"This is not Mel Torme."
Posted on 02/09/2014 7:47:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Musical moments that capture the attention of a national audience - and beyond - never seem to be in short supply.
Last week, Bruno Mars set a ratings record with 115 million people watching his Super Bowl performance. A few months ago, the talk was about Beyonce’s surprise album. And there’s still discussion of That Miley Moment at the MTV Video Music Awards.
But moments that spark a musical revolution? A dramatic altering of the pop culture landscape? A true moment for historians to analyze? Rare indeed, which is what makes the 50th anniversary of what is considered the start of Beatlemania so remarkable - and so unlikely to happen again.
“The media has gotten so fragmented now ... there’s 50 things in a marketing plan for an artist today,” said Revolt TV President (and former MTV executive) Andy Schuon. “The ability to fan that fire and to give it the kind of intensity that ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ could get doesn’t exist today.”
Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ performance on “Ed Sullivan,” their first appearance in America. Nielsen says 45 percent of all TV sets in use at the time were tuned into the broadcast, with fans and the uninitiated alike gathered shoulder to shoulder in their living rooms. The Beatles landed on a trigger point when they hit America. It was a pop culture sonic boom spurred by talent, timing and luck that’s still rattling the windows.
“This was a seismic shift in American culture and it gave the teenagers not only a voice but a way of being, a way of thinking that had never occurred before,” Beatles biographer Bob Spitz said.
(Excerpt) Read more at kens5.com ...
"This is not Mel Torme."
King Curtis: Twisting Time
The Beatles and many other pop artists drove down the highway Elvis Presley built.
They were wonderful. They did the songs as they were written and should be performed. The whole show was great. Hated to see it end.
I don’t think time permitted Ol’ Blue Eyes that night. He was mighty pissed about it.
"Your bride is scaring Linda's baby. Why don't you jump off that cliff over there?"
According to chart expert Joel Whitburn, Love Is the Sweetest Thing by Ray Noble & His Orchestra was the bestselling single from mid-August to mid-September, 1933. And it's far superior to anything the Beatles ever did.
However, there were no charts in 1933.
Vera Lynn's version of Auf Wiedersehen (good bye) topped the charts in the early summer of 1952.
Weren’t there charts of sheet music back in the 30s and earlier and that’s how charts got started?
I’ve heard the flip side many times, but I never heard that one before.
I must say that the Johnny Morisette’s cut is a great find (have listened to it now a half dozen times) and Sam Cooke’s version doesn’t compare!
Yes, there were. Joel Whitburn constructed his retrospective pop charts of bestselling records using these and other resources. His book Pop Memories (Menomonee Falls, Wis.: Record Research, 1984) lists number one records going back to 1894.
I, too, liked it the first time I heard it.
If I were the Rolling Stones musical director now, I’d recommend to them to cover it on their next album, I mean they’ve run out of old records to cover, when they last covered Freddie Cannon’s “Tallahassee Lassie”, and it would be a great piece for a Bobby Keys solo and Jagger’s falsetto, if he’s got any left. This tune just calls to be revived.
LOL!!!
Here's the truth: rock 'n roll as a popular music genre came very close to going away by 1961. Look at what happened in the late 1950's to the genre:
1. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in that February 1959 plane crash, depriving us of potentially a new generation of rock 'n roll stars to lead the genre into the 1960's.
2. Elvis Presley was in the US Army as a draftee between 1958 and 1960, years that could have been his most productive as a rock 'n roll musician. Instead, after he left the Army in 1960 Presley was way more into making movies.
3. Several other well-known rock 'n roll stars such as Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and several others were suffering from legal and personal troubles that hurt their reputation with fans.
4. The infamous payola scandal cost the careers of many rock 'n roll-oriented radio station disc jockeys.
5. Religious organizations ran a very successful campaign to suppress this genre of music.
As a result, rock 'n roll was pretty much dead as a genre by 1961. Sure, the Beach Boys start to revive the format with their California Sound by 1962, but it took the success of the Beatles and the subsequent British Invasion to revive the genre, and the Beach Boys literally rode the wave of its revival to become very popular.
(An interesting aside: it was when rock 'n roll fell into disfavor that a new popular music genre, the Motown Sound that combined soul music with popular music beats, start to become really popular. And it stayed popular even after the British Invasion started in 1964.)
It was a fantastic show with truly talented musicians. It was a treat.
The odd thing is much of their unique style derived from their weakest musical link: Ringo. Nobody would ever declare Ringo to be a great drummer, but he had a peculiar habit of drumming on the beat, rather than lagging a little, the way R&B and Rock and Roll were normally drummed. This gave the Beatles' music a tight, incessant energy, which set them apart from other groups.
How dare you insult Ailene. That wasn’t her name, but it’s the only one legged joke I know
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.