The Story of The Stools

In March of 1953 a former army sergeant of mixed race, Fulgencio Batista, who had risen from poverty in Communist Cuba, finally came to power in that tiny island country by way of a coup d'etat.

In seven short years Batista became The All-South Conference Leader in People Murdered with 20,000 and the envy of syphilitic despots everywhere. An elated United States sent aid in the form of food stuffs, technology and culture.

One of those things sent to Cuba under the banner of cultural exchange was a young Elvin Anderson, who had been swept up as part of a secret US program to rid our streets of panhandlers, mendicants and buskers by forcibly sending them to the islands.

Cuba repaid the favor in 1980 by emptying their prisons, circus geek pits and mental health facilities into Florida via The Mariel Boatlift, inspiring De Palma’s intemperate remake of Scarface and Elvin Anderson’s immoderate song The Baby Won’t Eat His Nachos. Anderson wrote a number of songs while sitting on Dog Beach in Key West watching Castro’s flotilla of human flotsam ribbon on the prospect.

The perfect metaphor for Anderson’s musical output in the early 80’s, but don't read to much into the boat on the horizon; Anderson wrote a lot of songs sitting on the hopper too...

From what I understand, Elvin Anderson spent only a small amount of time in Cuba, but he did quite a bit studying up on Voo Don, Sanitaria and even Zombism while he was there. and to good effect, as we can hear in his early, pre-Stools song, Tripping Time.

Even in that early song, with that wailing harmonica, you can hear that Elvin is starting to paint pictures with sound that would become another Stools' trademark.

Upon his (some say forced) return to the United States, Elvin Anderson came across a copy of the newly published Diary of Anne Frank. The Diary was to have a profound effect on Elvin Anderson's life, because the stirring Coming of Age in Nazi Controlled Amsterdam story was sitting in front of the newly published MAD magazine, which Anderson actually picked up and read, perhaps forever altering the course of his musical journey.

This new style of No Prisoners Taken Humor found in the pages of MAD spoke to Elvin and influenced his own writing, as is evident in Shut Up And Hold Mommy's Merlot, which has all the earmarks of the later classic Stools' songs, already fully formed by 1953.

Can you imagine? How Much Is That Doggie In The Window, Crying In The Chapel and Vaya Con Dios are all on the top of the charts and here's this kid singing about a drunk driving mom...

Because session records were never really kept, it is impossible to tell who is playing the Double Bass on these early tracks, but conventional wisdom, and Elvin Anderson himself, says that it was James Jamerson. At the time, just a high school kids from Edisto Island in South Carolina, Jamerson would soon move to Detroit and become the backbone of the Motown Sound.

James Debby Jamerson played bass on 30 number one hits on the pop charts and over 70 number ones on the R&B charts. He is what you think of when you think of that classic Motown Sound. You Can't Hurry Love.

Reach Out, I'll Be There, Going To A Go-Go. Martha Reeves....

I Was Made To Love Her, Bernadette. All those great Ghost Notes...

You can hear Jamerson's trademark, one-fingered hook sound on the double bass in these early Anderson tracks. You have to wonder what the future would have held if Jamerson's mom hadn't moved the family to Detroit and James had continued playing with Anderson.