The Brooklyn Rail

A rockabilly singer and his backing band are hired to perform for a week at a club in Ft. Worth. When they arrive at the venue, which is called the Skyline Lounge, they are shocked to discover that the building has no roof. They learn that the roof was either blown off in a storm or burned in a fire, and that rather than use insurance money for a new roof, the operator of the club simply tore away the remnants of the old one and sought to attract customers with the promise of being able to dance to live music under the stars. The first night of their engagement, the musicians, whose pay is linked to how big an audience they attract, are dispirited to see only two couples in the large space. As they play, a one-armed go-go dancer emerges onto the dance floor. Her job is to encourage people to dance. Eventually, she gets both couples to leave their tables and start moving to the music, but within minutes an altercation breaks out between the couples, or at least between the two men, one of whom pulls out and fires some kind of weapon that releases clouds of teargas, leaving the band choking and crying. After this abysmal first-night show, the shady club operator, who grinds his teeth so constantly that the musicians are sure he is hooked on amphetamines, advises them to leave someone in the club overnight, preferably armed, to guard their equipment. Over the course of their week-long engagement, business improves slightly and they get to know their pill-popping employer a little better, but they are glad to bid farewell to the Skyline Lounge. Three months later, somewhere else on the road, the band members are watching television coverage about the shooting in Dallas of Lee Harvey Oswald. It takes them only a second to recognize Oswald’s killer as the jittery boss of the Skyline Lounge.

(Ronnie Hawkins, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Jacob Leon Rubenstein a.k.a. Jack Ruby)