And it was played by Mr. Graham, the itinerant music teacher who came to our gr. 6 class to ‘teach’ us music in 1961.
He was already prematurely grey-haired and wore a grey flannel suit. The boys really saw this class as a chance to goof whenever he dropped by to bring us the gift of music from an old, medium-sized, red hardcover book of songs for schools and a standard-issue, never-absolutely-tuned, upright piano.
I was somewhat fascinated by the sounds he could pull out of the instrument that, otherwise, lay dormant like a forgotten student in the corner of the wooden-floored classroom.
I used to request he play folk songs like “Early One Morning” and, in particular, “The Old Piano Roll Blues”: “C’mon, Mr. Graham, play us ‘The Old Piano Roll Blues!'” And, somewhat reluctantly, he would go over to it to quell the class noise from his general lack of control.
In the end, Mr. G. was a decent guy and a sincere music-lover, somewhat mild-mannered, and not really prepared to handle boisterous gr. 6 boys. But I liked him for playing my same request and for hanging in with this rowdy class.
I haven’t heard the song played since then, and looked it up on Google (you can find just about everything on Google) this morning and there were several renditions by the likes of people like Jimmy Durante and Liberace, ’50s entertainers whom no one ever talks about in our ‘Brave New World’.
I had no problem automatically remembering how Mr. Graham used to smile at the piano as I stood beside him and was awed by how vigorously and happily he could play this classic tune. In moments like that, he was truly into the music and no longer, unsuccessfully, vainly trying to bring culture to a bunch of poor Bannatyne brats.