Coffee With Merle Torpitude

Songwriters Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus

"Let's talk about 'Marie's the Name' and Del Shannon."

~ Merle Torpitude

Thanks for asking, Merle! Mmmmm ... Elvis! So many great hits, so many of them written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, including “Viva Las Vegas”, “Little Sister”, and a fine little number found on “Be Right Back!” called “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame”. Originally recorded by my friend Del Shannon, reportedly in June, 1961, and cut by Elvis shortly thereafter, the song holds lots of memories for me, some of a relatively happy time growing up in Virginia, with an older brother whose slick, black pompadour rivaled Elvis’, courtesy Brylcreem (“A little dab’ll do ya!”) When he would come to pick me up at school in his black ’61 Chevy Impala 2-dr Bubbletop (with moons) to drive me across town to a standing monthly medical appointment, it was just like Elvis had walked into the classroom. Chatter stopped. Admiration commenced. It was the pomp. It was the swagger. Every time I hear Del or Elvis or Orbison I think of those days, and of the undeniable impact of AM radio. It was what this white, suburban Catholic girl had to groove on: Jack Alix wh-wh-wh-whippin' it on his listeners on Arlington, Virginia's WEAM (5,000 watts), Marvelous Marv Brooks and Bob Raleigh on WPGC out of Morningside, Maryland (10,000 watts, broadcasting in daytime only!). These shows, along with the likes of Milt Grant's TV Dance Party on WTTG-TV Channel 5, were powerful enough to shape my developmental musical awareness, which was born within the dovetails between the Everlys and the Beatles, The Miracles and the Marvelettes.

Irlene Mandrell, "Texercise", 1983

One significant AM radio force in those fertile days was Del Shannon. When I listen to “Marie”, or even “In My Arms Again”, one of Del's later self-penned releases, I think of the warm friendship that developed between Del and me in the mid 80s, when he shared with me the plain truth that I need not drink myself into oblivion in order to do my road gig. Of all the people who carried that message to me, by mail, on the phone, over walking-on-eggshells Christmas dinners, or in any given green room, Del was the only person who ever drove it home. It was a blessing when we appeared together one fateful night on “Nashville Now” on The Nashville Network, where I was plagued with a profound wretchedness, anaesthetised by a quart of Absolut and, perhaps most annoyingly, amused yet disgusted by the disingenuous chumminess of the show’s host, Ralph Emery. Twenty-eight years later the memory is clear as day, and what a collage of mixed messages it was. Irlene Mandrell was draped all over Ralph’s neck and acting like, well, a chirping, rather manic Mandrell. In a moment of brutal exasperation with my petulance, Ralph flew up out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box during a commercial break and hurled a chair at no one in particular, although it landed precariously close to one of his cameramen. Emery admonished me, and rightly so, for being a “smart aleck”, a characterization with which I boldly and vociferously agreed. Meanwhile, once we'd returned from our commercial detour, Ray Benson did his level best to field questions from the good folks who were calling in to the show, all the while lamenting his decision to allow me onto the dais and trying to convince me it would be in my own best interests to shut the hell up.

This circus was juxtaposed with Del Shannon’s humane, frank, sheltering observations, his truth, a whispered covenant he shared with me both before and after the show: “You know, you don’t have to live like this anymore.” I don’t know, it sort of sounded like a guarantee, like a map out of the psychic wilderness. The voice of his experience sliced neatly through the noose that I had willingly put around my own neck. So death by hanging onto fear was not compulsory? This disclosure turned out to be an epiphany, caveat emptor.

Chris and Del Shannon on the old "Slut Dog"band bus,
with Asleep at the Wheel
The Palomino Club
North Hollywood, California
1985
Photo courtesy Jasper Dailey, Los Angeles, California

We used to visit, Del and I, when I’d swing through Hollywood with The Wheel to play the Palomino. He’d send me letters, and encourage me to keep striving, saying there was little standing in my way but me. When Del died in 1990 I was bereft and bewildered. It was then that I understood the fragility of what he and I, and so many of us at the goddamn edge of reason, were - and are - trying to do: stay sober in the business of music, ride the tides, maintain an even emotional keel, take care of business. In a way I understand what happened when Del walked off the edge of the earth, but part of me still wants to search for another explanation. He was like me in some sadly familiar ways. We were both at the mercy of our dispositions and addictions; we were bundles of roiling complexity, and his having found a way out, his generosity in sharing what he had learned, was my saving grace. Del still inspires me today, but in a different, deeper way than he ever could have during my own green days, when Jack Kennedy was six miles down the road in the White House, when I was a tomboy in grade school, and when Del was on AM radio every hour with one hit or another.

I used to wash the family car every weekend when I was 11 and 12. It gave me a pre-learner's-permit way to move the cars around between the street and the driveway. Part of the job was cleaning out the ashtrays. I'd listen to the radio while working away, dumping out detritus left from four active smokers in my family (and a couple of active imbibers). Who could ever have imagined that the guy on the radio singing "Keep Searchin'" while I was undoing the mess would be the guy who, twenty years later, would tell me "I think I found something ..." (caveat emptor)? Whatever the outcome, he certainly helped me undo a lot of my own mess.

Fine performances on this recording!

Del had several huge hits in the early 60s, including “Runaway”, “Hats Off To Larry”, “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)” and one of my personal faves, “Little Town Flirt”. These songs and more were on the air between 1961 and 1966, 16 singles charting in five years. Elvis had the huge, recognizable hit on “Marie”, but Del was there first, with his own intensity and his own expectations which, as it turns out, actually do turn into planned resentments. I’m sure it was one of many times when Del was overshadowed, but he kept going until I guess it didn’t make sense to him to go any further. I miss the opportunity to be in his calming presence. I miss our unique friendship. I miss what could and would have been for Del, because he understood rock ‘n’ roll and country music and melodic, engaging pop music from the inside, not as a derivative talent but as an innovator of his time. His time would have been now, today, if only he had wanted every single moment not to cast himself out of his own garden. And who has that remarkable continuous vigilance? Anyone? Rest in peace, my friend, and thanks for having a voice and a message that was louder and more resonating than Ralph Emery’s noise. I’m still a punk, but because you cared I’m a sober one.