you’d be wasting your time and mine but I didn’t mind

MY RHYTHM & BLUES BOOK was first con­ceived in 1986, but a book that com­bined r&b and blues record didn’t occur to me until the early ’90s. My first and only choice for co-author was the leg­endary Val Shively: his store, R&B Records, had been a fix­ture in the Philadel­phia area for decades; cus­tomers came from all over the world to get lost in the back rooms filled with little records with big holes.

His knowl­edge of the rhythm & blues field was leg­endary! I had al­ready called him from Seattle—his re­joinder was, “You have a re­ally crappy base­ball team”—and would be in his neck of the woods in a few weeks. I asked if I could visit him at his store and have a few words.

“You’d be wasting your time,” he said.

I said I didn’t mind.

“You’d be wasting my time,” he countered.

I said I didn’t mind.

I drove 476 from Wilkes-Barre (the city where I was born) down to Upper Darby and (even­tu­ally) found R&B Records. It was lav­ishly ar­rayed with super-rare col­lec­tables: in­cluding a rare twig from a tree, hanging from the ceiling, with a note stating it had been taken from the grounds of Graceland.

I knew I was gonna like this guy . . .

 

For those of us who grew up in the ’60s, the word ‘twig’ will often bring up an image at odds with a tree. Of course, the like­li­hood of finding any­thing re­motely as­so­ci­ated with British models in R&B Records was nigh on impossible.

You’re wasting your time

The whole thing was as beau­tiful as the chance en­counter of a sewing ma­chine and an um­brella on an op­er­ating table. I was moved, and ex­claimed, “Wow! This is, like, as close to Elvis as I’m ever gonna get.”

Val looked at me quizzically.

“Until I die, of course,” I added.

Val ig­nored me.

Also hanging from that ceiling was a pair of black plastic shades with a note telling me that they had be­longed to Stevie Wonder.

I was moved again and asked, “Are these the ones he wore in Muscle Beach Party?”

Val ig­nored me.

After hanging around for an hour or so, a couple of Val’s local reg­u­lars came in and started talking about the Phillies’ prospects over the next few sea­sons. This I also knew, and as someone who had been reading Bill James for sev­eral years, I usu­ally added ob­ser­va­tions to base­ball con­ver­sa­tions most fans of the game had never heard before.

At this, Val glanced in my direction.

 

Photo lifted from the 1973 in­ter­view with Rolling Stone mag­a­zine, when Wonder was making his most won­drous music and was at the height if his fame and pop­u­larity. These glasses could have found their way to Upper Darby—you never know.

You’re wasting my time

After talking base­ball for an hour or so, Val looked at over at me and said, “Al­right. You! Wise-guy. Who are you and wud­daya want?”

I turned and my right hand slid off the handle of my .45 and down the side of my hol­ster. It was an au­to­nomic re­sponse, some­thing you’d ex­pect from a knee-jerk lib­eral like my­self. It had saved my hide more times than I could count. But it was the wrong move at this moment.

“Uh uh,” he shook his head. “There’s a Colt S-double-A Peace­maker pointing at your giz­zard under this counter.” He nodded his chin down.

I didn’t doubt him.

“Sorry,” I mut­tered. “Habit.”

My hand moved away from my leather.

“How big’s yours,” I queried.

“Seven and a half,” he re­sponded. “Yours?”

“Five and a half,” I smiled. “I can get it out faster.”

Everyone laughed the kind of laugh you laugh when you know spilt blood’s been avoided. Guys com­paring the size of their gun’s barrel was a time-honored rite of pas­sage from en­e­mies to not-enemies.

I re­laxed.

For­tu­nately, he did, too.

He brought both his hands above the counter, smiled, and pulled a bottle from the shelf on the wall be­hind him. Layfrog—my fa­vorite single-malt.

He poured for both of us and things looked a little brighter.

“I prefer the 10-year-old to the 12,” I offered.

“Same here,” he nodded.

I in­tro­duced myself.

“Oh! Right. The guy from the city with the crap base­ball team,” he noted as he sipped his drink. “You’re wasting your time.”

I said I didn’t mind.

“You’re wasting my time,” he said.

I said I didn’t mind.

Even­tu­ally, I told him that I was also from Pee-Ay and was vis­iting family.

“No wonder you don’t act like a lot of those guys from the West Coast,” he nodded.

 

The man: Val Shively. The store: R&B Records. The in­ven­tory: Priceless . . .

You don’t want me any way

I re­layed my plans for the R&B book and my hopes that he’d come aboard. We took our con­ver­sa­tion to a little diner he fa­vored. Val told me flatly that he wasn’t in­ter­ested in co-authoring a book with me or anyone else. Then he gave me the best ad­vice of my nascent career:

“You don’t want me any way,” he said.

I didn’t?

“No,” he sipped his water.

“You want Tefteller . . .”

 

FEATURED IMAGE: De­spite the many, many stoopit things said by taste­less people about Elvis and his life, Grace­land re­mains a beau­tiful house on a beau­tiful prop­erty. More than twenty species of trees can be found at Grace­land, in­cluding Southern Mag­nolia, Amer­ican Elm, Willow Oak, Red Maple, Pecan, Amer­ican Holly, Tulip Poplar and Black Cherry. And a fallen twig from any one of them could have found their way to Upper Darby—you never know.