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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Standing up for Ricky |
| Date | Thu, 05 Aug 2004 07:19:42 -0500 |
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Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 14:26:36 -0500
From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com>
To: audities@smoe.org
Subject: Standing up for Ricky (was Re: another Beatles?)
Message-ID: <BAY19-F28eqXItMcx4v00039c70@hotmail.com>
Amen -- a few years ago, his early albums were release on cool 2-for-1 sets.
His debut record is fairly stiff and polite, but the second album --
yowser! He cut loose pretty damned well, and certainly earned his spurs as
a rockabilly singer.
Mike, shame on you and Stewart for extolling the virtues of Ricky Nelson
without once mentioning the name "James Burton".
Which leads me to piggyback upon the point Gary was making about the r'n'r
artists of the fifties, re: the Beatles and their cultural stature. A lot of
the "Another Beatles?" thread has struck me as being an echo of the
pop-culture battle between the Boomers and their successor generations (and,
no, I'm not saying that the Beatles discussion has necessarily been one of
Older Auditeers vs. Younger Auditeers; I'm simply saying that it's
reminiscent of such intergenerational squabbles). Many younger music fans
tend to chafe when they're preached at about the importance (musical,
cultural, whatever) of the Beatles, because (rightly or wrongly) they sense
an implicit generational oneupsmanship at work within that preaching. It's
sort of the equivalent of the stereotypical old "when I was a kid, I had to
walk two miles through the snow to get to school" claim. What many Beatles
defenders (particularly those who lived through the sixties) may see as
simply an honest evaluation of the musical and cultural importance of the
Fab Four is often interpreted as a putdown of both the music and the life
and times of younger generations. Nobody wants to have to carry around their
parent's music like a 500-pound safe on their backs.
What hasn't really been said explicitly here, although Gary kind of hinted
at it, is that these arguments on behalf of the Beatles tend to eclipse eras
of r'n'r retroactively as well as progressively. In other words, the Beatles
not only are cited in a way that overshadows bands that came after them,
they're also cited in a way that overshadows rock'n'rollers who came before
them.
I'm stating the obvious here, but rock'n'roll did not begin on that February
night in 1964 when the Beatles first played *The Ed Sullivan Show*. It had
been around for a good decade before then, and the artists who preceded the
Beatles were every bit as compelling as their music was vital and exciting.
And I don't say that as a fifties kid, either; this is my dad's music that
we're talking about, not mine. But I love it, anyway. Early rock'n'roll has
a freshness, an innocence, a simplicity, and an energy to it that makes a
lot of sixties music sound stilted and self-indulgent by contrast. And as
far as subsequent generations are concerned, I think that the importance of
fifties rock'n'roll as an influence upon punk is often overlooked.
The original, and perhaps greatest, revolution of the rock epoch didn't take
place in the mid-sixties. It took place in the mid-fifties, where the
cultural and generational lines were even more sharply drawn and the
rebellious nature of youth culture really stood out in relief. I'd argue
that Little Richard was perhaps the most revolutionary artist in the history
of rock'n'roll; it still staggers the imagination to think that a loud,
preening, flamboyant gay black man could have hit records in the
buttoned-down fifties (even though Pat Boone stole a lot of his thunder with
his watered-down hit version of "Tutti Frutti"). And I'd also argue that
Elvis represents a more enduring and ubiquitous American cultural touchstone
than do the Beatles; not only did he provide the archetype for JPG&R and
everyone else by being the ur-rockstar, he also touches a sociological chord
in American society that really has never been touched in such a way before
or since. There aren't strings of Beatle imitators who jump out of
airplanes; Lennon impersonators don't conduct Vegas weddings; tabloids don't
proclaim regular George Harrison sightings; and you don't find Beatle
figurines on the dashboards of the cars of middle-aged ladies in Alabama.
Sure, you can dismiss the trash aesthetic behind a lot of Elvisiana, but you
can't deny his ubiquity within the culture at large.
All I'm saying is this: If you're going to stick up for the artists who came
after the Beatles, stick up for the ones who came before them as well.
Gregory Sager
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