Three Hours of Glory

The Impalas Famous Set At The World's Fair

We’re batting around the idea of doing a Auburn Faces sort of bloggy post or something on our website where the library could highlight interesting community members. I mean, that’s all relative of course - I think they’re ALL interesting in some way or another, as all people ARE interesting in some way or another.

But it feels like if you develop the right atmosphere (vibe?) in the library then patrons will often just come in to talk, or tell you about their vacation, or commiserate about town events, or sometimes look for a shoulder to cry on.

If that happens, we’re doing our job, which often times doesn’t even feel like a job but rather just providing a soft, accessible place for people to go and just talk if they want to. Like a friendly bartender, but books instead of booze.

Anyway, that all leads me to Tom. Or should I say the bass player of The Impalas. Disclaimer: I hope Tom doesn’t mind my mentioning him here!

Tom and his Impalas from around 1964

Tom and I got to talking about music and his love for the Wrecking Crew, that loose collective of LA-based session musicians back in the 1960s and 1970s that seemed to have their hands and instruments in every major song released during that time. (I’ll write something about them sometimes.)

For example, he’s the one who first told me about Carol Kaye, one of the most famous bass players in music history that I somehow had never heard of: Pet Sounds, “La Bamba,” “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” “The Man from Shaft,” the list goes on and on that she played on.

Anyway, one thing led to another and Tom mentioned his band, The Impalas, a kind of doo-wop / soul / early rock ‘n roll outfit from the early 1960s. He even brought in a newspaper picture from the time!

Then he mentioned that the group’s claim to fame was that they performed in the New Jersey Pavilion of the World’s Fair. Well, it took me a bit to track that down, but I did!

Turns out, he’s talking about one of the most famous world’s fairs ever put on, the one in Flushing Meadows with the futuristic theme and the giant Unisphere structure that still stands today! The NJ Pavilion was right next to the Unisphere.

The Impalas performed a set on October 5, 1964 at the NJ Pavilion where the state was celebrating its 300th anniversary in an incredible 88,000 square foot structure built by Princeton architect Philip Sheridan Collins.

The Impalas have the stage to themselves on Oct. 5th according to the NH Pavilion program booklet. They played a three hour set.

Sidenote: Collins also designed and built the home that author Joyce Carol Oates lived in from 1990-2010, which was the period of time that I worked in Princeton and therefore saw her house and his work.

Anyway! Tom says that The Impalas were never very good, but a newspaper article about them says they performed for three hours at the pavilion and the schedule shows they were the only entertainment for that day.

My guess is that they were pretty good, but Tom’s a humble guy.

See what I’m talkin’ about here? Everybody - every human you meet is a living, breathing rabbit hole. No one - not one person - is now who they were then, but they all carry a little of their past with them.

That’s why we have stories, that’s why we like telling them. My guess is that there’s still a little bit of The Impalas inside Tom and he’s who he is today, in part, because of those three hours standing in a futuristic structure built by a famous architect in the middle of Queens when he was a young man.

How about you? Who are you?

The New Jersey Pavilion in 1964, where The Impalas played their famous three-hour set!