RIDE, RIDE, BABY (Part Two)
SECOND MOTORCYCLE ROUTE:
from Memphis to Biloxi
This is Dean Christopher, the eldest son of Archie Andrews. I’m reading from an unfinished memoir that I found in the Archie Archives at Riverdale Music Academy. It was written twenty years ago by Veronica Lodge-Andrews, who was the love of Archie’s life. She died soon after she wrote it. I considered Veronica my godmother; she was the best friend of my late mother, Betty Cooper. I met my “Aunt Roni” many times before her tragic death, and I didn’t have to wonder why Archie had married her. I found her a charming, fascinating and funny lady! I can say I knew Veronica pretty well; but reading these pages, I feel as if I’m getting to know her for the first time. Likewise, through her reminiscences, I’m also getting to know the other members of The Archies. My mother Betty was considered the writer of the group – after all, she wrote the best-selling band biography Say Goodbye To Riverdale as well as a hit Broadway musical, Don’t Touch My Guitar – but this memoir proves that she had competition on the literary side! Veronica’s recollections would have made for an impressive companion volume to Betty’s book. Here she traces the deep friendship bond that The Archies shared back to its formation at Riverdale High.
POP CULTURE CANTINA
presents
RIDE, RIDE, BABY!
THE ARCHIES IN SOUL MOTION
A Novelette in Four Parts
Inspired by the Songs of
BERT BERNS
starring
THE ARCHIES
BLUE-EYED SOUL
MARIACHI LOWRIDER
OLGUITA and REGINALD
TONI TOPAZ
THE VIXENS
Cartoon Cameo Appearances by
GLORIA ESTEFAN
MIDLAND
DARA SEDAKA
and
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
featuring LAURA PINTO and
introducing LESTER E. BLUE, JR
Narrated by
DEAN CHRISTOPHER
FROM VERONICA’S MANUSCRIPT:
In the year 2027, The Archies got back together and started recording for the first time in fifteen years. Atlantic Records' new CEO Lester Blue, Jr. had convinced us to join his label's legendary artist roster. We were anxious to get new product on the market, but there was a roadblock: A now-divorced Juggy Jones and Betty Cooper felt uncomfortable working together, and it was negatively affecting our group dynamic. Kevin Keller sat down with them to talk things out. He reminded Juggy and Betty of the decades-long friendship the three of them shared. However, that friendship had to weather some rough patches, and one of them was an incident of sexual misconduct! I still recall when Kelly told me about it.
Learning his true feelings for Jughead didn’t exactly shock me, but I was definitely shocked later on when he confessed something else. He and Juggy had, well, they didn’t exactly sleep together; but there was some kind of sexual contact that Kelly had initiated. It wasn’t welcomed!
He had mistaken Jughead's sympathy and support for something else, and crossed a boundary that he should have respected. Understand, it had nothing to do with his sexual orientation: Heterosexual teenagers make mistakes like that, too, and Lord knows, so do adults! I have a personal story about that which I’ll get to a little later.
KEVIN KELLER AND BETTY COOPER
Kelly knew right away that he had done wrong, and the rest of us also knew. We couldn’t help but notice that Jughead had begun avoiding him: He didn’t even want to hear his name mentioned! To say that Kevin was devastated would be an understatement; I remember worrying that he might become suicidal!
I tried to intervene, but Juggy and I didn’t have the best relationship back then. Betty was the one who managed to mend their broken bond. As fine a vocalist and sax player as she is, I often think she missed her true calling; she would have made an excellent psychologist!
Bettykins was always very intuitive, so she had already guessed what happened. Later on, she told me how she got them to express their feelings to each other. It wasn’t easy, and the language got pretty raw; so much so that at one point, everyone was yelling! There were some tears, too; but afterwards, Jughead let go of the anger he’d been carrying around, and after apologizing, Kevin let go of his shame.
Then she told them: "Maybe you don’t want to be friends anymore, and I understand that: but before you decide, think about Roni and me. You know how we fight over Archie! Sometimes our arguments get really heated, but we still love each other. When we call each other BFFs, that’s for real. Our friendship means more than any misguided thing we might say or do. So ask yourselves this: Is one mistake enough to make you want to forget about all the good times?”
Well, this was pretty much the same talk she and Juggy got from Kelly, nearly forty years later in Memphis. The only difference was when he said: “Whatever’s come between you is none of my business, but it must be pretty bad if it’s affected your music, too!” Then he paid the bill for dinner and left the restaurant. Kelly had done all he could; the rest was up to them!
ARCHIES ALBUM TRACKS "ARETHA"
AND "I GOT TO GO BACK" WILL APPEAR
ON A PAIR OF UK NORTHERN SOUL
COMPILATIONS
They went their separate ways after leaving Felicia Suzanne’s; but when we all got back in the studio the next day, there was a totally different atmosphere. The tense feeling between Betty and Juggy had melted away! We immediately went back to “Cry, Baby”, the song they had attempted to cut as a duet. Betty felt hesitant, so she suggested that Juggy and Kelly sing one take together; if that combination didn’t work, she was willing to give it another try.
But did it ever work! I knew it was a keeper, even before they got to the chorus; their duet was so stunning, our audio engineer Alan M fell over backwards with his hands in the air! Dr. Blue was so impressed when he heard it that he wanted to take our Blue-Eyed Soul duo into the studio himself. (He talked with them about cutting some songs for Atlantic's British market, but Archie and I intervened; we didn’t want to risk Kelly going off on his own!) The boys did just that one take of “Cry, Baby”, and Bettykins sang harmony.
That’s the only time one of The Archies sang background on this new album. I was going to track backing vocals with Kelly and Archie but Chuckii thought a female trio would sound more soulful; he was flying one down to Tennessee at his own expense. The next day, he and Alan M overdubbed The Vixens; that’s the girl group Archie’s secretary Big Ethel formed out of her clerical pool. She led it until leaving both the group and her job to pursue a solo career in Christian music.
The Vixens kept it going without her. They must’ve had at least fifteen members who rotated in and out: For a few years, Jughead's sister sang with them but by then Angelica was raising toddlers and had no more time for music gigs. Chuckii worked with Clydene Philpott-Saunders, Kraygen Hinojosa and Pippa Tagliaferro. Hearing them sing, you'd swear they were all African-Americans but not so! Dena was Cape Verdean, Kray was from Puerto Rico and Pipps was a Bronx-born Italian girl!
PROMO FOR THE ARCHIES' FORTHCOMING
ALBUM ON ATLANTIC RECORDS
While The Vixens were laying down tracks, Juggy's wife Toni Topaz stopped by. We weren’t surprised to see her; we worked with Toni on a regular basis. She’s a fabulous dancer and choreographer and was always our first choice for video choreography. At the time, she was also a major Caribbean Pop star who toured a lot, but she made frequent trips back to be wherever Juggy was. They were deeply in love and never stopped acting like newlyweds!
Toni asked if she could sing background for her husband’s vocals, so Chuckii dubbed her in on “Twist ‘n’ Shout”, “Aretha”, “I Got To Go Back”, “Easier To Hurt Her” and “A Little Bit Of Soap”. Toni’s singing voice is all vibrato, very edgy, but she never fails to sound great; Riverdale’s Dancehall Reggae queen added a dash of Jamaican spice to those songs! Early the following week, we had a complete album master that Atlantic executives would soon be raving about; but before we finished it, more relationship issues came to light.
PUBLICITY PHOTO FROM THE PRESS KIT
FOR THE NEW ARCHIES ALBUM
Although I didn’t sing any harmonies, I attended the backing vocal sessions in Nashville and helped Chuckii with the arrangements. We had a chance to catch up with each other then, and I found out there was another reason he decided to join The Archies: He wanted to distance himself from his longtime lover. I know you’ve heard of her: Geraldine Grundy!
Not many people knew they were a couple; Chuckii was very protective of his personal life. That was because when Geraldine was a teacher at Riverdale High, he had been one of her best students; people made assumptions that upset them both! Let me set the record straight about their romance.
Back in high school, I had sensed an attraction between Chuck Clayton and Ms. Grundy. Nothing blatant, but I can always tell when two people have chemistry. I kept those thoughts to myself, but a troublemaking classmate got the same impression that I did and spread vicious rumors! An accusation of impropriety was made. Principal Weatherbee didn’t find it credible, but the matter was taken out of his hands; the school board suspended Ms. Grundy pending an investigation! The whole school flew into an uproar over it.
Of course, she was cleared of wrongdoing, but Geraldine turned in her resignation anyway. She feared that her presence had become disruptive to the school. It was just outrageous: Neither she nor Chuckii would ever have done anything improper while he was her student! They were both too ethical and self-disciplined to let that happen; but after he graduated (a year before the rest of us), the two of them grew closer.
Geraldine opened her own music school and Chuckii hired on to help her out; that’s when their feelings became too strong to ignore. Eventually, they let me and some other close friends know about their love affair. When he decided to pursue a music career in Nashville, she sold the school and followed him down there. They were totally devoted to each other and fated to be together for the rest of his life; but Ms. Grundy's family in Biloxi never approved of Chuck Clayton!
TRIBUTE TO SONGWRITER BERT BERNS
It wasn’t their age difference. It wasn’t that they lived together without being married. It was because Chuckii was Black! Or more accurately, his father was Black, and his mother White. Geraldine’s old-fashioned family in Mississippi thought it was scandalous for her to even be seen with a biracial man! Her great aunt Pitty Pat told her: “Sleep with him if you must, honey child, but why go out in public with him? Maybe you don’t care about your own reputation, but you should think of us.”
Then she cautioned her niece to always make Chuckii use protection in bed. Geraldine was taken aback: Why would she intrude on something so personal? Aunt Pitty Pat responded with a wagging finger: “You don’t want to get pregnant with a pickaninny, do you?” Ms. Grundy was so enraged, she told her to go fuck herself! Now, this is a woman who never, ever used profanity, but that conversation just pushed her over the edge! Chuckii told me some of the other things her relatives said, things that were even more racist and vile! It's not hard to understand why Geraldine became estranged from them for a long time.
But then her father became terminally ill, and Deanie (that was what close friends called her) moved back home temporarily to care for him. Nobody else wanted to do it! During that time, she mended fences with her relatives, although their view of interracial relationships didn’t change much.
Deanie and Chuckii missed each other terribly while she was away, and when they reunited after her father's death, she proposed marriage. “I’ll never forget it,” he told me with a tear in his eye. “She got down on her knees, the way I should have long before then.” That proposal certainly was long overdue, and it should have been a happy occasion; but as a condition of getting married, Chuckii demanded that Deanie choose between him and her family.
He made it clear that he didn't want any “redneck bitches” at their wedding, and he told her that once they were husband and wife, she must cut them off completely! They fought bitterly over this edict, and by the time The Archies offered Chuckii full membership, Deanie was no longer living with him. They weren’t even speaking anymore!
BAND FOR DILTON DOILEY BRISEÑO'S
FALCON STUDIOS
He confided in me how heartsick he was over the situation. I reminded him that getting married isn’t just union with one person but also with that person’s family; seldom is it possible to totally shut the family out! Especially when one partner isn’t willing. It’s no secret that Archie and Daddy never liked each other, but I wouldn’t have stood for either one of them giving me ultimatums!
I urged Chuckii to telephone Deanie and work it out, but he had this stubborn streak; he wanted her to apologize, even though he knew that she wouldn’t. They were a perfect match that way: Geraldine Grundy was just as obstinate as he was! So we spent a lot of time together, with him crying on my shoulder and me arguing on Deanie’s behalf. I think I was uniquely qualified to do so.
My father's family, the Lodges, are Louisiana Cajuns just like Chuckii’s family on his mother’s side. Some of Daddy’s older relatives spouted racial prejudice to him when he was growing up, but there was hypocrisy behind their ugly words. Years later, he took a DNA test for health reasons and found out that he had a great-great-grandmother who was a slave! Those older family members already knew and they had kept it a secret.
BACK COVER OF THE ARCHIES'
ATLANTIC ALBUM
RIDE, RIDE, BABY
I'm proud to say my Daddykins never bought into racism, and knowledge of his mixed heritage fortified his strong feelings about equality. Naturally, he passed them down to me. I reminded Chuckii about my lineage (most of my friends know about it) and told him how disappointed I’d be if he let ignorance destroy his happiness with Deanie. I kept hammering home that point, and I did get through to him eventually; but first, we both had to deal with some bigotry that was closer to home.
In 2027, The Archies met a few of the big Hip-Hop and Rap artists: Booty MC, Dirtylegs and MF Bomb are the ones I remember. They were our label mates on Atlantic Records. Frankly, I didn’t like them personally, and I hated their music with a passion; but Archie and Chuckii started hanging out with them, and they got exposed to casual N-word usage on a regular basis.
Much to my disgust, they picked up on it, or at least Archie did: It turns out that Chuckii had been throwing that word around with close friends and family all his life! His father used it, although he told me his mother found it repugnant. Suddenly, I had a new perspective on what problems existed between him and Deanie Grundy; but my immediate concern was for my husband.
I never thought I’d ever hear the word nigger coming out of Archie’s mouth! When I caught him and Chuckii exchanging it, I literally screamed at them: "What the fuck are you saying?" Then I confronted Archie, and we had one of the worst arguments of our marriage. You had best believe he stopped using the N-word around me, but he still used it elsewhere; his new friends had persuaded him that it was all in fun. Everybody was doing it, so where was the harm? By the late Twenties, there were literally thousands of Hip-Hop song lyrics filled with that horrible word; radio wasn’t even censoring it anymore!
I confronted Archie again, and he accused me of making a mountain of a molehill. It was all about context, he insisted, and Chuckii agreed. I wanted to slap the taste out of both of their mouths! The whole thing sickened me, and for the first time I began to regret that The Archies had signed with Atlantic Records.
However, I realized that the company’s artist roster wasn’t the problem. Gangsta rappers were so popular, we’d have come in contact with them at any major label. The problem was, and is, the power that ignorance has to overcome better judgment. Now I was fighting to keep it away from the people I loved! My Daddykins would have wanted me to.
UP IN THE MOUNTAINS
DOWN ON THE BEACH
WE'LL FIND A PLACE, GIRL
JUST OUT OF REACH
YOU KNOW I'LL DRIVE YOU
OUT OF YOUR MIND!
GET ON IT, BABY
REV UP AND CLIMB
Music + Lyrics by
JEFF BARRY + BERT BERNS
©Copyright 1966 Sloopy II Music/
Sony ATV Music/Trio Music/
Universal Songs of Polygram International
(BMI)
