Cagayan de Oro in the largely-forgotten 50's was one city in Northern Mindanao like most other Philippine cities in that milieu. Quiet and peaceful, and slow of pace. Its people happily rustic in their ways and living. But none the worse for wear, not really knowing any better.
As its youth, we fostered our growing up in slo-mo gait, attending to our primary responsibility of education with dull submission, it being one of a few preoccupation that filled our days. We went to a nearby Jesuit school run by mostly American Jesuits, giving us exposure to the fabled West and its domineering culture. We lapped up with gusto this multifaceted enlightenment we were introduced to, soaking up their cultural values, religious practices, greatly nuanced politics, and most everything in between. One could say as collective obeisance to the colonial mentality that ruled our lives.
In that milieu, we might as well have grown up in the US idolizing it in its many cultural iterations with minds subliminally opened though maybe just half-awake.
We learned about American sports engaged by amazing super athletes, grandiose singers with heavenly voices, heroic politicians from various sectors, etc. And this preoccupied whatever free idle time we had, which during that time took a good chunk of our youth since there was not much else to do in those halcyon days of youth. In that sleepy town of yesteryears..
Then in early 1955, our typically-torpid existence was suddenly rocked by an irreverent hillbilly artist emanating from the emergent pop culture that catered to us.. Rock and roll was slowly changing the local landscape, fueled by the daily musical offerings oozing out from our solitary local radio station.
One icky morning became quite unlike other mornings, because some unlikely spark broke through the languid morning air, with the loud introduction of the first song of that irreverent new singer. His singing literally delivered in some kind of controlled shouting. The song was billed, I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. Our favorite morning DJ (named Amador Factura) had prefaced this song by introducing its brash singer as one Elvis Presley. A quite unusual name for a singer, we had thought. We knew nobody, or heard of anybody, named Elvis.
Anyway, sight unseen, we listened intently to his song which was like no other that we had heard in the past. The delivery, as recorded already judged as coarse and amateurish, definitely caught us off guard and made us curious who this guy was. But there was nothing much of him that we knew. The local news and the national papers that reached us did not really consider him newsworthy enough to fuss about. At least, not during that early hazy time.
But it did not last long. Because when this singer issued out in quick succession a barrage of similar songs in his home country, the brewing storm exploded. And no known force seemed able to stop the onslaught. The avid curiosity of youth could not be contained. They had to know and experience.
But why?
Now in hindsight and after reviewing the whole phenomenon, it is quite difficult to understand. The passage of time definitely had changed or mellowed perspectives, from tender youth to grizzled old age.
Listening to the song now is akin to listening to a typical teenager straining in his clumsy ways to express his art. Using very coarse methods and technology in very amateurish ways. But this time minus the hypnotic aura once felt, that took over one's consciousness in very unavoidable way. I now admit this time without the foolishness and cluelessness of idle youth.
As epilogue, it is apt to confess that during that time, there indeed was a another older, more staid and mainstream, singer that expressed his craft in similar ways. Full-throated and with great tortured emotion. His name was Johnnie Ray. And he became famous for his rendition of the song, Cry.
Though he had broken into the limelight ahead of the hillbilly, he never was accorded the kind of scrutiny and notice, and fame, as the other. At least not in our milieu.
Ray's nice clothes, close-cropped hairstyle, and refined ways may have worked against him, rather than help. Like pigeonholing him as part of the encrusted establishment against the emergent and snowballing populist figure.
Postscript
In those heady days that we had found ourselves lost in, we tried to learn as much as we could about this mysterious phenom.
But with our very limited resources and remote location, we did not really know about him save for his early songs that we would hear on the local radio.
Beyond that nothing much for me, until one day an elder brother had brought home from school a small magazine booklet which was then called "songhits". It was essentially a publication which listed down popular songs, their lyrics, the record labels, and of course, the singers. And the cover showed the singers who figured prominently in particular issues. It was our teaching aid in learning the songs we had heard and were fond of.
The front cover typically in color featured the big-time singers of the day. And at the back in black and white, the upcoming sensations.
As I recall in this particular issue at the back, was this rather uncomplimentary black and white picture of a sneering young man with long unruly hair and very long and lush sideburns. His upturned thick lips giving one the impression of anger and rebellion.
To the point that my elder brother thought he had looked like Jack Palance, the top villain actor in that milieu. To which I had fiercely disagreed.
Still, this young singer would be known famously, or infamously, for his upturned lips and wild sideburns, and his devilish gyrating hips, in his early years.
