![]() He and his four-piece band sweated through the frat circuit (6 fraternities and 5 sororities) in Macon GA in the late fifties and early sixties when high school dances were held in the old YWCA building on Second Street. Our crowd stands within inches, swaying to Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers, half-conscious that what we are doing is tantalizing, exotic and even dangerous. His band consists of drums, bass, sax and himself. Standard outfit: a glossy red jacket, a shirt limp with sweat and his hair piled up like glistening black ice cream while those long finger nails catch the strings until the melody growls and snaps, snickers and weeps, climbs snail-slow, inching to the pinnacle of pitch where it hangs, suspended by nothing, dancing over some unimaginable cacophonous abyss, mocking us in our buttoned-down modesty until it careens down the steel slope into banshee bawling as he whips and snaps the guitar neck and it screams for mercy, mercy, save me from this voo doo doctor who is squeezing out every bizarro feeling and tortured notion since the dawn of string and twang. Everything’s reversed: hands, strings, but it works. At first the high school kids just stare. He’s picking with the hand that’s nearest the tuners at the top. ![]() He’s not picking with the hand over the open strings near the bottom of the guitar. He’s clawing at the fret board, but something’s out of kilter. Ton-Ton Macoute! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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