Like most in my generation I can trace my love for music back to the Beatles. It was 1964 and we were all anticipating the U.S. debut of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Watching these shaggy haired Brits perform, we had no idea we were watching popular music change. We just knew we loved what we heard, and of course we all wanted shaggy haircuts and Beatle Boots.
On the playground at school we would twirl around the merry-go-round singing “close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you….” I got some mustard colored stove-pipe pants, a wide belt, and Beatle Boots.
Gone were the nursery rhymes and the musical stories my parents played on our Hi-Fi record player for us kids. I got my first Beatles album on my birthday — July 6, 1964: Yesterday and Today; it is still my favorite album of all time. It got played til the grooves were gone. Favorite songs – “Yesterday” and “Nowhere Man.”
I still have the album…it looks like it has been in a cat fight.
But that is where the Beatles and I parted ways. They went on to fame and fortune, and I went on to…well, you know….
But, I never stopped listening to their music.
It wasn’t until I was more intellectually mature did I realize the impact The Fab Five had on popular music. As an 8-year old in 1964, I didn’t notice the change…the difference in popular music. But it happened that very night.
If the day the music died was when Buddy Holly’s plane crashed, it changed with the Beatles’ smoother landing on Sullivan’s show.
On late night TV one night, Bob Costas was interviewing Del Shannon, whose hard-driving song “Runaway” was once the rage, and he asked him about the Beatles. Shannon said he was stage right that night on Sullivan’s show and as soon as he heard them he knew his days were numbered in the business.
In essence, they became larger than life. Icons. Not just musical icons, but world icons.
In London during the time of the Beatles, there were a number of successful bands, all enjoying the music scene there. They performed on many of London’s stages, went clubbing, there was a very communal atmosphere – young, talented musicians, making money, or not, but doing what they loved.
One of those bright-eyed young men was Justin Hayward, the lead singer and guitarist of the Moody Blues, who were making a go of their own coronation as a band to be reckoned with in the mid-60s. They were particularly big in the U.S., where the early FM radio stations favored their moody electronic music and dreamy lyrics.
They were an extremely viable band at this time, yet Hayward said all the bands looked up to the Beatles. They were the big brothers. Without the Beatles, there would be no “them.” There was no jealousy. Brilliance was recognized.
So they all tipped their caps.
Nothing has changed today. All Paul McCartney has to do is ask, and the biggest names in the music business – icons in their own right – says yes, without checking their schedules. Why?
He’s a Beatle.
I will never forget Bruce Springsteen giggling like a school girl when being asked by Sir Paul to join him in one of those collaborative benefit gigs. This is THE BOSS…Bruce Freaking Springsteen…and he is acting like the school geek being asked to the prom by the starting quarterback.
He’s a Beatle…nuff said.
Little Eddie and the Eagle 