Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre is set to stage Jukebox Memories, a new musical comedy set in a Glasgow cafe in the Sixties, which tells how people’s lives were affected by the arrival of this amazing record machine.
And of course it’s a chance to rewind to the great music of the period. However Brian Beacom discovers the jukebox made more of an impact on the stars of the show, Dean Park and Christian, than he could have imagined
The Fifties and Sixties in Glasgow were innocent times. Having a Coke habit simply meant you had to worry about your sugar intake. And a tranny was what you listened to Radio Luxembourg on.
Teenagers hung around in cafes owned by cheery Italians who served up wonderful milk ice cream and in winter, hot orange squash. Any music played came courtesy of the battered piano in the corner.
But then came the jukebox. Suddenly, a world of new music opened up to the punters in the cafes of Partick and Possil. The big chrome jukebox was filled with records from the Hit Parade and now Glasgow’s teenagers could rejoice in hearing Cliff or Buddy Holly or Del Shannon.
Yet, while the cafes and the jukeboxes provided young people with a fantastic focal point, they also offered an incredible opportunity. To meet the opposite sex.
Pavilion favourite Christian, or Chris McClure as he was then, recalls how his life changed after he saw his first jukebox.
“I used to got to the Globe Cafe in Ibrox,” says the singer, who’s been performing for more than 50 years.
“It was great. This was a meeting point for pals, and we’d get together in a booth and have a Coke float, which was a Coke with ice cream.
Chris adds: “The big songs on jukebox at the time would have been Frank Ifield’s I Remember You and Paul Anka’s Diana, and I loved them both. In fact, I loved cafes with jukeboxes so much I used to clean the car of the bloke who ran the local fish and chip shop just so I had enough money to spend in the cafe, playing the jukebox and buying Cokes.”
As a 15-year-old, Chris hadn’t yet discovered girls. “I was too busy trying to become a footballer,” he says, smiling. “But in the cafe, while leaning over the jukebox one night, I met a girl called Mary. And I got a shilling out of my pocket and played three records for her. And she loved it.”
Mary loved the gesture so much she married Chris.
Incredibly, Chris’s Jukebox Dreams co-star Dean park reveals he too met his future wife in a cafe.
“I’d go to hear the jukebox in the Albert Cafe in the South Side when I was 13,” he recalls.
“I loved the whole experience right from the start. The Coke, which came out of machines in big green bottles, tasted fantastic. And of course the place was full of girls, the boys in one booth and the girls in another.
I had this thing about older women. It was my dream to get off with a 15-year-old. And like Chris, I worked all sorts of odd jobs to get money for Cokes and for the jukebox.”
Dean knew how to win over the prettiest girl in the cafe.
“The chat up line of the day was ‘What do you want me to play for you?’ I realised very quickly the way to a young women’s heart was to buy her a Coke and then ask her if you could play a song for her on the jukebox.”
The strategy worked for Dean. His girlfriend, Jacqueline, would become his wife.
But the jukebox wasn’t simply a strategy for connecting with the opposite sex. The music they heard encouraged both Chris and Dean to become singers.
And the range of songs helped shape their musical tastes.
Before long they both wanted to become Bobby Darins or Del Shannons. Just as importantly, they learned the words of the songs by hearing them constantly so when they got the chance to perform in local bands, they were already as sharp as the needles on the Rock-ola.
“We knew all the words,” says Chris. “If you heard a song you liked you just played it to death. It was fantastic. Just so long as you had a couple of shillings in your pocket you could sing along all night.”
Dean agrees: “The jukebox cafes were great meeting places. They kept the kids off the streets and provided a sanctuary, a meeting place for pals.
“It really was happy days in Glasgow.”
- Jukebox Memories, which also stars The Swing Cats and Chris Schogal, runs at the Pavilion Theatre July 15-24. Box office: 0141 332 1846 www.paviliontheatre.co.uk
History of ‘jook’ is really wicked
Jukeboxes were invented in America in the thirties by the Wurlitzer family, at first playing 78rpm records and later 45s.
Rival companies Rock-ola and Seeburg soon followed. The big chrome machines with the sensational sound were originally called Automatic Coin-Operated Phonographs.
The term ‘jukebox’ it’s reckoned comes from the African word joot (meaning to dance) or jook, a word used by descendants of African slaves which meant disorderly or wicked.
Jukebox Memories will feature authentic Rock-ola and Wurlitzer jukeboxes.
