Review: Sara and the Mad Dog - Stephen Mertz

Music was very important to Steve Mertz. Along with writing, it was really one of his passions. He was an accomplished musician, too, and it showed in his work. His novels that feature a music industry background have a real sense of authenticity to them.

So it’s fitting that his final novel is a thriller based on the music business. SARA AND THE MAD DOG is a wonderful amalgam of music history, gangster history, and fiction as the Carter Family, the First Family of Country Music, travels to New York City for a concert at Carnegie Hall in 1932, arriving just in time for Sara Carter, the group’s vocalist and wife of A.P. Carter, to get involved with Vince “Mad Dog” Coll, a ruthless Irish mobster who’s engaged in a gang war with Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano. That’s a great concept for a novel!

Mertz does it justice, too, with a fast-paced narrative in which the action takes place in less than 24 hours. The story moves back and forth between Sara, A.P., Maybelle Carter (the third member of the group), Jimmie Rodgers (the Singing Brakeman) assorted gangsters, and a fictional police detective named Tom Devlin. Mertz weaves all their storylines together very skillfully and creates a real sense of momentum and suspense. Great storyteller that he was, he really had me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen.

The historical elements of the plot are well-researched and accurate, too, as Mertz explains in an afterword detailing what was fact and what was fiction. All of it comes together in a superb novel that’s the best thing I’ve read so far this year and maybe my favorite of all the Mertz novels I’ve read. I’d hate to have to pick between this one and HANK AND MUDDY, a fantastic yarn about Hank Williams and Muddy Waters. SARA AND THE MAD DOG is a fitting conclusion to a legendary career, and it gets my highest recommendation. You can find it on Amazon in e-book and paperback editions from Wolfpack Publishing.

And on a personal note, damn, I hate to think the phone’s never going to ring again with Steve on the other end, eager to tell me about some book or writer or the project he was planning to work on next. There was nobody else in this business like him. Nobody. He was, as they say, the Genuine Article, and I expect I’ll miss him from now on.

Music 'Til Dawn

Warning: nostalgia ahead.

During the summer of 1966, I lived with my sister. Well, technically I suppose I still lived with my parents, but I spent the whole summer at my sister's house. My brother-in-law was in basic training that summer. I spent it reading and watching TV, mostly old movies and reruns of shows like LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and DOBIE GILLIS. I also wrote the longest piece of fiction I'd done so far, a 40,000 word mystery novel shamelessly in Hardy Boys mode, featuring me and my friends as the detectives. (Long, long since lost, and I wouldn't put it up on Amazon as an e-book even if it wasn't . . . I don't think.) I also wrote a 30,000 word piece of what we'd now call fan fiction, combining two of my interests, the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs and secret agents. That's right, I called it TARZAN: THE MAN FROM A.F.R.I.C.A. (Go ahead and groan. I did.) This one is also long lost.

After those long days of reading paperbacks and comic books, watching TV, and scribbling furiously in spiral notebooks with a fountain pen, every night I listened to an hour or so of a radio show that ran every night on KRLD 1080 AM from 11:30 at night until 5:00 in the morning. It was called "Music 'Til Dawn" and was a nationally syndicated show sponsored by American Airlines. It featured easy listening music, which I already liked even though I was 13 years old. What can I tell you, I was a weird kid. But I think mostly it came from growing up around small-market mixed-format AM radio, so I listened to and liked just about every kind of music.

I really liked the theme song from "Music 'Til Dawn", which I think was played by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. But I don't know the title of it, and I've never run across anybody else who even remembers the blasted show. Figuring that the entire knowledge of the universe can be found in the blogosphere, I thought I'd ask here. Do any of you (those of a certain age) remember ever hearing American Airlines' "Music 'Til Dawn"? Did I hallucinate it? And if it was real, does anyone recall the name of the theme song? I've searched the Internet for this info with no luck. I'd love to hear the song again nearly fifty years later.

UPDATE: Thanks to Todd Mason for sending me the link to the clip below. I had thought about "That's All", but for some reason that seemed wrong to me. Nice to know that my first instinct was right after all.

Music: San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) - Scott McKenzie

I heard this song on the radio earlier today, and while I don't think it's a great song (and didn't think so back when it was new, either), it did trigger a lot of memories. And since (consider yourself warned) I'll seize any excuse to wallow in nostalgia . . .

I spent most of the summer of 1967 in the tiny town of Blanket, Texas, about halfway between Comanche and Brownwood, for those of you familiar with the area. My widowed aunt lived there, and my grandmother, who was in poor health, lived with her. My mother went down there to help out, and I went along.

I never went anywhere and stayed without taking a big stack of paperbacks with me. Since there really wasn't a whole lot I could do to help with the situation, I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book, as people used to say. I can't remember everything I read, of course, but I do recall reading RHUBARB by H. Allen Smith, the story of a cat who owned a baseball team (hilarious stuff); some of the Lancer editions of Robert E. Howard's stories (and I knew even then that pure Howard, or what passed for it at the time, was better than the stuff DeCamp and Carter monkeyed with); various "Nevada Jim" and "Larry and Streak" Westerns by "Marshall McCoy" (never dreaming, of course, that twenty years later I'd be friends with Len Meares, the guy who actually wrote them); a great Man From U.N.C.L.E. story in the digest magazine, "The Pillars of Salt Affair" by "Robert Hart Davis" (actually Bill Pronzini, and years later I was able to tell him in person how much I enjoyed it); half a dozen Sam Durrell espionage novels by Edward S. Aarons; and some hardboiled private eye yarns by Thomas B. Dewey featuring Mac, his most well-known character (Dewey lived out the last years of his life in Brady, Texas, about sixty miles from where I was reading those novels). Also, my aunt subscribed to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST and had stacks and stacks of them going back years, and I went through all of them reading the short stories that looked interesting, scores of them, I imagine, although I can't remember a single one now.

I listened to the radio a lot, too – KBWD-AM out of Brownwood – and Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)" was on there all the time that summer, along with "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music" by Peter, Paul, and Mary and "Light My Fire" by the Doors" (much better songs, both of them). And I hung out with the girl who lived across the street, who seemed impressed by a guy from the big city (trust me, compared to Blanket, Azle was a big city). It's driving me crazy that I can't recall her name, even though I can close my eyes and remember what she looked like. But I never saw her again after that summer, of course, so I guess it's not too surprising that her name eludes me. She probably doesn't remember me, either.

That was my summer of '67. Nothing spectacular, by any means, but the memories are good ones, and the influences of some of the books I read still echo 45 years later.

Bonus Overlooked TV and Music: Quiet Village - Martin Denny

Walker Martin mentioned the music of Martin Denny in a comment on the previous post, so I thought why not post something from the long-ago TV show HAWAII CALLS?  My parents both liked Hawaiian music and had several record albums of it that they played on the hi-fi, which was a substantial piece of furniture. Some of you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but I know some of you do. And if you're of a certain age, this should mellow out your evening. Anyway, take it away, Martin Denny.

Music: The Passion Killer Whose Prison Romance Set Off a Scandal - Modern Silent Cinema

Cullen Gallagher, whose blog Pulp Serenade is a regular stop of mine, is also a talented musician. You can check out his latest instrumental EP here. I listened to it several times last night while I was working. Excellent stuff.

Music: Mutineer - Warren Zevon

I've never been much of one to play music while I'm writing, although every so often I'll get in the mood to do that. However, in my old studio I used to play a song or two when I'd finished my work for the day, sort of as a way of unwinding, I suppose. I had this song on a Warren Zevon CD and played it a lot as my end-of-the-day song. My other favorite was Herb Alpert's "Flamingo", off his SECOND WIND CD, but I couldn't find that on YouTube. So here's Warren, and if this doesn't mellow out what's left of your evening, I don't know what will.

Music: Ain't Goin' Back to Jail - 100 Damned Guns

First of all, 100 Damned Guns is a great name for a band. They're a local group I heard the other day on the radio (KXT 91.7, for those of you in the Fort Worth/Dallas area). This song is from an album called SONGS OF MURDER, PAIN, AND WOE. Great stuff for those of you who are fans of noir.

Music: Mrs. Robinson - The Lemonheads

I heard this on the radio yesterday and really liked it.  It's a great song to start with, and I love the pace of this version.  It'll get your heart pumping.

Say Hey (I Love You)

I'd never heard this song until they played it at the end of the Craig Ferguson show at Bass Hall last Sunday.  But I've had it stuck in my head ever since, so I thought I'd get rid of it by getting it stuck in your head.  Anyway, it's a pretty good song for a Saturday night, I think.

Ka-Boom

I got to visit a fireworks plant today, and I might get to go help set off some of the giant fireworks displays sometime.  Pretty cool stuff.  I didn't realize that some of the big shells they use are two feet in diameter.  That's a big firecracker!


And while this is definitely a feeble excuse, it's still an excuse to post a Katy Perry video in a blatant, shameless attempt bump up my blog traffic numbers. I've actually become fond of Katy Perry's songs.  Not great music, but certainly catchy.

Down Here on the Ground - Wes Montgomery

If you need chillin' out -- and I often do -- this song'll do it for ya.

Cowboy Dreams - Prefab Sprout

I don't post much about music because basically I'm just not a real musical guy.  But Paul Brazill did a Forgotten Music post earlier this week about the group Prefab Sprout, which is mostly singer/songwriter Paddy McAloon.  I'd heard one Prefab Sprout song, a rather odd cover of Marty Robbins' "Streets of Laredo", and liked it, so I took a listen to some of their other songs and liked them, too.  Continuing the Western theme, here's one of their best, a song called "Cowboy Dreams".  Some nice music for a Saturday evening.

Closing Credits from Bikini Beach

Because I feel like it! (Nothing like a little nostalgia on a Friday night. I loved these movies when I was a kid, and I still think they're pretty entertaining.)

Another Christmas Song I Like

I usually hear this song on the radio every Christmas season, but I don't think I've heard it even once this year. Of course, I haven't actually had a chance to listen to the radio much lately.

I took today off from writing, did some almost-last-minute shopping, and wrapped some presents. It was a nice break from the work.

The Beat Farmers

Here's another group I like that I'd never heard of until I found them while poking around YouTube. Evidently the band has something of a tragic history, the lead singer having died of a heart attack on stage during a performance.

Southern Culture on the Skids

My musical tastes tend toward jazz, movie soundtracks, rock oldies, and classic country. But I heard this group on the radio the other day and liked their songs, so here's some music for your Saturday. The sound quality in this clip isn't very good, but you can get an idea of the group's enthusiasm and sense of fun.