The Beatles’ Journey Across the Universe

Let’s dive into the long and curious history of the Beatles’ Across the Universe.  The song has always held a special place for me because it was the song that opened my eyes (and ears) to the magical world of the Beatles.  I was familiar with the songs I heard on the oldies station growing up, and my parents had the red (1962-1966) cassette which we often listened to on road trips.  But it wasn’t until my 5th grade best friend, who was Beatles obsessed, sat me down and played me the Past Masters Vol 2 version of Across the Universe that the Beatles became a personal thing for me.  My young ears had never heard anything like this before.  It felt cinematic, and mystical, and so far removed from pop music I was familiar with.  To this day, the song still holds so much mystery and magic to me.  It’s one of the very few songs in the Beatles’ canon that doesn’t have a true “definitive” version.  It was attempted a number of times, released twice during the band’s active years, with two more “official” versions since the band’s breakup.  John Lennon called Across the Universe one of his favorite songs he ever wrote, but even in his last interviews before his death he was still lamenting his dissatisfaction with how the Beatles’ version(s) turned out.

The Official Versions

Without getting into all the variations of stereo and mono based on the same recording (you can easily find that info on Wikipedia or various Beatles fan sites) these are the 4 official versions, which all stem from the February 1968 sessions.

December 1969: “No One’s Gonna Change Our World” Wildlife Fund Compilation.  This is the first appearance of the song.  The song was originally conceived at the tail end of the band’s psychedelic era, and thus included many of the hallmarks of that period – eastern instrumentation, including a droning tamboura.  Fans hanging outside of the studio, affectionately called “Apple Scruffs” by the band, were brought in to sing harmonies.  The song featured bird sound effects, added at the last minute to tie in with the Wildlife Fund compilation.  This is the version available on Past Masters.  The recording is very noticeably sped up sped up to Eb, from it’s original recording in D.

May 1970: Let It Be album.  The original tapes were dusted off by Phil Spector, he slowed the song down to C# – again not presenting it in its original recorded key of D.  Stripping the song of most of its eastern influence and the “Apple Scruff” harmonies, Spector gave it the classic Hollywood treatment, adding a choir, harp and string section. Interestingly, the 1974 release “Blue Album (1967-1970)” which was overseen and approved by George Martin used the 1970 Phil Spector version, making it the closest we have to a definitive version. 

March 1996: Anthology 2.  An alternate take presented in its original key of D.    

November 2003: Let it Be… Naked.  The original 1968 master, but stripped down to mostly just vocals and acoustic guitar with the tamboura drone, and returned to its original key of D.  This version is controversial, at least to me, because it was digitally pitch-corrected.  Which is the only instance I’m aware of that they’ve “auto-tuned” The Beatles.

Lennon’s Songwriting Process

John Lennon wrote this song after having an argument with his then-wife, Cynthia. He said, “I was lying next to me first wife in bed, and I was irritated. She must have been going on and on about something and she’d gone to sleep and I kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into sort of a cosmic song rather than an irritated song… it drove me out of bed. I didn’t want to write it, but I was slightly irritable and I went downstairs and I couldn’t get to sleep until I’d put it on paper…[The words] were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don’t own it you know; it came through like that.”

Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, “It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best. It’s good poetry.”

Lennon’s Dissatisfaction with the Beatles Recording(s)

“It was a lousy track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it,” Lennon told David Sheff (author of Lennon book, All We Are Saying). “The song was never done properly. When Phil Spector was brought in to produce Let It Be, he dug it out and overdubbed it. The guitars are out of tune and I’m singing out of tune cause I’m psychologically destroyed and nobody’s supporting me or helping me with it.”

“The original track was a real piece of shit. I was singing out of tune, and instead of getting a decent choir, we got fans from outside. They came in and were singing all off-key. Nobody was interested in doing the tune originally… Spector took the tape and did a damn good job with it”.

Paul McCartney was often the scapegoat when Lennon would complain about the song.  It’s a revealing testament to how much Lennon relied on McCartney to bring energy and magic to his songs, that John really wished Paul had put more into “Across the Universe.”  You never hear McCartney complain that John didn’t bring enough to one of his songs.  In fact, by 1968, John was rarely required to do much to any of Paul’s compositions.

“Paul would … sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song … usually we’d spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul’s songs; when it came to mine … somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in. Subconscious sabotage.” – Playboy 1980

In another interview, he said, “The Beatles didn’t make a good record of it. I think subconsciously sometimes we – I say ‘we’ although I think Paul did it more than the rest of us – Paul would, sort of subconsciously, try and destroy a great song… meaning we’d play experimental games with my great pieces, like ‘Strawberry Fields,’ which I always thought was badly recorded.”

Recording History

The first recordings of the song date back to February 1968, with John competing with Paul for the A-Side of the band’s next single.  After losing the battle for the band’s next single to McCartney’s Lady Madonna – and even losing out on the B-side to Harrison’s The Inner Light, Across the Universe eventually found a home almost two years later, in late-1969, as part of the World Wildlife Fund charity album, No One’s Gonna Change Our World.

Although the song well over a year old at this point, and it’s unclear if it was seriously considered for the group’s early 1969 Get Back project (which eventually became the 1970 Let It Be film and album), but because a clip of the band jamming Across the Universe made it into the film, the original master tapes were given to Phil Spector to work on and include in the album/soundtrack.  And once again when the “Let It Be… Naked” project came around, that February 1968 master was dusted off once again, even though the song had virtually nothing to do with the Get Back/Let It Be project originally.

Jai Guru Deva Om ???

The refrain “Jai Guru Deva Om” is a mantra intended to lull the mind into a higher consciousness. The words are in Sanskrit, and they mean “I give thanks to Guru Dev,” who was the teacher of The Maharishi. The “Om” at the end is the drawn out “oooohm” used in meditation to relate to the natural vibration of the universe. While visiting the Maharishi in Rishikesh, John purchased a set of brass bracelets with the words “Jai Guru Dev” imprinted on them.  The same mantra was used a few years later on The Beach Boys, All This is That (co-written by Mike Love who was at the same India retreat with the Beatles) from 1972’s album, Carl & The Passions.

The Universe is Expanding

The song has had a LONG afterlife….

Important covers: 

David Bowie feat John Lennon on acoustic guitar and backing vocals.  It appears on Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans.

Fiona Apple 1998 from Pleasentville.

Rufus Wainwright 2002 I Am Sam soundtrack / Bonus track on Wainwright’s 2002 album, Poses.

This song was the title for the 2007 movie, Across the Universe, which is centered around songs by the Beatles. Across the Universe stars Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood.

On February 4, 2008 “Across The Universe” became the first track to be beamed directly into space. It was transmitted through NASA’s antenna in the DSN’s Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, towards the North Star, Polaris, 431 light-years from Earth. The broadcasting of the Fab Four song was done to mark both NASA’s 50th birthday and the 40th anniversary of “Across The Universe.” Paul McCartney described the transmission as an “amazing feat” adding, “Well done, NASA. Send my love to the aliens!”

Here’s a Spotify playlist I’ve created which features all the versions mentioned in this article

Sources:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/across-the-universe/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Universe

 

The 5 Elvis ‘Studio Albums’ That Every Serious Music Fan Should Know

So many music fans today don’t own any Elvis albums.  And if they do, it’s usually just a greatest hits collection or maybe a Christmas album.  My guess is that most people just have no idea where to start.  I’ve done the hard work, digging through his entire catalog, and these are the 5 essential studio albums that every true music fan should have in their collection.

Elvis’s greatest hits have been packaged and repackaged so many times over the years no one even realizes he made actual studio albums.  Although he came up in the singles-driven era of the 1950s, Elvis was one of the pioneers of the “album.”  Case in point, his debut album (1956’s “Elvis Presley”) was the first rock and roll LP to sell a million copies.  This gave labels all the incentive they needed to put more money into album budgets, and not look at it merely as a collection of left over non-singles.  One of the toughest things with Elvis’ catalog is just the sheer amount of hits packages, live albums, movie soundtracks, etc that you have to weed through to find the true albums.  As a lifelong Elvis fan, occasionally calling myself an Elvis apologist, I’ve gone through every nook and cranny of his catalog and these are the albums that I feel make him an important “album artist” in the way people more commonly refer to The Beatles, Stones, or Dylan.  While he made a number of great movie soundtracks, gospel albums, and christmas albums – you won’t find any of that here.  Here’s my brief synopsis of each album – listed in chronological order – along with a link to stream the album on Spotify.

1. Elvis Presley (1956)

You can’t go wrong with Elvis’ debut album.  While this is a list of “studio albums,” this debut album is technically a collection.  It combines previously unreleased songs from his prolific Sun Records years (1954-55) with fresh songs recorded in New York and a few in Nashville.  The iconic album cover with the green and pink lettering has been parodied many times over the years, most famously with The Clash’s 1979 opus, London Calling.  Key tracks: Blue Moon, Tryin’ to Get to You // Reissues include the essential singles from the sessions: Heartbreak Hotel, Lawdy Miss Clawdy and more.

2. Elvis (1956)

While this album doesn’t get talked about as much as his breakthrough album, I think it is a stronger album, and really his first start-to-finish studio album.  With this album you start to hear the range of the material Elvis would continue pulling from throughout his career.  Ballads, rockers, gospel, and pop.  Key tracks: Love Me, Old Shep, Anyplace is Paradise, How’s the World Treating You // Reissues include the essential singles from the sessions: Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Too Much and more.

3. Elvis is Back! (1960)

This might be his best album.  Easily, it’s his best produced album.  Elvis is Back! is top-to-bottom perfection.  Elvis has a room full of Nashville’s cream of the crop, and his voice is in a very special place.  He does some of his best dirty blues vocals (Reconsider Baby), as well as some of his sweetest pop vocals (Soldier Boy).  He still had the swagger of the 50s, but with that post-Army maturity, before Hollywood whitewashed his soul for the next few years.  Key tracks: Reconsider Baby, Like A Baby, Feels So Right, Fever // Reissues include the essential singles from the sessions: It’s Now Or Never, Are You Lonesome Tonight, Mess of Blues and more.

4. From Elvis in Memphis (1969)

Many Elvis fans and music critics would argue that this is Elvis’ strongest studio album.  When I first discovered the album behind his comeback singles (Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto), I probably would have agreed.  It’s a powerful collection of music.  But trouble between Elvis’ manager Col Tom Parker and the album’s producer Chips Moman resulted in the album never getting properly finished by Chips, and the album ended up with a very uneven sound.  The unfinished sound of some of the songs has a charming, almost demo/outtake quality, but it takes the listener out of the “studio album” mindset, and more into a distracting fly-on-the-wall of a session in progress.  Had the album been finished to Chips Moman’s standards we could have a full album of Suspicious Minds-quality productions, but as it is, it is still the closest thing we have to a Memphis Soul album from Elvis at the peak of his “comeback” powers.  There were so many songs recorded during these sessions, a second album from the material was released as Back in Memphis a year later.  If your looking for a digital or CD reissue, look for a package that includes all the Back to Memphis tracks as well.  Key tracks: Wearin’ that Loved On Look, Only the Strong Survive, Power of My Love, True Love Travels on a Gravel Road // Reissues include the singles from the sessions: Suspicious Minds, Don’t Cry Daddy, Kentucky Rain and more.

5. Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old) (1971)

One thing that mired many of Elvis’ studio albums was also one of the things Elvis fans love him for – his lack of discipline.  I love that Elvis never wanted to sing in a vocal booth, never wanted to use headphones, always wanted to be in the middle of the room full of musicians.  But this often led to many of his recordings sounding more like a killer jam session, and less like a well-crafted studio masterpiece.  This album is no exception.  Full of off-the-cuff sounding forays into country, folk, blues, and even bluegrass.  I have to give them kudos for experimenting on an Elvis album, but clips of I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago weaving in and out between the songs really wears you out after a while, and contributes to the messiness already inherent in many of these performances.  Reissues have remedied that problem, removing the song between tracks, and including it separately as a bonus track.  Elvis Country is probably the peak of Elvis’ mature ’70s voice, and he still has a lot of that electric energy from his not-so-distant comeback.  Sadly, after this album you hear him rapidly slow down and gradually lose his spark all together.  Just like From Elvis in Memphis, the tracks from these “marathon Nashville sessions” ended up getting parceled out into two other albums – Love Letters from Elvis (1971), and the studio half of the soundtrack album That’s the Way It Is, which mixed live and studio recordings.  There are reissues that combine all the tracks from these sessions into one package.  Key tracks: Funny How Time Slips Away, I Really Don’t Want to Know, I Washed My Hands in the Muddy Water // Reissues include the singles from the sessions: It Ain’t No Big Thing (But it’s Growing) and more.

FURTHER LISTENING: If you wanna dig deeper check out these additional albums: How Great Thou Art (1967), Elvis ’68 Comeback (1968), Something For Everybody (1961), Pot Luck (1962), and any Sun Sessions collection will do.

My Elvis Playlist of personal favorites:

Post-Beatles 1970-1980

In Richard Linklater‘s 2014 film, Boyhood, Ethan Hawk‘s character gives his son a CD-R mix he calls The Black Album. Not to be confused with the Jay Z album, or the legendary unreleased Prince album, this is a collection of solo Beatles tracks combined to make a “new” Beatles album. This is something I’ve been toying with since the days of cassette. I remember in the early days of Microsoft Paint, at around age 12, I made an updated version of the Let It Be cover, with the 4 squares with each Beatle – but using pictures from the 1995 Anthology era (and a 1980 picture of Lennon). Nerdy. There wasn’t even music involved. But just seeing all the guys together gave me some form of continuity, or even comfort. And I remember attempting my own CD-R mix in my early 20s. But I had very limited resources, as I didn’t have many of their solo albums. I’ve always been a Lennon guy, so I had those, but didn’t have much for the others. But now with Spotify, it’s become WAY easier to really take on an ambitious Post-Beatles collection.

Unlike Ethan Hawk’s mix, I put a number of rules on the project, to try and lend some credibility to the endeavor. First of all, John died in 1980, so I think it’d be unfair to include tracks from the other guys after that. This collection presupposes that the band kept going for one more decade. Second rule, no major hits. Again, unlike Ethan Hawk’s mix, you’re not gonna hear My Sweet Lord next to Imagine next to Live and Let Die. As tempting as that would be, it would completely take me out of the idea that this is an album. It would merely feel like a hits collection. And one of the great things about the Beatles was they had singles and then they had albums, and they rarely crossed over. And collectively the guys all had a lot of hits in their solo years, so this restraint actually helps narrow the focus. Another rule was giving each Beatle equal space. This ultimately was a big factor on the Beatles break up, there wasn’t enough space on an album for all of John, Paul and George by 1970. They were all on major writing streaks, and even Ringo brought in his best original with Octopus’s Garden on the Beatles swan song, Abbey Road. George only got two songs on that album and they were two of the best tracks on the album, Here Comes the Sun (the most streamed Beatles song on Spotify) and the majestic Something, the most covered Beatles song other than the ubiquitous Yesterday.  So this collection gives each Beatle more space than any Beatles album. Going in the order of Ringo, George, John and Paul.

A couple things of note – you’ll notice Ringo only has 9 songs, while the others have 11 each – there was only so many great/good Ringo songs, and this felt like a more than fair amount of Ringo compared to a typical Beatles album containing 1 each (or 2 for the White album).  But I bring him back at the end of the mix with “Dream” arranged by George Martin, which felt like a very Beatles thing to do.  And of course, he’s represented as a drummer on a number of John and George’s songs.  I broke the rule on no hits for Ringo too because even his popular songs aren’t as familiar to modern ears as Lennon, McCartney or Harrison’s big hits of the era.  I bent the rule of nothing past 1980 a couple times with George.  Including 1982’s recording of Circles, I validate that because he wrote the song in 1968 in India, so it would have been a song in the running for all of his (or potential Beatles) albums of the 1970’s.  And also I chose George’s 1992 re-recording of This Guitar (Can’t Keep from Crying), which is a much better vocal performance, and a more Beatle-esque recording than the original from 1975’s Extra Texture.  So the hard work has been done for you, I’ve weeded through all the 70s solo albums, and these are the choice (mostly lesser known) nuggs. With 42 songs, this would be the equivalent of them putting out an album every couple years throughout the decade, about 3 or 4 albums. Enjoy!

Ian McGlynn’s Tomorrow’s Taken is now a teenager

Today I am celebrating the 13th birthday of Ian McGlynn‘s Tomorrow’s Taken.  It was the first album I produced.  At the time, I only had the first two Dolour albums under my belt, both of which I had co-produced, but Tomorrow’s Taken (released in April 2004) was the first album I took full responsibility for the production.  

Ian’s manager (and partner in crime) Chris Newkirk found my records through our mutual friend Jeanette Parks, and asked me to produce Ian’s first studio album.  They flew me out to New Jersey to meet and spend the next few weeks in the summer, and then again in the fall, of 2003 living with Ian and working on the album every day.  It was a record where we both pushed each other to stretch out.  Ian allowed me to get very hands on with the songs, it was an atmosphere of pure creativity, and I think we really brought out the best in each other.  Ian had previously been mostly a solo piano guy, but Ian’s taste in music was anything but “sensitive singer/songwriters,” so my goal was to put Ian in a position where he could make the most honest representation of his music.  I opened up the floodgates to allow influences from everywhere to creep into the album.  There’s is a lone piano ballad (Southard Park), but there is also – folk pop (How Did I Get Here?), Dr. Dre influenced grooves (The Exception), electronic Kid A-esque songs (Be My Guide, Here For Me), Tom Waits‘ vibes (Carnivalism), lots of Brian Wilson harmonies (You Might Understand), Dark Side of the Moon moods (Morning Prayer), and plenty of Beatles-esque moments (No Time and especially the closer, Turn Away).  The album is mostly comprised of Ian on vocals and piano/keyboards, and me on everything else.  I played guitar, bass, some additional synth, mandolin (on Be My Guide), and even drums on the record!  

Once we finished tracking, and I brought the sessions back to Seattle for some tweaking, it was Jason Holstrom who really helped us reach the finish line with his great mixing skills, and over-all problem-solving expertise.  What I lacked in technical skills, Jason more than made up for.  Tomorrow’s Taken kicked off a long string of collaborations where Jason mixed everything I produced – including three Dolour albums (and tons of unreleased stuff), Sameer Shukla‘s There’s Only One Side Tonight LP, and both of my Traveling Mercies records.  Jason and I were also contributing writers and players on United State of Electronica‘s debut album, which he mixed as well.  Even though Ian was across the country from us, Tomorrow’s Taken felt like a key player in this “summer of love” renaissance era in Seattle.

Sometimes I forget what a huge influence the outside records I’ve produced have had on my own music.  This album, at the time, was some of the most electronic/synth-heavy stuff I’d done.  After finishing Ian’s record, almost as a reaction to all the programming and electronic sounds, I headed in a much more organic direction with Dolour’s swan song, Years in the Wilderness, and then my era with The Traveling Mercies all the way up through my most recent solo releases.  But with my new project, Solar Twin, I know that a lot of the seeds that were planted 13 years ago on Ian McGlynn’s record are blooming again.  So many of the production, programming and arrangement ideas I explored on this record are back in my life in a way that they haven’t been in over a decade.  I’m so proud of this record, and grateful that I made a life-long friend in Ian.  Give the record a spin today!

– Shane Tutmarc

WHAT SHOWTIME’S “BEACH BOYS: MAKING OF PET SOUNDS” DOCUMENTARY GOT WRONG.

First off: a Pet Sounds documentary that doesn’t even mention You Still Believe in Me, Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder), or Caroline, No?  Come on, at least mention all 13 songs from the album!  And if not that, at least try to take a deeper look, or offer a new perspective, but this documentary is the same old rehash.  If you’ve seen any Beach Boys documentary, you’ve seen everything and more than this doc has to offer.

But the main bone I have to pick with this documentary (and with most Beach Boys documentaries)  is how they tell the story leading up to Pet Sounds.

The Beach Boys myth that everyone from the management, to Capitol Records, and even band members love to propagate is that Brian Wilson, after years of pumping out trite songs about surfing, cars and girls, suddenly decided to be a “real artist” in 1966 with the release of Pet Sounds.  They do themselves, and especially Brian, an injustice when they continue spreading this myth.  From at least 1963, when a 20-year old Brian Wilson took over the production reins on the Boys’ recordings, he was constantly foreshadowing Pet Sounds.  In addition to the near endless supply of smash hits, he would always sprinkle introspective ballads, and progressive production and arrangements across their albums and singles.  They even had hits with introspective ballads like The Warmth of the Sun, In My Room, and Don’t Worry Baby.  It was the other side of the coin from hits like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Surfin’ USA,” and “I Get Around.”  It was an established part of their formula.

Showtime’s doc didn’t even mention the Side B of The Beach Boys Today! (1965) which features a string of songs that could have fit perfectly on Pet Sounds.  Please Let Me Wonder, She Knows Me Too Well, Kiss Me, Baby, and In The Back of My Mind all include the lush arrangements and introspective lyrics that would become a hallmark of the Pet Sounds album.

But you can go all the way back to 1963’s Surfer Girl album (the first which Brian produced) with songs like Lonely Sea that suggest a much deeper, spiritual side to the music that Showtime (and the Beach Boys themselves) like to suggest came out of nowhere during those magical Pet Sounds sessions.  I think it would make a much more fascinating documentary to really show the journey Brian and the Beach Boys took to arrive at Pet Sounds.  Maybe get Brian talking about how he’d been chasing this sound since the early Beach Boys records, and finally felt the confidence in the studio and as a writer to devote himself fully to these type of songs.  There would be so much more to dig into, to see Pet Sounds as something Brian has been building towards over the course of the 4 years (and 12 albums!?) leading up to it.

This is not to say Pet Sounds is not special, it is perhaps the most special album.  It is where Brian Wilson finally combined all his most idiosyncratic styles into one masterpiece, with the help of the strong lyrics of Tony Asher.  In the past, there was only a handful of songs like these on any given Beach Boys release, and with Pet Sounds he devoted a whole album to these sounds and emotions.  There’s a number of different stories about where the title Pet Sounds came from, but I’ve always liked to think of the word “Pet” in its adjective form: “denoting a thing that one devotes special attention to or feels particularly strongly about.”  Brian’s favorite, special sounds, filling an album for the first time.

I’ve created a playlist so you can clearly see the line that Brian carved from Surfer Girl to God Only Knows.

BEACH BOYS: PATH TO PET SOUNDS

Prince on Spotify

This playlist is for all of you out there who were frustrated at work yesterday with no Prince on Spotify. Here’s a collection of tunes that he wrote, and many of them he played on and/or produced as well.

Watch the Titanic Sink in Real Time

How Rock N Roll (Almost) Died Before the Beatles Ever Arrived

John Lennon was asked to reflect on Elvis Presley‘s passing in 1977.  “Elvis died in the army” was Lennon’s terse reply.

When Elvis entered the Army in 1958, a mere two years after he burst onto the world’s stage in early 1956, rock and roll was viewed as the soundtrack to rebellious youth.  Churches organized public burnings of records, riots happened in nearly every town Presley and his fellow rock pioneers went. But by the time Presley was discharged in 1960 most of his peers had been wiped out, and he was suddenly thrust upon a whole new landscape of squeaky-clean pop stars.

The years of 1958-1960 were filled with blows to the head and heart of rock and roll. In January of ’58, Little Richard, who had placed fourteen songs in the Top 10 R&B charts in just three short years, denounced rock and roll and his large contribution to it – and enrolled in Bible College.  With Little Richard off the scene, by the time Elvis entered the army in March of ’58, the rock world was already unraveling. While Elvis was away in the Army, the main contender for his throne was Sun Records’ latest star – Jerry Lee Lewis.  With huge singles like “Great Balls of Fire”, and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, it was obvious he had the voice and the charisma, and something even Elvis didn’t have – virtuoso musicianship.  But in May of ’58, while on tour in Germany, it was revealed that he had married his 13-year-old cousin. While this may have been something he could have kept quiet in the States, especially in the South during that period of time, the European press had a field day. The tour was cancelled and his career never fully recovered from this public condemnation.  So that makes three major stars all out of the public eye before 1958 was even half over! 

February 3rd, 1959 will live in infamy as the “The Day the Music Died,” thanks to Don McLean’s nostalgic 1971 hit, “American Pie.”  It was the day 22-year-old Buddy Holly (along with J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens) died in a tragic plane crash.  More than any other early rock and roll star, Buddy was showing how rock and roll could evolve.  He was one of the first artists to write, arrange and produce his own records.  He was already incorporating string ensembles and choirs, combining teenage and adult music into a more sophisticated version of rock and roll.  But his plane crash caused a major stunt in rock and roll’s growth. 

The early days of rock have often been criticized as little more than white singers stealing black music.  One of the few black artists during the first wave of rock to have hits with his own recordings was the “Architect of Rock and Roll” – Chuck Berry.   From 1955-1959 he put ten songs in the Top 40, and everyone from Gene Vincent to Pat Boone used Chuck’s material to fill their albums and singles.  And it wasn’t just America listening; nearly every British Invasion band that came out in the mid-’60s had a cover or two of Chuck’s.  But another near fatal blow to rock and roll came in December of ’59, with Berry sentenced to serve five years in jail.  A former employee of his was arrested on a prostitution charge and with a trial fueled by racism, Chuck somehow ended up in jail.  Although he was released early in 1963, rock’s first great poet was silenced during this fragile time in its infancy.

Losing this many leaders during the first five years of any movement would surely cause most revolutions to lose steam.  The final blow came on April 16, 1960 – just a month after Elvis was released from the army – when 21-year-old Eddie Cochran was in a fatal car crash.  Cochran was another visionary, writing his own songs (“Summertime Blues”, “Twenty Flight Rock”), and experimenting with overdubbing years before the Beatles perfected the craft.

It’s no wonder that in the absence of all of these vital visionaries, the record labels had to create more “reliable” stars like Frankie Avalon, Fabian, and Annette Funicello.  Elvis stated in many interviews during his early days that he believed rock and roll was a fad, and that he would have to change with the trends if he wanted to keep his job.  So with that in mind, it makes perfect sense that his post-Army output would include much more variety than any of his early material.  These were not the recordings of a dead man, or worse a “has-been” (as Lennon’s quote suggests); this was rock’s greatest interpreter expanding his (and the whole movement’s) vocabulary.  But now without Buddy, Chuck, Little Richard, or Jerry Lee to give him a run for his money, he settled to compete with chart-toppers like Del Shannon, Chubby Checker, Dion, and Brenda Lee – not exactly the dangerous delinquents of rock’s early days.  Rock lost its momentum for a number of years, nearly suffocating in Beach Party movies and AquaNet, until those four lads from Liverpool showed up. 

The Beatles have gone down in history as the saviors of rock, but their early songs (“Love Me Do,” “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”) were much more clean-cut than the early records of their heros – Elvis, Chuck, Little Richard or Jerry Lee.  Since the early revolutionaries had already laid down the groundwork, the Beatles were able to attack from different angle.  As they put on their best smiles and wore their matching suits, they won America’s heart and were given free rein to revolutionize the music world from within, and the industry has been forever changed.

Welcome!

Welcome to Heavy Reverie!  This will be a place that will be filled with all the super important things that distract me from working on what I’m supposed to be working on.  Rock N Roll history, Old Hollywood, 20th Century Pop Culture, and beyond.