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| From | "John L. Micek" <jlmicek@mindspring.com> |
| Subject | Re: 40 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday) |
| Date | Mon, 9 Feb 2004 17:09:54 -0500 |
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That's OK. Would have loved to have taken credit for it, but ... alas.
jlm
___________________________
John L. Micek
State Government Reporter
The Morning Call
Harrisburg, Pa.
----- Original Message -----
From: "mtn-high" <mtn-high@comcast.net>
To: "John L. Micek" <jlmicek@mindspring.com>; <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: 40 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday)
> Ooops..john didn't write that..i guess i got a bit too excited after
reading
> it!
>
> Ok...thanks for passing it along!
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John L. Micek" <jlmicek@mindspring.com>
> To: <audities@smoe.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 7:30 AM
> Subject: 40 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday)
>
>
> But this was in Slate this morning. Fairly interesting read:
>
> Teen Spirit
> What was so important about the Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan
> Show?
> By Fred Kaplan
> Posted Friday, Feb. 6, 2004, at 1:09 PM PT
>
>
> It may be impossible for anyone who wasn't living at the time to grasp how
> much the country changed 40 years ago this Sunday. On Feb. 9, 1964, at 8
> p.m. ET, the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
>
> Everyone knows the rough outlines: the Fab Four mop-heads from Liverpool,
> their journey to America, thousands of teenagers screaming in the streets,
> the subsequent "British invasion," and the transformation of rock 'n'
roll.
>
> But Americans under, say, 40 have had to take the historic importance of
> these events on faith. Listening many years after the fact to those early
> Beatles songs ("I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "Please Please
> Me," and so forth), they must have wondered-must still wonder-what the
fuss
> was about. These are fairly sappy tunes, compared with what followed, from
> not only the Beatles but other bands.
>
> A new DVD clears up the generational mystery. The two-disc set is called
The
> Four Complete Historic Ed Sullivan Shows Featuring the Beatles, an
inelegant
> but meticulous title. It contains all four Sullivan shows on which the
> Beatles made live appearances-the three Sundays in a row in February '64
> (Feb. 9, 16, and 23) and their return on Sept. 12, 1965-not just the parts
> with the Beatles but each hourlong program in its entirety, commercials
> included.
>
> Not only is it a fascinating time capsule (and a teary piece of nostalgia
> for those of us who well remember the broadcasts from our youth), it also
> provides an unvarnished picture of the popular culture of the era-and,
thus,
> the impact that the Beatles had on it.
>
> To a degree that young Americans couldn't comprehend today, The Ed
Sullivan
> Show was American popular culture. More than 50 million Americans-over
half
> of the TV-viewing audience at the time-tuned in to it on CBS every Sunday
> night. (More than 70 million watched on the night of the Beatles' debut.)
It
> was a variety show like no other, with animals, acrobats, puppets,
> plate-twirlers, stand-up comics, nightclub singers, scenes from the latest
> hit musicals and ballets-all the acts personally selected by this
> odd-looking, odd-talking, otherwise untalented ex-gossip columnist.
>
> As John Leonard put it in his wonderful essay, "Ed Sullivan Died for Our
> Sins," "Never before and never again in the history of our republic would
so
> many gather so loyally, for so long, in the thrall of one man's taste." In
> an age when televisions had only three channels, Leonard noted,
>
> Ed Sullivan was a one-man cable television system with wrestling, BRAVO
> and comedy channels, Broadway, Hollywood and C-SPAN, sports and music
video.
> We turned to him once a week in our living rooms for everything we now
> expect from an entire industry every minute of our semi-conscious lives.
>
> Watching these shows now on DVD, we reach one conclusion very quickly:
Most
> of the stuff on "Sullivan" was crap. And the stuff that wasn't bad (and
some
> of it wasn't) was, for the most part, very old-not old in the sense of
> having been aired 40 years ago, but old hat, even at the time, relics of
the
> Borscht Belt: hack impressionists, dreary puppets, lame parlor magicians,
> and mediocre starlet-singers. (Who remembers that Mitzi Gaynor-or
> "Hollywood's delightful Mitzi Gaynor," as Ed introduced her-had such a
lousy
> voice?)
>
> Everybody liked this stuff back then. I remember liking it, too. That's
all
> there was. There was no concept of an alternative.
>
> That's why the Beatles were such a big deal. From the moment they strummed
> those electric chords, wagged their mops of hair, and smiled those
beaming,
> ironic, isn't-this-cool-but-also-a-bit-absurd smiles, we all knew it was
> something from a different galaxy. (And, given how rarefied foreign travel
> was then, England might as well have been in a different galaxy.)
>
> A slew of clueless scholars and columnists have mused, over the decades,
> that the Beatles caused such a sensation because they snapped us out of
the
> gloom brought on by the Kennedy assassination, which had taken place the
> previous November. This is silly sociology. Look at these DVDs or at any
> footage of a Beatles concert or a Beatles mob. It's extremely doubtful
that
> any of these teenage girls were cheering, screaming, palpitating, even
> crying with joy as some sort of catharsis to their anguish over Lee Harvey
> Oswald's deed in Dallas. Meanwhile, their parents, who were the ones more
> likely traumatized by the death of the president, remained tellingly
immune
> to Beatlemania.
>
> The Beatles took hold of our country and shook it to a different place
> because they were young, because their music had a young, fresh feel, and
> because-this is the crucial thing-our parents didn't get it.
>
> Ed Sullivan didn't entirely get it, either-and why should he have? He was
> even older than our parents. Legend has it that, on a trip to England a
few
> months earlier, Ed saw the commotion the Beatles were causing and thought
> he'd book the lads on his show as a novelty act-until their manager, Brian
> Epstein, insisted on top billing. You can imagine Ed thinking: Top billing
> for these kids? Above Frank Gorshin, Myron Cohen, Gordon and Sheila McRae?
> Above Hollywood's delightful Mitzi Gaynor?!
>
> The day after that Sullivan show, every boy came to school with his hair
> combed down as far as he could manage (which, in most cases, wasn't very
> far). Some went out and bought Beatle wigs. Or saved up to buy a guitar
and
> then got together with friends to form a band. And this was OK, as long as
> you didn't play too loud. The Beatles' rebelliousness was playful, not
> menacing. (Ed frequently praised them, in his introductions, as "fine
> youngsters.") Their sexuality had an androgynous element-that long hair
and
> such pretty faces (except Ringo, the funny mascot of the group). They were
a
> palatable transition to the truly menacing figures to come-the Rolling
> Stones (who weren't booked by Sullivan till 1967 and, even then, were
forced
> to change the lyrics of "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's spend
> some time together"), later punk rock, and beyond.
>
> The timing of the Beatles was perfect. 1964 marked the emergence of the
Baby
> Boomers as a social force-and the Beatles were the vehicle for their
> ascendance as a cultural force. What records were the No. 1 hits on the
pop
> charts before the Beatles took over the slot and stayed there for years to
> come? Bobby Vinton's "There! I've Said It Again," the Singing Nun's
> "Dominique," and Dale & Grace's "I'm Leaving It Up to You." The Beatles
> changed the charts forever. You can draw a line in the historical sands of
> popular culture at 1964. A lot of pop music that came after that point
still
> sounds modern today. Almost all the pop music that came before that point
> sounds ancient.
>
> On Feb. 9, 1964, The Ed Sullivan Show was the stage on which this change
was
> dramatized. The Beatles were the young and the new; almost all the other
> acts were the old and the stale. That night, at least to every kid I knew,
> the future looked clear, happy, and ours.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________
> John L. Micek
> State Government Reporter
> The Morning Call
> Harrisburg, Pa.
>
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