Fifty years ago, how many teenage Beatles fans knew about music from 1915. That would be the equivalent.
Hehe
No it wouldn’t.
There is more continuity and public appearances and elevator music and media appearances and mention on music shows about the Beatles and Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney, than the example of a 1915 musician in 1974, when Paul, Wings, and the Beatles were super stars, not to mention how big 1960s music still has importance in current America.
The most popular recording entity of the acoustic era (pre mid 1920s) was the Peerless Quartet. How many teens of the 60s (or even 50s) knew who they were?
Now THAT makes me feel old.
50 years ago a lot of the chart topping songs were covers of much older songs written by old black men.
Top of the billboard charts the day I was born and written by Leadbelly many years before that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgTSfJEf_jM
“That would be the equivalent.”
I don’t think it is equivalent, because there was no one group in 1915 that was ever as big as the Beatles. Also, the Beatles continue to be fairly prominent culturally to this day, with their music still being used in movie soundtracks, commercials, etc.
They might have heard of the Light Crust Doughboys though, I mean they are still big enough to have their own website.
http://lightcrustdoughboys.org/
I heard that light crust dough protects you from BRD, your own not that of others.
how many teenage Beatles fans knew about music from 1915
I told him to give me his name and number. I said, “What’s that, Pete Atkinson?” “No, Atchison, like ‘Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe’”, he replied. My response was along the lines of “Huh?”. The guy let out a sad sigh, and spelled A-T-C-H-I-S-O-N.
After we hung up, I came to realize he was referencing a song from yesteryear, that my Dad would sometimes sing. I felt bad, knowing that as a salesman, he had probably used that catchy line, to great affect, for many years, but was coming to the realization that sunset was soon approaching, on his career.
Now that I’m closing in on age 60, I can really empathize with Pete.
Hardly the equivalent. In 1915, there was no TV, no music on radio, no talking movies, and no equivalent pop cultural explosion.
Virtually EVERYBODY in the Western World -- including my 80-year-old Russian born Jewish immigrant grandmother who never learned to read English -- knew who the Beatles were by the end of 1964, which made them TRUE superstars -- as opposed to today, when the world is full of "superstars" that an awful lot of people -- especially people in their 60s and 70s -- never heard of.
I can tell you though, having been a new teenager when the Beatles first hit the American airwaves, I sure knew who Rudy Vallee was, and recognized the parody when the New Vaudeville Band released "Winchester Cathedral" with the singer sounding like he was singing through a megaphone.
...the best-selling album of the decade is the Beatles' 1, a collection of their number one hits. And that, when counting the individual albums in their massive (and very expensive) box sets of remastered recordings released just this past September as individual albums rather than one "unit," the erstwhile lads from Liverpool have sold more CDs than Eminem, the leading solo act of the decade, or any group, for that matter.
Hot Tours: Paul McCartney Is No. 1 With Sold Out U.S. Tour
OTOH, a goodly portion of Beatles fans knew the music of Scott Joplin, thanks to the movie, The Sting.
I was in my teens during the late seventies and early eighties. I knew something about Big Band, which was the music of my parents’ generation.
These kids are idiots.