Chords for Lala Brooks - The Crystals

_ The 60s was a tough time for African Americans trying to form a group.
I remember the movie, my favorite movie, the Five Heartbeat.
It really is about that right 60s kind of time period where the groups was trying to
form and they had all those obstacles.
What was it like and the challenges during that time for you?
Well, you know, when I was 13, I had my day of being angry.
I must say, I used to come home to my dad and my mom was from the north, my [Abm] dad was
from the south.
And I remember coming off tour, off a Dick Clark [B] tour and saying to dad, you know, I
hate those white people.
And my father would say to me, you know, Dolores, [N] Lala, don't talk like that, you know.
And I said, but you know, I'm not treated right.
And I'd sit up on the floor and I'd rage and I'd ramp and I'd say, you know what I should
do with them?
And you know, I mean, when you get older, you realize it's not about black and white.
But when you're young like that, you're not allowed to go to the bathrooms, you're not
allowed to sit and eat in the restaurants.
13 years old, 14 and 15 on tour like that, I was angry and I was pissed off.
And I came home and I took my straightening out of my hair, put my afro on and I said
to Angela Davis, holla. _ _
Okay, the challenges and all those things that was taking place in the 60s, because
it was drugs, so it was the flower child times, where [E] there's peace and war and kind of stuff.
So how did you stay away from not getting caught up in the drugs and all [B] those things?
Yeah, I was around all of it.
I was around the cocaine, the drugs, the heroin, anything you want.
I was around it.
I remember going into England and some [N] guys met us at the airport and we were working
in England with the Dave Block Five and Priscilla Clark and Dusty Springfield.
And a guy asked, did we want Purple Hearts?
I said, what is that?
And that was a drug.
But you know how to refuse, because since I came from gospel, not only singing was instilled
in me, but the faith was instilled with me.
God was instilled with me.
So my mom, I never deviated from what I was taught from her by God.
So I never got into drugs and alcohol, never did.
Never did.
[B] And the tours lasted sometimes for three or five months.
We'd stop and we'd go back.
But for some reason, I just had so much fear of the Creator and I always was focused.
I saw a lot of my friends wasn't focused, but I can't condemn anybody and say that I'm
any better, but I was in a better place spiritually.
And I'm thankful for that.
How is it like, my goodness, having the opportunity to be around Dick Clark?
Dick Clark was a sweetheart.
He really was a sweetheart.
I think Dick Clark had a problem with racism.
Is because when we did the Dick Clark tours, nobody knows that Diana Ross and all of us
when we were on tour, we weren't allowed to stay in the hotels as the white artists.
Because we worked with Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vinton, Fabian, oh God, so many white artists
that was on tour with us.
But they would stay at the Sheraton Hotel [C] and we would stay at something called the
Ghana with [G] little roaches and little mice running around their friends.
That's what friends are for.
So, I mean, it wasn't Dick Clark's fault.
And sometimes we would climb up on the mountain, like a hill to meet the bus.
And we'd be crawling in without baggage because the motel was down in like a ditch [Eb] where the
Sheraton was up like on the ground level.
[A] And so the [Abm] white artists would go to the Sheraton Hotel.
We would go to the Ghana Motel, which wasn't that nice.
And when Dick would have to pick us up to go to the other place where we had to work
on tour, we would be down the hill, like a mountain, sort of like a hill.
And we'd climb up there to meet them on the highway so they could pick up us on the highway.
And then when it came for eating, we wasn't allowed to go to the restaurants and eat on
the Dick Clark tours.
So what Dick would do is go and order the food in the restaurant.
And his partner, which was like a valet for him, would bring all the food on the bus.
And that's how we ate.
I remember one incident, you know, Diana Ross is [Ab] Diana Ross.
You know, I mean, I love her for who she is.
But she got off the bus like, I am Diana Ross and I'm going in the restaurant.
And all of a sudden we looked and Diana Ross was coming back.
We said, girl, what happened?
You know, because she was running off with the white kids.
I mean, the white artists, you know.
And we just was long and we was taking long [B] to get off the bus thinking that we would
be able to eat in that [F] restaurant.
[B] But she was like Diana Ross, I'm going, you know.
And so we were taking slow and getting off the bus.
All of a sudden we saw Diana Ross coming back.
We said, what happened?
What up?
No matter was with the white people or not, you wasn't going in there.
So she was coming back, but [Bb] they was going back in [F] there to eat.
So that's when Dick Clark said, no, [B] you know, if one can't go, the other one won't go.
All of us will eat on the bus.
And we take, he would [F] take like notes who wanted hamburgers or whatever like that.
And that's how we did it.
Go into the next [Gb] gig.
This is, you know, 1960, 63, 64, [B] 65, you know, that little time period.
So give us a little, a [Db] little, you know, a little snippet of one of those songs during that time.
I'm gonna let you hold the mic on this one.
[Bb] Oh, God.
Well, they know I did to do run run.
It was like a man.
I'm on a Monday and my heart's still still do run, run, run.
Yes, [B] my heart's still.
[F] Yes, his name was Bill.
And when he [G] walked me home to do run, run, run, to do run, [E] run. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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