All You Want to Do Is Ride Around Sally

I saw the Cream on Wednesday, October 26 at their MSG concert. That was three months ago and I am still thinking about it. More than the music they played, it was the music that they played that night. Music that returned me to 1968… to the last time I saw them in concert.

Music has the power to do that to us… to return us to a time, to a specific event. You know… what song was playing when you first kissed her… that sort of thing.

My love of music blossomed during my college years at Union. I was lucky to have Jock Conly for a roommate. His taste in music was wonderfully eclectic… rock, of course… but also Wes Montgomery, Ella Fitzgerald, classical stuff… I don’t think there was a musical genre not represented in his album collection (and my guess, if we were in school now… he would have “hip hop” and “rap”, too).

But if I had to select a type of music that was emblematic of our time at Union… it would not be the California sound of the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, nor the British Invasion of the Beatles and the Stones, nor the folk protest of Dylan and Baez… No, those were all important… but our music was “Motown”.

Go to any Frat party… what music did dance bands play? the Temptations, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave. And on “big concert weekends” what talent came on campus? The Isley Brothers, the Young Rascals (white, sounding Motown)… and Wilson Pickett.

Zack emailed me today that Wilson Pickett… the “Wicked Pickett” moved his game piece to a different part of the playing board.

It saddens me.

Funny how the passing of folks we don’t know can affect us. For all we know Alec Guiness was a perfect shit in “real life”; maybe Johnny Unitas cheated on his taxes or Jerry Garcia didn’t pay his child support. Now I just made this stuff up; but my point — does it really matter? Is it really important that their private lives justify their accomplishments in the public arena?

I know nothing of Wilson Pickett’s personal side, nor do I know the circumstances of his passing.

But this I do know… every time I hear “Mustang Sally” I am propelled back to the beer soaked dance floor of Kappa Alpha… to low light, punctuated by strobes… to the beat of drums, the steady bass and to the strains of “… think you better slow your mustang down.” The tempo of that tune couldn’t be more perfect… fast enough to move the hips and shoulders, slow enough to put you in the mood to make love.

I leave the honor of serious mourning to those who truly knew him.

My mourning is of a different nature. Just a part of getting old I suppose. We all move to other parts of the game board. But somehow there is a part of us that remains “forever young” as long as the benchmarks of our youth are still in play. We lose a Zero Mostel, a Wilt Chamberlain, a Wilson Pickett… we lose a part of our youth.

So forgive me… I mourn the loss of a part of my youth to a time when the “tide was high and the grass green”.

But thru the sadness I can hear the Commodores singing sweetly and I know that Wilson Pickett has joined the august company there on the night shift…

qui ferunt sed nung ad astra