A 50-Year Memory: Video of the Month

Continuing to look at 1966's popular music. I was halfway through my last summer before college. The first week of July Frank Sinatra made a big comeback with a great song. It went on to win Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards for 1966.

Doobie, Doobie, Do...

But let's not forget the younger generation. The last week of June and the 2nd week of July found this quartet at the top.

Unfortunately, these classics were followed by two weeks of Tommy James. From my point of view, that's enough to say.

A 50-Year Memory: Video for June

As June began, I was no longer a high school student. A summer of freedom was ahead. I was working as a cashier at the local swimming pool, learning to swim in private lessons with one of the lifeguards, and probably getting nervous about heading off to college in the fall.

On the radio as I graduated and moved into June:

Two weeks in May/June at #1:
When A Man Loves A Woman- Percy Sledge

Trivia: this was the first number 1 hit recorded in Muscle Shoals. It is also one of seven number 1 hits to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 100.

Then the Stones came roaring into town:

Two weeks in June at #1:
Paint It, Black- The Rolling Stones

Trivia: the third number one hit single for he Stones in the US and sixth in the UK. Since its initial release, the song has remained influential as the first number one hit featuring a sitar.


I'll save these guys until next month. They took top spot on the last week of June.
One week in June at #1:
Paperback Writer- The Beatles

Just for Fun

Buck Owens made it a country hit.
The Beatles put it on the "B" side of Yesterday and made it big for Ringo.

Twenty-some years later Buck and Ringo did it together.

Just for some Tuesday fun!

The Soundtrack of Half a Century

We often speak of the popular music of given eras as providing soundtracks for different generations. Each of us has that particular set of songs or musical artists who define the music of our adolescence. Sitting in Target Center in Minneapolis on May 4 I realized that, even for my cohort, the oldest group of Baby Boomers, that line is too limiting for Paul McCartney and the Beatles. They have provided, together and separately, a soundtrack for at least half a century.

Over the years a number of friends and acquaintances have been to McCartney concerts and reported that it was one of the most amazing concert experiences of their lives. When tickets for the Target Center concert popped up on my Facebook feed the last week of April, I jumped at them. The dream of my lifetime was to see the Beatles in concert. They stopped touring as the Beatles 50 years ago this summer. But here was Sir Paul. Why not?

Personally I was a little worried before the concert started. As the 8:00 starting time approached there were still about 20% of the seats empty. Has Paul lost his following? Are people leaving the Beatles behind. By the time the concert began, though, almost every seat was filled.My guess is that the security lines were too long.

In any case we waited. It was 45 minutes more of what I can only call the worst music experience in a live music setting.

No it wasn't an opening group. It was a techno-beat soundtrack mix of Beatles/McCartney music. It was too loud and far too techno. For a total of over 75 minutes I felt I was being pounded into submission by a relentless beat. (I have never taken the drug Ecstasy, but I think I understand why clubbers do.) I was actually worried that by the time McCartney took the stage I would be so beaten down that I wouldn't enjoy the show.

Yeah, right.

Not a chance.

Here are ten of my pictures from the concert along with some more thoughts. A link to my complete album on Flickr is at the bottom along with a link to the setlist online.

The first seven songs of the set:

A Hard Day's Night
Save Us
Can't Buy Me Love
Letting Go
Temporary Secretary (A real dud in my book. The only one.)
(A Foxy Lady snippet)
I've Got a Feeling
My Valentine (for his current wife, Nancy)

From City Pages review:

If death hung heavy in the air — and constant reminders of John Lennon, George Harrison, Linda McCartney, producer George Martin, and Prince made sure that it did — the mood was still celebratory. We're witnessing pages of rock history come to life, after all, and the knighted, mythic creature performing the songs still seems to believe in their power. The packed crowd of around 19,000 did, too.

Paul mentioned the late great Jimi Hendrix after the Foxy Lady riff and then said he was dedicating the concert to our own late, great Prince. He told of seeing Prince perform at a small cafe this past New Year's Eve. "We saw the new year in together and that was beautiful — God bless you Prince!"

Prince. Minneapolis.
Minneapolis. Prince.
It goes together.

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
Here, There and Everywhere
Maybe I'm Amazed (for his late wife, Linda.)
We Can Work It Out

In Spite of All the Danger (The Quarrymen song)
You Won't See Me
Love Me Do (Dedicated to George Martin who died in March)
And I Love Her
Blackbird

The Quarrymen song went back to 1959 when it was Paul, John, and George and "two other guys" that he told us we wouldn't know. He said their nicknames, and everyone laughed. We didn't know them. It was a country-style, skiffle/rock-a-billy song. He even tried to wiggle and jiggle like Elvis. Applause and laughter!

He told a story of George Martin, the Beatles' superlative producer asking Paul to do the singing on "Love Me Do" so John could play the harmonica. Without George Martin, he said, there wouldn't have been the Beatles.

Then there was "Blackbird." He mentioned that they wrote it in solidarity with the people in Little Rock, Arkansas, who were standing up for civil rights. It was a beautiful rendition with appropriate video accompanying him.While singing he was lifted on a hydraulic stage section. A little over done.

Here Today
Queenie Eye
New Song
The Fool on the Hill
Lady Madonna
FourFiveSeconds
   (Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney cover)
Eleanor Rigby
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
Something

 He started "Here Today" by saying it was written to John Lennon. Sadly, he said, it was "a conversation we never had." He urged the audience to say what they needed to say to the people they cared about while they had the chance.

He started "Something," a George Harrison song, by playing it on the ukulele which he said was how George first played it for him. It continued into a guitar slashing of highest quality!

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Band on the Run
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Let It Be
Live and Let Die

To quote the City Pages reviewer:

Paul performing "Let It Be" at the piano is all any music fan could really ask for.

With "U.S.S.R." he told an anecdote about being in Russia and having Russian officials tell him about listening to the Beatles' music. It was one of a number of times that Paul truly made it a personal evening, befitting the tour's title, One on One

"Live and Let Die," the heavy-duty title rocker from the James Bond film, gave us all a start when the pyrotechnics started. Sure, it was over-the-top, but it fit!

Hey Jude

Even as a sing-along, this one still moves across the ages. Take a sad song, and make it better.

Encores:
Yesterday

In many ways the most moving moment of the show for this old Beatles' fan was the opening encore number- Paul's acoustic rendition of "Yesterday." It kept its power with the strings being added through the miracle of electronic keyboard. As Wikipedia reminds us, "Yesterday":

remains popular today with more than 2,200 cover versions and is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. "Yesterday" was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year.

The song was released as my senior year in high school began in September 1965. Hearing Paul sing it in May 2016 was nothing short of a spiritual connection across this half-century. The lighting, as I looked at it, started at that small moment in time, the spot on the stage, in 1965 and spread out into today. I know the lights were pointing down, but the meaning of the lights seemed to me a metaphor for the song itself, rising from that spot into its place in popular music history.

Hi, Hi, Hi
Let's Go Crazy (Prince cover)

He followed that short cover with a statement in honor of Prince.

He's your guy.

Birthday
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight

The End

And in the end, the love you take

is equal to the love you make.

Okay- I was prepared to be disappointed. The techno-crap before the concert did not do justice to the evening. I tried to keep my expectations as low as possible even though in my mind I kept saying, "I'm going to see one of the Beatles. My God, really! The Beatles!" I never expected to see any of them in live concert. After seeing my personal idol Herb Alpert last fall I knew that the older group of my generation's music can still do their thing. Alpert was 80 at the time. McCartney turns 74 next month. John and George are gone. But a 73-year old McCartney? Does he still have it?

Well, expectations are meant to be lived up to more often than they are broken. The initial reality of seeing Paul there, in person, playing those songs gave way to the joy and celebration of these past 50 years of his music- my music- our music. He looked older and had a sense of maintaining his energy while letting it out as appropriate for what he does today. He sounded like he had a cold and had some difficulty making the full range of the older vocals. But, as the accomplished performer he is, he made that part of the awe of the show.

He can still do it. He can still make these songs real and alive. There were, at times, even signs of the old Beatles' smart-alack attitude as he yelled back and forth with fans in the audience or gave the audience that old, much younger, Paul McCartney grin. I am grateful, by the way, for the large projection screens that allowed everyone to see and react to him, in person, almost one on one. The Beatles started the use of patterns and psychedelic images in some of their videos, so that felt like a good way to add to the overall ambience of the show.

The show itself was about two hours and forty-five minutes- with no breaks! He started and never stopped. He played three dozen songs. Acoustic. Classic Rock. Beatles songs. The audience was with him from the word "Go!" While tending to be a lot of Boomers, the crowd covered at least three generations. Sir Paul himself predates the Boomers who are starting to turn 70 years old this year.

Seventy!

And right there, on the stage was one of our icons. It didn't make me feel younger- or older, actually. It was more of a celebration of our 50+ years together with the music. It reminded us of the innocence of our youth and young adulthood. It reminded us of the ups and downs of life with loss and death always hanging around. Yet in the end the loss and death do not win.

The music does.

And we are better for it.

Thanks, Paul. It was a joy being with you. One on one, with 19,000 of your closest friends.

Click below for complete album of my pictures.

Paul McCartney Pictures Album

May 4, 2016

Target Center

Setlist

Who Would Have Believed It?

As I mentioned in May's first of the month video post yesterday, I will be "celebrating" or perhaps remembering my high school graduation later this month. It has been 50 years. Half a century!

Where has the time gone?

More to the point, for this post anyway, is the way things are happening today that we would have never thought possible in 1966. There are the obvious things.. the incredibly powerful computer I call my iPhone that I don't have to remember Fortran to get to work. The many technological advancements that have impacted our lives. There is no Soviet Union anymore. We have had our first African-American president and may have our first woman president.

But what is striking me most today is that on Wednesday of this week I am going to a concert up in the Twin Cities. My first concert was 50 years ago this summer. In these intervening years I have been to almost 100 other professional concerts of many different performers from Herb Alpert to Rosanne Cash; the Tremeloes (who?) and Lionel Hampton to Janis Joplin and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Just going to the concert is not the BIG thought about Wednesday. It is that the concert is Sir Paul McCartney.

Yes, him. The former Beatle. This summer will be 50 years (notice all the synchronicity!) since the last paid Beatles concert in San Francisco. (They did that rooftop thing in 1969, but that doesn't count.)

So, if you had told me, that dorky, high school senior in 1966 that 50 years later he would be going to a concert in Minneapolis with Paul McCartney, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have laughed and done some quick arithmetic  and said, that such an event in 2016 would be as likely as say the top acts of 1916 - Enrico Caruso or Al Jolson - being a headline concert in 1966. Go ahead. Laugh with that teenage me. Even Sinatra would have been seen as old- and he was more contemporary in 1966 than early McCartney is today!

But the music world has changed in these 50 years. Old people like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney are still out on the road drawing crowds of all ages.

"Rock music" is no longer just for kids. It has become a staple of American (and world) popular music. Music has also splintered into many types and styles, some of which some of us just don't get. But then we aren't supposed to get it anymore than we our parents "got" the Beatles and Stones.

It is a music world that would have seemed insane. No adult would ever like the Beatles. (Like "silly wabbit- Trix are for kids! Remember that?) How could adults "dig" the Stones?

Until we became adults and took the Beatles and Stones along with us. Not just on the Boomer-oriented classic rock stations but into the mainstream and in school classes. My daughter did a history project on the music of the Beatles, one of her favorite groups. This music is more than just another bit of nostalgia, although admittedly there is some of that. But McCartney is still making music. He is still one of the great talents of the music world- or any genre.

Crazy? Yep, it would have seemed that way in May 1966.

I'm glad it isn't so crazy in 2016.

P.S. I just went to a web site that posts set lists for McCartney's concerts, as well as videos of the performances. Now I am really psyched! More to come later this week.

A 50-Year Memory: Video for January

The first month of 1966 was dominated by six musicians...
Simon and Garfunkle started the month and had the #1 song on January 1 and 22:

John, Paul, George, and Ringo (The Beatles) held the top on January 8, 15, and 29:

A 50-year Memory: Two Videos for November

For four weeks in October 1965 The Beatles held the top spot in pop music. So, technically on November 1, 1965, this was still the #1 song.

But the first official Hot 100 for November came out on November 6, 1965. Away went the Beatles. In came The Rolling Stones.

A 75-Year Birthday: John Lennon

Happy Birthday, John Lennon.

A 50-year Memory - A Video for September

As September 1965 began this song was to hold the #1 Billboard spot for three weeks.

Sidenote: I made an arrangement of this for a talent show in High School. Nothing spectacular, just transposing some piano scores and giving them to different instruments. It sure didn't need my help to go to #1.

More Musical Memories

I was listening to Bob Dylan while trying to figure out what to write for this day's post. So I looked at this date in music history. (See tomorrow when it comes for why I was listening to Bob Dylan.)

So here were some of the important events on this date.

First a real piece of history for jazz:

• 1922 - The New Orleans Rhythm Kings recorded for the first time.

 Two dates from the history of a small  group from Great Britain:

• 1958 - George Harrison joined the band Quarrymen. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were also members.
• 1966 - The Beatles ended their fourth American tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, CA. It turned out that the show was their last public concert.

Here was one of the great songs:

• 1964 - Roy Orbison's single "Oh, Pretty Woman" was released. The song was Orbison's second #1 hit in the U.S and his third in the U.K.

In the out-in-left-field category:

• 1977 - 3 people were arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis' body. As a result his body was moved to Graceland.

A BIG congratulations for 25 years clean and sober:

• 1990 - Elton John checked into a rehab center in Chicago, IL, for bulimia, drinking and drugs.

And one of the really off-beat stories. This is nothing but funny (to everyone but Isaac Hayes and Bob Dole):

• 1996 - Isaac Hayes, who co-wrote the Stax classic "Soul Man," sent a protest letter to presidential candidate Bob Dole requesting Dole to stop using his song, which his supporters had changed to "I'm A Dole Man."

# # # # # # # #

Video of the Month

It was 45 years ago, right now, that this was on the charts. Whether it was about the break-up of the group or a love song- or both- isn't important. It's the Beatles swan song for all practical purposes. Enjoy!

A Great Weekend

Spent a four-day weekend in the Twin Cities, doing some fun things. But before we left I had my first gig of the summer with the Rochester Salvation Army, celebrating Donut Day. I stayed calm- and watched a lot of donuts being enjoyed.

Friday evening went to see the movie, Chef. Don't miss it. It is fun and engaging with excellent cinematography of food. It also has a heart-warming story. Nothing radical or revolutionary. Just a very well-done story that makes you feel good.


While at the Guthrie Theater on Saturday we got a good look at the mighty Mississippi. It was tearing across St. Anthony Falls and under the stone arch bridge like there was no tomorrow.

 

Sunday was a baseball day. Too bad the Twins lost, but it was still fun being there in the spring sun. Lots of jumping around, though.

Monday we first went to Como Conservatory. As usual the flowers were magnificent. The second picture below is a Bonsai bougainvillea in bloom. The white wall behind it and the light makes it look like a ceramic model. No, it was as real and as stunning (if not more) than the picture shows.

Finally, a stop at the Mall of America where the GRAMMY Museum of LA has a traveling exhibition of The Beatles. I had to try the guitar with skiffle great Lonnie Donegan and sit at Ringo's drums. Hey, compared to the still living Beatles, I'm still young.

Oh, Yes. Can't Forget

With all my posts of Pete Seeger (and several more to go), almost missed this one:

February 7, 1964
The Beatles land in New York
None of us was ever the same again.

From Rolling Stone magazine website:

Amazing Beatles' Music and Singing

Thanks to Open Culture where I found the video of the vocal track of the Beatles' Medley on Abbey Road.

Wow.

To listen to that is to
a) be transported back to a different world and
b) to hear the awesome talent.

Don't be taken aback by the silences. That's where the instruments go.
Link (Thanks to Beth, too, for posting it on Facebook.)

Anyway, here's the video from You Tube:

Now, for the rest of the story (all parts together now.)

The Beatles are Timeless.

At PBS News Hour they have an early Beatles quiz in honor of the 50th (did I just say 50th?) anniversary of "Please Please Me." (Link)

And here's a mini-documentary.

In Memoriam: Tony Sheridan

Headline from Rolling Stone today (Link):

Beatles Collaborator Tony Sheridan Dead at 72

Tony Sheridan (May 21, 1940 – February 16, 2013). An important name in Beatles' history died yesterday in England at age 72. According to Wikipedia:

He was best known as an early collaborator of The Beatles, (though the record was labelled as being with "The Beat Brothers"), one of two non-Beatles (the other being Billy Preston) to receive label performance credit on a record with the group, and the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording which charted as a single.

An Extra for Today

AND, the #1 song 32 years ago today:

John Lennon, (Just Like) Starting Over. No wonder she's a Beatles fan!

A New Understanding

I think I understand my parents' generation's reactions a little better now.

New Year's Eve we watched the PBS Great Performances double-header on the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour which was first shown 45 years ago. The first hour was about the movie- interviews and such- trying to prove how avant-garde and forward thinking the movie really was. (They didn't succeed in my opinion. The Beatles were having lots of fun at the time and just loved to play with all kinds of weirdness.)

The second hour was the movie itself. I had never seen it before since it never did get released in the States in 1967-68; just the album of wonderful music. So we watched- and must admit- had a good time. We laughed at the Beatles' shenanigans as well as the stuff that came across well- namely the musical numbers and their invention of what would become music videos.

For those of us who lived then- and were in our teens to early adulthood (it was my sophomore year in college; my wife's senior year in college)- it made a lot of nostalgic sense. It was a nose-thumb at the establishment and just an attempt to make fun with the music. I don't know how Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers or Millenials would look at it.

But I now realize in retrospect what our parent's generation was afraid of. It made absolutely no sense to them. None. Nada. Zilch. It probably looked downright silly, stupid, and even, pardon the words, dangerously drug-addled and even revolutionary. It will rot your brain, turn it into mush. It makes you look foolish.

But you know what? It was fun.

Then.

Now.

Did it change the world? Perhaps in subtle ways as we learned to look at the world differently. But probably not in any way that would make any difference in the long run.

But who cares?!

The Beatles Changed a Whole Generation

It used to be that special ages like Sweet Sixteen or turning 21 were milestones. As you got older it was the decades, your 30s, etc. Finally you reached 65 and you were over the hill.

Well, in the mid-60s that British Band, the Beatles, changed all that with a cute little ditty, When I'm 64. That great tag line has rung through the baby-boomers' years:

Will you still need me?
Will you still feed me?
When I'm 64?

Well, it has arrived for this Baby Boomer. Today. When I'm 64.

So, in a good age-defying narcissism, I put together a video for my own birthday. I think I'm allowed to do that for such a milestone day. i dug out old pictures that I had scanned, threw in a few of the places I have plied my professional trade and, as they say, voila!

Enjoy my little trip down memory lane. (And please, don't laugh. That little kid was quite sensitive.)

A 45-year Memory: Love- It's All You Need

June 25, 1967: The Beatles performed "All You Need is Love" on the first ever live, worldwide satellite TV program.

Here's the live feed:


(Yes, I remember this.)