Monday, April 18, 2016

HANG ON SLOOPY by David Porter

In my younger years of my life I knew girls known Sandie, Samantha, Suzanne, Sara, but never a Sloopy.

Doctor Nick and I went to college with a girl whose name sounded by Sloopy.

The slight brunette came from Roxbury. Her major was in nursing, but she danced weekends at the Two O'Clock Lounge in the Combat Zone to pay her tuition. Sort of Sloopy was the first person in her family to attend university. Nick and I drove taxi at night. We sometimes picked up Sort of Sloopy at closing time. Neither of us received more than the fare at the end of the ride.

At a party one Friday night I told our friends about the Rockport quarries. Everyone wanted to swim in the spring-fed granite pits. The next day we left Boston in a car caravan headed to Rock port. Sort of Sloopy went with Nick. He had a red MG convertible.

We smoked weed on the cliffs. Nick and Sort of Sloopy leaped off the cliff together.

I decided to dive to impress her.

I misjudged the drop and hit the water at the wrong angle.

Bones crackled along my spine. I swan to the shore and slowly hauled myself from the quarry waters.

Sort of Sloopy hadn't seen my dive. She had been kissing Nick

He looked at my face and asked if I was all right.

He was pre-med at BC.

"I'm okay."

I recovered from the dive, but ever since then I've avoided girls with names sounding like Sloopy, I love David Porter's cover of the McCoy's hit song. Henri Flash introduced me to the HANG ON SLOOPY at BSIR's, a Hamburg nightclub, in 1982. The French disc jockey would play Porter's long version at the end of the night.

The last lingerers slow danced for about two minutes and then lost the groove. Henri called the lengthy recording the best music for emptying a nightclub nearing dawn. David Porter's HANG ON SLOOPY was a long song. Henri would leave the DJ booth and I would join the Frenchman at the bar.

"A last drink."

"To HANG ON SLOOPY."

We never lost the groove.

And neither does this song.

"C'mon Sloopy."

From the Stax hit man.

Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" (1968 Grammy Winner)
Mariah Carey "Dreamlover" (1993 Grammy Winner)
Will Smith's "Get Jiggy Wit It" (1999 Grammy Winner)
Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'"
Biggie Smalls "Who Shot Ya?"

To hear HANG ON SLOOPY by David Porter, please go the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMBpxyXuLw

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