The Time Machine/ Jukeboxes help fill human need for nostalgia, for

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 18, 2003 | by RACHEL SAUER

It was a Saturday night, and business was slow. Three customers sat at the bar in Benny's Restaurant and Lounge, alternately watching NASCAR on TV, drinking Coors and chatting with bartender Betty Morris. In the next room, two college-age guys played pool.

The moment was right for a sign from Elvis.

It came from a jukebox hunkered in the doorway between the bar and the pool room. Programmed to play automatically every 20 minutes, the jukebox ignited its white marquee lights, which ran around the display of CDs, and a familiar bass line rumbled out: bom-BOM, bom- BOM.

"The warden threw a party in the county jail ..."

The invitation was clear: Come put some quarters in this jukebox and let's rock.

The King had spoken and the message, with selective interpretation, was that jukeboxes aren't dead; they're just bubble- wrapped in a cocoon of nostalgia and frozen in time. Even with new technology that allows jukebox customers to pick songs from the Internet, even with jukebox body designs straight off the Starship Enterprise, even with CDs instead of 45s, the most popular song will still be "Hound Dog."

"The jukebox is not traditionally a media of new music," said Steve White, editor of Replay magazine, an amusement industry trade publication. "It's generally a media of what you might call oldies or classic music, and I don't quite know why that is.

"They're very much a staple of bars and restaurants or taverns, and patrons tend to be of all ages, but jukeboxes generally play the oldies. I guess it's nostalgia."

Nostalgia, though, is a fluid and changeable thing. There are different kinds of nostalgia, reflected in the jukeboxes liberally scattered throughout Colorado Springs.

In First Draft Choice, 1110 E. Fillmore St., nostalgia has big hair and an '80s heavy metal beat.

The Pizza Hut at 3167 W. Colorado Ave. has a consistent soundtrack of mid-'90s bubblegum and '80s adult contemporary.

At Benny's, 517 W. Colorado Ave., the jukebox CD selection runs toward classic country with some '70s rock. It's tear-in-your-beer stuff, Waylon 'n' Willie singin' and strummin' about love gone wrong.

Bartender Morris said sometimes patrons come in, select a certain song and sit at the bar and sigh. Other times, twentysomething patrons buy a pitcher of Coors, claim a dart board and fuel their evening with a soundtrack of Johnny Cash. (Sometimes nostalgia is second-generation.)

Across town, in Gunther Toody's at 3952 N. Academy Blvd., nostalgia is more "American Graffiti." The diner's jukebox is vintage '50s, and the song selection leans toward The Platters, The Drifters and Dion and the Belmonts.

On a recent Monday night, Jeremy Offutt, 23, and his son, Alex, 4, peered through the jukebox's glass covering to make their selections. Alex likes Elvis, so they played "Jailhouse Rock" and "Hound Dog." Jeremy chose "Under the Boardwalk" because he grew up listening to it. Then, keeping with family tradition, Alex and Jeremy poked the buttons for "Earth Angel."

"It's the first song my wife and I ever danced to," Jeremy said. "We first danced to it at (Doherty High School) homecoming and then on our third date went to Gunther Toody's and danced to it again. So Alex knows the significance of that song."

Jukeboxes simply have that power to stoke memory. Back in the '40s and '50s, when they were in the most diners and restaurants in America, people tuned in to popular culture via music, basking in the glow of bubble tube lighting. They fell in and out of love to a jukebox soundtrack, seeing their lives reflected in the words of a song.

Though jukeboxes are nowhere near as popular as they were 50 years ago, they are enough of a money-maker that some business owners continue leasing or buying them.

Paul Treul, general manager of The Hub Car Wash and Diner, 4460 Forest Hill Road, said the owners bought a jukebox after leasing one for several months "because it's always something that's popular with customers." The bubble tube jukebox features a selection of mostly '50s and '60s music.

"People just love jukeboxes," said Steve Schmitt, owner of Now and Then, a Colorado Springs jukebox retail business. "They have that 'Happy Days' allure. They've dropped off in popularity in places where they pipe in music, but people get excited when they see them in a diner or restaurant."

Even in places that have Internet-accessible jukeboxes, such as Rack and Tap, 5869 Palmer Park Blvd., song selection still veers toward the nostalgic.

"'Hotel California,'" said bartender Jerry Cash. "I probably hear that three or four times a night. People just never seem to get tired of hearing it."

Which is part of the jukebox aura: suffering through songs beloved only by the person plunking in the quarter.

Sometimes, nostalgia isn't easy.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0374 or rsauer@gazette.com

GOLDEN OLDIES

Top 10 jukebox singles, in order of popularity:

1. "Hound Dog," Elvis Presley

2. "Crazy," Patsy Cline

3. "Old Time Rock & Roll," Bob Seger

4. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Marvin Gaye

5. "Don't Be Cruel," Elvis Presley