Wednesday, February 5, 2014

FIFTY YEARS AGO



              "MUSIC IS THE DEVINE WAY TO TELL BEAUTIFUL,
                        POETIC THINGS TO THE HEART"           
Pau (Pablo) Casals
 
 
     Fifty years ago a phenomenon came to the shores of the US from England.  I remember watching on our black and white TV set as the Fab Four getting off the plane.  And on Sunday night there was a lot of excitement on the Ed Sullivan Show about this new group.
     I had heard some of the Beatles recordings and there was a lot that I liked.  The hair cuts probably caused as much a stir as anything.  (Can you believe it was considered long?)  Dad was still running milk routes and he picked up a Beetle wig somewhere.  He came driving down 54 Highway from Blasi's gas station with this black mop on his head and a cigar in his mouth.  One old lady almost ran off the road seeing him.  We had a lot of fun with that wig.
     At the time I was listening to dad's Jimmy Rodger's LP's and listening to fading in and out signals on Saturday night from WSM the Grand Ole Opry.  Of course if you watched cartoons in that era you were always entertained with classical music.  I don't know how these kids today stand cartoons.
      The thing that irritated me, and probably most of the guys in America, was all the screaming that went on while the Beatles performed.  OK you can get excited but I don't understand screaming and not hearing what they were doing.
     I was soaking in music that had a new sound and yet a familiar one also.  The group was heavily influenced by the harmonies of the Everly Brothers.  I was also taken in by the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel who had many of the same influences.  My radio dial was moving between KFDI, KLEO, and KEYN.  I was also delighted by the Folk sounds of the Lamplighters, Peter Paul and Mary, the Kingston Trio.  I was in love with the earthy sounds of George Jones, Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs and many more.
     As the 50th anniversary of the Beatles is here it is a realization of how much this group influenced the music world.  Even today many of their songs lyrics need to be listened to carefully because their meaning is not what it was thought to be at the time.
     I had always hoped that the Beetle reunion would happen but John Lennon had gone so far from where the group had been it was impossible.  His murder was a shock but also was the slow death of George Harrison to cancer.
     It has been an over used term 'changed the world' but it is not so out of the truth in the case of the Beatles.

         "I have never really done anything to create what has happened.  It creates itself.  I'm here because it happened.  But I didn't do anything to make it happen apart from saying 'YES".
                                                             Ringo Starr


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