Woodstock

[Mark Kohut]

Bekah writes:
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.)

Bekah is right. Beatles had taken Europe by huge acclaim in summer 1963. Walter Cronkite, R.I.P., was tuned into the phenomenon as news and drew enough attention within CBS that they were to be shown on the Sunday Morning Show (I think) the Sunday after Nov 22, 1963. That was cancelled after the assassination. Early in December, Walter decided that now America did need some good happy news and ran a clip on his News Show. Ed Sullivan saw it and called up Walter for info about that group, "the bugs, the beatles or something'. The rest is history.  

--- On Sun, 8/16/09, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: Woodstock
> To: "Pynchon Liste" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 16, 2009, 10:39 PM
> 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.
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>