"Howard Waldrop - Flying Saucer Rock & Roll" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

Bobby and Fred began trading verses of the Drifters' "There Goes My
Baby," while the tenors wailed and Letus carried the whole with his bass.

Then the lights went down and came up again as Lucius said, "Ladies
and gentlemen, the Kool-Tones!"

It was magic of a grubby kind.

The Kool-Tones shuffled on, arms pumping in best Frankie Lymon and
the Teenagers fashion, and they ran in place as the hand-clapping got
louder and louder and they leaned into the mikes.

They were dressed in waiters' red cloth jackets the Hellbenders had
stolen from a laundry service for them that morning. They wore narrow
black ties, except Leroy who had on a big, thick, red bow tie he'd copped
from his sister's boyfriend.

Then Cornelius leaned over his mike and: "Doook doook doook doookov
," and Ray and Zoot joined with "dook dook dook dookov," into Gene
Chandler's "Duke of Earl," with Leroy smiling and doing all of Chandler's
hand moves. Slim chugged away the "iiiiiiiiiyiyiyiyiiiii's" in the
background in runs that made the crowd's blood cold, and the lights went
down. Then the Bombers were back, and in contrast to the up-tempo
ending of "Duke of Earl" they started with a sweet tenor a cappella line
and then: "woo-radad-da-dat, woo-radad-da-dat," of Shep and the
Limelites' "Daddy's Home."

The Kool-Tones jumped back into the light. This time Cornelius started
it off with "Bomp-a-pa-bomp, bomp-pa-pa-bomp, dang-a-dang-dang,
ding-a-dong-ding," and into the Marcels' "Blue Moon," not just a hit but a
mere monster back in 1961. And they ran through the song, Slim taking
the lead, and the crowd began to yell like mad halfway through. And
Leroy—smiling, singing, rocking back and forth, doing James Brown
tantrum-steps in front of the mike—knew, could feel, that they had them,
that no matter what, they were going to win. And he ended with his
whining part and Cornelius went "Bomp-ba-ba-bomp-ba-bom," and
paused and then deeper, "booo mooo."

The lights came, up and Bobby and the Bombers hit the stage. At first
Leroy, sweating, didn't realize what they were doing, because the
Bombers, for the first few seconds, made this churning rinky-tink sound
with the high voices. The bass, Letus, did this grindy sound with his
throat. Then the Bombers did the only thing that could save them, a white
boy's song, Bobby launching into Del Shannon's "Runaway," with both feet
hitting the stage at once. Leroy thought he could taste that urine already.

The other Kool-Tones were transfixed by what was about to happen.

"They can't do that, man," said Leroy. "They're gonna cop out."