Driving 45rpm in a 78rpm zone

Another strange day on the coastal boondocks hard upon the south shore of Lake Erie.

An old graduate of Cleveland's bad boy high school, Thomas Edison, Lester Russaw now aged seventy-four, who says he performed as a young man with a musical group known as The Coronets, who in 1953 recorded a rhythm and blues song NADINE, the writing credit assigned to a later payola scandalized Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, and released by Chess records of Chicago, Illinois, reaching number three on the national Rhythm and Blues Billboard charts.

You can bet that the Chess brothers Leonard and Phil made a lot of money on this record and that Russow and his band mates did not.

Alan Freed made a lot of money as well. Larry Russow was not as fortunate and was pulled over by Wickliffe, Ohio police for driving 50 mph in the fast lane of Interstate 90, just a shuffling away in his silver 2007 Chrysler Sebring, after committing the crime of robbing a near bye bank of $9,203 dollars.

Russaw receives $360.00 in Social security a month and was behind in his bills.

Afro- American men and women musicians in 1950's America were the true pioneers of the nascent original rock and roll music which was often purchased cheap by record industry heavies, and I mean heavies in the b- movie sense , and then repackaged and sold cross over to Caucasian audiences.

Really folks, Elvis Presley would not have enjoyed musical success without the influences of the Afro - American musicians Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and Willie Mae “Big Mamma" Thornton.

Arthur Crudup became so fed up with not receiving his musical royalties that he ceased recording it, turning instead to bootlegging whiskey, and working as a laborer instead of suffering the emasculation and misery of being robbed by the criminal music industry.

The remnants of this same music industry today are dying a slow fiscal death and I do not feel even an iota of sympathy for this bunch of corporate pirates that walked all over and then penalized men like Arthur Crudup and many other vulnerable artists of all colors and stripes of their purse by patently refusing to pay royalties on their recorded or penned music.

Lester Russaw had no right to rob a bank, brandishing a firearm while committing a robbery is truly a crime and he should be punished accordingly. Though the white collar gangsters that ran the music business in 1950's America were criminals also, and hired plenty of gun packing, knee breaking “muscle”, when they felt it necessary to enforce any business pursuits or royalty claims that went contrary to their selfish monetary policies. It appears that the wake that is left in the water by such fraudulent and nasty business is still being felt today some fifty plus years later.

Examine the HBO series THE SOPRANOES and the character" Hesh”, for a cleaned up read on this moral dilemma.

Fountain pen?

Pistola?

Sometimes it is pretty difficult to tell one robber from the other robber, though Lester Russaw should have known better than to be caught driving 45rpm in a 78rpm zone.

Book selling Time!

Not quite a bestseller but perhaps the very book that Lester Russaw should have consulted before leaving home the other day, Gunnar Karlsson's scarce 1987 publication, A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD: THEORETICAL FOUNDATION AND EMPIRICAL APPLICATION IN THE FIELD OF DECISION MAKING AND CHOICE.

In keeping with the rather odd account of Mister Russaw's less than fortunate choice we offer the following new title for your reading pleasure.

I am not positive that anyone could find pleasure in reading this title, though if you can or know someone who has have please send have them a review or synopsis to this site ,d I will provide a free book of my choice postpaid.

By the way… “could somebody tell me what diddy wah diddy means?"

For my Father who actually taught at Thomas Edison High School in pre World War Two Cleveland, Ohio and who had the wisdom to refer to Thomas Edison High School as a “bad boys school," and scare the bejabbers out of me as a youth.

Thanks to John and Kim, Goodnight and hats off to Hank Thompson, and Willie “Willie Tee" Turbinton, both superb musical talents who recently have passed away.

They will be missed!

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