Each record consists of a 'recreation' of a radio show of a specific DJ, using songs of the year, jingles, station promos, ads and the like. If you're of a certain age (meaning, old like me) these are a lot of fun.
Cruisin' 1955
We first meet Eddie and Peggy as young high school students at the public library. Eddie is glancing out the window at a bright red Thunderbird. The girl behind the counter is Genevieve, whom we'll meet later.
Eddie's turned from a fresh young kid into something of a hood. Peggy is still interested.
"No sweat, hey!" a more clean cut Eddie says. He's still the bad boy. I grew up in Philadelphia. Joe Niagra was a long time DJ there.
In the past year, Eddie seems to have grown up a bit. Peggy just wants to play tennis. I figure it's Eddie's last summer before college. Note that gasoline was 19 cents a gallon.
Along with fuzzy dice, a note of seriousness enters into the covers. I'm not quite sure what Peggy means by "Not at a time like this".
Did Eddie go in the Army? We will never know. It's apparent however that he and Peggy have grown apart.
Eddie and Peggy are apparently back together. Things don't seem to be going well. The covers always did a good job with conveying something of the times in the background. Note the newspaper headline.
Eddie appears to have been radicalized while Peggy just wants to have fun. The bearded dude is Luther, who will appear on later covers.
More radicalization for Eddie. What is it that's more important? The book on the table seems to be "Another Country" by James Baldwin. One of the subjects of this book (according to Wikipedia) was bisexuality. Is this a clue? Note that Luther is in the background wailing away.
Luther and Eddie, featuring a fiery beard, are now roommates. Luther seems more interested in smoking dope than social issues. Note the newspaper clipping "Miss Peggy Harrison to wed Kevin Buchannon III".
This is one of the CDs I just bought. My favorite ad is for Khan's Wieners. Johnny Holiday reads the copy and enthusiastically declares that "Kahn's Weiners are not only delicious, but digestible too!"
The lovely Genevieve makes a reappearance, working in a new and used book store. If you look real close you'll see that Luther is the bottom artist on the campus concerts poster in the back ground.
Eddie's lost the beard but his social consciousness appears intact.
Genevieve is back, looking groovier than ever. She's apparently holding an LP by Luthor. Yes, Eddie, why so uptight?
Yikes, in the middle of a Vietnam War protest, Eddie runs into Peggy, wearing an incomprehensible hairdo. "Widows for Peace"? Apparently Kevin Buchannon III met a bad end. Why didn't Eddie go to Vietnam? Maybe having been drafted all the way back in 1959 had something to do with it.
We're in the home stretch. Peggy has an even more incomprehensible hairdo. Eddie looks buff and hopes to make partner. I guess he's only interested in #1 now. I'm not quite sure what the marquee outside the window is supposed to mean. Are they on a honeymoon? Their honeymoon suite has a framed photo of Nixon on the wall?
Eddie's talking to some fat cat about that "student thing up as Kent State". Hoping to get part of the litigation? Meanwhile, Peg is going to get another 'lesson' from Mike.
I guess we'll never know what happened to Eddie and Peggy. My guess is that they got into EST and straightened out their marriage for awhile. Eddie probably made partner during the Reagan years. Peggy had a couple of kids (a boy and a girl) who went to the best schools. Eddie got rich during the dot com era but lost it all in the bust. Peggy left him and moved into a commune in Wisconsin. The kids, never comfortable with their parents, are living on opposite coasts. Eddie made it big in housing but lost it all again when in the housing bubble burst. At a Tea Party rally in 2008 in the mid-west, Eddie and Peggy ran into each other again. Today, Eddie is 73 and barley scraping along on Social Security. Peggy, at 72, is in a home with Alzheimer's.
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