THE FOUR PALMS INVADE EL TORO

We reported to El Toro and were immediately assigned to the Special Services unit.  James Jackson, a truck driver was assigned to the movie theater as a projectionist.  Louis Faison, the tank driver, was assigned to the Education Office, to assist in giving GED, USAFI, and other tests. Hasker Nelson, the supply clerk became a librarian.  Nate Thomas, the Field Radio Operator, became an administrative assistant in the Special Services main office.  The Four Palms shared barracks with base security so we knew every security guard at every gate on the base.  We were given 24hr. passes, which allowed us to leave or come onto the base at any time of day or night.  We had been assigned, on paper, from one unit to another through so many administrative paper transfers that no one knew to which unit we permanently belonged.  As a consequence we never had night watch, additional duties, inspections or special details.  We were expected to sing and that is what we intended to do.

The base newspaper had foretold our coming and more so than other units, the Woman Marine Detachment as well as the W.A.V.E.S. were keenly aware of our arrival.  Our social life improved 2,000%.  The women had a private enlisted womens club called the High Heels.  Men could only be admitted by being signed in by a woman.  Anytime one of the Four Palms showed up there were ample women more than happy to sign him in.  We spent more time in the High Heels than an any other place on the base.

We contacted ABC Booking Agency of San Diego who, while we were still at 29 Palms, had contacted us after the Sullivan show, and asked us to join their agency.  We signed with them, and between ABC, with the colleges, women’s clubs, and commercials and the Marine Corps, appearing at high schools, officers clubs, on base shows et.al, we stayed busy.  In less than six months we were all promoted, so it was one Sgt and three Corporals.  The booking agency provided extra money, the Marine Corps kept us singing and the military women provided all the companionship we would ever need-much of it platonic.  We took them to recording sessions, record hops, television shows, football games, and sometimes a group of us would go off the base and hide in the orange groves of Irvine, which was all farmland in the late 50s.

Off the base we had a fan club in San Diego.  More so than just being fans they wanted to hang with us and party on the beach, mostly Torrey Pines, right outside of San Diego, after our shows were over.  It may sound like a groovy situation but four guys can’t do a hell of a lot with 25-30 women, no matter what you may think.

One of the officers put us in touch with an executive at Aladdin Records, and a month later, in April, 1958, we recorded "Jeanie Joanie Shirley Toni”.  On the best take (#7), the one that went to press, the bass forgot to say the word “There’s” at the start of the record.  We didn’t have a flip side so one of the record company people brought some sheet music into the studio for a song called, “Consideration” by someone named Tom Beck.  Hasker was a pretty good music reader, and he agreed to give it a try.  After about 15 minutes of trial and error, we recorded the song with Hasker reading the words and me using hand signals to direct the background in singing oo, ah, bop bop baa, or doo be doo.  We finished it on the third take and never sang the song again.  Cashbox called the “potential” 2-sided hit its pick of the week and Billboard called Jeanie Joanie…. its sleeper of the week:

Life was great for us and then it happened. The first chink in the armor.  The All-Navy Talent Contest was approaching and we were having a problem getting one of our members to practice.  We had done so many shows and earned so much money (WE WERE ALL DRIVING CADILLACS) some of us had lost the incentive do talent shows. We went to the 11th Naval District talent show and he forgot the words to the song and the judges mercifully gave us second place to a drill team. 

In New York, we fared no better than sixth, but we were asked to perform while the judges determined a winner, and we did one of our comic routines, The Sullivan show producer liked it and we performed it on the show in August of 1958.  We had however lost that youthful enthusiasm and derring doo that made us click.  We were too professional and too serious. 

Back at El Toro, we continued to do the various recruitment shows, In addition to our group an instrumental jazz group who called themselves the Dress Blues also performed.  Pfc. Ellis Marsalis, a pianist extraordinaire, led it, and I’m sure he needs no further introduction at this point.  He tried to get us to sing jazz-and we did some numbers- such as Poinciana, quite well, but as a group, The Four Palms were not about studying two weeks to learn a song that we could impress with.  We wanted to have fun singing and make fun of the music and ourselves.  We wanted to entertain and Ellis wanted to be technically good.  If you love jazz you can do both.  We liked jazz. We loved doo-wop.

And it wasn’t it always rosy and nice.  One weekend, on a Sunday night, after doing three shows, four weary Palms were driving back to El Toro.  Tom was driving; the radio was playing rock and roll tunes as a light rain fell on the notorious Highway 101.  As we approached La Jolla, leaving San Diego Jack yelled out from the back, Tom! Tom! …. Before I could respond, the car went into a spin as the steering wheel began to spin around and around.  The car headed left, toward the on coming traffic as it jumped the divider and continued to spin around and around.  Everyone was silent as the car plowed, right rear fender first, into a mountain, and fell ever so slowly, back onto its left side and stopped.  Everyone was talking but me, so someone said, “Tom, Tom, are you all right?”  I replied, “yes, but lets get the hell out of this car.”  As we climbed out, the State Patrol arrived.  The horn was stuck as we pushed the car back to the upright position, and the police opened the hood and began to cut wires.  I reached over and disconnected the battery.  The noise stopped.  Other than a bump on Louis head, there were no injuries.  Luckily, traffic had been held up on the side of the road where we landed by the one stoplight on the entire 120 miles stretch of Highway 101 between Los Angeles and San Diego.  Had that light, one- half mile up the road, been green, The Four Palms would have never been around to record anything.  Had we gone off the side of the road where we were driving, it was a 200-foot drop off the mountain.  We believe that a tie rod broke.  Jack thinks that it was sabotaged.  Given the times, and our popularity, we had our detractors, although we never bothered or hassled anyone.  We just created a lot of jealousy in the military by getting special privileges but our privileges were earned, and without them, we couldn’t perform. It was always fun, but never easy.

Somewhere along the way, about 6 months prior to our discharge, one of the Marines in the barracks wanted to hang with us and he started following us everywhere we went.  When The Four Palms were alone I wondered out aloud, to the guys just why was he hanging with us all of a sudden when for ten months he ignored us and seldom-spoke.  Also, we didn’t know where he worked since he was never on guard duty at a gate.

Well, one night we were coming back from a show in Los Angeles, and I asked him why he was hanging with us all of a sudden.  I hastily remarked, “You must be a CID man (Criminal Investigation Division) the way you are acting”.  Well, a military CID man must operate undercover and infiltrate his prey.  As it turned out he was a CID man and had been ordered to follow us around looking for evidence of drug selling, buying, or other involvement.  We never saw him again after that night.  We could have told him from day one that he was wasting time if he was trying to connect us to drugs.  To this day, none of The Four Palms ever used drugs –not even so-called “experimentally”.  We came to do our show-on time; we did the show; we signed autographs; we left; we went home.

We did our last show as traveling Marines at the Tustin High School Swinging Eleventh Variety Show.  It was not special or anything but it was fun.  Our last actual appearance, in uniform, was at the Marine Corps League in San Francisco on New Years Eve, 1958. For some reason we had not been paid our Marine salaries and we were helping to put prizes of drinks, money, and sandwiches, written on little cards into the balloons that would be dropped to bring in 1959.  We decided to put the prizes in the black balloons only, so that at midnight we could pop those and alleviate our weak financial status. Well, midnight came and the balloons dropped from the ceiling. Everyone rushed to pop balloons-excepting The Four Palms.  We were on stage singing “Auld Lang Syne”.  So much for the grand scheme. 

Louis had gotten married. I was engaged, and Jack had a live-in relationship in Los Angeles.  The Four Palms were 2-3 weeks from becoming civilians and making a go of it as a non-military group.  We were cautiously optimistic as we became residents of Los Angeles.

Link to Part IV      Back To Part II      Back To Main Page