Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, Loud, Loud Music, and a Rebel Yell

Over the years I’ve noticed that people with a steel backbone of talent often have a sense of humor about themselves that others lack. It’s people who are unsure of themselves that are deadly serious about everything. When you doubt your own ability to “get over” with an audience, any distraction, any ad-lib, any hiccup in the proceeding can lead to a total breakdown. The most virulent forms of this phenomenon leads to actors who demand that no one even look them in the eye when passing them in the hall at the movie studio, or maybe demanding that their M&Ms get sorted before they’ll eat them.

I’ve played in bands for money. Lots and lots of bad things have happened during shows. I’ve seen performers literally freak out if a string breaks on their guitar. The audience never would have caught on if they hadn’t pitched a fit in the middle of a song instead of soldiering on. I was very lucky that some of the people I worked with would just use whatever happened during a show as fodder for humor or entertaining seriousness, the best kind of humor.

So here’s Tennessee Ernie Ford, Molly Bee, and Merle Travis singing the hell out of a country standard, Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud Loud Music in 1960. It’s before my time, but I’m familiar with the principals. Ford based his TV career on a kind of offbeat, corn pone humor and good music. Like Dean Martin, who also had a teevee variety show later on in the decade, he seemed to be having fun the whole time, and be self-deprecating and nearly disorganized. Of course nothing was disorganized in the slightest. Both were consummate professionals, and would know what to do if anything from a heckler to a world war broke out during a number. Ford always used to close his show with a hymn, which was a novelty at the time, and since. Everyone loved TEF, or at least his public persona.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the rebel yell halfway through was a put-up job from a stage hand, and planned by Ford well in advance. Seeming spontaneous takes a lot of preparation, generally. But it also wouldn’t surprise me if it was a happy accident, someone in the audience just transported by the singing, and Ford didn’t miss a beat, and simply used it to get a laugh and carry the performance along.