Face the Music: A Life Exposed Read Online Free
Author: Paul Stanley
deal with and trying to decipher the unspoken messages at home.
I found refuge in music.
Music was one of the few great gifts my parents gave me, and I will be forever grateful to them for it. They may have left me feeling completely adrift, but they unknowingly provided me a lifeline. I’ll never forget hearing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major—the Emperor Concerto —for the first time. I was five, and I was completely blown away.
My parents made culture and the arts seem a natural part of life. Their appreciation of classical music was palpable. They had a big wooden Harman Kardon radio-phonograph console and listened to Sibelius and Schumann and Mozart. But it was Beethoven that left me dumbfounded.
On the weekends I listened to Live from the Met on WQXR with my mom, a tradition I continued even as I got older. Once I started listening to the radio, I also discovered rock and roll. Whether it was Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, or Dion & the Belmonts, it was pure magic—they sang about a glorified life of teenagers that I quickly came to dream of. All that singing about an idyllic concept of youth touched me emotionally. It filled me with the wonder of being a teen and transported me to a wonderful place, a place where life’s angst concerned relationships and love . Man, what perfect lives these young people lived!
One afternoon I went for a walk with my grandmother. We crossed the 207th Street bridge into the Bronx, heading toward Fordham Road. On the far side of the bridge was a record shop. We went inside and my grandmother let me pick out my first-ever record: a 78 RPM shellac single of “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” by the Everly Brothers.
When I want you to hold me tight . . .
If only.
While most of the other kids in the neighborhood were out playing cowboys and Indians, I sat indoors and listened obsessively to things like “A Teenager in Love” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.” For a time, a lot of standards were also turned into doo-wop tunes, and I used to get irritated with my mom when she sang the original versions around the house. “That’s not how it goes, Mom. It goes like this . . .” Then I would sing, say, the “dip da dip dip dip” part from the Marcels’ version of the 1930s classic “Blue Moon.” Sometimes she was dismissive about the modern stuff, but for the most part she just seemed to find it funny.
And then I saw some of the singers and bands I liked.
The famous rock and roll DJ Alan Freed started appearing on TV around the same time as the national debut of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. The wildness and danger of somebody like Jerry Lee Lewis wasn’t lost on me as he kicked his piano stool away and flung his hair around. What was lost on me was the sexuality of the music—not surprisingly, given what I saw at home. The romantic fantasy I envisioned was clean and sterile, and even as I got older, that’s how I continued to view life. It would be many, many years before I realized what a song like the Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” was really about.
Still, there was no argument these people were cool. They were cool because they were singing. They were cool because people were watching them and screaming for them. In that audience these musicians had everything I craved as a young kid. Adulation. Wow!
A few Jewish immigrant families, like ours, lived in the part of upper Manhattan where I lived, but it was predominantly Irish. Our next-door neighbors were two lovely old Catholic sisters, Mary and Helen Hunt, who had never married. They became something like aunts or grandmothers to me. As my compulsion to perform like my new heroes increased, I frequently went over to their apartment and sang and danced for them. As soon as I could master any song, I knocked on their door and sang it for them while doing a little choreographed two-step, hopping from one foot to the other.
When I sang, it momentarily tempered some of
I found refuge in music.
Music was one of the few great gifts my parents gave me, and I will be forever grateful to them for it. They may have left me feeling completely adrift, but they unknowingly provided me a lifeline. I’ll never forget hearing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major—the Emperor Concerto —for the first time. I was five, and I was completely blown away.
My parents made culture and the arts seem a natural part of life. Their appreciation of classical music was palpable. They had a big wooden Harman Kardon radio-phonograph console and listened to Sibelius and Schumann and Mozart. But it was Beethoven that left me dumbfounded.
On the weekends I listened to Live from the Met on WQXR with my mom, a tradition I continued even as I got older. Once I started listening to the radio, I also discovered rock and roll. Whether it was Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, or Dion & the Belmonts, it was pure magic—they sang about a glorified life of teenagers that I quickly came to dream of. All that singing about an idyllic concept of youth touched me emotionally. It filled me with the wonder of being a teen and transported me to a wonderful place, a place where life’s angst concerned relationships and love . Man, what perfect lives these young people lived!
One afternoon I went for a walk with my grandmother. We crossed the 207th Street bridge into the Bronx, heading toward Fordham Road. On the far side of the bridge was a record shop. We went inside and my grandmother let me pick out my first-ever record: a 78 RPM shellac single of “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” by the Everly Brothers.
When I want you to hold me tight . . .
If only.
While most of the other kids in the neighborhood were out playing cowboys and Indians, I sat indoors and listened obsessively to things like “A Teenager in Love” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.” For a time, a lot of standards were also turned into doo-wop tunes, and I used to get irritated with my mom when she sang the original versions around the house. “That’s not how it goes, Mom. It goes like this . . .” Then I would sing, say, the “dip da dip dip dip” part from the Marcels’ version of the 1930s classic “Blue Moon.” Sometimes she was dismissive about the modern stuff, but for the most part she just seemed to find it funny.
And then I saw some of the singers and bands I liked.
The famous rock and roll DJ Alan Freed started appearing on TV around the same time as the national debut of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. The wildness and danger of somebody like Jerry Lee Lewis wasn’t lost on me as he kicked his piano stool away and flung his hair around. What was lost on me was the sexuality of the music—not surprisingly, given what I saw at home. The romantic fantasy I envisioned was clean and sterile, and even as I got older, that’s how I continued to view life. It would be many, many years before I realized what a song like the Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” was really about.
Still, there was no argument these people were cool. They were cool because they were singing. They were cool because people were watching them and screaming for them. In that audience these musicians had everything I craved as a young kid. Adulation. Wow!
A few Jewish immigrant families, like ours, lived in the part of upper Manhattan where I lived, but it was predominantly Irish. Our next-door neighbors were two lovely old Catholic sisters, Mary and Helen Hunt, who had never married. They became something like aunts or grandmothers to me. As my compulsion to perform like my new heroes increased, I frequently went over to their apartment and sang and danced for them. As soon as I could master any song, I knocked on their door and sang it for them while doing a little choreographed two-step, hopping from one foot to the other.
When I sang, it momentarily tempered some of
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