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They buried Jimmy Crain last week in the uniform of an authoritarian.
Then again, his status as a retired Springfield police officer probably meant more to his family — maybe even to him — than the three undignified years of his life I continually pestered him about.
I wasn’t interested in the oath he took to serve and protect.
I didn’t bother asking him about belonging to the Northridge United Methodist Church, the local patrolman’s association or the Masons.
I wanted to know all he could remember about the three years he was nothing but a hood, a punk and a nuisance (take your pick) to those who made the rules, enforced the rules and obeyed the rules.
After all, in 1958, rock ’n’ roll still was the devil’s music — the doorway to switchblades and tight sweaters — and Crain was one of his minions.
It’s almost kinda funny he became a cop, because my favorite photo of him — locked in a rebel yell backed by black musicians at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater — presumably would’ve caused him to be stopped, harassed or worse by the law in certain parts of our fine country all those years ago.
But when Crain died on July 5 at age 69 after years of emphysema-induced agony, his obituary merely stated that he was a “lifetime musician.”
Fair enough.
For Jimmy Crain, the three years he played rock ’n’ roll seemed to be from another lifetime compared to what came later — fatherhood, law enforcement, Freemasonry.
“What ended my career was me,” he told me back in 2000.
His first son was born in 1960 and that was it.
However, he became a cop in 1966 the rock ’n’ roll way — on a $50 bet that he couldn’t pass the entrance exam.
But I’m guessing Crain was the only guy on the force who could say he appeared on “American Bandstand” or played shows with the Big Bopper and Dion.
In the three years that immediately followed his escape from Springfield High, Crain was given a lifetime of stories but little else to show for it.
A Dutch record collector compiled his prime output on CD in 2003 — most of it self-recorded at home — but it’s doubtful it resulted in much in the way of royalties.
So burying him in his uniform made the most sense. It’s tangible. You could look at the badge at the visitation and you knew this guy’s life had purpose.
It’s easier to assume that the music thing was just a side note — after all, aside from a few old pictures and ephemera curated by his longtime friend, Bill Russell, Crain’s music career came down to an old man telling stories.
Of touring the Midwest and East Coast with Link Wray, whose knuckle-dragging 1958 instrumental, “Rumble,” opened rock up to power chords, fuzztone and even greater horrors.
Of visiting an Elvis session at RCA in Nashville in 1957 — “Of course I was sworn to secrecy about the songs,” he once informed me.
Of recording his big song, “Shig-A-Shag,” at Owen Bradley’s Nashville studio and having both Grady Martin and Hank Garland play guitar on it.
“That’s where the sound was at,” Crain said.
But it was just three years, so long ago.
“I was so fascinated by him,” remembers Russell, who first saw Crain perform locally in 1958. “He was so great.”
Nobody else remembers “Shig-A-Shag” today except maybe the most hard-core of vinyl collectors. A 1959 picture sleeve — featuring the instructions for a nifty little three-step dance to go with the song — is worth $125 in tip-top shape.
Nobody remembers that Springfield once was home to its own record label, Spangle Records, either.
“The big blue label with the stars.”
It was an embellishment.
“The only hesitation was getting the pen out of my pocket,” Crain recalled a few years ago. “I had stars in my eyes.
“I actually believed I was going to be somebody.”
He was.
Now it’s just a matter of opinion what he entered heaven as — an officer of the law or a hell-raiser.
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