I was fortunate enough to see the Summer of Soul documentary released earlier this year, restored footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and interviews with both singers and attendees. I had forgotten about some of the bands: Sly and the Family Stone in person were so impressive. I was surprised to see Stevie Wonder playing drums; I don’t know why, as the man can do anything. It reminded me of One Last Hit by Nathan Walpow (Uglytown Productions; 2003) which I read for the first time years ago.
The third in Walpow’s Joe Portugal series is a lot of things: a paean to the rock music world of the 1960s, an intricate mystery, an anecdotal study of the baby boomer at mid-life. Joe is staring 50 in the face, filled with a vague dissatisfaction with his life. Through what seems to be happenstance, he is reunited with two of the members of his teenage band The Platypuses, who want to bring the band together again and record their music. The Platypuses played before an audience once, a recording executive there nabbed the two singers and put them under contract with some success, leaving the rest of the band adrift. One of the budding stars joined the record label as a manager; the other went the drug route, rehabilitated and staged a comeback, then disappeared. Joe is supposed to find this guitar god, who has been sighted sporadically in the Los Angeles nightclub scene, as he is key to the band’s revival. As Joe’s search begins, someone starts trying to kill the other members of the band.
The story moves back and forth from the present to the 1960s, when rock was dynamic, everyone was in a band, and talent scouts and record companies were frantically looking for new talent in the vibrant LA music scene. Hope is constant for the kids who jammed in garages and waited to be discovered. By contrast, nearly everyone in the present, including Joe, is coping with regret about lost opportunities.
Particularly intriguing is the way people and things are not who and what they seem. For instance at one point Joe goes to a rough bikers’ bar. Convinced he is talking to brethren of Hells’ Angels, he learns later that they are not part of an outlaw gang but high school teachers.
I suspect the book will not have as visceral an effect on anyone who did not attend concerts, listen to the radio, and buy albums in the 1960s. For those of you who did, it’s a great way to evoke the past. Highly recommended.