On February 9th, 1964, one month short of my ninth birthday, my life changed forever when I watched The Ed Sullivan Show on television. That Sunday night, Beatlemania crept into my childhood and robbed me of it. Dreams of being a cowboy, a fireman or an astronaut evaporated. I've never complained, although I never achieved my ambition of being a Beatle when I grew up, over the next 35 years, I came close enough for dreams to come true.
That's my personal testament to the effect the Beatles had on my life and my future career as a professional musician. FReeper FRiend's who are not really Beatle fans, nor perhaps old enough to have but the vaguest concept of what Beatlemania really was, will just have to take my word for it - a music revolution started in February of 1964 that reverberates to this day.
Most folks overlook the political implications of that revolution, but I have a personal take that embraces the effect on our American culture. I recall that I was in second grade one November day in 1963, when my teacher, Mrs. Gupton, was summoned by the principal to the office. She returned a few minutes later and taking the flag from it's holder above the black board, she asked us all to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This was singularly odd, to recite the Pledge at mid-day, and it was obvious to all that Mrs. Gupton was crying, tears rolling down her face, and having already lived through the days of the "Bay of Pigs Invasion" and the "Cuban Missile Crisis" and practiced seemingly endless civil defense and "duck & cover" drills, you could imagine our alarm at this odd behavior. "... Under God, with liberty and justice for all", we solemnly finished, and it was then that Mrs. Gupton told us that the busses were lining up and we were going home early, because President Kennedy was dead, slain by an assassin in a place called Dallas, Texas.
Many of my classmates cried, probably more in sympathy with Mrs. Gupton than from any idea of who President Kennedy was, but even then, I knew who he was because I had watched the election returns with my parents and perhaps the Kennedy/Nixon debates as well. I recall sitting at my little drum kit and playing drum rolls and cymbal crashes each time "Uncle" Walter announced another state's results. I had to keep asking my daddy which one we were "for".
Later, I had a book about the new President from the scholastic book club sponsored by "My Weekly Reader", which recounted his exploits on PT 109 and I had a Revel model kit of that famous boat. I was not a particularly bright lad, but that day when they sent us home early, was as dark and foreboding as any day since, with the possible exception of 9/11/2001.
I recall that my bedtime was suspended in the days that followed the assassination as my family and I watched an endless stream of images on the black and white television. It was the first time in my recollection that the three networks didn't sign-off the air with the National Anthem at midnight, but stayed on the air around the clock covering the news, the vigils and eventually the funeral of our nation's leader. The day of his burial, I again sat at my little drum, draped in a black silk handkerchief, playing along with the subdued military cadence of the funeral procession.
It seemed to me at least, that the whole nation grieved, and a dark cloud settled over everything. I don't really recall anything more tangible about the months that followed, just that somehow, much of the joy in life was missing, people were depressed and confused. My next clear memory was that Sunday night in February of 1964, when again, everything changed, and suddenly the funk was lifted when Ed Sullivan introduced that band. I wasn't watching with 70 million other Americans that night to see the Beatles, my folks let me stay up late to see Topo Gigio (the little Italian Mouse puppet), but something remarkable happened, a connection was made and I would never approach my drums the same way again. It was childhood's end, and my rite of passage.
From that moment, I became a Beatle fan and applied myself to a career in music to the exclusion of childhood sports and ambitions to be a fireman or a cowboy when I grew up. Perhaps only a nine-year-old can become so obsessed and so focused on a single goal.
In the months (and years) that followed I collected all manor of Beatle merchandise, from Beatle wallpaper in my room to Beatle trading cards with every trip on my bike to the local 7/11. I had Beatle dolls (although we call the "action figures" these days), board games, Beatle books and Beatle boots. I even had a passable Beatle haircut and there was nothing about John, Paul, George and Ringo I couldn't recount including lyrics, tour dates and all manor of fan trivia. I had (and still have) every Beatle album and single released in the next four or five years. My parents spent an inordinate amount of time and money indulging my Beatles passion and they suffered uncountable hours as I cranked the stereo and learned every Beatle song on my drums.
What happen in 1964 was an amazing conquest of America by four working-class lads from Liverpool who quite literally changed the world and brought new hope and zeal to at least one young boy in Virginia who stopped just short of hero worship. Perhaps that's why, even now, I return to those glory days when the critics who talked of flukes and passing fads were proved to be so much hot air when the flood gates of of the music revolution were opened. Fifty years have passed, and as I reminisce about those years I find the music as refreshing and exciting as ever.
By 1967, I had been taking drum lessons for almost six years, I owned a professional Ludwig drum kit and was more advanced than any 12 year-old with a drum set in my neck of the woods. I could read music and I could play along with any song on the AM radio hit parade. I had been in countless "garage bands" and had played a few professional shows with much older kids, by sheer luck and hard work.
Due to my early start, I was a better drummer than the average 15 or 16 year-old, so my band-mates were always older than I. '67 was a pivotal year for me. I was invited to join a real band that played real gigs. We learned over 100 songs so that we could play 4 sets each performance and play two performances without much repetition. It lasted almost 5 months. Then something happened that would again have a profound effects on my direction. The first pivotal event was a Monkees concert I attended that spring where I was exposed to Jimi Hendrix. I never went back to playing the old top 40 of the early 60s - I went into a steady diet of British Blues and hard rock, but my band mates were slow to adapt to the flood of new material. It all led to conflict within the band, conflict with my family and conflict at school. When my grades slipped my folks packed me off to military school, hoping to straighten me out. When I arrived at Hargrave Military Academy I auditioned for the "Hargrave Combo", an institution at the school for over two decades. I displaced the upper class man that had been playing drums for the previous two years and fell in with a group of older fellows who shared my new-found passion for the changing music scene. The "Hargrave Combo" was rechristened "Third Stone From The Sun" and we played the music of Hendrix, Cream, The Who, Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane and all manner of psychedelic, much to the chagrin of the headmaster and his minions. By the time my brief stint in military school was over, my repertoire had changed dramatically, right along with the American music scene.
During my recent move, while going through ancient boxes of memorabilia, I came across some old set lists from those early days of 1967 and they inspired my theme for tonight's Canteen Jukebox. The songs were from a simpler time, mostly 3 chord rave-ups and a few ballads to satisfy the slow dancers.
Devil With A Blue Dress On
~ Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels ~
