How could I forget it?? It's definitely part of the Newport scene. Or one of the Newport scenes. There are so many scenes, of course, but one of them plays out along the cobblestones of Thames Street on Friday and Saturday nights. Even when I was a teenager — and I was one of those kids sitting on the wall along America's Cup or dancing up a storm at The Pelham — that was a scene. So, as I walked along the cobblestones last night, for no particular reason (other than to take a walk), I was thinking about that. I could tell a story about that, actually ... about my past-tense scene ... but not today, as it's been a wordy week ... and present-tense is more important.
I will say that Mr. Betty and I were walking along the cobblestones one night a few weeks back, past the sign that he/we never fail to comment on indicating that Pelham was the first gas-lit street in America, and we stopped and stood outside the Newport Blues Café, as we were too cheap to cough-up the cover charge to go in. The performer was Rick Derringer, whom I didn't recognize by name (not unusual), but I certainly recognized his "big hit," and he happened to be playing it just as we walked up: Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo. Really.
There were a bunch of other people (other cheapskates, some with skateboards, kids mostly, some even with guitars on their backs) peering in the windows. Those windows at the Blues Café are really very generous and wonderful, the way they let insiders look out and outsiders look in, but anyway ... let's just say we were enjoying ourselves, standing there, looking and listening to that old familiar tune. Then it was over — except it wasn't. It went on and on and on with a really rather amazing guitar solo/coda for what must have been ten full minutes after the song we all know and love (or not) from the radio from those days way-back-when should have come to an end. Click here — on Hoochie Koo — if you care to hear it, although the version we heard was waaaaaaaaay longer........
Seriously, Mr. Betty and I were impressed. And the kids with guitars on their backs and skateboards by their sides were impressed. Less impressive was the man who walked by in a blue blazer and peered in the window and said, under his breath, "They look pretty good." He never looked toward the stage; he looked only at the women dancing. I know this; I was standing right there. Or the man who approached me last night on the sidewalk — just as I was stooping to chat with a nice dog greeting passersby outside the Pelham — and said, "Excuse me, can you spare some change for food??" By the looks of things (he had a very impressive tummy), food wasn't the problem. I don't say that to be mean. All just part of the scene ...
