This just in: Golden Oldies III was a smashing success
“Good afternoon, faithful listener. Mike ‘Big Papa’ Parker coming to you across the radio airwaves. Prepare yourselves for the third installment of the Golden Oldies Radio Show.
“Producer / performer Antuan Hawkins is again using a live auditorium performance to remind us of the good old days of radio — days when we had less talk and more music … when harmony was the norm and melody was the magic … when the news was short and politicians spoke only during election years.
“So, let’s get this show moving.”
On Sunday, July 21, Hawkins joined forces with Clay and Chris Raines, and Sandra Fisher at the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library in the third edition of the radio show format Hawkins introduced in 2011.
The audience watched while these four sang songs from the 1960’s, did commercials, and generally showed what can happen when talented people decide to go more for fun than polish. During the 90-minute show, this crew brought to life ads for Brylcreem, Mountain Dew, Life cereal, and the newly-introduced Big Mac, complete with “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun.”
In the back of my mind, I heard Barry Manilow crooning, “You deserve a break today, so get up and get away … to McDonald’s.”
And before any of you ask: No, I am not getting paid to advertise McDonald’s.
In the 1950s and 1960s, radio was king. Many wondered if the latest medium – the “idiot box,” as my parents called television — would catch on. Radio DJ’s determined what artist got “air time,” and which songs would end up as hits. AM was the master, and FM was a serf.
Just a few highlights from the program included Hawkins singing the doo-wop favorites “In the Still of the Night.” Fisher followed with “Walk on By,” the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song that Dionne Warwick made famous.
One of my favorites was Chris Raines performing “Puff the Magic Dragon,” a Peter, Paul and Mary hit from 1963. Despite speculation and urban legends about the song being about drug use, the song tells the poignant story of the importance of imagination and how imagination seems to die as people grow up.
“Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys,” the song tells us. The pressures of life exact a price. When Jackie Papers becomes too busy for his childish pursuits, Puff retreats into silence. We all could profit from getting in touch with our childhood imagination once in a while.
Clay Raines seemed Frankie Valli reincarnate as he performed “My Eyes Adored You.”
Hawkins and the Raines brothers combined on an energetic “Who Wrote the Book of Love” and a more lyrical “Unchained Melody.” I discovered when these three kings of music perform as a unit, they morph into the group “Noteworthy.”
What had to be the hit of the commercial circuit was when Don (Clay) and Richard (Chris) discovered that they had to squeeze a political speech and commercial into the same time slot. The result made about as much sense as most political commercials.
Richard intones: “Citizens of America, my great grandfather made a good politician. My grandfather made a good politician. And my father made a good politician. And I would make …”
Don: “Good bacon. Yes, good premium bacon is truly good bacon. …”
You get the idea. Of course, most politicians would probably be more properly classified as ham than bacon.
The last song, which combined the talents of the four-person crew for Little Eva’s “Loco-Motion,” had many in the audience up on their dancing feet.
The four entertained an enthusiastic, capacity crowd in the library’s Schechter Auditorium. They earned laughs, applause and even cheers.
I am already looking forward to Golden Oldies Radio Show – No. IV.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.