The Wombs That Helped Shape Music Continue To Fall Out Of Tune

History plays out separate chords of harmony on the cluttered pages I keep. Being one that stands without balance high atop a weather stained soapbox barking at purposes exposed as to why others become addicted to living in their past; I instantly stop at the first sight of sound...where history gave birth to music. Tree lined parks and guitars. Downtown streets and their beats mixed by digital devices linked to battery powered speakers and the African American man of maybe 52 belts out the blues with a voice so incredibly raspy the purity of attainment is not necessary. Just sing...please set yourself free! A confused little corner overshadowed by a big city wanting to be worldly keeps to itself the history belonging to one Elvis Presley. In September 2005 Meg Freeman Whalen of Charlotte Magazine sketched out the already forgotten tales of a onetime small town inner city theater capable of capturing Southeastern tours that featured Mother Maybelle Carter and folks from the Grand Ole Opry. The Caroline Theater opened her doors to Elvis who played four shows beginning at 2:30 p.m. Tickets were eighty-five cents for adults and fifty cents for kids. The Charlotte News estimated that some 6,000 people heard the twenty-one-year-old cover tunes like “Maybelline,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” and “Rock Around the Clock.” For the nine o’clock show, the lines stretched around the block from Tryon Street in both directions, down Fifth and Sixth streets, all the way to College Street. More than a thousand were turned away. Those who got in were mostly teenage girls, with gum in their mouths and bobby socks on their feet. “The Brando-like singer took a rubber-leg stance and sent ’em with his new musical style,” reported the Charlotte Observer. Girls leapt up onto their seats and waved their arms. One girl cut a flip right in front of the stage. When you stand outside the cold shell of the theater in 2012 barely a breath from a passerby is shared by way of offering what keeps rooted music warm. The remnants sit silent while ants, dust bugs and other tiny creations whisper of one day bringing light back to the misplaced stage. I performed there once. The electricity had to be shipped in by manmade machines set up next to outhouses nearly two floors from how I'd take the musical journey. Blinded by fate, deafened by honor...the experience became nothing more than a page slipped into a book that would take weeks if not months to locate. Old buildings...reverberations lost in refurbishing Generation X's current love game. But do they know what should be known; you know, this is the house where music was carried in crates and sweat stained guitar cases while South Carolina peach pits were spit into cups spilled sometime during the night falling between cracks in the stage. Rollingstone Magazine reports today that a London recording studio where Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and the Eurythmics have worked could become apartments. David Gray, who's also a musician, has applied to local authorities to convert Church Studios in North London into five apartments and office space, despite objections from some neighbors. Eurythmics partners Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart turned the former chapel into a studio in 1984, and the oak-paneled main room, one of the largest recording spaces remaining in London, has hosted sessions by Dylan, Costello, Radiohead and Depeche Mode. Gray bought Church Studios in 2003. He's best known for his platinum-selling 1998 album White Ladder. Gray's architect says the recording facilities "are now obsolete and do not offer a viable future for the building," though local residents say that losing the space would have "a significant effect on the vitality of the local arts scene" and the local musicians who use the space. Stewart once lived with Lennox in an apartment adjoining the studio, where they recorded songs including "Sweet Dreams." The songwriter and producer said recently on Facebook that he sympathizes with Gray. "It has so many memories for me," Stewart wrote. "Not just recording sessions. I would host evening soirees with poets, philosophers, musicians, etc. . . . Dylan would turn up with his band and hold court, or Joni Mitchell would play drums! Things have changed now. Music Scene is not the same, I understand him [David Gray] having to sell. I wasn't bothered about the cost of running it (always at a loss)." No date is set to consider Gray's application to convert the space, but the planning committee of the local council holds monthly meetings.