On 25 September 2000, Mark Sullivan wrote:
: However, neither of these musics were of very respectable
or even
: mainstream culture, always thought to be from the wrong
side of the
: tracks. I don't really recall any hillbilly musicians in
vintage
: hardboiled lit, either.
Spade Cooley, the country swing bandleader who stomped his
wife to death in front of their daughter, pops up in Ellroy's
stuff. Anyone who likes early country music or honky-tonk
jazz should definitely track down some of his cuts.
: Are there even many (I can't think of any, but my knowledge
of vintage
: HB could be a lot better) scenes set in roadhouses or juke
joints?
Roadhouses seem very strange now. Driving to some place far
away to do some drinking, then driving back, would appall
people today. I do remember Marlowe and the Op going to
roadhouses, but I can't recall in which stories. They knew
how to handle their liquor, but I don't know about the guys
who were dancing with the B-girls.
On a side note: I was in Jamie Fraser's bookstore last
week--he's the main dealer in town for pulps and old
paperbacks. I was looking through a box of stuff he hadn't
put out yet, and found a Marvin H. Albert book. I set it on
the counter to look at more closely, but Fraser snatched it
away and said it was on hold for someone who'd seen him
examine it when it first came into the store. Signs of a
small Marvin Albert renaissance! I looked for books by Max
Allan Collins and some of the writers here, but came up empty
on all counts except for some highly-priced anthologies
edited by Robert Randisi.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 25 Sep 2000 EDT