Season of the Witch : How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll (9780698143722) by Peter Bebergal Read Free Book Online Page B

looking over his shoulder at the audience with a mischievous gleam in his eye. He knew what his family church thought of his music and his gregarious sexual lifestyle, but Little Richard was playing the music that was in his heart. In a 1970 interview with
Rolling Stone
, he explained the origins of his rock and roll interpretation of an old blues song: “Well, you know I used to play piano for the church. You know that spiritual, ‘Give Me That Old Time Religion,’ most churches just say,
[sings]
‘Give me that old time religion’ but I did,
[sings]
‘Give me that old time, talkin’ ’bout religion,’ you know I put that little
thing
in it you know, I always did have that
thing
but I didn’t know what to do with the
thing
I had.” That “thing,” of course, is the shout, perhaps transformed as it became part of the mainstream church, but remaining as the lifeblood of American religious music, its tribal pagan past invisible, its rebellious instinct snaking its way into rock and roll. Little Richard, however, could possibly feel the old gods calling to him, but like many Christians, called those feelings of rebellion the devil. In 1957, Little Richard had a vision of a coming apocalypse. During what
Rolling Stone
calls the “height of his success,” Little Richard left rock and roll and returned to the church. During the following years he denounced rock music:“My work is for the Lord and I have dedicated myself to Him. I renounced all things associated with my past life such as songs of the devil, women, carousing all night and other evils associated with rock ’n’ roll.” Little Richard eventually returned to rock, and brought his religiosity with him. Maybe rock was the real salvation after all: “I think that rock and roll is getting ready to shake the world again. That rock and roll, with them wild names and that thing that makes you dance yourself to glory, I think that’s what’s getting ready to happen to the music.”
III
    In a 1956 article for the
Washington Post
, the reporter Phyllis Battelle interviewed psychiatrist Jules Wasserman to help explain why teenagers are so drawn to rock and roll. Battelle wrote, “[Wasserman] compares it to the ‘dionysian revels in Greece, where the god of sex (Priapus) and the god of drink (Bacchus) were feted in the same two-beat rhythms.’” Rock’s detractors were even more sensitive to the music’s occult wellspring than the young fans. A perfect example of the occult imagination at play in the history of rock, this outside characterization of rock as a pagan rite would become part of the internal identity of rock and would shape the music and its presentation for decades to come. If parents and ministers hadn’t imposed their own fears of paganism and tribal religion on rock and roll, the occult imagination might not have been sparked in the same way. As a result, intentions to stop the music in its tracks instead started a conflagration that has never gone out.
    No matter the outrage from parents and religious leaders,even Catholic youth discovered that rock offered a means to worship that felt crucial, filled with vitality. The rebellious spirit of rock was not unlike the one Jesus brought to the money changers at the temple, a raucous response to authority that had all but given in and given up. But even when put toward Christian worship, adults were hesitant to accept rock as anything more than a pagan virus. In 1957, the then Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Samuel Stritch, spoke against even allowing rock and roll to be played at Catholic youth centers, especially because it promoted dancing, hips and all. In a letter to his flock, he wrote, “Some new manners of dancing and a throwback to tribalism in recreation centers cannot be tolerated for Catholic youths. . . . Too much familiarity between the adolescent girl and the