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| From | ronald and karen sanchez <eldeluxe@mcn.net> |
| Subject | Re: Early 60's |
| Date | Fri, 22 Aug 2003 23:54:11 -0600 |
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Ok, ok, you sort of have me there. I might not have said exactly what I meant.
First off you have to remember that the payola scandals had laid waste to the the
scene. The industry was pretty happy to see Pat Boone, and clean cut folkies like
the Rooftop Singers doing the business. A lot of the artist and the indie labels
you mentioned didn't have the national sort of clout that you've come to know.
What I was saying is that the Beatles cracked it all open again for everyone.
Remember that Capitol passed on the Beatles so they ended up on Swan, VeeJay, and
Tollie. Once the ground swell started then Capitol woke up as did every other
label in the US. In a lot of ways the Beatles brought a lot of American music back
to a much wider American audience. I'm still just hearing the original versions of
songs like Chains and Need A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues. I had my ears glued to the
radio all through the late 50's and early 60's in a pretty big market, and a lot
of these songs just weren't on the radio. Maybe in some markets, and on r&b
stations, but not all this stuff was on your big city top 40 station, and it sure
wasn't seen on Ed Sullivan!
The industry got a lot bigger over the next few year than it had been in the first
half of the 60's. It had been all singles up til then. Sure there were big albums
but those were by people like Mitch Miller and sound tracks.
I'm not going to argue that there wasn't any good music before the Beatles. My
point is that it was a pretty small audience for those great songs. The Beatles
changed everything for everyone. If it weren't for the explosion that the Beatles
created, all this would have stay marginalized. Too bad for a lot of those greats,
their time had past them and they didn't survive in the new era. Don't forget that
in the late 60's there was a "Rock and Roll Revival" that did see a lot of people
get some recognition by this new younger audience. That's the reason that these
days you can get every note that Little Richard recorded for Specialty, and right
on down the line....
am I off the hook?
RS
Bill wrote:
> At 08:06 PM 8/22/2003 -0600, Ron wrote:
>
> >If it hadn't been for the Beatles rock might never have come back from the
> >dreck of the early 60's. What good music there would have been would have been
> >just a small blip on the radar of my generation.
>
> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! For years and years the early 60's
> have been portrayed as this god awful period. Well it just isn't so. Sure
> the Beatles changed everything, but they didn't save the world from a
> dearth of good popular music. Great rock and soul was being made a plenty
> in the early 60's and it was popular. You had the beginnings of Motwon,
> Stax and Chicago Soul. You had surf and wonderful girl groups and Phil
> Spector at the peek of his powers. You had great Brill Building
> records. The Doo-wop revival and the return of Elvis and Chuck Berry. Roy
> Orbinson was coming into his own. Dion was making great singles. The Four
> Seasons, the Impressions, James Brown, Smokey, Marvin Gaye, Del Shannon,
> the Drifters, the Ventures, Lesley Gore, the Everlys, the start of the
> Beach Boys, Gene Pitney, Ricky Nelson, Sam Cooke, Jan & Dean, Booker T.
> etc. etc. etc. The early 60's were not dreck. The early 60's are not
> Fabian and Frankie Avalon, but the movement of R&B to soul. The world was
> forever changed by the Beatles, but what came before was not worthless and
> the good music from that period was much, much more than a blip.
>
> Bill
-- Ronald Sanchez
Director Of A&R
Career Records
www.CareerRecords.com
The Donovan's Brain Web Site
www.Donovans-Brain.com
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