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E. Michael Desilets Reads


Bing Guy

My father was a Bing guy, crooning
“Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day,” 
maybe on his way out the door, or “Please, 
lend your little ear to my pleas,”
while he stood at the stove stirring 
spaghetti sauce, a dishtowel tucked 
into his waistband.  
Yet, every so often:  
“You had plenty of money 
in 1922 . . .”  Ancient financial history.  
“But you let other women make a fool of you.”  
Dad in a blue mood, echoing a dark lady’s lament.  
“Why don’t you do right, like some other men do?”  
Then he’d sing solemnly into the simmering sauce:  
“Get out of here and get me some money too.” 

I was a resourceful lad, had a bike and paper route money, 
found the song at Balboni’s Drugs on a 99¢ RCA Camden 
anthology:  Lil Green on vocal, Big Bill Broonzy 
on guitar.  I saw the song was written by 
Kansas Joe McCoy, Memphis Minnie’s ex-husband.
Not the old man’s musical neighborhood.  
He was a Bing guy.

Years later I finally tuned in to the white lady
who taught Dad to Do Right:  Peggy Lee,
Girl Singer and Goddess, holding her own at the mike
in front of Benny Goodman’s Orchestra.  My father
was a Bing guy, but Peggy caught his ear and held on.
Peggy.  Also my mother’s name:  a perfect poetic
coincidence.  Peggy, spinning Lil Green’s Bluebird 78
in neon hotel rooms on mean rainy Sundays.  Something
out of Edward Hopper.  Something out of Cornell
Woolrich.  Something out of America the Beautiful
and the Cool.  Could be he heard it on his sister Viola’s
Crosley or on Armed Forces Radio while I was lying
in my crib in that Concord Street apartment, my mother
reading True Confessions nearby.  Peggy and Dad
and Lil:  a magnificent, melodic ménage a trois.
Like Muddy Waters, 
Lil Green made her way
from Clarksdale to Chicago, 
where she died
on my 10th birthday, 
bequeathing to us 
the ultimate musical query.

Picture
E. Michael Desilets
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