The Day the Music Died

It is 53 years now since that dangerous blizzard, that fatal plane ride, that terrible day the music died.

There are two, perhaps three, generations for whom Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens are just names vaguely remembered if at all; that’s fair enough. But I’m old enough for this to have felt like a date of genuine significance and I’m happy to remember their lives and their passing.

Etta James

The extraordinarily wonderful Etta James has died of leukemia.  The beauty of the world is lessened by her loss.

RIP Ashford and Lieber

It has become a sad week for the music industry with the deaths of Nick Ashford (of Ashford & Simpson) and Jerry Lieber (of Lieber & Stoller).

Between them these guys helped create a lot of the music that was my youth, everything from “Hound Dog” and “Stand By Me” to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “You’re All I Need To Get By.”

Sad to see them go. They’ll be long missed.

Yet Another Beatles Anniversary

Three years before they went to America for the first time, and 50 years ago today, the Beatles (with Pete Best, not Ringo Starr, on drums) played the first of their 292 gigs at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

One of the lucky few at their first performance was Alex McKechnie, then a 16-year-old message boy in a printing factory. “It was atmospheric though not very crowded,” said McKechnie, now a director of the annual Mathew Street festival. “They were sarcastic, always acting the goat and cracking jokes.”   Unlike other bands at that time, they wore leather bomber jackets and Cuban heels.  McKechnie added: “They would count in the songs by banging their heels on the hollow stage – they created a lot of excitement in the room. They weren’t like any other band on the circuit.”

The locals are throwing a party today.

The Beatles’ First US Tour

On February 7, 1964 — exactly fifty years to the day after Charlie Chaplin unleashed the Little Tramp to conquer the world — the Beatles arrived in New York and the next British Invasion was officially launched.

Their first appearance was on the “Ed Sullivan Show” two days later, and their first US concert, at the Coliseum in Washington DC was on the 11th. A few more shows and they were back in England on the 22nd; just two weeks and the Beatle’s first US tour was over. But it sure left its mark.

The Day The Music Died

It is 52 years now since that terrible day, that dangerous blizzard, that fatal plane ride.

Happy Birthday John Lennon!

Big John Lennon would have celebrated his 70th birthday today.  Hard to believe he has already been gone so long.

 

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”

 

 

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, angel!

Happy 70th – Peace and Love

Happy birthday Ringo!

Farewell Johnny Maestro

For those of us of a certain age, the sweet tones of Johnny Maestro defined an age, a time of almost-innocent love.   Fronting first the Crests and then the Brooklyn Bridge, Johnny drenched us in the expectant longing of “Sixteen Candles” and swept us up in the emotional loss of “The Worst That Could Happen“.  He had a truly original voice that flourished in the doo-wop environment.

Now, Johnny Maestro has died of cancer, aged 70, and we are left to enjoy his records and his appearances in the PBS Doo-Wop revival shows of the last few years.  Thanks, Johnnie, for all the pleasure and for singing the songs that mirrored our lives in that different time.

Heart Of Gold

What better way to while away a Sunday morning than to watch Neil Young spend two minutes digging in his pockets looking for the right harp, and then for him to give the first and perhaps best live performance of “Heart of Gold”.  Forty years ago already. Wow.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

Completely by chance, we caught a TV concert of theirs the other night.  Just outstanding energy!

Changing My Mind

I’m sure we would all agree that the media is a powerful influence on all of us.  I had a personal experience with that this very morning.

For a dozen years or more I have been a firm disliker of Michael Jackson and all that he did.  His death didn’t change my mind.  But a CBC radio commentator did.  He talked about how he hoped that Jackson’s death would allow us to move past the ecentricities and possible criminal behaviour of the last decade or more, and let us concentrate on the cultural value he has brought to my and later generations.

The commentator (God, I wish I knew his name) spoke about how Jackson had personally changed music, changed dance, changed video and thus TV.  He spoke eloquently of Jackson’s abilities and marketing skills. And, yes, he turned me around.

I’m not going to go into the sort of religious frenzy I see on TV today, and on the net.  But I am now able to put myself back in time to when “Off The Wall“, “Thriller” and “Dangerous” were released.  These were extraordinarily fine albums by any measure, and he made wonderful movies to go with them.  I am able now to go back to the very beginning and remember his as the leader of the Jackson 5.  Such precocious talent.  I loved every song.

Thanks, commentator.  I needed that.

A Deadly Few Days

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and John Houghtaling, the inventor of the vibrating bed — all dead in less than a week. Almost makes you want to stay sober.

Of course there won’t be any black humour about Jackson’s death.  Vitiligo saw to that.

Happy Birthday Bob!

It is Bob Marley’s birthday, and Reggae Week in Jamaica.

The Day The Music Died

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.

But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

You have to be almost as old as God herself to remember this, but 50 years ago today Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in a snowy plane crash at Clear Lake , Iowa.  I, too, learned about it from the headlines I read during my paper route the following morning.  It’s a long, long time ago.

Night Music: Velvet Underground & Nico

Remembering Frank Zappa

It is all of 15 years since Frank Zappa died, on this day in 1993.  One of the great original musical minds of our generation, he is missed.  Here’s Joe’s Garage:

I only got to see him perform once, in London on the Sheik Yerbouti tour back in 1979.  It was one of the great nights of my musical memory.

Anarchy In The UK

For those of us of a certain age, the release and success of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy In the UK” single on November 26, 1976, was the sign — if we still needed it — that the summer of love was long forgotten.

I became a hardcore punk — my wildly abandoned pogo’ing was known on three continents — and while my tastes became more attuned to the Clash and the Ramones, we have to look back on these pre-Sid Vicious Sex Pistols days with a certain nostalgia.  In the late-90s, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but they disdained the “honour”, calling the Hall “a piss stain”.  Ah, the charm of it all!

The Late, Great, and Wealthy

Last year Elvis Presley made $52 million.  That’s an increase on the $49 million he made the year before.  For a guy who’s been dead thirty years, he makes big bucks.  More than any other dead celebrity, in fact, according to Forbes.  The Colonel must be spinning with frustration in his grave because that’s a whole lot more money than the King made when he was alive!

By the way:  Do dead guys pay taxes?

As an aside, the Forbes list reminds me of something that’s been bothering me for a while:  Who is it that’s pushing the memory and myth of James Dean?   Dean died in the middle 50s at a time when the very earliest boomers would not have been interested in him.  What we brought forward into the future was 60s nostalgia, not the 50s.  Obviously the punks, gen Xers, and millenials were even further removed from “Giant” and “East of Eden“.  So, is it the remainders of my parents’ generation who shell out the $5 million he made in 2007 (53 years after the fatal crash)?

I fully understand that images of James Dean stand for alienation and rebellion; and that these emotions and concepts have driven teenagers (especially) in every generation since World War 2 at least.  But couldn’t each generation have found their own alienated heroes to cherish and market?  How come he has resisted obsolescence?  Surely, no-one looking at his three movies today can genuinely suggest his wooden posturings match modern sensibilities.

Anyway, good for him and his.  I don’t understand the continued charm, but that’s just me.