The Party

The Party 2007

Ricky was playing "Garden Party" when I walked into the room. That was his last hit, making it all the way to #6 on Billboard, turning Gold in '72. I remember back in '71, I think it was October, that evening when the booing started at Madison Square while Ricky was playing. He walked off the stage and did not return. He was singing his old songs, you know, “Hello Mary Lou” and “She Belongs to Me”. He was doing a great job of taking the mind of the crowd away from his hippie hair, hippie velvet shirt and hippie bell-bottom low cut pants. The old songs had carried him from the little kid on TV with his mom, dad and big brother to the top of the charts of Rock-and-Roll. Those songs were still carrying him with this crowd.

Then he did the third song of the set. It was a cover of the Stones “Honky Tonk Woman”.

There are almost as many stories about what happened next as there are people who were, or were not, at the concert. Some say that the cops came in at the back of the building and started hassling some kids who could have been doing a bit of weed. Some say that the cops were called in to handle two drunks who had started throwing punches at each other and anyone within arms reach. Some say, and most believe them, that the old rockers got upset with Ricky not sticking with his old songs.

Whatever the reason, Ricky heard the crowd booing and in his mind his fans had turned against him. He stopped in the middle of the song and walked off the stage. He watched the rest of the concert from the wings and, at the end of the show, did not even return to the stage for the final bow. Later that night he started writing the song linked forever with his name. He had always done covers of other artists' songs but this one last song from a great rock-and-roller was all his. Words and music.

I move quietly through the room looking into the faces of the folks who, in turn, are looking into Ricky's face. Most have their eyes half closed, as Ricky does when he gets into a song.

I know them all.

In a high wingback chair sits Jiles Perry “Big Bopper” Richardson Jr., his head back, his eyes closed, his fingers drumming a rhythm on the chair arm. Richie Valens stands near the door lightly touching the arm of Billie Holiday. Charles Hardin “Buddy” Holley sets on the brick step that rings the fireplace, watching Ricky and waiting his turn to do a song or two. His white dinner jacket and black rimmed glasses reflecting the light from the lamp next to him. I move through the room passing Eddie Cochran, Johnny Horton, Sam Cook, Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Guthrie, and Otis Redding. Other shades stand in the shadows of the room waiting to sing and play for me. Their time will come and I will remember their stories when they sing their songs. Standing together on the far side of the room I see the three, James “Jimi” Marshall Hendrix, Janis Lyn Joplin and James “Jim” Douglas Morrison.

I brushed past these three reaching for the lamp switch. Turning the switch, the light fades, scattering deeper shadows about the room. I turn away from the vague forms in the corner and move to the lamp near the window flipping the switch. Now only a small lamp near the doorway provides illumination and substance to the shapes in the room.

I reach the wall switch and push it down, extinguishing the last lamp.

Reaching down I turn the player off.

The music fades.

I walk through the doorway and into the hall.

Reaching the stairs that lead to our bedroom I stop, one foot on the first step, the other clinging to the wooden floor of the hall. I look back across the hall and into the darkened room.

A dim yellow light from the street slants through the window into a room where only the fading image of Ricky stands, his head tilted to one side, his eyes closed and his guitar held with one hand.

“Coming to bed?” echoes my wife's voice from above.

Somewhere down the street the closing chords of "Garden Party" fade into the night.