Episode 12 Conway Returns to Tony Marts and the Second Coming of Tito Mambo

The Summer of '65 Revisited Episode 11 
Conway Returns to Tony Marts and the Second Coming of Tito Mambo


 



















After a two weeks tour elsewhere the return of Conway Twitty to the Point was much anticipated by his fans, as well as the Hawks.

 

Conway Twitty - Circa 1965

The Hawks were anxious to see Twitty again, as they knew him from various crossroads down south from their years with Ronnie Hawkins, and knew he recorded at Sun Studios with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Levon said he remembered Conway as a former neighbor in Helina, Arkansas, when he was known as Harold Lloyd Jenkins.

The Hawks didn’t like losing the main stage but they knew Conway deserved it because of his seniority and popularity.

The Hawks were playing when Conway Twitty entered the room so they didn’t get a chance to greet him. Twitty knew the routine, and was on the main stage and ready to take over as the Hawks wound down their first set of the night on the side stage.

There was some anxiety among the bartenders and Anthony Marotta, sitting at the small raised bar against the back wall, quietly smoking his cigar, who knew Twitty was at a crossroads in his career and wanted to play country and western music, not the type of thing they wanted to hear at Tony Marts at the moment.
Would Conway play what he wanted? Would he do his country and western act that his fans drooled over? Or would he do the Elvis rock and roll that the College Kids preferred and what Tony wanted him to play?

“Hello Darlin’” made Tony winch, and then after a number of slow whining country ballads – “Goodbye Time,” “Linda On My Mind,” “Look Into My Teardrops” and “The Fire Is Gone,” that could make a man cry in his beer, Conway began the Irish sad song, “Danny Boy,” – “the pipes, the pipes are calling,…” and the bartenders looked at Tony to see if he was going to give Conway the hook and pull the plug. But he didn’t, so they just looked at each other across the room and shrugged, as some of the College Kids began to chug their drinks and walk out, heading across the street to see Tido Mambo at Bay Shores.

Conway Twitty was singing the song in the slow, dry traditional Irish manner – “Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes the pipes are call-lling, from glen to glen,….,.” and some of his fans and a few of the college kids started to slow dance to the tune, but half-way through the song, with the drummer taking the lead, the beat suddenly switched from the melancholy tune everyone knew to an upbeat – highly danceable rocking melody that made everyone smile, applaud and get up and dance and suddenly the place went wild.

Conway smiled at Tony, - he was just busting his balls, and then he kicked in with what they called his “Elvis Set,” – even though Elvis just made some of them famous, songs like, “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” “Hound Dog,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Reelin’ And Rockin’” and “Got My Mojo Working.”

Conway had the room under control, Tony Mart was happy and all was well with the world.

 

Meanwhile, across Bay Avenue, a long, black hearse pulled into the Bay Shores parking lot and pulled up to the front door, followed by a crowd of hippies. Six men took a black wood coffin out of the back and hoisting it up on their shoulders, carried it in the front door to the applause of the generally young and hip
 crowd.

Carried in the casket by his band – the well named Upsetters, Tito Mambo had strong support from the hippies, who followed them like rats and the kids in the Pied Piper of Hamlin to a New Orleans funeral like dry dirge music that was pumped into the sound system.

They set the coffin down on the stage and picked up instruments and began to tune up as the coffin lid opened slowly and the head of Tito Mambo appeared as if he was Lazarus    rising from the dead. Dressed like Jesus Christ with long hair and a beard, white robe and sandals, he picked up an battered white 1957 Les Paul Stratocaster and began to hit some high notes, made some wa-wa noise and then blasted the electric guitar like Jimmie Hendrix, except it was just loud noise, much to the amusement of the bewildered crowd.

As the first hippie to take the stage at the Point, Tito Mambo had the hip crowd in his pocket, and was slowly garnering the attention of the young college kids, and even a few of the older crowd thought the whole act somewhat humorous, but wasn’t really music. Except once he got going, Tido Mambo sat down at the piano and began to swing. His band was really very good, and after pumping out a lot of noise, really got down and put out the kind of rock and roll that the young crowd liked to dance to.

 

Johnny Caswell, the other band at Bay Shores, was a bit perplexed by the whole thing, and just sat back and shook his head. Caswell was old school, but his band was younger and they were falling for the Tito Mambo shtick, and after hours started hanging out with the Upsetters, getting stoned and doing some of the experimental drugs they had – mushrooms, coke and meth – crystal meth they got from the bikers. Eventually Caswell’s band would change their name to the Crystal Mansion, after the farm they rented out on Mays Landing road.

While Conway Twitty and Levon and the Hawks were what Anthony Marotta called “the last of the gentlemen,” - the straight, old school bands who wore stage outfits when they performed, Tito Mambo was the first of what he called the “animals,” who took over rock & roll, and it was never the same again.

Before the end of the summer other hip bands in jeans and t-shirts came in to Bay Shores – the Magic Mushrooms and the Monkey Men – bikers who rode chopper motorcycles with high handles – what they called “monkey bars” because the rider looked like a monkey hanging from the branch of a tree.

On this night however, at the end of his last set, Tito Mambo – in his Jesus Christ mode – made an announcement – on Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend he would perform three miracles – not only rise from the dead, he would turn water in wine and walk on water at the Ninth Street beach in Ocean City.

Coming Next: The Summer of '65 Revisited - Episode 13 - The Media Gets Wind of the Story