IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY
by Ian Whitcomb
Ian Whitcomb is a highly respected performer,
composer, and music historian. You can find all of his CD's, DVD's, Books, and
Songbooks by clicking here,
or by going to
ianwhitcomb.com
What a long time ago seems the British Invasion! Since 1964
fads and fashions have flashed and faded -- folk-rock, bubble gum, glam, punk,
or grunge. There have been wars and revolutions. Kids born during Beatlemania
are now entering middle age.
And the knights themselves, led by Sir Paul and Sir Mick, are
senior citizens, albeit vainly kicking up their heels in concert, uttering the
odd “yeah, yeah”, still complaining of getting no “Satisfaction”.
I musn’t be derisive: the knights continue to sell a lot of
tickets, overflowing stadiums; they are an important economic and cultural wheel
of the British Establishment. Indeed, they are part of world culture, world
history. Once rock ‘n’ roll outlaws, there are now as safe as Robin Hood.
Recently in Los Angeles (where I linger as a relic of the
glorious first wave of Brit Rock) I witnessed Sir Mick in concert at the
enormous Staples Center -- running every which way, stopping only to glad-hand
the fans, telling us with irony that “It's All Over Now”. As I wandered home
I noted, as examples of their longevity, the iconic vestments of Invader leaders
in the windows of souvenir shops: rows of T shirts, like medieval banners,
emblazoned with the cheery faces of Beatles as we once knew and loved them; and
the coat of arms of Sir Mick Jagger -- a blood red lolling tongue.
So, forty years on, the knights live on. Endlessly recycled
as “Greatest Hits” and what-have-you, their music continues to sell and to
be piped. In galleria, jumbo jet or restroom there's no escaping
“Yesterday”.
The Invader chiefs may no longer crowd the Billboard chart as
they did in the halcyon years -- the top ten is now the domain of rappers -- and
they may be dismayed when their fans wish to hear only the hits of yesteryear
and not, for example, Sir Paul's concert cantata. The Invaders may have to live
with the fact that that they are Retro, even Nostalgia. But they can take pride
in being a permanent part of pop, securely resting alongside Marilyn, Elvis, and
James Dean.
Time was when there was no such thing as pop culture, at
least not recognizably so, and certainly not preserved, studied, hallowed. Pop
used to be throwaway. Let's be teenagers of 1954, on the trembling brink of rock
‘n’ roll. Would we look back at the songs of forty years before and cherish
them? Would we be barbershop harmonizing such 1914 hits as “Sister Susie’s
Sewing Shirts For Soldiers” ? No sir! -- if you're a hot-blooded teen, antsy
for action, into what's new, progressive, you'll be jiving to “Shake, Rattle
And Roll”, the latest from Bill Haley & The Comets. The past is another
country, full of old farts.
But wait! You'd be solely into Today if you were in America,
a society besotted of fads and fancies here today and gone tomorrow. Once it was
flagpole sitters and the Charleston, then it was swingsters and jitterbuggers,
recently it's been swooning to Sinatra or else screaming for crazed Johnnie Ray,
the “Cry Guy”. You have to be modernistic in a land where nothing is certain
except change.
In Britain, on the other hand, things were different. Ever
since the arrival of ragtime, just before World War One, the islanders had
welcomed and then nurtured American pop, whether it be jazz, swing, or
boogie-woogie. We were host to the friendly invaders and we treasured their
strange sounds, studying the hot licks and curious drawl of the crooners on our
precious 78s. Lately we had been excited by the deep dish cowboy twang of one
“Tennessee Ernie” Ford as he rockabillied his way through “Kiss Me Big”
with exciting lines like, “I wanna be hugged, I wanna be grabbed, I wanna
stand and quiver like I've been stabbed”. All the better that my headmaster
denounced this disc as so much “Yank trash”.
We loved the strangers as fans, as customers. We could only
gawk, amazed. How could we, rigid with reserve, ever compete with this
intoxicating foreign product?
However, we kids of the early 1950s did have our own
native music, our own rootsy songs which had been dinned into
us since the cradle. British Music Hall, unlike American Vaudeville, was still
operating even though the institution was tottering. Homely native comedians
sang of “Friends And Neighbours” or else “My Old Mum” even as, on the
same bills, hot American stars like Guy Mitchell and Frankie Laine, masters of
rhythm and emotion, belted out their latest hits.
At family gatherings we'd sing along with our grandparents to
“I'm ‘Enery The Eighth, I am”. Our parents played records by George
Formby, the toothy “Ukulele Man” from up North near Liverpool, who sang of
seeing ladies knickers while cleaning windows. In summertime we were taken to
the seaside where uniformed gentlemen in brass bands blew tunes from as long ago
as The Boer War (“The Soldiers Of The Queen”). John, Paul, George, Ringo and
me -- we were all soaked in Music Hall, even as we waited for the coming of The
Big Beat................
Apart from comedians the rest of our music scene was
dispiriting. Pre-war dance bands, led by old men in dinner suits waving batons
like headmasters with canes, continued to rule ballrooms, posh restaurants and
night clubs. Their vocalists offered pale imitations of Crosby, Sinatra and
other U.S. crooners. In the newspapers they were generally pictured clad in
cardigan, clutching a pipe.
Being a teenager was no fun in the early 1950s. Britain was
reeling from being bankrupted by World War Two even as America had gown fat and
sassy. On the eve of the rock ‘n’ roll invasion the nation remained in a war
situation, rationed hard from gas to candy. So we were ready to respond when, in
1955, the avuncular Bill Haley roused us to “Rock around The Clock, first on
disc and next on the big screen.
Suddenly, British youth, hitherto passive and law-abiding,
became an alarming headline: there were riots at the movie, policemen had their
helmets dislodged, and the menacing specter of the Teddy Boy emerged -- garbed
Edwardian
but topped with greasy hair and armed with a knife. Next came the leather boys
on their motorbikes and their new American heroes, the original wild men of rock
‘n’ roll: Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and
the reflective and wry Chuck Berry. Violence twinned with sex, a new mixture,
had raised a vulpine head in the once tame and tweedy isles.
The girls squealed and doled out their wages for 78s of the
new music. Boys who wanted not only to sway and shout but also to take part were
nonplussed. Rock ‘n’ Roll, like all the styles, was an American invention
demanding electric guitars, echo chambers, major labels and managers. All very
expensive -- and we couldn't compete.
But the local music industry, based in London, responded with
its typical business-as-usual methods: slavish copies via cover versions
performed by hastily assembled little Elvis Presleys. Fortunately for those of
us who wanted to join in but were stuck outside the gates of show biz there
appeared, in the midst of the wired roar of commerce, a homely do-it-yourself
music dubbed Skiffle.
Borrowing from old American folk, blues and work songs, and
much garbled in the process, Skiffle was started by Lonnie Donegan, a banjo
player from the ranks of British traditional jazz, through his unlikely hit
recording of an obscure railroad narrative set in the heart of Dixie, “Rock
Island Line”. “Rock” was the magic word here.
The style was simple and cheap, employing strummed acoustic
guitar, a washboard, a tub bass, three chords, and loads of enthusiasm. Soon the
country of young wannabes was ringing lustily, if not authentically, to tales of
working in cotton fields or on chain gangs. Guitar sales soared.
For some of us (perhaps the more academic and middle class)
this short-lived Skiffle Boom led to an examination of underground roots music:
black blues and white protest, of racism and dust bowl. In London it was but a
short walk
from the tube or bus to stores offering LPs ranging from Big Bill Broonzy to
Woody Guthrie. Shop assistants with thick cockney accents were ever ready to
recount the sorry history of Yankee Doodle’s oppressed minorities. At home we
studied each moan and cry, each crushed and bent note, issuing from the precious
vinyl -- manufactured by thoughtful British labels.
Soon true bluesmen were imported, enthralling the aficionados
at London jazz clubs. Modern jazz had been a mystery but bluesmen had a
simplicity that might be useable -- the plangent field ring of the lone guitar,
the train whistle moan of the mouth organ.
There was a hiccup, though, when one of these folk heroes,
Muddy Waters, placed an amplifier on the stage and proceeded to blast off on an
electric guitar. The folkies were horrified -- but others were thrilled and then
converted. Was this not rock ‘n’ roll with a conscience and a history? We
had been exposed to Rhythm & Blues, the all electric city version of the old
country blues. From here it was but a step to the more immediate rants and
grunts of James Brown and the gospel call-and-response of Ray Charles. The race
was on to form bands and regurgitate this hypnotic yet authentic music from
abroad. Embryonic Rolling Stones took note, practiced, waited.
But I am confining myself to Southern England. Up in the
forbidding and unruly North, especially in Liverpool, Skiffle didn't necessarily
lead to folk and blues study. Instead skiffle group experience led back to the
original strong beer of rock ‘n’ roll, and to the formation of electric
guitar groups on the lines of Buddy Holly & The Crickets. Thus The Gerry
Marsden Skiffle Group turned into Gerry & The Pacemakers, while The
Quarrymen (containing John, Paul and George) became Johnny & The Moondogs.
In fact, as John Lennon said later, even as skifflers the boys had been already
squeezing in beat stuff like
Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” because they found folk songs
restricting. The gritty Northerners had no patience with effete Southerners and
their imported bluesmen fossils. Future Beatles and Merseybeaters felt
up-to-date earthy
with their raucous renditions of American B sides by R&B girl groups, by Dr
Feelgood & The Interns, and other obscurities. Where'd they get these rare
records? Not from London.
One thing that both North and South, middle-class and
working-class, agreed upon: by 1960 rock ‘n’ roll was a dead
duck.
The music had gone wet with violins; every other singer
seemed to be a buttoned down crooner called Bobby. Erstwhile local rockers --
such as Cliff Richard, an early Elvis clone but at least once dangerous and
sultry-sulky -- had been managerially rolled smooth and silky. The real rockers
were absent: Elvis emerged from the army only to vanish into a Hollywood haze;
Jerry Lee Lewis was in disgrace for marrying his 13 yearend cousin; Chuck Berry
was in jail; Buddy Holly was dead. Pop had taken over -- packaged, precise
pabulum.
Let me now introduce myself. Ever since childhood in post-war
England I had been a user of popular song -- from leading a comb-and-paper
school combo performing 50s pop like “Answer Me, My Love”, through a skiffle
group period
when I sang, “This Sporting Life Is Killin’ Me”, to a rock ‘n’ roll
band in which, armed with an electrified guitar, I did an impression of Cliff
Richard rendering “High Class Baby”. I was now 18 and a hero to the junior
schoolboys, proving that you could shine without being good at sports.
In 1961, with the big beat in retreat, I enrolled as a
history student at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. But, truth to tell, I spent
most of my time in bands, starting with trad jazz and finally launching into a
sort of R&B. At the same time I had acquired a ukulele, using it to amuse my
fellow undergraduates with versions of music hall songs, particularly those
recorded by George Formby. In this pursuit of rough music instead of proper
education I was not alone. Over in England there was a new tradition among art
students for using their schools as covers for rock studies rather than for
Rembrandt. A partial
list of those errant students would include John Lennon, Keith Richards (The
Rolling stones), Pete Townshend (The Who), Ray Davies (The Kinks), Eric Burdon
(The Animals) and Eric Clapton (The Yardbirds). What we had in common, apart
from our obsession with true blues, was that we weren't about to be fodder for
the show biz industry. We were our own men, we weren't Bobbies.
In the summer of 1963, that fatal year, I pilgrimaged to the
land of my dreams, the source of my sounds. I saw The Grand Ole Opry in
Nashville, ancient black jazz at Preservation Hall in New Orleans, and James
Brown in person at a Seattle armory. I was shocked that my American peers
neither knew nor cared about the blues, were wary of R&B, and considered
Elvis to be little more than white trash. They appeared to be going through a
more sanitized version of our Skiffle era, with crew-cutted collegiates singing
of jolly coachmen or else Michael rowing his boat ashore.
I returned to England determined to create a band that, while
respecting the roots, would not ape the real McCoy. But I still felt queazy:
that rock ‘n’ roll and my own country were inimical, that we were a place of
Shakespeare, tea cozies, and men in bowler hats. Imagine my surprise when I
found everybody and the bus conductor talking about the Beatles! A silly name, I
said, a play on Buddy Holly's Crickets. The Rolling Stones were another matter:
they were keeping the R&B torch alight and moving, even if they did sound
like Thames Valley sharecroppers.
But it was the Northern groups who were dominating the
airwaves and record charts. Liverpool was deluged with agents seeking the next
sensation. Some even signed each other up. Other cities were searched.
Manchester rendered up the Hollies, Herman's Hermits, and Freddie & the
Dreamers. Why all this to-do at this precise time?
A combination of the fall of the Establishment (caused by a
political sex scandal which destroyed forever the image of the discreet, sexless
Britisher), an increase in pocket money so kids could indulge their pop tastes,
and a delayed “silly season” for the media (due to this Profumo business).
Enter the Beatles and the cheeky, lively Northern groups. They could be marketed
as cuddly toys, they spoke in a funny dialect, they were bouncing haircuts,
appealing to young and old.
Common but not ashamed, the Northern groups were noisy but at
least not banging on about society's woes like the Angry Young Men in the recent
social reality films (“Look Back in Anger” had started the movement).
No, the Beatles admitted they were in it for the laughs and the money. They sent
themselves up as well as the pop industry. The barriers between Them and Us were
down and now the cat could look at the Queen. Indeed, a pop group, like a royal
event, could unite the nation, providing an escape from reality. Everyone --
from babies burbling about “Beakles” to the London “Times” critic
writing of their “pandiatonic clusters” -- was enthralled by the four lads.
Working class fun and frolics had become everybody's
chic. Trendy London fashion photographers took their picture and in turn the
boys’ management borrowed the photographers’ Cuban heeled boots, the idea of
long hair, and a concept of smart clothes rather than dirty black leather.
By
Christmas “She Loves You”, the “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” anthem that John and
Paul had knocked off in a few minutes when a new single was needed, had sold
almost two million copies (in a country where a sale of a thousand was
considered
decent). On another Christmas hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle”,
the comedienne Dora Bryan admitted she didn't care which one she got because
“they're all the same”. Yes, that's what they seemed: four carefree,
mop-topped toy-boys. To be Beatles was to be a national institution, above
criticism. But would America take the Beatles to heart? Would the world center
of show business accept a group that in one way was carrying coals to Newcastle,
and in another way merely an insular phenomenon, a rocking revival of Music
Hall?
The U.S. campaign was cleverly planned. Capitol, their record
company, sent press kits -- including Beatle wigs and a special newspaper -- to
every disc jockey. Five million stickers proclaimed, THE BEATLES ARE COMING.
Billionaire Paul Getty had a Beatle wig plunked onto his scalp. Nat “King”
Cole rang his label and was greeted by a snappy-happy, “Capitol Records --
Home of the Beatles!”. Carnegie Hall had been booked in advance, as had two
appearances on the important Ed Sullivan Show.
One was enough: on February 9, 1964, the boys were seen by 73
million, the largest television audience ever. They had already won the hearts
of Americans with their wacky answers to inane questions at press conferences:
“What do
think of Beethoven?” Ringo: I love him -- especially his poems”.
With all their flip and frip the lads represented the jolly
end of a growing American infatuation with all things Brit -- the new wave of
“kitchen sink” movies and plays, the snazzy James Bond. Now, in a society
still recovering from the assassination of President Kennedy, the Beatles were
just what the doctor ordered.
But when all was said and done the fact is that the music had
done the trick. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was Number One on the
“Billboard” chart by February 1, 1964, before any of the above hoopla and
hype. Americans love a parade and they needed one, but they also recognized a
good song -- as solidly substantial as fish and chips soused in stateside
Tabasco. Said King Elvis to his gang, after watching the Ed Sullivan appearance,
“They've brought it home, boys!”
In my opinion, the Beatles, and some of the other Invaders
who rowed in their wake, were the last practitioners of the art of the
well-made, free-standing popular song, an art dating back to Stephen Foster.
After the coming of psychedelia and heavy metal and the rest, the art was lost,
never to reappear. Even Mick Jagger, bad boy poseur who at first appeared to be
no more than a James Brown/Tina Turner impersonator, went on to contribute
sturdy songs like, "As Tears Go By” and “Lady Jane”. The Invaders
knew it was not enough to serve up only re-heated R&B. The best of their
material -- "She's Not There” (Zombies), “Concrete and Clay” (Unit
Four Plus Two), “Mrs. Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter (Herman's Hermits)
-- can stand up today in print proudly, can be played on a piano or by a full
orchestra. Even on a ukulele, the instrument of choice for both the late George
Harrison and myself.
And speaking of myself: back in Dublin, watching the Invasion
gain momentum, I limbered up to catch a wave. Already I had formed Bluesville, a
hard-driving group devoted at first to R& but then adjusted by the
realization that a bit of wiggling and hair-shaking could win the girls, and
that it was better artistically and financially to stop copying and start
creating. Perhaps there was to be an Irish Invasion, a native sound?
Of course, I was an anomaly as an upper-class Englishman in
the Republic of Ireland leading a rock band whose manager lived in Seattle.
Still, I was following the same rapture as the mainlanders and, at the end of
1964, after serving time bashing out blues in grotty Dublin dives, I was writing
and recording my own material. Next year, as the Invasion grew to include not
only groups but also barbershoppers (The Bachelors), a demure veteran from the
1940s (Petula Clark) and even harmless Aussie folkies (The Seekers), I was swept
in with a careless track of no name, a creature of thumping beat and orgasmic
panting, a monster created by current U.S. needs outside of my control.
“You Turn Me On”, its eventual name, was as good a slice
of R&R as ever hit the charts: blues, beat, sex, and hunger -- as far a cry
from current events (Vietnam) as possible. On the “Billboard” chart of July
17, 1965, my record peaked at Number 8, beaten by my brothers the Rolling Stones
and Herman's Hermits. The chart of that week, showing 14 of us in the top forty,
marked the zenith of the British Invasion.
I was in teen heaven, appearing on “Shindig” (the very
best of the rock TV shows), touring with the Stones and Herman, helping the
Kinks get their tea, amusing the Turtles with my ukulele tributes to George
Formby. Was I aware that I was experiencing the last halcyon beach boy summer as
insidiously those protest songs crept in, heralding the darkness to come --the
death, the drugs, and Altamont. Was I aware that I was the father of Irish rock?
No, I was too busy having a good time in the fleshpots of Southern California,
making Old Country dreams come true.
And today, as a sexagenarian, I can revel in nostalgia
remembering those years from 1964 to 1966 when we ruled as a time when we
believed we were bringing back a little grit to the land of Mickey Mouse.
I have settled here to embrace Mickey, living near
Hollywood's corporate factories of fun. But there's no need to feel in exile.
Paul McCartney has a home in Pasadena -- a mile or so from me -- Herman's
nearby, as are Peter & Gordon and Spencer Davis. George Harrison, married to
a local lady, died here.
As a One Hit Wonder I'm hardly remembered, but as a published
historian I can stand back and inquire. Thus, a recent survey I conducted
revealed that although most adults talk of the Beatles with affection, they
rarely play Beatle records for their own sake. Instead the songs are used as
pacifying parental treats for their offspring. Gurgling with delight, banging
their feet, the babies are filled with ineffable delight, demanding more, more,
just as they would any sweet and comforting food.
The legacy of the British Invasion, in the end, lies in the
age-old transcendence of good rhythm music, of emotion in locomotion. The songs
are not, on the whole, standards or evergreens because the lyrics are wanting,
dealing largely with “Me” and “You” and feel-good declaration -- “I
Feel Fine”, “You know what I mean” -- or else pseudo-poetic nonsense
involving a “semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower”. Only Sgt.
Pepper and his music hall pals stands strong in front of that fountain of past
times from where we still get our nourishment.
The invaders were a happy band who once delighted a mourning
republic with the erotic sound of young voices in an exotic accent. Now perhaps
it grows poignant, like the eternal cry from a faraway place of a lost and
lonely Boy Blue.
Ian Whitcomb is a highly respected performer,
composer, and music historian. You can find all of his CD's, DVD's, Books, and
Songbooks by clicking here,
or by going to
ianwhitcomb.com