The music of 1966 - and what it brings back

ZIHUATENEJO, MEXICO - A year ago, I was hanging out in a Mexican bar owned by an American named Rick (yeah, just like Rick from Rick's Cafe in Casablanca) where I met a nice cruising family who had an eight-year-old boy, Martin, and a 11-year-old girl named Emily.

Emily wanted to be a writer, so guess what we talked about. But Martin, little Martin, he wanted to be a musician and learn to play the guitar.

These kids were the best argument I've ever seen for getting children out of those penitentaries we call schools and into the world.

Long story short, while Martin's dad and I sat and swilled beer at the bar several afternoons per week. (Ok, maybe it was every day...) Martin took guitar lessons and learned so fast that pretty soon we could recognize the tunes. I swear it wasn't just the Pacifico beer, which does have some pretty astounding mind-altering qualities.

But the kicker came a few weeks before I was to move my boat Sabbatical back up the coast. It was open microphone night and damn, there was little Martin sitting up on the stool, a whole rock band of miscreant musicians from Z-town ready to back him up. Martin and I had talked a lot about 60s rock 'n roll, and one song in particular that I remembered and really liked. I thought I had heard him strumming it out in front of the open air bar where he got his lessons from an off duty bartender who supposedly was somebody famous. I thought I was just hearing the music because of the young girl who tended bar during the day, but, well...

The tune was made famous by The Shadows of Knight, a group that played the song one night at the old Mar-Mar restaurant where legend has it Dan Harp had to hide under the table with several other SWCS folks when a motorcycle gang came in and busted up the bar. No fans of the Shadows were they, apparently.

And when little Martin hit the first chords of "Gloria," it all came back, the whole episode, Dan Harp retelling that story as many times as people asked him about it.

But Martin was good - damn good and pretty soon the whole place was rocking and rolling and dancing and screaming, and Sweet Jesus, what riot we had!

The music, you see, was/is the key (for me at least) to remembering things such as the great Mar-Mar bar crash, dancing at Snug Harbor, crawling out of the Surf Club at 1 a.m. (in search of breakfast!), or those long summers on Lake Chautauqua trying to find some girls silly enough to go waterskiing with us.

For the Class of '66 - and Martin - here's the lyrics to "Gloria," by the Shadows of Knight. See if you can hear the music.

Gloria
The Shadows of Knight

Like to tell you 'bout my baby
You know she comes round
Just 'bout five feet four
From her head to the ground
Well she comes around here
Just about midnight
She makes me feel so good Lord
Makes me feel alright.

Her name is G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria, Gloria, Gloria...etc.

Yeah, she comes around here
Just about midnight
Makes me feel so good Lord
Makes me feel alright
Walkin' down my street
Comes up to my house
She knocks upon me door
Makes me feel alright.

Her name is G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria, Gloria, Gloria...