stand, because I can't swear to all of it. It's free to listen, on Short Story Theater: Click to hear it.
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