Well it's Friday night and I ain't got a nickel
What am I gonna do?
Got a little beer and a radio and a little bitty girl named You
Turn on the radio
We can dance to the radio

Got a livin' room rug gon' cut it up
Don't care what the neighbors think
They can blow their top, call the cops
If they think I'm gonna care, I ain't
Turn on the radio
Gotta have my radio
I'm sick and tired of watchin' that damned old CNN
Turn on the radio

Turn the radio up!

Well I'm sick and tired of politics and the crisis of the day
Sick and tired of talk shows tellin' me what to think

I'm a hundred million zillion miles from Memphis Tennessee
And if I never go back, there's always you and me and the radio
We can dance to the radio
I'm sick and tired of watchin' the same ol' DVD's
​Turn on the radio

Turn the radio up

                                                                                                        
​                              Memphis
                              1967-68
A famous producer introduces himself:  "Hi kid, I'm the greatest being since God".  You believe him because producers, in their own way, are gods - they sense an idiot when said idiot is in full idiot mode.  "I'll make you a star", says he, and you just know he will because he says he will. After all, He's God;  a god in a business that never has, and never will, give a shit.  

Memphis was a city full of beautiful women who latched onto you with the certainty you would rise to the top of your profession and take them with you.  You're full throttle, hole in the head mode now - you believe every fucking word they say.  

But, the music in Memphis then was world class, weapons grade good and you were good at what you did.  Lucky too.  Lucky and fucked. 

"Life's a bitch, and then you gotta die
Screamin' and kickin' from the womb they drag you
And never say why
Throw you out on a cold dark road
​No signpost in site
But you're a clever boy
​You're a Renaissance Man"

​

When I was 14 years old (1962) my dad would drive me to what we called the "Black Bottom" section of town at 9:00 PM a couple of nights a week. He dropped me off in front of radio Station WOIC. Inside was "Charlie".  

Charles Derrick was a coal black man with a loud, but smooth voice, who came in over my transistor radio - every night, and talked to me, and many other people in Columbia, but to me, it was a personal link-up.  I discovered Charlie after becoming ill at the thought of listening to Pat Boone sing another note.  I found him after I started, what we called then, 'fanning the band', which is the act of desperately searching for anything other than Pat Boone. Charlie caught my ear late one night, and I locked on to the static emitted by that strange AM Shangri-La.  It wasn't Pat Boone.  It wasn't Annette and Paul.  I had discovered Race Music!  His show was broadcast, if memory serves, from 8 to 11 PM, and then, the whole station went off the air until the next morning.  

​Race Music!  That, kiddies, was a real term.

I would sit there in that cramped control booth while my dad waited (probably asleep) in the car - just me and Charlie, and the sounds of quite the mixture of Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, soul, gospel - if Charlie liked it, Charlie played it.  I don't recall him liking Pat Boone.  Poor Pat, maybe I should lighten up.

​Charlie taught me a lot about life in that booth.  During commercials, we would discuss many things, one of which was the subject of race.  I was taught, by my elders, to listen to my elders, and learn from my elders.  Charlie taught me a lot, and it stood me in good stead later in my carrier as I found myself playing Hammond B3 and electric piano with many of the artists I first heard in that control booth.
Charlie's gone now, but I think of him often when, even on a rotten day, his memory can fetch a smile to my face.  Thank you Charlie Derrick, b.1923 d.2006.  You inspired this song.