“You know we’re goin back to MANderley, We’re gonna dance on the SANderley, I’m gonna sing with the BANderley, We gonna ball all we CANderley— Ball me, baby, yeah!”
First there was music. Not Dixieland, because there were no horns, but like Dixieland. A primitive, reeling kind of bebop. Three or four acoustic guitars, a harmonica, a stand-up bass (or maybe a pair). Behind all of this was a hard, happy drumming that didn’t sound as if it was coming from a real drum; it sounded as if someone with a lot of percussive talent was whopping on a bunch of boxes. Then a woman’s voice joined in—a contralto voice, not quite mannish, roughing over the high notes. It was laughing and urgent and ominous all at the same time, and I knew at once that I was hearing Sara Tidwell, who had never cut a record in her life. I was hearing Sara Laughs, and man, she was rocking.
“You know we’re goin back to MANderley,
We’re gonna dance on the SANderley,
I’m gonna sing with the BANderley,
We gonna ball all we CANderley—
Ball me, baby, yeah!”
The basses—yes, there were two—broke out in a barnyard shuffle like the break in Elvis’s version of “Baby Let’s Play House,” and then there was a guitar solo: Son Tidwell playing that chickenscratch thing.
