A good friend of mine once told me, many years ago, that the closest friends that you will have for life are those that you make during your teenage years. That is not exclusive to those friendships that you make later in life that might last until you die, as will those teenage friendships.
Many of my long-lasting friendships were made during my formative teenage years in small towns, Reigate and Redhill, in Surrey. If it was not for a coffee bar in Bell Street, Reigate and a larger coffee bar chain in Station Road, Redhill, I might never have met them.
The coffee bar in Reigate was called La Ronde and was owned and run by a charming woman who tolerated a youthful custom base that was largely made up of Reigate Art School students. The coffee was the trendy frothy expresso served in glass cups. Simple food was also on sale. It was completely not like any coffee shops and bars that we now have, sixty years later. La Ronde had style of the sort that you would be challenged to duplicate now, unless you are lucky to have a small café that is working hard to not be too modern.
Its’ seating was designed to take small groups of people, open banquettes and low tables. It also had a Juke Box. The wall mounted variety. The running costs of this music system were high but when stretched out across the whole custom base in the early evenings, it was cost effective. At 6d (sixpence, or 2 and a half new pence) a track, we could afford to each supply the soundtracks that would probably influence us for the rest of our lives. The only issue being the possible disputes in music selection. Lucky for us, our café owner had an ear for what was popular, not to the wider population but to us.
It was in 1964 that I started going to La Ronde. It was a meeting place after events and before events. This was the decade of protest, either against the Bomb or the war in Vietnam. In 1964 I was becoming politically active in the protest movement as were many other teenagers who were also discovering the counterculture which was the zeitgeist of that decade. Consequently, the local art school crowd became my adopted social crowd from whom I made friendships that I still maintain now.
If we were involved in street corner rallies or soapbox meetings, we ended up in La Ronde. If we were heading out to a Saturday night party, we gathered in La Ronde. We were just a little too young for pubbing, that would come a year or two later. There were some Saturday nights at around seven o’clock when the café was mobbed and I am sure the manager was relieved when we had left to whichever house was hosting a party that we would inevitably gatecrash.
So much was about the music during that period. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had introduced us to rhythm and blues and that then connected to the jazz scene. The Juke Box in La Ronde was filled with tracks that mesmerized us and led us further into the genre of blues and jazz.
It was a conversation with my niece that has driven me to remember this period. She works with the elderly in a care home, and I said to her how fed up I was whenever there was a news item about older people in care homes in Britain. Inevitably there would be soundtracks playing that would include Vera Lynn and Frank Sinatra. I have no problem with these singers. However, they mean nothing to me and my musical experience. I wondered therefore what music I would have to listen to if I ever ended up in a care home. This is when my niece told me all about ‘bump years’.
I had to use Google to discover more about bump years, formally known as the Reminiscence Bump.
The reminiscence bump is the tendency for adults over forty to have increased or enhanced recollection for events that occurred during their adolescence and early adulthood. It was identified through the study of autobiographical memory and the subsequent plotting of the age of encoding of memories to form the lifespan retrieval curve.
That is what I discovered on Wikipedia. Not only that, but a whole new world of research into memory and the influence of those bump years. Apparently, it is when we are older than 40 that we begin to reference our bump years because the years between the age of 15 and 27 have such an influence on what is known as our life script. We remember a disproportionate number of memories from this period.
I can now understand why Vera Lynn and Frank Sinatra feature so much in the soundtracks of care homes. It will be an enormous shock to the care staff when I arrive in a care home because everything that features in my reminiscence bump will be completely out of kilter with the previous incumbents.
It is in that spirit that I shall try and work out my Bump Playlist so that I am all prepared for when, after breakfast, I go into the communal lounge and open my copy of the Guardian and relax to the following sounds.
The Instant Cousins Bump Playlist
Walkin’ the Dog Rufus Thomas
If I could have all the sixpenny pieces that I put into the La Ronde Juke Box back, I could probably purchase a decent couple of pints of beer at today’s prices. One of those pints would have accounted for this track which was very popular in 1964. It had all the upbeat of rhythm and blues music which became my mainstay genre of choice. It still is and can be heard in a lot of the modern and contemporary jazz that I went on to develop a taste for. It was copied by the Rolling Stones and although not as earthy as the Rufus Thomas original, their version could be added also to my list.
Green Onions Booker T and the M.G.’s
This has never ceased to be popular. It has an extraordinary guitar rif echoing the rhythm of the Hammond organ. It was the latter that had an enormous impact on the popularity of Mod music. It crossed so many genres of music that it is difficult think of anyone not enjoying it. The communal sitting room will be waiting impatiently for it to come on, after I have arrived.
Keep on Running Spencer Davis Group
The was a fast, danceable, track that introduced us to Steve Winwood who was, I think, only about 17 years old when this was recorded. The intro immediately grabs your attention.
Space Captain Joe Cocker
I have a recollection of a house party one Saturday night where this track, from Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen album, was played and never stopped being played for an hour while we all whooped at the appropriate time during the song while dancing a hole in the carpet. The words are magical, ‘learning to live together’.
The Cat Jimmy Smith
Or rather, The Incredible Jimmy Smith, as it has in the title of the album of this name. Smith was the exponent of the Hammond Organ and he popularised music that the Mod’s loved during the 1960’s. This was an album of big band music that showcased the R and B jazz that Smith promoted throughout his career. Steve Winwood was an admirer of his style.
Route 66 The Rolling Stones
The first album of a group is frequently the best. A lot of Stones fans will argue with me that their first album was not the best. However, it is the one album of music that has been ingrained into my memory since I first heard it. It consisted of a lot of Rhythm and Blues covers including this famous Chuck Berry number.
Times They Are A’changin Bob Dylan
1965, and I am really into the beginning of my bump years. Folk music was a live genre that was accessible in Redhill and in Croydon through folk clubs that operated in pubs and coffee bars. In Redhill there was a popular club upstairs in the George and Dragon. It was run by Dick Richardson who was, I discovered years later, my second cousin on my maternal side of the family. Dick and another singer often started the evenings proceedings with covers of known and new folk songs and Dick often covered Dylans songs. Dylan has been such an influence on my musical life. I saw him twice at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in 1965 and 1966. The first time was him alone on the stage, and the audience of 5000 were in reverence of him. I must admit that the memory I have grown up with was that the atmosphere was electric. The following year Dylan started his gig acoustically and then in the second half he returned with his band, the Hawks who later became the Band. This was a concert made memorable by the number of hecklers and the amount of booing by traditionalists who hated the idea of Dylan going electric. Later that night I went to Les Cousins folk and blues club in Greek Street, Soho. The first set of the all night session was Beverly who later became John Martyns wife. (She died in April this year). She also had been to that concert by Dylan and she said at one point, “What do you have to do to be crucified?”.
A Most Peculiar Man Paul Simon
I met Paul Simon once. Well, perhaps not meet him but I did bump into him. It was in 1965 and Simon was a troubadour on the British folk circuit, and he was appearing at the George and Dragon in Redhill on an evening when I was up in town doing something else. I got back to Redhill in time to rush round to the George and Dragon to have a last half pint with my friends and as I rushed round a street corner to get there I bumped into Paul Simon carrying his guitar case. I apologised, recognised his face from the poster, and went on my way. I didn’t know his music but a couple of months later, at a party, someone showed me the album, The Paul Simon Songbook. A standout track was Peculiar Man which has haunted me since then. A beautiful, sad song that demonstrates Simon’s craft as a songwriter and singer.
Dutch Swing College (from 1960 onwards)
Before I became interested in the modern jazz scene of the later years, I had bought an album by the Dutch Swing College. There were several famous British trad jazz bands around, but this band was a standout for me and in the mid 1960’s it was a good addition to my musical interest. It was all connected to the American tradition of jazz and blues, skiffle and jug bands that were around. So, any compilation of this band will help me to stay awake after lunch.
Politician Cream
Clapton, Bruce and Baker. These three musicians completely revolutionised music in the 1960’s with the most extraordinary combination of rock, blues and jazz. I have chosen this track because it encompasses everything that they did well. Lyrics by Pete Brown hinting at the corruptive power of politics, thumping bass from Jack Bruce. It had depth and an artistic flair that has been hard to beat.
These are ten items that would be at the head of my Bump Years List that I would hand into the manager of my care home. I would be happy by that point for some AI programme to conjure up similar artists and songs to play in the background while I’m playing cards or backgammon for money at the tables during those long periods of time between meals and bedtime.
There are many other influences which underpinned my Bump years that then attracted me to a lot of the Americana music that came to Britain in the 1990’s onwards. The Celtic connections festival, in Glasgow, became a magnet for many of them, and I was able to remind myself of where my musical taste had begun.
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