Plethora of Pop’s Rate-A-Record

1961: Tossin’ & Turnin’ to Pieces

And running away to get away

Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash

Growing up is hard to do, especially if your parents won’t play the radio inside the house, the exception being in the fall when Alabama played football. Maybe that was all right and fine, too, because in that 1961 season, Alabama went undefeated, gave up a total of 25 points over eleven games, and beat Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl and so won the National Championship.

Also in 1961, our country’s first Catholic President was inaugurated — didn’t he wear a full tux and tails? — and if you wonder why that was a big deal, you must not have lived in Alabama, Mississippi, or Georgia.

In much of the South, we were also in year seven of the overturning of the “Separate But Equal” doctrine, though you wouldn’t know it by the places and company most people sought and kept.

If my parents had let any of us play the radio during the daylight hours on the various Country, Pop, and R&B stations, however, we might have been entertained by weepy ballads and pop/blues rockers that would either help us sleep better or keep us waiting for that “early morning light.”

I say that you can run or hide but you’ll never escape the beautifully…