Calypsomaniacs

Mom wasn't just "with" the band, she was "in" the band...

That's her with the bongos.
As usual, the words and story are all hers...

Our husbands called us the “The Gutless Wonders“. We called ourselves the “Merry J’s” because all of our names began with J except for Mary.

Our instruments were bongos, clave, maracas, a tambourine and a ukulele! Our costumes were red print peasant blouses, black Capri pants, big straw hats and big red, yellow and green plastic jewelry from the dime store.

The spring luncheon for our woman’s club was coming up and talented Phyllis had written the history of the organization to calypso music.  She was going to sing it and asked for volunteer musicians to back her up.

I have always been amazed that when I chose to do something farfetched it always brought surprising results. I had hinted to my husband I wanted some bongo drums. Gene Krupa was my hero. Like all good husbands who actually listen, he gave me bongos for Mother’s Day. It came with a record and a brochure showing how to play them. One side had a South American beat and the other side was African. The African sounded great but was too complicated.

The first problem was the drums were not attached.  I plopped my three sons in front of the TV and went to my bedroom, shut the door, sat on the edge of my bed, read thru the brochure, turned on the record player ready to begin. I put the drums between my knees and they rolled out onto the floor. And again. And again. This went on for several days but I was determined. It was like learning to ride bareback. Finally I got the grip of it and begin practicing.  One and two and three and four and. The last “and” coming down hard on the small drum with my right hand pointy finger.

A few weeks later I volunteered to be the bongo player!  It didn’t matter. No one else had any talent either, except for Phyllis. Mary, the ukulele player could play the melody and I could keep a beat. The others just had to bang away. Mainly due to Phyllis we were a big hit.

Our motley crew of musical duffers then decided we would play at intermission for our dance club of a couple of hundred people. Phyllis wisely decided she had had enough. We chose a repertoire of five Harry Belafonte songs including Yellow Bird and Marianne. Jane had short curly red hair and was the exhibitionist in the group. She decided that, for an encore, she would do an imitation of Jerry Lee Lewis singing “Great Balls of Fire.”  Great idea.  We practiced once a week, taking turns at each other’s houses. We were all in our late 20s and each had three children under 5, ranging in age from 6 months to 5 years.   Let’s see. 3x5 = 15. We could only practice for about an hour each time. I thought it would have made a great Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post cover.

Our appearance at the dance was to be a surprise. We changed in the Ladies room and since there was no stage curtain we had to enter, dancing across the floor to my improvised beat holding the drums in my left arm and pounding away with my right hand. I had to sit in a chair but the others sat on the floor around me. In spite of several reasons I can think of, we were once again a hit. Our husband’s slowly crept out of the men’s room.

Then. Jane’s husband asked if we would entertain at the ladies luncheon during the State Insurance Convention. Did it occur to us to say no, we couldn’t, we are no good, they won’t like us, they might laugh at us? No. Laugh and the world laughs with you.

Again we were a hit and were actually getting a little better. Then we were asked to play on TV for the kick off for the annual civic charity fund raiser.

In the late 50’s TV was still new. Competing talent was only a few levels above us. How hard could it be? We arrived at the studio in costume and were immediately told we would open the show! We were immediately ushered to six chairs with me in the middle, the producer gave the signal, the red light came on and the camera was focused on….my hands! In a flash my mind went blank. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do. Then I knew the show had to go on and I was it. My fingers began to move. And soon it was over. When I got home my husband and children said it was okay.

After that the offers came in often. We knew our material well enough that we didn’t have to practice. We decided to charge $25, $5 each, which didn’t cover the cost of anything. The best audience was men. The worst, by comparison, was ladies with hats on. Dignified you know. But the group we enjoyed the most was the ladies of the Eastern Star, and this was unexpected. They were older and sat in chairs around the sides of a large room. It felt like a very formal situation and they were not sitting in a cohesive group. Again we had to dance in to my beat and take our place. But by now we were confident that we were liked because we were different and we were having fun. Finally we could stop being self conscious and just look at the audience and try to communicate with them. It worked. The ladies loved us.

We started playing for organizations where we had to wait in the cloakroom, and leave thru the kitchen getting our check on the way out. It didn’t seem like fun anymore.

A year later we were asked to appear on TV again. One Sunday my husband and I were working in the yard and I said “I don’t want to go back on TV and I don’t want to do this anymore“. He said “Why don’t you quit?” I went into the house and called all the members. All agreed but Jane. She loved it too much. But they couldn’t find another bongo player. They don’t grow on banana trees after all.

-Jean Clarice Walsh