In the opening chapter of this little book, the author meets a singer named Jimmy Sacca. It happens in the parking lot outside a rural Kentucky roadhouse. McClanahan, a college student, has just puked on the fender of Sacca's car. He can't find his own car or the friends he came with. The tale progresses. Sacca is angry, but nevertheless is pursuaded to drive this, this drunk back to town, and on to the girl's dorm at the college—McClanahan's looking for his car, don't you see, and thinks one of the girls will know where it is. But it's in the wee morning hours, and how does one awaken a particular co-ed and not everyone in the neighborhood? It involves a serenade.

And I'm wondering who this Jimmy Sacca is. Is this a real person? And who is Ed McClanahan again?

I picked up this book years ago, primarily because I liked the R. Crumb drawing on the cover. The author was unknown to me, and remained so even after I'd read that first chapter. Although not billed as such, the book seems to be a collection of articles, and indeed, the copyright page extension (in the very back) notes that portions have appeared in Esquire, Playboy and other periodicals. With some help from my good friend Google, I've learned that Ed McClanahan published 7 or 8 books, most notably The Natural Man. He's a native Kentuckian, sometimes known as Captain Kentucky. (Jimmy Sacca, by the way, was the leader singer in the Hilltoppers, an early 1950s group formed by him and two classmates at Western Kentucky State College. Wikipedia has more.)

A later chapter in this memoir recounts McClanahan's associations with hippies in early 1960s San Francisco, his friendship with Ken Kesey, his involvement as a Merry Prankster. Another chapter is devoted to Carlos Toadvine, better known as Little Enis, the All-American, Left-handed, Upside-Down Guitar Player. In a closing chapter, he again meets Jimmy Sacca, now operating a "medium-sized, medium-nice Southern café" in Jackson, Mississippi. The jukebox has a whole selection of Hilltoppers records. Sacca, of course, doesn't know him. ( )