Woodstock

[Bekah]

The first time I heard the Beatles was at a "sock hop" (yes) at the  
"Y" during Christmas vacation 1963.  (Note - this was less than a  
month after President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.  I think the Beatles  
music and phenomenon was a part of our recovery process - for the kids  
anyway.)

I'm pretty sure the song that was playing that night was "I Want To  
Hold Your Hand."   I'd not heard it before and I wasn't impressed.   I  
wanted them to play "The Bird"   ("Bird.  Bird.  The bird is the  
word.   Well a bird, bird bird,  well a bird is the word.   Have you  
heard about the bird?  Everybody's heard that the bird is the word.     
Bird bird bird well the b-bird's the word." - something like that -  
very, very hard, fast, heavy beat,  danceable surf-type music.   When  
it came on everyone in the room jumped up and started dancing with  
whomever was standing there - alone if necessary.

So with that competition, I wasn't terribly impressed by the Beatles  
until I saw them in Life magazine a month or so later.  "I Want To  
Hold Your Hand"  was not exactly revolutionary music.  It was heavy on  
harmony and the lyrics were quite sweet.  This was NOT "... makin'  
love underneath the apple tree."

I think I fell when I saw their photo in the back of Life or Saturday  
Evening Post some time in January.     When they came on the Ed  
Sullivan show in February (1964) I was in my girlfriend's basement  
screaming and crying with the best of them.   I saw all three shows.   
Never got to go to a concert  - probably would have been too much for  
me.   (heh)

Shoot, kids,  I remember this stuff better than I remember what I had  
for dinner.

Bekah
http://web.mac.com/bekker2/

On Aug 16, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Henry Musikar wrote:

> Don't confuse rock'n'roll with rock.  Beatles started out by making  
> R&R a
> little smarter with some off/jazzy notes thrown in, and one might  
> say that
> as they developed, they created, for better or for worse, rock  
> without the
> roll.
>
> If you heard the Beatles when they first washed up on the American  
> East
> coast (DC, Ed Sullivan, and Shea Stadium), you almost definitely  
> remember
> how much gd fun "our boys" were.
>
> Henry Musikar
> Sr. IT Consultant
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Landseadel
>
> John Carvill wrote:
>
> The Beatles cooked up the Art School shuffle, took scruffy low-class
> Rock & Roll by the neck, fed it latest psychotropics  and made self-
> consciously arty "Statements" like "Revolver" and "Sergeant Pepper's
> Lonely hearts Club Band."  One could say they destroyed "Rock & Roll"
> in the process but a musical infrastructure as flimsy as Rock & Roll
> could be blown away in a heavy downpour anyway. One just might look
> upon Woodstock as that downpour. By the time Woodstock rolled around I
> already turned my back on the new noises and turned toward the past
> and genuine musical revolutionaries like Berlioz & Beethoven.
>
> A huge part of the Beatles Myth comes out of their early "interviews"
> with the New York press corps, where they displayed just as much
> cynicism and "cheek" as the ink-stained wretches of the press, circa
> 1964. The Beatles were College students-"Art School" students, fer
> chrisakes-not factory workers, and it showed. Reminds me of Elvis
> Costello-the music critics loved him 'cause he looked just like 'em.
>
> Chuck Berry-there's your factory worker. Helps to explain the  
> assembly-
> line nature of his musical compositions.
>
> Of course, Mick Jagger was on course for a MBA before he figured there
> was a bigger paycheck in playing "black" for teenagers too hormonally
> overwrought to know what hit 'em.
>
>

http://web.mac.com/bekker2/

On Aug 16, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Henry Musikar wrote:

> Don't confuse rock'n'roll with rock.  Beatles started out by making  
> R&R a
> little smarter with some off/jazzy notes thrown in, and one might  
> say that
> as they developed, they created, for better or for worse, rock  
> without the
> roll.
>
> If you heard the Beatles when they first washed up on the American  
> East
> coast (DC, Ed Sullivan, and Shea Stadium), you almost definitely  
> remember
> how much gd fun "our boys" were.
>
> Henry Musikar
> Sr. IT Consultant
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Landseadel
>
> John Carvill wrote:
>
> The Beatles cooked up the Art School shuffle, took scruffy low-class
> Rock & Roll by the neck, fed it latest psychotropics  and made self-
> consciously arty "Statements" like "Revolver" and "Sergeant Pepper's
> Lonely hearts Club Band."  One could say they destroyed "Rock & Roll"
> in the process but a musical infrastructure as flimsy as Rock & Roll
> could be blown away in a heavy downpour anyway. One just might look
> upon Woodstock as that downpour. By the time Woodstock rolled around I
> already turned my back on the new noises and turned toward the past
> and genuine musical revolutionaries like Berlioz & Beethoven.
>
> A huge part of the Beatles Myth comes out of their early "interviews"
> with the New York press corps, where they displayed just as much
> cynicism and "cheek" as the ink-stained wretches of the press, circa
> 1964. The Beatles were College students-"Art School" students, fer
> chrisakes-not factory workers, and it showed. Reminds me of Elvis
> Costello-the music critics loved him 'cause he looked just like 'em.
>
> Chuck Berry-there's your factory worker. Helps to explain the  
> assembly-
> line nature of his musical compositions.
>
> Of course, Mick Jagger was on course for a MBA before he figured there
> was a bigger paycheck in playing "black" for teenagers too hormonally
> overwrought to know what hit 'em.
>
>