Showing posts with label Rock 'n' Roll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock 'n' Roll. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Five Bs; Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, The Beatles and Billy


The Five Bs; Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, The Beatles and Billy

The 5 Bs; Bach Beethoven, Brahms, The Beatles and BillyAfter the Liverpool Invasion, my family and I moved to Arcadia. This was at the beginning of 4th grade for me. I wasn’t happy about leaving my friends in La Canada behind but I was soon to make new friends.

Among my new friends were our new next door neighbors, Billy and his sister Andy. Arcadia was very ‘White Bread,’ so Billy and I had to be very inventive to keep ourselves entertained, which was not a big problem, except that it usually landed us in trouble of one kind or another.

Outside of getting along great, Billy and I were very competitive regarding certain topics. It seemed a bit random but we chose them nevertheless. For example Billy liked Chevies and I liked Fords. We were very adamant about these rivalries and frequently had long arguments over them.

One of the topics we were divided on was music. Billy was for rock ‘n’ roll, The Beatles and The Monkeys while I was strictly classical; Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Brahms came much later, actually.

Billy took piano lessons, so I started on the violin. I had the stuck-up attitude of the classical musician; that rock ‘n’ roll was a debased form of music that couldn’t be taken seriously.

I had to admit to a steady curiosity about this popular music, especially The Beatles. I always listened to the latest Beatles album with Billy. They were usually his older sister’s albums and we even scratched up the Magical Mystery tour album by playing it backwards to search for clues regarding the rumor that Paul was dead.

I remember Billy telling me I had to see this new T.V. show called The Monkeys. This, I just didn’t get. 

In junior high, the allure of rock’n’ roll began to grow especially with it being in the domain of the ‘cool kids.’

In high school, I started getting high and faking my involvement with rock ‘n’ roll, even though I still had no clue as to who most of these groups were.

In music school my association with pop music would change from a desire to be cool to utter revelation.



Saturday, January 25, 2025

The Beatles in our Living Room


The Beatles in our Living Room

Screaming girls at the Ed Sullivan Show
When I was just a tyke, somewhere around first grade, my family and I would gather in our living room on Saturday nights for our weekly television watching ritual. This included some cartoon shows, like The Flintstones and such but it also included the Ed Sullivan show.

My parents sat in their comfy chairs towards the back of the room and I always sprawled out on the floor directly in front of the T.V. I still remember how Ed would start the show by saying he had ‘a really big shoe’ for us that night. I can remember some of the regular acts which included Lamb Chop and the little Italian mouse Topo Gigio.

So you can imagine our shock and awe when, one night in 1964, Ed introduced a musical band from Liverpool called The Beatles. I had only a faint notion of what rock ‘n’ roll was, from listening to my little turquoise blue transistor radio. My mainstay in music, to that point, had been Beethoven and Bach.

I really could not make heads or tails out of what The Beatles were doing except that all the girls in the audience were screaming, something I found bizarre and amusing.

When I turned to my parents to register their amusement over the spectacle, such was not the case. One would have thought a bomb had gone off in our living room from the horrified looks on their faces and their utter silence. They obviously understood it no more than I did.

Much, much later in my life, I would find out that my father, being an aerospace engineer and working on defense contracts had a high security clearance and the employees had already been indoctrinated with the idea that sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll were being used by the communists to undermine our great western democracy. I suppose there was some truth to this, given Chairman Mao and his Red Guard who were young people on a mission to destroy all establishments.

Nevertheless, from that point on, there was no escaping The Beatles. They were a hot item for discussion, even among my little first grade girl friends Genie and Mary who would argue over which Beatle was the cutest or said the funniest things. It was deep stuff, to be sure.

 


Tuesday, January 14, 2025

A Brief History Of Rock 'n' Roll


The History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll

The Sword in the Stone
Excalibur

The Oxford School Dictionary defines Rock ‘n’ Roll as; “a kind of popular dance music with a strong beat, originating in the 1950s.” But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

This same dictionary gives two verbal definitions of rock; 1; “to move gently backwards and forwards or from side to side; to make something do this.” 2; “to shake someone or something violently.”

And, in the same book, the first verbal definition of roll; “to move along by turning over and over, like a ball or wheel; to make something do this.”

One could postulate, literally a large rock or boulder, embedded into the ground at the top of a hill and some force comes along to rock it, gently backwards and forwards or from side to side, until it becomes loose and moves along down the hill by turning over and over like a ball or wheel, perhaps dislodging other rocks in its path and causing an avalanche. Movement. Change in the environment.

We’re looking at a catalyst of some kind that causes formerly immovable objects to start to break loose and begin to move. 

One could postulate all sorts of immovable objects; immovable social objects such as wall flowers or hopeless introverts. There could be immovable ideas or attitudes.

Many of these did break free and begin to move in the brief history of what we called Rock ‘n’ Roll. Questions were asked, ideas were challenged. The status quo was questioned.

Perhaps this is why Rock ‘n’ Roll will never die; because we are talking about a social catalyst, rather than a specific person or musical group. These actors upon the stage were caught up in the movement themselves.

When did this movement begin? Oh, much earlier than the 1950s. And it begins anew whenever and wherever Excalibur is pulled from the stone.