This site should appear as the creator intended if viewed in Explorer 3.0 or higher.  Netscape should be OK too.  Users of other browsers are up a creek and must paddle as best they can.



The Blue Flames is certainly among the most obscure rock and roll groups of all time.  They never recorded, appeared in public only about four times, and disbanded more than 40 years ago at a time when none of the members was old enough to buy a beer.

So why are they worthy of mention at all?  Well, what is the Internet for if not to locate the previously unlocatable?  I'm looking for anyone who remembers this group, has a photograph of them, or is otherwise able to shed some light on its existence.

To start the ball rolling, here's what I already know:

The Blue Flames were formed in Charleston, West Virginia, by a group of at least four teenage boys, two of whom lived in the Village Apartments in Kanawha City.  The group's sole claim to fame was the ability to play an arrangement of the song "Tequila" in a manner that somewhat resembled the hit version recorded by "The Champs."

This is the only known photograph of "The Blue Flames," taken in May or June 1958, when the group was hired to play for a junior high school dance, possibly at a country club in the "South Hills" area of Charleston.  Each member of the group was paid $5.00 for the evening.  Not all members are shown.  The trumpeter is not in the shot and there may have been another member, as well.

The group appeared on at least three other occasions, one of them at the Horace Mann School auditorium in Kanawha City.  How this engagement came about is not clear, as the school is remembered as an elementary school.  However, at some point after 1952, the school changed from an elementary school (grades 1 to 6) to a junior high school (grades 7 to 9).  If this happened prior to 1958, perhaps one of the members of the group was still a student there.

The zenith of the group's career occurred during the Spring of 1958.  Somehow, its existence came to the attention of local record hop host "Dick Reid."  The Blue Flames were invited to audition for an appearance on his local TV show, a sort of poor man's version of Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Here we see the weekly sheet, issued by WCHS-TV, containing Dick Reid's Top 30 record hits, his weekly picks, and announcements of upcoming events.  Click the image for a larger view of this sheet.

The telecast took place on Saturday, April 26, 1958, and The Blue Flames performed their signature tune - "Tequila."  Returning to the neighborhood, after the telecast, the group members received the reviews of their friends, who had loyally sat before their TV sets on a sunny Saturday afternoon: "Why were you so stiff?  Why didn't you move around more?  You just stood there."

Detail from the "Record Hop" sheet announces the live TV appearance of "The Blue Flames," as well as that of a future date.

This was the pinnacle of local success -- appearing before a live audience at the Midelburg Skating Rink in downtown Charleston, on the same stage with local rockabilly favorite "Eddy Seacrist."  Seacrist actually had a record out!  He had toured with Lloyd Price!  The boys were well received and even allowed to perform a second number, their version of Chuck Berry's "Browneyed Handsome Man."

And then ... they were gone.  The group broke up over the summer of 1958.  They have long been forgotten, perhaps even by each other.  What were their names?  Well, one of them was Jim.  If anyone who is reading these words knows something more, please contact me.  I'll see that your information reaches the proper authorities.

Please feel free to e-mail me with your comments.



If you would like to support this page and save yourself some money in the process, please consider shopping for your books, CDs, and videos from Amazon.com.


Just click one of these icons and bookmark or make a favorite of the page it takes you to.  Thereafter, your purchases from Amazon will produce a small credit to yours truly.  The eBay icon takes you to a list of items that my alter ego, Otto, is offering at auction this week.

MORE?   Many other areas of the "Popular Culture Excavation Site" await you.  Full descriptions are on the main menu or go directly to the area of your choice by clicking one of these seductive little images.

The Katzenjammer KidsWillie the KOOL penguinMistinguettCarl "Duck Man" BarksSvend AsmussenTim "Kingfish" MooreWestern SwingHazel CourtRhythm and Blues RevuesEuropean Jazz and Close Harmony Vocal GroupsThe Pie Girl DinnerSally RandWLAC Radio: Nashville

Who are these guys?  Just place your cursor on each image to get a clue.

Return to the main menu.


On May 18, 2002, the 5th anniversary of the creation of the main site, hosting of this page was transferred from Yahoo/GeoCities to an independent server.  You are the most recent of the #!/usr/local/bin/perl5 use GD; alarm(600); # cgi-bin access counter program # Version 4.0.7 # # Copyright (C) 1995 George Burgyan # # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at # your option) any later version. # # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but # WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU # General Public License for more details. # # A full copy of the GNU General Public License can be retrieved from # http://www.webtools.org/counter/copying.html # # gburgyan@webtools.org # # George Burgyan # 1380 Dill Road # South Euclid, OH 44121 # # For more information look at http://www.webtools.org/counter/ ######################################################################## # # CHANGE THESE TO SUIT YOUR SITE # # The default language option (english, french, swedish) $default_lang = "english"; # The name of the file to use. You should probably give this an absolute path $FileName = "$ENV{'DOCUMENT_ROOT'}/counter/access_count"; # Replace with a list of regular expression IP addresses that we # are supposed to ignore. If you don't know what this means, just use # "\." instead of periods. Comment out entirely to ignore nothing. #@IgnoreIP = ("199\.18\.203\..*", # "199\.18\.159\.1", # ); # Aliases: Set this up so that diffent pages will all yield the same # count. For instance, if you have a link like "index.html -> home.html" # set it up like ("/index.html", "/home.html"). Make sure you give a full # path to it. This will treat "/index.html" as if it were "/home.html". %Aliases = ("/fakename.html", "/realname.html", "/index.html", "/home.html", ); # AUTOMATICALLY SET BY INSTALL!! Modify only if necessary!!! # # BaseName: set to whatever you have counter installed as. This is # used to derive the arguments. No not touch the next comment. ### AUTOMAGIC ### $BaseName = "counter"; # counter or counterbanner or counterfiglet # # Outputs the number of times a specific page has been accessed. # The output depends on which page 'called' it, and what the program # is named: # # The counter can "take arguments" via its name. That is, if you tack # -arg to the end of the program name, -arg is taken to be an argument. # For example, if you call the counter 'counter-ord', '-ord' is considered # an argument, and an ordinal count (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) will be printed # instead of (1, 2, 3, ...). Note that counterord does the same thing as # counter-ord for backward compatibility. # # Currently recognized arguments: # # -f=font sets "font" to be the font for figlet # -lang=lang sets the language used to ordinalize to "lang" # -nc no count; don't to write the incremented count back to the file # -nl no link; don't automatically generate a link # -nd no display; don't display anything, just count # -ord make an ordinal count instead of regular # -doc=document override the DOCUMENT_URI environment variable # # Example: counterfiglet-ord-f=bigfont-nc # # This will cause the counter to call figlet as the output routine, printing # in a big font an ordinal count, without updating the access count file. # Note that the order of arguments is irrelevant so long as you spell the # file name correctly. It is generally assumed that the ability to take # different arguments/use different output routines is done with symlinks: # i.e. ln -s counter counterfiglet-ord-f=bigfont-nc # # More complete documentation can be found at # http://www.webtools.org/counter/ # ######################################################################## # # Thing that shouldn't really need changing, but are configurable anyway. # # Maximum number of times to try to lock the file. # Each try is .1 second. Try for 1 second. $MaxTries = 10; # Set this to point to something, or comment it out, and it # won't be a link at all. # $Link = "http://www.webtools.org/counter/"; # Whether or not to use locking. If perl complains that flock is not # defined, change this to 0. Not *really* necessary because we check # to make sure it works properly. $UseLocking = 0; # What version of the counter file format are we using? $FileVersion = "02.000"; # Common names of the counter to install... @CommonExtensions = ("-ord", # Ordinam "figlet", # Figlet'ed "figlet-ord",# Ordinal figlet "banner", # Bannered "banner-ord",# Ordinal banner ); # ######################################################################### # # Misc documents to refer people to in case of errors. # $CreateFile = "[Error Creating Counter File -- Click for more info]"; $AccessRights = "[Error Opening Counter File -- Click for more info]"; $TimeoutLock = "[Timeout locking counter file]"; $BadVersion = "[Version access_count newer than this program. Please upgrade.]"; ######################################################################### # # The actual program! ### Stage 1 ### ### Parse the arguments... (just ignore this part) # Get arguments from program name. Argh...what a horrible way to do it! $prog = $0; $prog =~ s/(\.cgi|\.pl)//; #strip .cgi|.pl name extension $prog =~ s!^(.*/)!!; # separate program name $prog =~ s/\\(.)/sprintf("%%%02x", ord($1))/ge; # quote \c to %xx ($printer, @args) = split(/-/, $prog); # args are separated by dashes $printer =~ s/%(..)/pack("c", hex($1))/ge; # unquote printer function name $printer =~ s/$BaseName/counter/; # Make it cannonical. # This gets path info, which is only applicable if you are using our # ssis script (see above). This makes counter/ord the same as counter-ord push(@args, split("/", $ENV{"PATH_INFO"})) if $ENV{"PATH_INFO"}; # put them in assoc array %arg foreach (@args) # means do this for each element in the array { s/%(..)/pack("c", hex($1))/ge; # unquote %xx /^([^=]*)=?(.*)$/; # extract "=" part, if any $arg{$1} = $2 ? $2 : 1; } if ($ARGV[0] eq '-install') { &CheckPerl; &SetBaseName; &MakeCommon(0); exit(0); } if ($ARGV[0] eq '-installforce') { &CheckPerl; &SetBaseName; &MakeCommon(1); exit(0); } if ($ARGV[0] eq '-unlock') { open(FILE,"$FileName"); &UnlockFile(FILE); exit(0); } undef $Link if $arg{'nl'}; # make link? ### Stage 2 ### ### Print out the header # Print out the header print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; #print "Debug 1: $ConfName
Debug 2: $FileName"; ### Stage 3 ### ### Open the access_count file for read-write taking all the precautions # Make sure the file exists: if (!(-f $FileName)) { if (!open (COUNT,">$FileName")) { # Can't create the file print $CreateFile; exit 1; } else { # We got the file, print out the version number print COUNT "$FileVersion\n"; $version = 2; } } else { if (!((-r $FileName) && (-w $FileName))) { # Make sure that we can in fact read and write to the file in # question. If not, direct them to the FAQ. print $AccessRights; exit 1; } if (!open (COUNT,"+<$FileName")) { # Now make sure it *really* opens print $AccessRights; # ...just in case... exit 1; } # Try to read in a version number $version = ; if (!($version =~ /^\d+.\d+$/)) { # No version number, assume version 1 and reset the file. $version = 1; seek(COUNT,0,0); } } # This is for the future: the access_count file will have a version number. if ($version > 2) { print $BadVersion; exit 1; } ### Stage 4 ### ### Attempt to lock the file $lockerror = &LockFile(COUNT); # You would figure that $MaxTries would equal 0 if it didn't work. The # post-decrement takes it to -1 when the loop finally exits. if ($lockerror) { print $TimeoutLock; exit(0); } ### Stage 5 ### ### Check if we need to update the file to a newer version if ($version < 2) { &UpdateVersion1; } ### Stage 6 ### ### Convert the information the server gave us into the document ### identifier. # Make sure perl doesn't spit out warnings... if (defined $ENV{'DOCUMENT_URI'}) { $doc_uri = $ENV{'DOCUMENT_URI'}; } else { $doc_uri = ""; } # Campatibility: Version 2 files have the server name in front if and # only if it doesn't have a "~" in it. $old_uri = $doc_uri; # Add the server name in front to support multi-homed hosts if and only if # it doesn't have a "~" in it. (usernames are global in most multi-homed # settings if (defined $ENV{'SERVER_NAME'} && !($doc_uri =~ /~/)) { $doc_uri = $ENV{'SERVER_NAME'} . "/" . $doc_uri; } if (defined $arg{'doc'}) { $doc_uri = $arg{'doc'}; } $doc_uri = $Aliases{$doc_uri} if defined $Aliases{$doc_uri}; ### Stage 7 ### ### Find the relevant place in the file $location = tell COUNT; while ($line = ) { # Read the file line-by-line. if (($uri,$accesses) = ($line =~ /^'(\S*)' (\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d)$/)) { # An old line if ($uri eq $old_uri) { &ConvertDocV1($doc_uri,$old_uri,$accesses,$location); last; } } elsif (($uri,$accesses,$flags) = ($line =~ /^'(\S*)' (\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d\d) (\w\w\w\w)$/)) { # A new line if ($uri eq $doc_uri) { $flags = hex($flags); last; } } last if ($uri eq $doc_uri); $location = tell COUNT; #reset the fields $accesses = 0; $flags = 0; } ### Stage 8 ### ### Update the access count of the file $accesses += 1; # *NOT* '++' because we don't want '++'s magic ### Stage 9 ### ### Figure out what to print out # If we have to ordinalize, do it now. if (defined $arg{'ord'}) { if (defined $arg{'lang'}) { $ord = eval("&ordinalize_$arg{lang}($accesses)"); } else { $ord = &ordinalize($accesses); } } else { $ord = ""; } $to_print = $accesses . $ord; # Give it to the printer function to actually produce the output from the # ascii text that we have (to_print) ($count, $nLink) = eval("&output_$printer('$to_print')"); # If the above line gave us an error, default to just the text. if ($@) { ($count, $nLink) = &output_counter($to_print); } ### Stage 10 ### ### Now we actually tell the browser what the count is. if (! $arg{"nd"} ) { # If we print anything # Print out a link to something informative (if we were requested to) $script_name = $ENV{'SCRIPT_NAME'}; print "" if $nLink; if ($script_name =~ /cgi-bin\/count(\w+)/) { $img_dir = $1; } if ($img_dir ne "er") { &give_graphic } else { print $count; print "" if $nLink; } } sub give_graphic { @img_count = split(//,$count); foreach (@img_count) { print ""; }; } sub comment1 { # create a new image print "Content-type: image/gif\n\n"; $im = new GD::Image(100,100); # allocate some colors $white = $im->colorAllocate(255,255,255); $black = $im->colorAllocate(0,0,0); $red = $im->colorAllocate(255,0,0); $blue = $im->colorAllocate(0,0,255); # make the background transparent and interlaced $im->transparent($white); $im->interlaced('true'); # Put a black frame around the picture $im->rectangle(0,0,99,99,$black); # Draw a blue oval $im->arc(50,50,95,75,0,360,$blue); # And fill it with red $im->fill(50,50,$red); # Convert the image to GIF and print it on standard output print $im->gif; } ### Stage 11 ### ### Check if we are supposed to update the count in the file. (ie. we're ### not ignoring the host that just accessed us) # Make sure we are not ignoring the host: $ignore = 0; $ignore = grep($ENV{"REMOTE_ADDR"} =~ /$_/, @IgnoreIP) if defined ($ENV{"REMOTE_ADDR"}); $ignore = $ignore || $arg{"nc"}; ### Stage 12 ### ### Actually write the updated information back to the file if (!$ignore) # If we aren't ignoring this access { # Now update the counter file seek(COUNT, $location, 0); $longaccesses = sprintf("%010.10d", $accesses); $hexflags = sprintf("%04.4x", $flags); print COUNT "'$doc_uri' $longaccesses $hexflags\n"; } &UnlockFile(COUNT); close COUNT; ####################################################################### # # Support functions # # translate_output # # Quote any special characters with HTML quoting. sub translate_output { local($string) = @_; $_ = $string; s/è/è/g; return $_; } sub LockFile { local(*FILE) = @_; local($TrysLeft) = $MaxTries; if ($UseLocking) { # Try to get a lock on the file while ($TrysLeft--) { # Try to use locking, if it doesn't use locking, the eval would # die. Catch that, and don't use locking. # Try to grab the lock with a non-blocking (4) exclusive (2) lock. # (4 | 2 = 6) $lockresult = eval("flock(COUNT,6)"); if ($@) { $UseLocking = 0; last; } if (!$lockresult) { select(undef,undef,undef,0.1); # Wait for 1/10 sec. } else { last; # We have gotten the lock. } } } if ($TrysLeft >= 0) { # Success! return 0; } else { return -1; } } sub UnlockFile { local(*FILE) = @_; if ($UseLocking) { flock(FILE,8); # Unlock the file. } } #################################################################### # # Installation helpers # # SetBaseName # # Change the counter program itself to set the basename sub SetBaseName { local($name) = $0; $name =~ s/^.*\/([^\/]+)$/$1/; # Strip off any of the path if ($name eq $BaseName) { # The way we're set up now!!! return; # Don't need to change a thing. } if (!open(COUNTERFILE, "+<$0")) { print "Can't modify program. Set \$BaseName manually.\n"; return; } print "Configuring \$BaseName variable...\n"; local($oldsep) = $/; undef($/); local($program) = ; # The next line does all the magic. $program =~ s/\#\#\# AUTOMAGIC \#\#\#\n\$BaseName = \"[^\"]+\";\n/\#\#\# AUTOMAGIC \#\#\#\n\$BaseName = \"$name\";\n/; seek(COUNTERFILE,0,0) || return; truncate(COUNTERFILE,0); print COUNTERFILE $program; close COUNTERFILE; } # CheckPerl # # Make sure that the "#! /[path]/perl" points to something real... sub CheckPerl { if (!open(COUNTERFILE, "<$0")) { print "Can't check to make sure Perl is in the right place.\n"; return; } print "Checking to make sure Perl is found properly...\n"; $firstline = ; ($command) = ($firstline =~ /^\#! *([^\s]+) *$/); close(COUNTERFILE); if (! -x $command) { print "The location of Perl is misconfigured. Please edit the\n"; print "first line of this program to point to the locally installed\n"; print "copy of perl.\n\n"; print "Currently, it is configured to be \"$command\", however,\n"; print "that file either does not exist or is not a program.\n\n"; print "Some common locations for Perl are:\n"; print " /usr/bin/perl\n"; print " /usr/local/bin/perl\n"; print " /bin/perl\n"; print " /opt/gnu/bin/perl\n\n"; exit; } } # MakeCommon # # Make some common links to the counter sub MakeCommon { local($force) = @_; local($ext); print "Installing the counter...\n"; print " ...making counter executable\n"; chmod(0755,$0); local($path, $name, $cgi); $name = $0; if ($name =~ /^(.*\/)([^\/]+)$/) { $path = $1; $name = $2; } if ($name =~ /^(.*)(\.cgi)$/) { $name = $1, $cgi = $2; } foreach $ext (@CommonExtensions) { print " ...making link from $path$name$cgi to $path$name$ext$cgi\n"; if (!&MakeLink("$path$name$cgi","$path$name$ext$cgi",$force)) { # An error occured while making the link. :-( print " *** An error occured while making the link.\n"; } } if ($symlink_exists == 0 && $link_exists == 0) { print "* NOTE * Your system does not support symbolic or hard links,\n"; print " copies made instead. If you modify the counter, you must\n"; print " run counter -install again to recopy it to the other files.\n"; } print "...done!\n"; } # MakeLink # # Actually create the link. sub MakeLink { local($oldname,$newname,$force) = @_; # Check to see if we can make symbolic links instead of hard links if (!defined $symlink_exists) { $symlink_exists = (eval 'symlink("","");', $@ eq ''); } # Check to see if we can make a link if we can't make a symlink if (!symlink_exists) { $link_exists = (eval 'link("","");', $2 eq ''); } if ($force) { # Check to see if the file exists if (-e $newname) { if (!unlink ($newname)) { return 0; } } } if ($symlink_exists) { return symlink($oldname, $newname); } elsif ($link_exists) { return link($oldname, $newname); } else { # Copy it the old-fashioned way... *sigh* open(OLDFILE, $oldname) || die "Can't open $oldname for copy"; open(NEWFILE, ">$newname") || die "Can't open $newname for write"; while() { print NEWFILE $_; } close(NEWFILE); close(OLDFILE); } } #################################################################### # # Ordinalizing functions # # ordinalize # # Call the appropriate ordinalize function for the default language sub ordinalize { local($count) = @_; if (defined $arg{'lang'}) { return eval("&ordinalize_$arg{lang}($count)"); } else { return eval("&ordinalize_$default_lang($count)"); } } # ordinalize_english # # Figure out what suffix (st, nd, rd, th) a number would have in ordinal # form and return that extension. sub ordinalize_english { local($count) = @_; local($last, $last2); $last2 = $count % 100; $last = $count % 10; if ($last2 < 10 || $last2 > 13) { return "st" if $last == 1; return "nd" if $last == 2; return "rd" if $last == 3; } return "th"; # Catch "eleventh, twelveth, thirteenth" etc. } # ordinalize_french # # Trivial... Return the extension for french. The only exception is 1. # Thank you Chris Polewczuk sub ordinalize_french { local ($count) = @_; if ($count == 1) { return "'ière"; } else { return "ième"; } } # ordinalize_swedish # # A function to ordinalize in Swedish. Thanks go to Johan Linde # for the code! sub ordinalize_swedish { local($count) = @_; local($last, $last2); $last2 = $count % 100; $last = $count % 10; if ($last2 < 10 || $last2 > 12) { return ":a" if ($last == 1 || $last == 2); } return ":e"; } ######################################################################## # # Output functions # # The following are the routines that actually convert the number # of accesses into something that we print out. # # The name of each function is "output_" followed by the program's name. # For instance, is the program is called "counter" then "output_counter" # will be called; a program called "counterbanner" will call # "output_counterbanner" to get the output. # # If the function is not defined, then "output_counter" will be called. # # output_counter # # The simplest function: just returns the number of accesses and the link. sub output_counter { local($count) = @_; return &translate_output($count), $Link; # we return the count and the link } # output_counterord # # Return the number of accesses as an ordinal number. (ie. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) sub output_counterord { local($count) = @_; return &translate_output($count . &ordinalize($count)), $Link; } # output_counterbanner # # A somewhat silly one that uses the "banner" command to print out the # count. :) You might need to change the path to make it work. sub output_counterbanner { local($count) = @_; $banner = `banner $count`; return "

$banner
"; # return no link here (it would be annoying) } # output_counterfiglet # # An even sillier one than counterbanner. :) sub output_counterfiglet { local($count) = @_; $fig = "echo $count | /usr/games/figlet"; # setup command line $fig .= " -f $arg{'f'}" if $arg{"f"}; # use a different font? $fig = `$fig`; $fig =~ s!&!&!g; $fig =~ s!
" . $fig . "
"; # note no link here, either } ######################################################################### # # Conversion functions # # UpdateVersion # # Convert a version 1file into a version 2 file. sub UpdateVersion1 { local ($contents,$dummy); local ($oldsep) = $/; $/ = ""; seek(COUNT,0,0); # Go to the beginning of the file $contents = ; seek(COUNT,0,0); print COUNT "$FileVersion\n"; print COUNT $contents; seek(COUNT,0,0); $/ = $oldsep; $dummy = ; # Skip the new line } # ConvertDocV1 # # Convert the a version 1 line into a version 2 line sub ConvertDocV1 { local ($doc_uri,$old_uri,$accesses,$location) = @_; local ($contents,$dummy,$oldsep); $oldsep = $/; seek (COUNT,$location,0); # Skip the line in question $dummy = ; $/ = ""; # Read in the whole file $contents = ; seek (COUNT,$location,0); local ($longaccesses,$hexflags); $longaccesses = sprintf("%010.10d", $accesses); $hexflags = sprintf("%04.4x", $flags); # Print out the new stuff print COUNT "'$doc_uri' $longaccesses $hexflags\n"; print COUNT $contents; $/ = $oldsep; } cognoscenti who have ventured to this page since that date.


This page created and maintained by Jim Lowe
First appearance:  May 4, 1999
Last updated:  May 4, 1999

© 1999 by James R. Lowe, who reserves all rights to the content of this page not successfully claimed by others.