*You’d hear it a little after 1 A.M. on Saturdays: Kenny Rogers’ “She Believes in Me.” This was 1979—the year Rogers had a hit with it—and the song was a staple on the playlist of the man who lived on the second floor of the apartment building next to mine, whom I called Cowboy Jim.
The proximity of the two three-story buildings on the Los Angeles corners of Beverly Blvd and Van Ness created a canyon of sound between them. On warm summer nights, with everyone’s windows open, you’d hear impressions of daily life bouncing off both buildings—house cats meowing, random laughter, one side of a phone call, and the audio from the TV shows “Dallas” and “Happy Days.” Someone’s shower running.
And on most Saturday nights, there’d be the carnal adventures of Cowboy Jim. I called him that because that’s what he looked like. Probably in his forties, he stood about six feet tall, tight T-shirt fit, with a comic-book hero’s jawline and weathered skin. I always saw him in jeans and those brown, well-worn cowboy boots. Under his tan cowboy hat was a blonde buzz cut.
Because many tenants parked on the street, I’d sometimes see Cowboy Jim out front, stepping out of his old white Ford pickup. The faded “America: Love it or leave it” bumper sticker in the right corner of the truck’s rear glass window told me everything—literally, since whenever I said, “Hiya doin’,” he’d respond only with a curt “Good.” Jim’s girlfriend, a middle-aged bleach blonde woman who usually wore a colorful muumuu and only seemed to appear on weekends, wasn’t much friendlier.
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On Saturday evenings, the gentle clatter of pots, pans, and cutlery signaled dinnertime at Cowboy Jim’s. There might be faint dialogue from a movie or a TV game show. By 1 a.m. on Sunday, lively conversation would fade into a soft murmur.
And then, the music–and the lovin’–would start.
Among the ballads, all of them country, presumably recorded on cassette or reel-to-reel, I recognized songs by George Strait, T. G. Sheppard, Dolly Parton, Charlie Rich, and Ray Charles’ cover of Don Gibson’s classic, “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” He sure couldn’t. Sometimes, above the music, the cooin’ and moanin’ and squeaking of mattress springs went on until just before the sun came up.
With Cowboy Jim being the only guy in the neighborhood sporting a cowboy hat and boots, it was easy to figure out where the country repertoire was seeping from. Once, a neighbor in the building yelled, “Get a room!” only to be countered by another neighbor yelling, “They’re IN their room!”
Cowboy Jim’s soundtrack for sensuality took me back to the moment I lost my virginity to the music of keyboardist Chick Corea’s Jazz-rock band, Return to Forever. It was 1975. I was 21 and hadn’t done more than kiss a girl. Fusion music might seem an unlikely backdrop for making love, but I wasn’t the D.J.; the woman who became my girlfriend turned me on to jazz-rock acts like Stanley Clarke, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tony Williams Lifetime, and Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow. Under optimum circumstances and several glasses of sherry, any music can contribute to one’s romantic pursuits.
Music has always been used as an aphrodisiac. When you make love to it, every note—the melody, the lyric, the instrumentation—can touch your soul, creating a lasting memory of the experience.
Songs have even been written about how music fuels passion. Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and songwriting partner Daryl Simmons wrote “In the Mood,” a ballad recorded by the Whispers about a man who fuels an amorous evening with his woman through wine, a candlelit dinner, and “some Marvin Gaye.”
Even Gaye, a master of the love song, got busy with his own creation on at least one occasion. Jan Gaye, his wife, once told me that one night in 1973, after they had started dating—she was 17 and he was 34 and separated from his first wife, Anna Gordy, Motown Chairman Berry Gordy’s sister—Gaye returned to their Los Angeles apartment from the studio with a tape of “Let’s Get It On,” which he had just recorded, to play for Jan. “By the second time he played it, we were in bed,” she said. “I was getting off on Marvin,” she added with a chuckle, “and Marvin was getting off on Marvin.”
Several Saturdays passed before I realized I hadn’t heard Cowboy Jim’s love ritual among the sounds coming from the building next door.
But one Saturday around three a.m., I was awakened by the faint yet unmistakable sound of two people having sex and, in the background, Peabo Bryson’s ballad “I Can Make It Better.” No truer words were sung, as these two were really going at it. Bryson was followed by Eddie Kendricks‘ sexy, entrancing “Intimate Friends” and Michael Henderson’s plea, “Be My Girl.” What the…? By the Major Harris slow-grind special, “Love Won’t Let Me Wait”—accompanied by even more real-time oohs and ahhs than the cheesy verbal ecstasy on the record’s fade—I suspected there was a new tenant in the building next door who loved gettin’ down with music.
Two days later, walking back to my apartment from the corner mailbox, I noticed a woman behind the wheel of a black Jeep convertible, wearing a royal blue halter top, her smooth, chocolate-colored skin sparkling in the afternoon sun as she struggled to parallel park in front of the building next to mine.
Shoulder-length cornrows framed a cherub-like face that made her look younger than a woman, maybe in her early 40s. When I reached the Jeep, I could see her faded cutoff denim jeans.
I said hello, and she shyly responded with her beautiful smile. “Am I parked straight? I’m a lousy parallel parker.”
I’d never seen her around here before. But being the sleuth that I am, I put two and two together: She’s new to the building next door. I’m guessing she and a partner moved in. Or perhaps she moved in alone, and the other evening a guy visited for a night of sex and soul. Either way, I’m pretty sure she was the one getting her groove on to those slow jams. I could appreciate her musical taste. And her smile.
Before I could come up with a clever reply to her parking question, an answer was called out from behind me. “You did great!” Coming down the walkway of his apartment building, Cowboy Jim looked different in a baseball cap. The boots and jeans remained.
Struggling to hide my utter bemusement, I offered my usual “Hiya doin’?” to the cowboy, who likewise gave me his customary terse “Good” as he strode past me toward the jeep. They shared a peck on the lips; he walked around the jeep to the driver’s side while she climbed into the passenger seat, all while gazing at him affectionately, and they were gone.
As they headed west on Beverly Blvd, I reluctantly came to a couple of conclusions: One, you can’t judge a man purely by the bumper sticker on his truck. Two, you shouldn’t assume that a white cowboy would have a problem whatsoever doin’ the do to some good ol’ R&B. My two plus two turned out to equal 3+3–the Isleys 3+3, to be exact–“For The Love of You.” Part one and Part two, no less.
Steven Ivory, veteran journalist, essayist, and author, writes and discusses popular culture across various platforms, including the Internet, TV, radio, documentaries, magazines, and newspapers. The Last Man on AOL is at [email protected]
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