Some thoughts on current reading and current events...

As I mentioned here on Sunday in my Music Sunday post, I am currently reading - plowing my way through, really - a biography of John Lennon (Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music - The Definitive Life, by Tim Riley [2011, Hyperion; 765 pages]). It's an interesting and well-written book, but it's long. Very, very long. And, because I'm emotionally invested in it - I've been a Beatles fan for decades and, for all his flaws as a human being, a fan of Lennon and his work, I sometimes have to just stop reading for a while and digest what I've read and prepare myself to go back for the next bit - it is taking me some time to get through the thing.

Earlier this morning, I was reading a portion of the book where the author was writing about the time right after the Beatles broke up, about how the band had become by then a symbol of something larger than just a collection of four very talented musicians, and about how fans at the time were so unwilling to let go of the possibility of a reunion. If you were around during those years, between the break-up and when John Lennon was murdered, you know that there was always some rumor or another that the Beatles were going to get back together, either for the long term or for at least a one-off show. Of course, the reunion never came, despite occasional offers of huge amounts of money to do so. There were a number of collaborations by various configurations of the band's members through the years. The closest any kind of reunion ever came to happening, however, was on Ringo Starr's third solo album, "Ringo" (1973), on which the other three Beatles appear in various places, but never all together on the same song.

Even as a fan of the band, I never was really that enthusiastic about a reunion. It always seemed to me that it just wouldn't be the same as it had been, and it seemed kind of pointless. There had been the Beatles, and then there wasn't any more, and that was okay because all four men were doing other things. That's just the way the world works. It would have been nice if the band had stayed together, but since they didn't, I thought, it was time for everybody, fans included, to move on to the new reality.

Except maybe not so much.

I saw an item online a couple of days ago which said that the two remaining Beatles will be performing on the Grammy awards show, which will be broadcast on January 26. The occasion is the awarding of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award to The Beatles. None of the items I've seen - and I checked around the Internet to make sure I wasn't imagining that first item and that it wasn't just a rumor - have even said whether Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will be performing together, just that they will both be performing. Still, when I saw the notice, I went from zero to "Oh, my god, I have to watch that" in about a nanosecond. This, even though I hadn't previously given a thought to watching the show at all. The Grammys, to be honest, have not been a viewing priority for me in years.

Apparently, a reunion of the remaining Beatles is something I've wanted to see more than I realized.

Or, maybe, I'm just getting old and nostalgic. I'm not really sure what the deal is. All I know is, I do want to see that. That, and I hope that the people who put on the Grammys show don't screw it up.

Music Sunday: The "The Beatles Go Their Separate Ways" Edition

1969 ended on a down note, as I've written about before here, with the disastrous December 6 free concert headlined by the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway in California.

Things didn't get any better in 1970, which was the year the Beatles broke up. Actually, John Lennon had told the group he was leaving in late 1969, but agreed to keep his departure quiet until after "Abbey Road" was released so as not to hurt sales of the record. The first public announcement that the band was breaking up came on April 10, 1970, from Paul McCartney, ten days before he released his first solo album, "McCartney", which he had started working on after Lennon made his announcement.

"McCartney" was truly a solo album, with every instrument on the record played by McCartney. The only contribution from anyone other than McCartney himself were some background vocals and sound effects by his wife, Linda. The most memorable song from that album was "Maybe I'm Amazed". It got considerable radio airplay in the US when the album came out despite the fact that it was not released as a single at the time:



The Beatles' last studio album, "Let It Be" was released on May 8, 1970, followed on May 20 by the release of the documentary film "Let It Be". The documentary is interesting in that it shows the band in the process of breaking up. The film didn't get very good reviews, but it managed to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, and is remarkable for the rooftop concert that the band gave, the last time all four members of the band played in public together. This clip is "Get Back" from that performance:



It wasn't just Paul McCartney who released a solo album that year. In fact, Ringo Starr released two solo albums in 1970. The first, "Sentimental Journey", had come out on March 27, 1970 in the UK. It was a collection of old standards, and was a project that the rest of the band members are reported to have encouraged him to do. Later in the year, on September 25, he released "Beaucoups of Blues", with more of a country-music flavor. Here is the title song of that album:



George Harrison released "All Things Must Pass" on November 20, 1970, but it was not his first solo effort. It was his third solo album, after 1968's "Wonderwall Music", the soundtrack from the film "Wonderwall", which was mostly instrumental in nature, and 1969's "Electronic Sound", which consisted of two long tracks featuring the use of a Moog synthesizer.

Harrison's 1970 effort was ambitious, with three discs and 23 songs, including "My Sweet Lord" and "What is Life". The album did very well both critically and popularly, reaching number 1 on both the US and UK album charts. "What is Life" wasn't as popular as "My Sweet Lord" (it only reached number 10 on the Billboard singles chart, while "My Sweet Lord" hit number 1), but I like it better:



Despite being the first of the Beatles to say he was leaving, John Lennon was the last of the four to release a solo album, with "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" coming out on December 11, 1970. It was well-received critically at the time it was released and has been named to several "best album of all time" lists, including placing at number 23 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2006, Time magazine rated it one of the 100 Best Albums of All Time. It is a remarkable album. My favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite songs of all time, is "Working Class Hero":



All of the members of the Beatles went on to make interesting music, although John Lennon and George Harrison left the world way too soon. Paul McCartney is still recording and touring; in fact, he has a new album, "New", set to be released tomorrow (which I just found out as I was researching this post). Ringo Starr last released a new album in 2012 called, appropriately enough, "Ringo 2012", and he and his band, the All Starr Band, toured the Pacific Rim earlier this year.

Still, it's sometimes difficult to fathom that it has been 43 years since the rock band that changed the world broke up, and a bit longer than that since all four were in a recording studio together.

A Beatles' Anniversary...

It isn't Music Sunday, but I have to take the opportunity, as late in the day as it is, to mark an important day in music history.

Fifty years ago (!) today, on March 22, 1963, the first Beatles' album "Please, Please Me" was released in the UK, on the Parlophone label.

This is a big deal, for a few reasons. First of all, The Beatles. Just that. This release marked the beginning of an era. Also, eight of the fourteen songs on the album were written by Lennon and McCartney, an indication that The Beatles were not going to be like other singers and bands and record songs written by someone else. It took them a couple of albums to get to the point where they were writing some (or all) of their own material, but even with this record they were on their way to that.

The four Beatles also substantially played all the music on the album, something else that wasn't especially common at that time. Other than producer George Martin's turn on the piano on "Misery" and on the celesta on "Baby It's You", and drumming by Andy White on "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", John, Paul, George, and Ringo played all the instruments and sang all the lead and background vocals.

Additionally, the album - all fourteen songs - were recorded in one day, in a three-part session that lasted a little less than 10 hours, on February 11, 1963. Granted, none of the songs were very long - none were over three minutes - and recording technology was not exactly sophisticated in 1963. Still, that isn't very long to record an entire album.

The song that opened the album was "I Saw Her Standing There" which, I will confess, was my favorite song as a second-grader, at the time The Beatles first came to the United States. I found this live performance of the song from October 30, 1963. This is a rare video in that there is little of the shrieking by the audience that would become so much a part of the band's legacy:



The final song on the album was also the last song recorded in the session, "Twist and Shout". Legend says it was left until last because George Martin was afraid that if John Lennon - who sang lead on the song)- sang it any earlier, his voice would be done for the day, and the rest of the songs could not be recorded. Lennon had a cold and his voice was already showing the effects of the illness. This performance is from an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, early in 1964:



I was talking to a couple of people today about The Beatles and their music, and there was some disagreement about which was the better period, their early work or their later songs. My take is that both are just fine. I like the early stuff, and I like the late stuff, and I like the stuff in between. I do have to admit that my favorite of their albums is one of their latest, "Abbey Road". That doesn't mean that I think their earlier work was any less good, as "Please Please Me" shows.

But really...was it that long ago?

Music Sunday: Happy Birthday Edition...

Here in the United States, we celebrated our nation's birthday this week, with all of the food, fireworks and patriotic music that implies. It put me in mind of the July 4th I spent, many years ago, riding around north Wales and discovering that one of the radio stations there was actually playing John Phillip Sousa marches and other patriotic songs from the US. It was interesting to me that they would do that, and it was kind of fun spending that gray, rainy (until late afternoon, when the sun came out) day seeing green hills, sheep and cows, small Welsh villages and, occasionally, the ruins of a castle on a distant hilltop, and listening to American patriotic music.

But, since I'm really not a huge fan of that genre of music, I thought I'd take a look and see who in the music world celebrated their birthdays in the past week, and share some of their music with you.

It was Ringo Starr's birthday on July 7. I've shared music from The Beatles here before, more than once, but I thought I'd share one of the songs Starr recorded after he left the band. This one, "It Don't Come Easy", is my favorite of his post-Beatles career, if for nothing else the line, "I don't ask for much/I only want trust":



It was also Robbie Robertson's birthday this week, on July 5. Robertson, of course, had a long career with The Band, but he has also done some interesting solo work. This song, "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", is my favorite of his work away from The Band:



Huey Lewis also celebrated a birthday on July 5. He had a number of hits with his band, The News but, again, I thought I would share some of his work from outside his usual habitat, "Cruisin'" recorded with Gweneth Paltrow, from the film Duets.



From the world of country music, Toby Keith is celebrating his birthday today, July 8. He has recorded a number of songs that could be classed as patriotic music, and created more than a little controversy with some of it. But I first became aware of his work with this song, "How Do You Like Me Now?" How many of us haven't wanted to go back and tell someone from our past, "Hey, look at me now. Not as bad as you thought, huh?" But the video doesn't take the easy way out; he didn't get the girl in high school, and he doesn't get her when comes back twenty years later, either. It's a fun song and a clever video:



And then, just to wrap things up and come 'round full circle to The Beatles, here is Paul McCartney, singing "Birthday" to Ringo Starr a couple of years ago at a show at Radio City Music Hall:

Music Sunday - The Late Sixties/Early Seventies Edition

I like new music, old music, most kinds of music. It seems to me, however, that the period between 1967 and 1973 or so produced an amazing variety of good music - or at least a lot of music I liked when it came out and still like listening to today.

The thing that got me thinking about this this week was a surprise re-hearing of a song from 1969, "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town)", by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. It was a song I liked when it was released, but I had nearly forgotten about it in the intervening years and it kind of surprised me to discover how glad I was to hear it again after so long. When it came on, I cranked the volume on the radio in the car and sang along - for some reason I tend to remember the lyrics of songs that I haven't heard in years - and despite the content of the song, just having heard it seemed to put me in a much better mood simply because I'd heard it.

Not that this is a song with fun, upbeat lyrics. Released during the height of US involvement in Vietnam, it tells the story of a man who was injured in the war, something that wsn't talked about a lot at the time, even with protests against the war heating up across the country and around the world. But it is a good song, and a good song is always a good thing.



Looking around for other songs from the time, I found a couple of others that are just as good, and just as good today as they were when they were recorded, also in 1969, even though they are much different than "Ruby". I found this 1989 performance by B. B. King of his 1969 hit "The Thrill Is Gone":



And then, for something completely different from either "Ruby" or "The Thrill Is Gone", there is "Come Together", the last song the Beatles ever recorded with all four of the band's members in the studio at the same time.



I think it is only appropriate to also include this song, from the following year, while the Beatles were in the process of breaking up. This is one of the first of Paul McCartney's songs as a solo artist, "Maybe I'm Amazed" which, for my money, is one of the most interesting love songs I've ever heard, and far from his later "silly love songs" period.



And, because I can, I'm going to include this song from a little earlier, The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", from 1965. I've never been able to figure out if this is a song of rationalization or apology, but I've always liked it.



From a little later than the first songs this week, this is a live performance of "Heart of Gold", by Neil Young, from 1971 or 1972. I was lucky enough to see Young perform this song live in 1973. You'll have to bear with the first minute or two of the video, with Young searching for the right harmonica before he performs the song, but its worth the wait. And, really, it's kind of amusing watching him pull boxes out of various pockets before he finds the instrument he wants.



That's what? Six songs? I could post quite a few more, but this is probably enough for one Sunday. Enjoy.

Oh, and I'd love it if you'd drop a comment telling me about your favorte songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s.