Little Rock Central High School Class of 1967
Still Rockin’ and Rollin’

By Paul Cunningham>
(Written for the Class of ’67 40th Reunion, 2007)

Most of us were born during 1949, give or take a few months. We grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s, spending the better part of our teen years listening to the tunes pumped out from Little Rock’s 50,000-watt clear channel giant, KAAY, the Mighty 1090. We didn’t care if it was Doo Wop, rockabilly, folk, R&B, soul or that old time rock ‘n roll. We loved it all. Still do.

The music that played on the radio as we moved through elementary schools (Franklin, Oakhurst, Garland, Bale, Centennial, Meadowcliff, Lee, Mitchell, Stephens, Woodruff, Ish, Gibbs, Wilson, Jackson), into Jr. High (East Side, West Side, Southwest, Dunbar, Pulaski Heights) and on to Little Rock Central High School became a part of us. It took root as an indelible soundtrack which would set the tone for the historical events and interesting times that framed our adolescence and signaled the oncoming changes about to affect our futures in varying ways. It was also beginning to generate some controversy and even a bit of discomfort for postWWII America.

In the early 1950s, our parents’ hit parade was led by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, PerryComo, Peggy Lee and Tony Martin. Then suddenly, in 1954, Haley’s comet slammed into the musical landscape, setting off a vast explosion. Actually, it was Bill Haley and The Comets who turned the music world upside down with “Rock Around the Clock.”

A Cleveland DJ named Alan Freed tagged it “Rock and Roll” and it spread through our generation like a brushfire. Maybe we didn’t know much about music, but, like our older brothers and sisters, we loved it and we wanted more. By the end of the 1950s, we could sing along with Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, Sam Cooke, Ricky Nelson – and, of course, ELVIS.

We might have been too young to understand the significance of the Korean Conflict, the Cold War, “red hunting”, the Eisenhower/Stevenson debates or the Salk vaccine, much less Brown vs. the Board of Education. But, we began to pay closer attention in September 1957, when the rest of the world watched as history was made only a few minutes from our homes, on the grounds and front steps of the place where we would eventually come together – Little Rock Central High School. As Bob Dylan explained a few years later in a message we would come to fully appreciate, the times were indeed a-changin’; and the music was changing even faster.

By the early 1960s, we were learning about the exploration of space, the New Frontier. In May, 1961 we listened to Del Shannon, Roy Orbison and the Shirelles as the newest incarnation of an American hero, Alan Shepherd – a Space Cowboy called an “astronaut” – took a seat inside a capsule strapped atop a virtually untested rocket-propelled spaceship and “blasted off,” streaking 115 miles into the unknown above the earth and straight into the history books.

Eighteen months later, in October 1962, we, along with the rest of America, stopped and held our collective breath for 13 days waiting out the Cuban Missile Crisis. By then we were in Jr. High, old enough to know the world was on the brink, but young enough not to worry too much about it. The music was our distraction. Instead, we chose to twist and shout with the Isley Brothers, do the Loco-Motion with Little Eva and join Dee Dee Sharp for mashed potato time. The other side blinked, the world didn’t end and at the dawn of 1963 we returned to our particular version of Camelot, a place where “there's simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering,” In the safety of that place, our transistor radios echoed Sam Cooke, Lesley Gore, The Four Seasons, Little Stevie Wonder, The Drifters and Martha & the Vandellas and our horizons expanded.

On Saturdays, Dick Clark and his American Bandstand tour took us on nonstop musical journeys from “Surf City” to Motown, and east for the Philly sound. Then, on weeknights at dinnertime we’d get a lesson in world geography. Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite escorted us through two cities behind the “Iron Curtain,” both named Berlin, and introduced us to unfamiliar places on the far side of the world with names like Laos, Cambodia … and Vietnam.

We were confused when Dr. Martin Luther King proclaimed “I have a dream” at the same time Alabama Governor George Wallace was promising “Segregation today, tomorrow and forever.” We were both shocked and stunned watching racial violence erupt in sister southern cities like Greenville, North Carolina; Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama; Jackson and Philadelphia Mississippi. We were proud when JFK declared, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” And we were saddened when, some still argue, the music died at Dealy Plaza in Dallas on a cool, clear November day in 1963.

Then came 1964. An all-consuming condition that originated in England was spreading to our shores. They called it Beatlemania. On a Sunday night in February, eight months before we would enter Central High School, we were exposed while watching as the Fab Four appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. The music infected and affected us all. Our defenses were weakened and the prognosis was bleak, but only for our parents. The British invasion was on its way and there was no stopping it.

In September of that year, we walked softly into the massive hallways of LRCHS. Over the next three years, we saw America escalate a war against communism, wage one war for civil rights and declare another on poverty. In the fog of those wars, our attention and concerns shifted constantly while we tried to comprehend the battles taking place in Vietnam as well as those occurring in the streets of America. Meanwhile, on the college campuses that many of us would later call home, the seeds for America’s newest favorite pastime was beginning to sprout. Protest was the name of the game.

Two years later at the beginning of our senior year, the music had become as eclectic as the causes, but it didn’t matter. We wanted to mix it up. Otis and Aretha; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Righteous Brothers; the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Supremes; the Byrds and the Beach Boys; Simon & Garfunkel and Paul Revere & the Raiders; Dylan, Donovan and Dionne Warwick. We even made room for Frank and Nancy Sinatra.

Then, after a brief nine months, we were graduating and going our separate ways. Some of us headed to college, some journeyed to places across the globe and some joined the ranks of adults who live and work in the real world. Simply put, we changed. We married, raised families, took out mortgages and built homes and lives. We would never be the same. For most of us, our paths would seldom cross over the next 40 years, if at all. But, we would always have a common bond. We are the LRCHS Class of ’67 and we’re still Rockin’ and Rollin.

[PS: Since I originally wrote this piece in 2007 we have aged another 16 years, adding to our individual stories which now span the 55-plus years since we left LRCHS and include a full spectrum of events ranging from unimaginable success to unspeakable loss and everything in between. Nevertheless, as we approach 2024, the year when most of us will celebrate our 75th birthdays, our bond of common experiences, shared memories and, of course, the music that became the soundtracks of our lives might even be stronger. I think today we better appreciate those connections and the resulting friendships. It helps me put perspective to the ending lyrics of Roger Miller’s song Old Friends: Lord when all my work is done, bless my life and grant me one old friend. At least one old friend.] /pc