The Fourth Rose

"Why did Pierre Salinger lose the senatorial election last fall in California? Because he wrote that dirty book, The Catcher in the Rye."

With that one-liner, a new young folk singer named Biff Rose begins his lead-in to a song extolling Salinger's conquer or, George Murphy, the actor-hoofer who is now the junior Senator from California. He then goes on to recite a poem about the days of the whaling ships, supplying the sound of the anchors schlurping up from the bottom and the howls of storms at sea. His hero, Captain Medford, was a big man in New Bedford, he explains, in an era when there were 700 whaling ships "and only about 200 whales."

Rose, it becomes obvious, is really a comedian masquerading with a banjo, and his singing is a spoof on the whole lank-locked, guitar-strumming generation. Folk singers who are convinced that poverty equals purity, he points out, are called "ethnic artists," and "ethnic," he explains, "means you make less than $10,000 a year." Rose is 27, and has all the equipment needed to make a great deal more. He usually works at Greenwich Village's Gaslight Cafe, but this week he will open at the Blue Dog in Baltimore.

When he comes onstage in sports jacket and dark slacks, he looks like the sort of joker who might have flunked out of Yale as a result of being over joyed by college life. Actually, he is a 1959 graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans. His father's name was Paul Rose, his mother was Pauline Rose, his sister's name is Paula, and his name is Paul Jr. Inevitably, neighbors called them The Four Roses. "On radio," says Biff, "the bad guys are always called Biff. I was an ugly, ugly baby, a big gangster baby, and Mother said I looked like a Biff."

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