The First Thanksgiving (Re-Post)

November 23, 2021 / greenpete58 / 2 Comments

(Note: I first published this back in 2012 not long after I began longitudes. Since I’m now feeling lethargic after too many piña coladas while visiting the Caribbean, and therefore don’t feel like writing, and it’s Thanksgiving once again, I’m re-posting this golden oldie with a few light dustings. I hope you enjoy and, as always, feel free to comment.)

This Thursday, Americans will get together with family and friends to celebrate a national holiday: Thanksgiving. (Certain other countries celebrate their own Thanksgiving at different times.) It’s a day associated with a feast of roast turkey, breaded stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and assorted other culinary delights. Some Americans indulge in televised football games. And American schoolchildren will learn about the Pilgrims: peace-loving religious dissenters from England who landed at “Plymouth Rock” in 1620 and who ate turkey with friendly, benevolent Indians.

Thanksgiving is many Americans’ favorite holiday, because it’s mainly about family, food, and football (not necessarily in that order). But there are not surprisingly a lot of myths about the Plymouth colonists and the original day of thanks, in 1621.

Unless it’s Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, longitudes strives for truth. So below is my feeble attempt to demolish a few long-held myths. My sources are the book “The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony” by James and Patricia Deetz; a smattering of well-sourced Wikipedia info; and a 1621 letter written by Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow to a friend in England, known as Mourt’s Relation. His letter is the only contemporary eyewitness description of what took place that first Thanksgiving. (Plymouth Governor William Bradford reflected on the colony many years later in Of Plymouth Plantation}:

Although the colonists originally came from England, most had been living in religiously tolerant Leiden, Holland for twelve years before arriving in the New World on the Mayflower.
The Mayflower first landed on the sandy northern tip of what is now Cape Cod in November 1620. The passengers didn’t transfer to the mainland (Plymouth) until a month later.
There is no mention of a “Plymouth Rock” in Of Plymouth Plantation or Mourt’s Relation.
The original feast took place over three days, probably during harvest time, which would have been September or early October at the latest.
Over ninety Wampanoag Indians and about fifty English attended the feast, including Chief Massasoit, Winslow, and Bradford. (Most depictions of the feast show roughly a dozen colonists and half that many Indians.)
Turkey was undoubtedly not the main course. It was more likely ducks or geese killed by the Pilgrims, and later on venison shared by the natives.
There is no evidence in Winslow’s account that the Pilgrims offered a formal thanks. He merely mentions that “by the goodness of God” they were “far from want.” The feast was more likely continuation of an English custom of celebrating harvest time.
The descriptor “pilgrim” for the colonists was first used in a sermon delivered in Plymouth in the 1790s. And until the early 20^th century, the term was used in a generic sense and spelled with a lowercase “p.” The Plymouth settlers called themselves “Separatists” or “Saints” (religious dissenters), “Strangers” (those unmotivated by religion but seeking a new life), “Old Comers,” “Old Planters,” and “Planters.”
Modern Thanksgiving as a holiday for all American states wasn’t established until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln designated the final Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress changed this to the fourth Thursday of the month.
The Plymouth colonists, although they established the first English colony in what is now known as New England, were not the first English to permanently settle in the New World. That would be the Jamestown, Virginia settlers of 1607, who were driven here by mercantilism rather than religion.
The Christians of Plymouth Colony were not immune to those vices quite familiar to modern-day Americans. Rape, incest, buggery, bigamy, domestic abuse, adultery, and murder are described in detail in original colonial records.
Violence between English and Indian had occurred even before the feast. On August 14, 1621 military leader Myles Standish preemptively attacked the village (Nemasket) of a rival sachem of Massasoit’s. His brashness was a harbinger of King Philip’s War of 1675-1678, a conflict between English colonists and their Indian allies and Chief Massasoit’s son, Metacom. It remains the bloodiest per-capita conflict on American soil.

And speaking of violence, it’s important to note that the colonists did not watch American football on television during that first Thanksgiving. If they had, however, they would have certainly cheered for Detroit to win and Dallas to lose.

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

An Ohio Yankee Camps at John Lennon’s House

October 24, 2019 / greenpete58 / 10 Comments

Mendips map2

The address is 251 Menlove Avenue.

John Lennon lived here between the ages of five and 22. It was the semi-detached home of his indomitable Aunt Mimi, and her husband, George Smith. They called their middle-class domicile “Mendips.”

Lennon’s father had abandoned his wife and son. His mother, Julia Stanley Lennon, handed him over to be raised by her eldest sister Mary (Mimi) because she was ill-equipped to do so. It didn’t help that Lennon was a troublemaker who exhibited symptoms of ADHD. (And those were pre-Ritalin days.) Even as an adult his acid tongue burned more than a few people who ventured too closely.

When Lennon was 14, his beloved Uncle George died. Then, when he was 17, his world upended when his mother was struck and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman. It happened while Julia was crossing Menlove, a divided highway, just moments after she had left Mimi’s house. She was walking toward the northbound bus stop.

This is just opposite of where the southbound Liverpool city bus dropped me off.

As I alluded to in my last post, I didn’t have a map with me. So, as with Blanche DuBois on her streetcar named desire, I had to “rely on the kindness of strangers.” Such independence is good, however. It means you have to be bold and ask questions and engage with the locals. If the lady sitting behind me on the bus hadn’t overheard me ask the torpid driver several times about Mendips—then nudged me to get off at The Vineries—I might have ended up in Clock Face.

View of Mendips from northbound bus stop. Julia Lennon was killed near here in 1958 (11 days after Ohio Yankee was hatched.)

Not knowing where to go, I wandered across busy Menlove (carefully) and down The Vineries. A small sedan pulled up in front of a house, and a woman got out. I walked over briskly and asked if she could point me toward Mendips.

“Oh, it’s right around the corner, other side of the road. It’s the house with a blue plaque on it. You’ll probably see a crowd outside!” I thanked her and turned to leave, but she insisted on accompanying me to the corner to point out the house.

“Where you from, love?” she asked with a beaming smile. I told her North America.

“Well, I know that!” she said with a laugh, obviously recognizing my accent. “Where exactly?”

“From Ohio,” I said sheepishly. “In…er…America.”

I anticipated a dirty look or an “I’m so sorry.” But instead she told me she once visited America, and my state was one of the few she didn’t get to. I told her she must visit Ohio…but off the top of my head I couldn’t think of a reason why.

“Oh, you’re in luck!” she said, pointing across the street. “Only a few people!”

We said goodbye and I re-crossed Menlove, arriving at Lennon’s home as it started to drizzle and as the few visitors were packing into their car. Then a young guy appeared out of nowhere, phone at his ear, excitedly giving a play-by-play of his Beatles tour to his dad back home. We exchanged photo poses, and I learned he was from Colorado.

Lennon and me. Seventeen years, one ocean, and worlds of talent apart.

Then Colorado guy left, and another car pulled up. About five or six people got out, all of them Asian except the tour guide.

“This is where John lived with his Aunt Mimi…” the guide dryly recited, as the crowd leaned in closely. I got the impression they either struggled with English, or didn’t know much about The Beatles.

The guide noticed me take a couple steps back. “It’s okay, you can listen,” he said. How thoughtful of him.

Tour guide wrapped up Mendips in two minutes, and while he and his charges walked toward their car, I asked if it wouldn’t be out of line to ask which way to Strawberry Field, which I knew was near Mendips.

“I’ll tell you, but you really should take my tour to properly see all the sites.” My bad angel wanted to tell him to go jump in the Mersey. But my good angel overruled and said He’s just trying to earn a living.

I left modest Mendips just before the jumbo, rainbow-painted Magical Mystery Tour bus arrived. Strawberry Field is only a half mile from where Lennon lived, on a hilly, shaded side street called Beaconsfield Road. It was a Salvation Army home for orphans, and Lennon used to climb the surrounding wall to play with the kids. Each year, the home had a big festival, and Mimi would later describe how Lennon always pestered her with “Hurry, Mimi, or we’ll be late for the festival!”

Strawberry Field. The gate is a replica of the original.

(This the same bloke who claimed The Beatles were more popular than Jesus, posed full frontal au naturel for an album cover, and made Nixon’s Enemies List.)

As the drizzle continued, I came upon a well-dressed man coming down the hill and asked him where Strawberry Field was. He told me I’d just passed it. So I backstepped until I saw the graffiti-framed strawberry-red gate marking the entrance. But other than the gate, which was locked, there wasn’t much to observe, since the Victorian building that once sheltered the children was torn down in 2005. There was only a partially built visitor center, and construction materials littered the grounds. (The tourist center opened in September of this year.)

I then walked down Vale Road, which Lennon once bicycled on, toward Woolton Village. After asking a few folks for directions, including one teen with a Scouse twang not unlike George Harrison’s, I located St. Peter’s Church, where John’s skiffle band The Quarry Men performed at a garden fete on July 6, 1957.

As the story goes, Lennon’s friend Ivan Vaughan introduced him that day (maybe the preceding evening, depending on the storyteller) to a younger chap named Paul McCartney, who lived in nearby Allerton and also played guitar. Paul knew the chords and lyrics to Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock.” He showed John, who was suitably impressed, and John offered him a position in The Quarry Men. This was the watershed moment that birthed The Beatles and, truly, altered the course of pop cultural history.

St. Peter’s Church in Woolton. The plaque is under the left window.

I was the only one in the darkened lot outside the church, standing under a small plaque commemorating that meeting of future musical giants. I often think the adjective “surreal” is overused, but I can’t think of another word to describe how I felt.

After wandering around the quaint streets of Woolton, and eating a quick supper in the Istanbul Barbecue and Bistro, I returned to the bus stop at Mendips, intending to catch a bus back to the Travelodge in Liverpool. But I felt like I was glued to the house where “Please Please Me” and “I’ll Get You” were written. It was a kind of sanctuary. Protected by the National Trust along with the other three Beatle homes, I was glad it had avoided the fate of the Cavern Club, Brian Epstein’s old record store, and the Salvation Army home at Strawberry Field.

I joked to myself that, had I brought my tent along, I might have pitched it. The rain had stopped, and it appeared the Tragical History Tour bus was stationed in Liverpool for the night.

My dawdling at Mendips was rewarded when a tiny car pulled up, parked on the grassy berm, and a tiny man scurried over to the gate while jingling his car keys. He gazed at Aunt Mimi’s house for about 30 seconds. Then he abruptly turned and headed back toward his car. Strange, I thought. No keepsake photo of the house?

“Sir, would you like me to take your photo?” I asked, same as with Ken the Heartbeat on Mathew Street.

“Oh no, that’s okay, but thank you,” he said in a soft Liverpudlian accent. “I just pop in once in a while. I live just down the road in the village.”

This revelation led to a long and interesting conversation. He said his name was “John,” and he’d lived in the area all his life. He told me about the Cavern Club days, and how his wife (then girlfriend) was one of the groupies known as “Beatle-ettes.”

The Grapes Inn in Woolton Village, the oldest pub in town

“Me mates and I used to tear up their Beatle photos, we were so jealous!” he laughed.

John told me he was allowed unlimited entrance into all four Beatle homes. He described how, a while back, he discovered an old guitar in his attic. It was a rare Framus model similar to what Paul used before he became a Beatle. John had given it to his grandson, but suggested his grandson might want to donate it to the National Trust.

“He’s a good lad. We met with Colin of the Trust over a cuppa. Colin was overjoyed. He said they’d been looking for that same Framus model for a long time. So in gratitude, he’s allowed us to enter any of the four homes for free!” (I got the impression John was no longer jealous.)

John actually offered to drive me over to Allerton to see Paul’s home. But it was getting late, and I needed to hail a ride back to Liverpool, so I thanked him but declined.

Anyway, I plan a Round Two in Liverpool. Not only are Liverpudlians friendly, but I’ll visit Paul’s house in Allerton. I’ll also seek out the roundabout at Penny Lane, located between Woolton and Liverpool, which I only glanced at through the bus window. Maybe Quarry Bank High School. There’s also John Rigby’s granddaughter, one Eleanor, buried in the St. Peter’s Church cemetery, which in my delirium I totally forgot about. And, of course, George and Ringo.

I only wish I’d gotten John’s last name. If I had, I’d “pop in” to see him, and then the two of us could day trip over to Aunt Mimi’s for a “cuppa.”

This is the end of my “Ohio Yankee” series about my visit to Scotland and Liverpool. Thanks for joining me.

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An Ohio Yankee Visits Liverpool, England

October 9, 2019 / greenpete58 / 15 Comments

cilla

[An Apology: in my last post, I wanted to humorously discuss absurdity and pettiness in the office. (For you young people, it happens more often than you might think.) Sort of a Dilbert-styled satire with a casual nod to the classic short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.” But my wife, who reads my stuff occasionally when she has the stomach for it, characteristically sidestepped the gist of my essay and, instead, took exception to my reference to urinals. Also, my friend Tad politely noted some double entendres that were—believe me—entirely unintentional. Anyway, I’m sorry if I offended anyone, and I promise today’s post will go nowhere near porcelain fixtures. No guarantees about double entendres, though.]

When I decided to fly to Glasgow to visit my daughter’s family, one of my first actions was to open my world atlas and check the distance from Glasgow to Liverpool, England. In 1964, my friend John Hire and I became fans of an exciting musical group from Liverpool. I think this was concurrent to John instructing me about his older sister’s body parts.

I’ve been marveling at and studying The Beatles’ music…and the physical attributes of the opposite sex…ever since.

But in addition to visiting the home of The Beatles, I was also curious about Liverpool as a famed seaport city. During the 19^th century, Liverpool was a thriving port for American merchant ships delivering cotton to textile factories in northern England, and also a busy departure city for immigrants. In the 20^th century, U.S. naval sailors took shore leave in the city and sold their blues and early rock ‘n’ roll records to working-class English youth hungry for anything with a backbeat.

American writer Herman Melville (“Bartleby,” Moby-Dick) was a young merchant sailor who visited Liverpool in 1839 and wrote stirringly, in his book Redburn, about the profound poverty of this mecca of the Industrial Revolution:

Every variety of want and suffering here met the eye, and every vice showed here its victims…Old women, rather mummies, drying up with slow starving and age; young girls, incurably sick, who ought to have been in the hospital; sturdy men, with the gallows in their eyes, and a whining lie in their mouths; young boys, hollow-eyed and decrepit; and puny mothers, holding up puny babes in the glare of the sun, formed the main features of the scene…But these were diversified by instances of peculiar suffering, vice, or art in attracting charity, which, to me at least, who had never seen such things before, seemed to the last degree uncommon and monstrous.

Ohio Yankee, looking for ferries on the Mersey

“Uncommon and monstrous.” Hard to believe it’s the same city. Liverpool in 2019 barely resembles the city of Melville’s time, or even when the Fab Four were growing up. The dock that existed in 1839 is now below ground about 200 yards inland from the River Mersey, the water having been “reclaimed” by land. In 2008 Liverpool was recognized a European Capital of Culture by the European Union (EU), which helped encourage urban renewal, exemplified by Liverpool ONE shopping complex. Liverpool is now a top tourist destination in the UK.

Since I had a limited amount of time in Liverpool, I listed my top priorities. John Lennon’s boyhood home at Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Woolton was the bullseye. If you don’t know who John Lennon is, he’s famous for being the only person to have his name on a major British airport.

Second to this was the Cavern Club, where The Beatles first made a name in 1961-63 while playing an astonishing 292 dates (little wonder that ensemble was so tight). Third was the location of Old Dock. Fourth was St. Peter’s Church in Woolton Village, where John and Paul McCartney first met at a garden fete on July 6, 1957. And if I had time, Strawberry Field, Penny Lane, and Paul’s boyhood home in Allerton.

St. George’s Hall, from Lime Street station

I exited Lime Street Railway station and was confronted by the neoclassical splendor of St. George’s Hall and a sea of people and buses. I poked around Liverpool City Centre toward what I hoped would be the Mersey. It took me a while, but I eventually found Albert Dock and Merseyside Maritime Museum. The museum receptionist told me about the reclaiming that turned Mersey water into land, and that the only way to see the original 1716 Thomas Steers’ dock, the world’s first commercial wet dock (later called Old Dock), was to take an underground tour. I didn’t have the time or inclination, but I did manage to get a peep at history through a viewing window on a plaza near the Hilton Hotel.

Staring through a glass capsule in the middle of a hotel plaza while a musician absentmindedly played Beatles songs on a cheesy organ, it was a minor struggle envisioning 20-year-old Melville squeezing his way through emaciated beggars and cripples in 1839 after disembarking his vessel St. Lawrence. But for a fleeting second, I was there.

Old Dock…buried under the edifice of a luxury hotel

Close to Old Dock is Mathew Street, where the Cavern Club is located, although I didn’t immediately know it. I just wandered through streets and alleyways until stumbling upon a small crowd in a curving pedestrian alley. Then…boom. There was John Lennon, lounging against a wall.

Or, at least, a life-sized statue of him. It was positioned next to a sign indicating this was the CAVERN PUB. Not to be confused with Cavern Club…but so many businesses in this area try to link themselves with The Beatles, the proprietors may want you to be confused, just to get your business. There was also a wall of bricks with numerous band names inscribed on them, some famous, some unknown. Each band had performed at one time at the Cavern Club, which existed from 1957 till 1973.

I saw a man gazing at the wall for a long time. He appeared somewhat misty-eyed. I asked if he wanted me to take his photo. He thanked me but declined. After chatting with him a little, I learned his name was Ken, and he was looking for his band’s brick. He said he was once in a group called the Heartbeats, and it had performed at the Cavern Club on three occasions in 1966.

Ken the Heartbeat, in front of Mathew Street Wall of Fame

Ken let me snap his photo with my own camera. After he left, I spent a good ten minutes looking for his brick myself, but with no luck. Ken was very nice, and I really wanted to find his brick. But it must have tumbled through the cracks of time. (NOTE: a Manchester band called the Heartbeats did exist in the Sixties, and they later became Herman’s Hermits. But Ken never said anything about being a pre-Hermit.)

Getting back to the Cavern Club…the Club, not Pub, is actually across the alley and downwind about a hundred feet. Or, at least, a facsimile of the original club. Believe it or not, the Liverpool home of The Beatles was demolished in 1973 to make room for a proposed underground (subway) air shaft, which never materialized. The basement club was later resurrected, but with a different entrance location, interior, and stage.

I don’t consider many things sacred, but on the stupidity scale, a demolition project like this ranks with a construction project on the U.S.-Mexican border.

The original entrance is marked by a black-and-white mural with photos and a club history. Another statue is here: Cilla Black (1943-2015), who was a Cavern Club hat-check girl, then began jumping onstage to sing, then became friends with The Beatles, then forged a very successful recording and television career.

While near Mathew Street, I tried to locate the site of the record store which genius Beatles manager Brian Epstein (1934-1967) owned when he first heard about the group. It was on busy Whitechapel Street. I asked a few people, but all appeared under the age of 75 and didn’t know anything. (Some, sadly, didn’t even know the name Brian Epstein.) As for the store, it may have been swallowed by a London or U.S. land shark wearing designer clothing.

Brian Epstein

Well, if I’m gonna visit Johnny L. at Mendips, I’d better get scooting. I made one more trip to Albert Dock, to the office of the “Magical Mystery Tour” (which conducts a guided bus tour) to get a map of Beatle sites. The price of the map was typically outrageous, and the tour folks typically tried to sell me a tour ticket, since “It’s really the only way to properly see all the sites.” I smiled and told them You say ‘Yes’ but I say ‘No,’ then headed to the city bus station for my own ticket to ride.

But not before dropping into the spanking new Museum of Liverpool. As if on cue, the museum was at that moment hosting a limited-run exhibit devoted to John and Yoko. I spent about a half hour here. Yoko had a big hand in the presentation, much of which was devoted to her and John’s social activism, which I was already fairly knowledgeable about (bagism, hairism, bedism, and other peace-isms).

What really hit me was coming off the elevator, turning the corner, and hearing “Imagine” at the moment I stepped up to the photo below.

Though a deserved classic, “Imagine” isn’t one of my favorite Lennon songs. But I must say, I got a little choked up. (I kept my tears in check, though, as I didn’t want the security guard embracing me.)

There was also a large wall with upwards of a hundred handwritten notes. A pencil and a pile of blank pieces of white paper were on a small table with a sign encouraging people to scribble anything about Lennon, The Beatles, the world, universe, jelly babies, or anything one had a mind to. All the notes would eventually be delivered to Yoko.

I kept it simple and just told Yoko that her late husband’s group has been a bright piece of an Ohio boy’s life since 1964, when he lived on 142 Sherbrook Road.

Then I walked toward the elevator. I descended, left the museum, and made my way…a sentimental old man in a foreign city, haunted by memories…to 251 Menlove Avenue.

John and Yoko exhibit, Liverpool 2

Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, 1955-2019

May 2, 2019May 6, 2019 / greenpete58 / 17 Comments

“The typical trajectory for a rock artist goes like this: Start out raw, risk-taking, totally true to yourself, then gradually get ground down by the industry into making ever more spirit-sapped and radio-ingratiating records. Far less common is the reverse: a career whose public story commences at the showbiz heart of mainstream pop, then torpedoes fame and fortune by embarking on a series of increasingly weird adventures in sound.” —National Public Radio, in an obituary for Mark Hollis on February 28, 2019

NPR is right. There are not many rock artists who deliberately sabotage a successful career to pursue a strange and less commercial musical path. It would be like ditching a six-figure salary as an attorney to sell homegrown produce from a roadside stand.

Scott Walker (Walker Brothers), who died in March, is one such musician. Syd Barrett was never exactly “showbiz,” but his two post-Pink Floyd solo records have people scratching their heads to this day.

Mark Hollis, lead singer of the 1980s English synth-pop band Talk Talk, is another who stepped off the carousel. Although details are sketchy, Hollis died February 25 at age 64.

***

My music era is the mid-1960s to the mid-70s. I can count on four fingers the punk rock bands I like, and I generally dismiss the entire synthesizer-sapped and overproduced 1980s. A few names stand out: XTC, Prefab Sprout, China Crisis…and Talk Talk, led by singer Mark Hollis. I liked this band’s bouncy New Romantic sound and songs written by Hollis and non-performing member Tim Friese-Greene. The rhythm section of Paul Webb (bass) and Lee Harris (drums) defines the word “punchy” and is sorely underrated. And I especially liked Hollis’s odd singing style. His voice sounded like Bryan Ferry’s, only with a frog stuck in his throat.

Early Talk Talk. L to R: Hollis, Harris, Webb (Photo: Picture Alliance/Photoshot)

Talk Talk made five albums between 1982 and 1991. The first two, The Party’s Over (1982) and It’s My Life (1984) produced seven singles and established Talk Talk as a sort of thinking man’s Duran Duran, with whom they recorded on EMI and toured (and shared similar redundant name). The single “It’s My Life” hit number 31 on the American charts, and “Such a Shame” became a hit in continental Europe.

The first clue that EMI might have a “difficult” artist on its hands was the promo video for “It’s My Life.” (Remember, this is the visual image-obsessed 1980s when everyone needed MTV and VH1 to listen to music…or record companies believed they did.) In the original version of this song video, Hollis refused to move his lips to the vocalized words, then winked at the end. EMI fumed when they saw it. They forced him to do it over. The second time, he practically jumped through the camera, spitting out the lyric.

Then, the 1986 album The Colour of Spring presented a more reflective and sedate Talk Talk, slightly at odds with its earlier pop leanings. Ironically, this record went to number 8 in the UK charts, the group’s highest position. It was propelled by the powerful singles “Life’s What You Make It” and “Living in Another World.”

Examining the titles for these two songs, alongside “It’s My Life,” provides further clues that Hollis might have some misgivings about his pop stardom. it's my life

A scintillating 1986 concert from Montreux, Switzerland shows the band had by then closeted the stock designer costumes that New Wavers wore, and Hollis is bedecked in jeans, rumpled shirt…and sandals. He also hides behind sunglasses, clutches the mic stand, and keeps his head bowed for almost the entire show.

By the fourth record, Spirit of Eden (1988), Talk Talk was practically another band.

Today, Spirit of Eden and its follow-up Laughing Stock (1991) are regarded by some critics as shining examples of ambient or minimal music. The singing is sparse, as is the instrumentation. Tone and mood are emphasized over rhythm and structure. It’s an approach that probably dates back to avant-garde composers like Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage, and was explored later by Brian Eno. Lately, it’s been interpreted again and renamed “post-rock.”

While I find this music relaxing, and I’ve dabbled at the edges of ambient music with certain jazz and prog rock records, I don’t usually find it engaging. But in writing this essay, I’ve listened to Spirit of Eden several times, and we’re now engaged. Whether most critics who praise Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock do so more for Hollis’s artistic courage than the music itself, I can’t say. But I have no doubt Hollis was serious about capturing some magic with sound, and not merely trying to cultivate a legacy as an “enigmatic artiste.”

But while the usual adjectives and nouns for this music are “sparse,” “atmospheric,” “mood,” and “ambient,” the word that counted for EMI was non-commercial. After Spirit of Eden, the band and the company “parted ways,” as they say, not long after battling in court. Talk Talk signed with the smaller Polydor-Verve label for Laughing Stock. Then the band broke up. In 1998, Hollis released a self-titled solo LP, furthering Talk Talk’s minimalist approach. All three records are highly praised but, of course, they only assisted Hollis with his disappearing act. eden

Hollis gave few interviews, but in one of them he said something quite simple (minimalist) but also quite profound: “Before you play two notes, learn how to play one note. And don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it.” Hollis was talking about music, but he could have been talking about life.

After his solo album, Hollis, who’d been crouching at the edge of the carousel platform for over a decade, took the leap. Beyond minimalism, the only place to go was total silence. He left music to be a full-time husband and father in rural England, later moving his family to Wimbledon, London. “Maybe others are capable of doing it, but I can’t go on tour and be a good dad at the same time.”

For the next 21 years, Hollis guarded his privacy. He made some minor contributions to other peoples’ music, but he insisted his name not be used.

R.I.P. Mark Hollis.

(Thanks to WordPress blogger moulty58 for alerting me to Hollis’s death, and to Wikipedia for quotes and information.)

(For further reading about Mark Hollis, Talk Talk, and in particular the making of “Laughing Stock” and how art intersects with commerce, I highly recommend reading an article in “The Quietus,” located here.)

hollis singing

The Small Faces, “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake”

May 20, 2018January 16, 2019 / greenpete58 / 17 Comments

50 years

cover

Longitudes certainly enjoys 50^th anniversary specials. But can you blame me? I was a nipper in the 1960s, so I have fond memories of that time. And in 1968, I lived in Detroit, Michigan, when Motown music ruled the world, and the Detroit Tigers took the World Series. I can claim that I actually knew hitting legend Al Kaline, because his kid got shot up by the same allergist as me.

1968 was a violent year in America, but there are some good things that occurred.

However… this latest installment in ‘60s nostalgia boards the QE2 to sail “across the pond.” It profiles a record by a Brit band that pulled the difficult trick of marrying style with substance, which are usually mutually exclusive, and very few rocksters have been able to combine both. Elvis, the Beatles, James Brown, Hendrix, Bowie, Roxy Music, and the Clash come to mind. All made great music but were also visually dazzling.

Another is the Small Faces, a limey band that literally “carried the colours,” at least in England, for the mid-’60s British Invasion jump-started by the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Four working-class geezers, three of whom hailed from London’s rough East End, the Small Faces were the prototypical Mod band.

The Small Faces. L to R: Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan, Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane

“Mod,” short for modern, was an English youth movement that began in 1959, similar to American subcultures like beat or hippie, but smaller, and less threatening to the status quo. Mods wore flashy clothes, drove Vespa scooters, listened to soul music, and took speed drugs. Mod gave an identity to English working-class kids. Pete Townshend documented Mod culture with the 1973 Who album Quadrophenia.

The Small Faces were Mod to the core, but could also play instruments. The band members were lead singer/guitarist Steve Marriott, bassist Ronnie (“Plonk”) Lane, drummer Kenney Jones, and organist Ian McLagan (who replaced Jimmy Winston early on). All four stood under 5 feet 5 inches tall. (Eric Clapton, upon meeting them for the first time, said they all looked like little “haw-bits.”) Their short stature, mischievousness, and stylish Carnaby Street threads made them the most eye-catching band in England for a time, especially beloved by screaming young girls (“birds”).

For music fans, between 1965 and 1968 the songwriting team of Marriott-Lane churned out a basketful of sophisticated pop hits in the UK, one quasi-hit in the U.S. (“Itchycoo Park,” which reached #16 in ‘67), and one LP masterwork, released in May ‘68. Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake is considered a classic by “those in the know,” but often overlooked when classic rock albums are bandied. I could give several reasons, but I’d rather just rave on.

Move over, Lennon-McCartney

The first evidence that this record is a cut above most is the packaging, as visually arresting as the band’s Mod bob haircuts, tangerine and lime-green blazers, and winklepicker shoes. Ogdens’ was the first record released in a round sleeve, designed to resemble an old tobacco tin, and the name parodies an 1899 brand of tobacco. The sleeve unfolds to four circles with moody black-and-white pics of the band members (photographer Gered Mankowitz).

Musically, Ogdens’ is equally mind-blasting. After the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, Ogdens’ was the first “concept album,” preceding both S.F. Sorrow by the Pretty Things and The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society by several months. The second side is a Ronnie Lane-inspired musical fairy tale about “Happiness Stan,” who goes on a quest, assisted by a friendly fly, to find the other half of the “dangly” moon. Linking various musical snips is daft narration by English comic Stanley Unwin, who combined the Small’s cockney slang with his own nonsensical “Unwinese” speak. (Unwin supposedly influenced John Lennon’s absurdist lyrics and poetry.)

As “knees-up” as side two of Ogdens’ is, the heavy hitters are on side one. The title song opener is an instrumental that explodes with Lane’s thunderous bass, McLagan’s altered Hammond organ, and sweeping woodwinds that include cello.

“Afterglow” showcases ace-Face Marriott’s wailing voice. In a non-racial world, Marriott’s soulfulness would be held in similar regard as Ray Charles and Otis Redding. I know what some of you are thinking: he’s bloody white, mate! But I say: bollocks, mate! Great pipes is great pipes. None other than Keith Richards and Ozzie Osbourne have cited Marriott as one of their favourite singers, and those two blokes know something about singing (amongst other things, wink-wink). small faces 2

“Long Agos and Worlds Apart” is one of only two numbers Ian McLagan wrote with the band. (The other is “Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire.”) Like the Who’s John Entwistle, McLagan wasn’t prolific, but his two songs are highlights of the band catalogue. He has a world-weary voice that contrasts Marriott’s full-frontal assault. This song has a loping instrumental line that I can’t determine is organ or guitar. But it’s an intoxicating arrangement, with a dollop of appropriate psychedelia.

“Rene” is an ode to a waterfront prostitute, “groping with the stokers from the coast of Kuala Lampur.” Marriott, as cockney tour guide, leads us into working-class East London. If you think you’ve suddenly ducked inside an English music hall, it’s because, before discovering rock ‘n’ roll, Marriott was a precocious child actor/singer who starred as the Artful Dodger in the London stage musical Oliver! (He was also in several films, one of which starred a pre-Clouseau Peter Sellers.) “Rene” is a rousing singalong tune, the second half a chugging instrumental where our hyper tour guide goes berserk on distorted guitar and blues harp.

“Song of a Baker” is a Ronnie Lane special. Though an inner-city lad, Lane had an affinity for rural life, and later moved to an isolated farm in Wales. “Song of a Baker” is a heavy rocker, but its heart is in the country. Some of the album’s best lyrics are “I’m depending on my labour / The texture and the flavour” and “So I’ll jug some water, bake some flour / Store some salt and wait the hour.” small faces 6

Side one closes with one of the band’s best A-sides, the theatrical “Lazy Sunday.” Marriott wrote it after his neighbors had him evicted for noisemaking. He was always trying to distance himself from his acting roots (which fortunately managed to slip through in the music), and didn’t want this song on the album, but Immediate Records had final say. It’s quintessential English, slice-of-life escapism. (Think “Penny Lane,” the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset,” the Hollies’ “Bus Stop,” the Zombies’ “Beechwood Park,” and the Smalls’ own “Itchycoo Park.”) The bouncy melody is broken by cockney-esque poetry like “Cor blimey, ‘ello Mrs. Jones, ow’s your bird’s lumbago?”

union jack

Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for six weeks. (America had too much on its plate in ‘68, and missed the boat.) Due to the record’s complexity, including orchestration, the group never performed it live. This fact contributed to their demise. They knew they could never top Ogdens’. Also, Marriott wanted to get into guitar-heavy, R&B-styled rock and distance himself from the teen-scream scene (though one of the special things about the Small Faces was their playful irreverence). So, he quit the Smalls seven months after the album’s release. He joined with guitar hotshot Peter Frampton (ex-Herd) to form Humble Pie. The other three were briefly adrift, but eventually hired Ron Wood and blond, sexy Rod Stewart, both much taller and recently exiled from the Jeff Beck Group, to become the Faces. small faces 3

Whilst not as artistically satisfying as the Small Faces, both Humble Pie and the Faces achieved the popular success in North America that had escaped the Smalls.

Drummer Kenney Jones is the only Small left. Steve Marriott died tragically in a house fire in 1991; Ronnie Lane succumbed to multiple sclerosis in 1997; and Ian McLagan died of a stroke in 2014. If you fancy rock bios, you’ll be gobsmacked by McLagan’s book All the Rage, which is one of the best fly-on-the-wall rock bios I’ve yet read.

As for Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, it’s been rereleased several times, on CD and vinyl, with music and packaging variations. The original UK vinyl version with the round gatefold cover is the one to get. But you may have to put your home on the market, or place one of your children into indentured servitude to afford it.

union jack

NOTE: Perhaps you noticed I didn’t mention Hall of Fame (HOF) inductions or Rolling Stone (RS) magazine lists here. It’s become fashionable to do this—as if a coterie of music-critic aristocrats with crabs in their beards decide which music is worthy of being anointed for artistic posterity. Cor blimey, I’ve even cited their shite once or twice! But never again, mate. Inductions, lists, polls, rankings, and record sales are poor indicators for determining what is “good” music and what isn’t, by gor, and a lot of these HOF and RS critics are daft, anyway (and get dafter every year). Therefore, longitudes says “rubbish” to all of it.

By the way, I’m right chuffed to say that longitudes has deemed Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake the 19^th greatest rock record ever, Steve Marriott the 9^th greatest rock vocalist, Marriott-Lane the 4^th greatest rock songwriting duo, and the band is in the longitudes hall of fame as a separate act from the Faces, which was a totally different band, musically.

Now, are we all sitting comfy-bowl? Good, then I’ll meet you at the Crown and Anchor, mate. I’ll be wearing pink winklepickers.

small faces 5

Pink Floyd’s “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”

August 10, 2017April 14, 2020 / greenpete58 / 5 Comments

50 years
piper

Yippee, you can’t see me

But I can you

Not long ago I wrote about a dinner party I hosted (“The Craziest Meal I Never Had”). While I thought it was a good party, there were also some tense moments. After I bade goodbye to Herman Melville, Billy the Kid, and Crazy Horse, I retired to the den to reflect on the evening. I thought about how ill-mannered Billy was, and how distracted Herman seemed. My Indian friend, understandably, appeared very uncomfortable.

Then I thought about the fourth guest I invited: the one who never showed up. In fact, I didn’t even get an RSVP. But it’s probably good he didn’t attend. He would have been as uncomfortable as Crazy.

When finished reflecting, I decided to honour this reticent invitee the only way I knew. So I dragged myself upstairs, lit a stick of patchouli incense, dimmed the lights, and put on one of his records.

***

Most people have heard of the rock band Pink Floyd, even if they may not be fans. Casual fans might have a hazy recollection of a mysterious chap who led the band in its earliest days… before Floyd was “welcomed to the machine,” when it was still a cult psychedelic group known mainly in England. Only the most devoted fans know the full details of the tragic and poignant Syd Barrett, a brilliant artist who briefly burned like a supernova, then divorced himself from society and, for 35 years, took refuge in the garden behind his mother’s house.

Since I’m reviewing a record album here, I won’t discuss Barrett’s odyssey through music and life. There are plenty of places out there that deal with that stuff, myths and all.

Anyway, discussing his music is the best way to properly honour this artist. And I do mean “artist.” Pink Floyd guitarist and childhood friend David Gilmour, who knew Barrett as much as anyone other than his family (and despite taking his place in the band) called him one of only a few musical geniuses, along with Bob Dylan. He also maintains that Barrett’s collapse wasn’t all that unusual: many people in the late 1960s also fell by the wayside. But 99 percent of them we don’t hear about. Barrett stands out because he was so gifted, and because the band he fronted so long ago achieved phenomenal international success…without him.

Barrett was a butterfly that broke through the netting, his wings permanently damaged. But this is important: try as they might, they were never able to pin him to Styrofoam.

***

THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN (released August 5, 1967) is a surreal, slightly ominous title for a rock album. Surprisingly, Syd Barrett didn’t conceive it. He borrowed it from his favourite chapter in his favourite book, Kenneth Grahame’s fantasy classic The Wind in the Willows. But the title expertly sums up the mixture of science fiction and children’s fantasy that inform the words and music on the record.

Paul Bransom illustration from “The Wind in the Willows”

Within these grooves we share English tea with all varieties of the phantasmagoric. Hallucinating gnomes. Existential scarecrows. Sinister, mind-reading cats. Outer (inner?) space denizens. “The doll’s house, darkness, old perfume…”

Ok, I hear you snicker. “This is the kind of airy fairy shite that gave hippies a bad name.” You may be right. A lot of this stuff was done by hack musicians/writers eager to hitch a ride on the magic bus. But…

Long before the Summer of Love became an innocuous cliché and marketing tool, there existed a few imaginative, English art students bent on taking music, words, and art to undiscovered areas. The blueprint for the new music was created by the band Pink Floyd, helmed by the youngest member, Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett of Cambridge, who named his band after two of his beloved cats (who were named after two obscure American bluesmen).

According to his sister, Barrett had a rare condition called “synesthesia.” Most of us only hear sounds and see colours. But some “synesthetes” can evidently see sounds, and hear colours. Barrett, a talented painter as well as musician, apparently exhibited this condition as a child and budding artist… years before he ever touched a hallucinogen.

In early 1967, Barrett penned two eye-opening singles that titillated the London youth underground: “Arnold Layne,” a true story about a Cambridge transvestite who stole women’s underwear from washing lines; and “See Emily Play,” a slice of English whimsy that teeters on insanity.

Based on these singles, EMI Columbia financed Pink Floyd’s first full-length LP. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios, right when the Beatles were putting the finishing touches on SGT. PEPPER. Legend has it that the Floyd members occasionally peeked in on Lennon and McCartney to absorb the brilliance. I propose it was the other way around.

If so, what might John and Paul have heard? There are two faces to this record: an unsettling and ragged trip into space (I’ll call it the Gates of Dawn) and a pleasant and pastoral trip back to childhood (The Piper… this would be all Syd). I’ll save The Piper songs for later.

“Astronomy Domine” “Pow R. Toc H.,” and “Interstellar Overdrive” come close to the later Floyd sound and were staples of the band’s blinding, liquid-light-fantastic live shows. All soar into space on the static-y strings of Barrett’s guitar. “Astronomy” is bolstered by Nick Mason’s tribal drumming, and the 10-minute “Interstellar” by Richard (Rick) Wright’s cosmic organ. “Pow R. Toc H.,” one of the album’s lesser songs, is an instrumental crammed with vocal and instrumental sound effects, but it has a characteristic spacey Floydian closeout.

Let me interject that Barrett on guitar was no Eric Clapton. But he made up for technical inadequacy by bravely exploring the instrument’s electric and aural capabilities (using a silver Telecaster adorned with 15 circular mirrors). He pioneered a technique of channeling bottleneck slide through an echo device, and it gave the Floyd a distinctive eerie sound.

Back to the songs: “Take Up thy Stethoscope and Walk” is Roger Waters’ very first composition. Nothing notable here except the paranoid vocals by Barrett.

Waters, Mason, Barrett, Wright (Hutton Archive, Getty Images)

“Lucifer Sam” is a sleek nugget about a third feline owned by Barrett, a mysterious Siamese named Sam. The descending chords and twangy guitar lines have been described as “psychedelic Duane Eddy,” and recall the Sloan-Barri hit sung by Johnny Rivers, “Secret Agent Man.” In my garage-band days, I used to love playing this song (Sean Connery always popped into my head). It’s the closest song to a single on PIPER, in the same vein as “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play.”

Now for The Piper part of the record: these songs were written exclusively by Barrett.

“The Gnome” and “The Scarecrow” might as well be solo Barrett – I’m not sure if anyone else even plays on them, except perhaps Mason offering soft percussion help. Both are pastoral evocations that capture children’s fascination with the unreal possibly being real. “The Scarecrow,” also, has a rolling melody that may have made Paul McCartney blush while eavesdropping on the proceedings.

“Chapter 24” is a collection of observations lifted from the I Ching and set to music: “Change returns success/Going and coming without error/Action brings good fortune/Sunset, sunrise.” This song may have been inspired by Barrett’s interest in Eastern philosophies. Like other young people seeking new ways of thinking, he’d attempted to join a Sant Mat sect, but was rejected for being too young.

The oddest song here is probably “Bike:” “I’ve got a bike/You can ride it if you like/It’s got a basket/A bell that rings/And things to make it look good… I’d give it to you if I could/But I borrowed it.” Note the rhyming, alliteration, and syncopation. Also, the little lyric twist at the end. On surface, the lyrics seem like nonsense. But Barrett was a skilled writer, and like all great writers, he understood the power of letters and words.

Teenaged Roger Barrett in the family garden with guitar and tiger cat (Floyd? Pink?). Lucifer Sam is by his side in the foliage shadows (John Steele Collection)

Now for the pièce de résistance, the two songs that may be the cream of all English psychedelia. Musically and lyrically, they’re a joy to listen to: “Matilda Mother” and “Flaming.”

“Matilda Mother” is a bittersweet memory of Barrett’s about fairy stories read by his mother, with lyrics partly inspired by Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc, especially his 1907 parody Cautionary Tales for Children. The best psychedelic music was less about hallucinating through drugs than about transcending the mundane, and in “Matilda Mother,” Barrett yearns to throw off the rigidness of adulthood and return to the comforting calm of his mother, and the “scribbly black” lines she recited, where the phantasmagoric was tangible, colours pulsate with life, and “everything shines.” Rick Wright, the low-key, underrated keyboardist in Floyd, who later also wrote several evocative songs about childhood, sings the verse, while Barrett sings the slightly bitter chorus (“Oh, oh mother/Tell me more…”).

“Flaming” is my favourite song on the album. Originally entitled “Snowing,” it’s a tune that requires little effort to listen to, just opened ears, an open mind, and a willingness to float on “eiderdown” through fields of buttercups and dandelions. Listen to this with a good set of headphones and let Wright’s deep organ fills wash over you, and Barrett’s stirring multi-tracked vocals warm your insides. You may giggle at the sudden entrance of a cuckoo… but, then, you’re supposed to. On surface, this song is about playing hide-and-seek. We were all children, once, so who cannot relate to that? But, as Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, and Syd Barrett all knew, words have different meanings. This song is just as much about the exhilaration of being invisible, floating like a fetus, gazing at the hustle and bustle of a world gone cuckoo.

“Flaming” clocks in at a mere two minutes and forty-two seconds, but it’s more imaginative than all four sides of THE WALL. And it has one of the most beautiful musical closeouts ever devised. John and Paul certainly walked away shaking their heads in astonishment. It’s obvious where they got the final notes for “She’s Leaving Home.”

Many have tried over the years, but nobody writes songs like this anymore. Very few back then could, either.

To its credit, U.S. subsidiary Tower Records actually released “Flaming” as Pink Floyd’s third U.S. single. But the song is too good, so it never charted.

The short-lived five-piece Pink Floyd, and one of the last photos from the Barrett era. Gilmour is front center. Syd is second from left (Pink Floyd Music LTD Archive)

***

The Pink Floyd sound and image changed noticeably after PIPER was released and Barrett left the band. Rick Wright’s keyboards replaced Barrett’s guitar as the dominant instrument. The songs became less lyrical and more thematic, more like soundscapes. When there were words, Roger Waters adhered to Barrett’s philosophy of “keep it simple,” although Waters being Waters, more than a little social and political commentary crept into things. And since the band had no distinct leader anymore, the members’ identities were mysterious, even to many fans.

With the release of the epic DARK SIDE OF THE MOON in 1973, however, the Pink Floyd capsule finally broke the sound barrier of fame. Although the musicians still retained an air of mystery, their days as a curious cult attraction were forever gone. They could now enjoy the fruits of the capitalism which they’ve sometimes criticized. (And fight over possession of the band’s name, whilst the man who bestowed that name puttered in his flower garden, without regard for such matters.)

But the Piper never totally disappeared: his spirit hovered over the band and its songs until the end.

Psychedelic rock, or acid rock, only lasted a few years, from 1967 to ’69 or ’70. Much of it was juvenile and derivative. But the best psychedelic rock is extremely interesting, in my view, and a few records could be termed classics. One of them is THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, Pink Floyd’s one and only album with a colourful, talented, and enigmatic butterfly named Roger “Syd” Barrett.

***

Longitudes has now profiled four groundbreaking albums this year (three of them debuts). In December, I’ll discuss one more rock masterpiece in honour of its 50^th anniversary, closing out what I consider the penultimate year for rock albums: 1967. But, in the playful spirit of Syd, I’ll keep you guessing as to what it is.

(Have you got it yet?).

The Wind in the Willows Shepard

To Sir with Love: Knights and Dames in Merrie Olde England

June 20, 2015July 14, 2015 / greenpete58 / Leave a comment

Recently, famed singer-songwriter Van Morrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The pudgy, red-headed imp with the soulful voice, who wrote “Gloria,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Tupelo Honey,” and the evocative albums ASTRAL WEEKS and MOONDANCE, is now “Sir George Ivan Morrison.”

I tried to find a quote from the queen as to exactly why she chose Morrison, as opposed to, say, Steve Winwood, or Richard Thompson. But she’s pretty low-key, and I couldn’t dig up a quote. Media outlets (many of whom just copy each other’s stories) say it’s because of Morrison’s contributions to music. Also, his promotion of tourism in Northern Ireland… (huh?).

Morrison joins other high-profile rockers Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and Elton John as knights on the British chessboard.

Being a parochial American, I’ve always cast a dubious eye at this British honors business (actually, I should spell it “honours” out of respect for my distant cousins across the pond). Why do some men get Sir’ed, and others do not? Why are some women Dame’ed, and others ignored? Why is this title-before-the-name stuff so significant?

I remember when Mick Jagger was knighted. I thought it insulting that Keith Richards wasn’t similarly honoured. I asked my brother, “If Mick can get Sir’ed, why not Keith, too?”

“I think we both know why Keith wasn’t Sir’ed,” he deadpanned.

The British honours system is very complicated, comprising all sorts of orders and classes, both civil and military, and depending on the class, you don’t always get to be a Sir or a Dame. black garter The tradition dates to 1348, when King Edward III of England established the Most Noble Order of the Garter to recognize men who displayed acts of chivalry. The order’s emblem is, of course, a garter, accompanied by the motto “Shame on him who thinks evil of it.”

I don’t know why anyone would think evil of an article of feminine underwear. Then again, I’m a 21^st-century bullet-headed Yank, so what do I know?

This original order eventually expanded to other orders based on degrees of service or professional achievement. Some include The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle (but isn’t the Garter the “most ancient”?); The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (which I assume recognizes cleanliness and hygiene); and The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick (which recognized Irish peers in the UK, until 1922, when The Irish Free State seceded. Van the Man, however, is from Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he evidently works at a tourist agency).

In addition to orders, there are medals, which recognize bravery or good conduct, and decorations, which recognize specific deeds. There were three decorations related to India. But when India gained independence in 1947, these were somehow put on the back burner.

There have been a number of individuals who have either turned down their awards, or had them revoked. Believe it or not, Emperor Hirohito of Japan was a Knight of the Garter… until December 7, 1941.

My favorite rejection of one of these honours was John Lennon‘s. He and the three other Beatles were recognized as Members of the British Empire (MBE) in 1966. But three years later, Lennon returned his award insignia (against his Aunt Mimi’s wishes) to Buckingham Palace, with a note to the queen saying he was protesting Britain’s “support of America in Vietnam,” and for “’Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”

All joking aside, there are numerous individuals, most outside the entertainment sphere, who have done amazing things, and being honoured as a Sir or Dame brings their achievements to public light. For example, English journalist Esther Louise Rantzen is now a Dame due to setting up a charity for child protection, and another charity to assist people struggling with loneliness. Ebola virus survivor Will Pooley is now a Sir, honoured for his energetic efforts to prevent the disease’s spread.

And if you’re from outside the British Isles, you can be an honorary knight or dame. Like Rudolph Giuliani or Edward Kennedy. Or Hirohito.

The Sir and Dame stuff is also good fodder for late-night comedians, and for dumb Yanks like me who have nothing better to write about.

As I’ve always said: it’s better to be Sir’ed than slurred, and better to be Dame’ed than damned.

The Revenge of Richard III

February 4, 2013December 4, 2019 / greenpete58 / 2 Comments

We seen the last of King Richard
Ring out the past his name lives on.

—Steely Dan, from the song “Kings”

He died over 500 years ago. But it’s only now that English King Richard III’s bones have been located.

Five months ago, researchers—relying on ancient maps and eyewitness accounts—dug up a skeleton underneath a parking garage in Leicester, England. They’d hoped that the bones would prove to be those of Richard III. But only today did they finally reveal that radiocarbon dating, DNA testing, and visual examination of the bones confirm the skeleton is indeed that of Richard.

Richard III lived between 1452 and 1485. He inherited the throne in 1483 after reputedly murdering his two nephews, who had been in line to succeed their father, Edward IV. Richard served as king for only two years, meeting a grisly end at the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the 30-year Wars of the Roses between the Houses of York and Lancaster. It also ended the Plantagenet line of royalty and ushered in the Tudor era, whose most famous rulers were Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Richard III was the last English king to die on the field of battle. His death is considered by many historians to mark the end of the Middle Ages. It occurred seven years before Christopher Columbus sailed under the Spanish flag for the New World. Yes, a long, long time ago.

Had not a precocious playwright named William Shakespeare immortalized him in the play Richard III over a hundred years later, Richard III might have remained as obscure as his brother King Edward IV. But many who hail from outside the British Isles, and who are sketchy on their English history, know Richard from the play. Everyone from John Wilkes Booth to Al Pacino has portrayed him on stage or in film. The most famous film characterization was that by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1955.

Historians hope that the excitement over the discovery of Richard’s remains will provide a reassessment of his place in history. Thanks in large part to ole Bill Shakespeare (who relied on history sculpted by Richard’s conquerors, the Tudors), he’s not considered one of England’s more benevolent kings. Shakespeare made him ugly, hunchbacked, and Machiavellian. Certainly, he was deformed, as his skeleton reveals severe spinal scoliosis. But “good King” Richard’s defenders say he’s been unfairly maligned, that he was the product of a violent age, and that during his brief reign he instituted a number of significant legal reforms.

All I know is that, at this moment in history, the Richard III Society is having one helluva party.

Roll out the bones, and raise up your pitcher!

Beatles’ “Please Please Me” Single Released

January 1, 2013January 16, 2019 / greenpete58 / Leave a comment

50 years

January 11, 2013 will be the 50^th year anniversary of the UK release of the Beatles’ second single, the John Lennon composition “Please Please Me.”

In early January 1963 the Beatles were still relatively unknown outside Liverpool, England and Hamburg, Germany. They’d signed to EMI Records in England in 1962 and were being produced by George Martin and groomed by Brian Epstein. Their first single was Paul McCartney’s “Love Me Do,” released on October 17, 1962. But the song only hit number 17 in the UK. “Please Please Me,” however, was important for several reasons. Here are a few “firsts” about that song:

1st Beatles song to reach number one on the British charts, hitting that position on February 22, 1963
1st Beatles single to be released in the United States
1st Beatles song to be broadcast in the U.S. (by a Chicago DJ named Dick Biondi in February 1963)
Broadcast during the Beatles’ first national television appearance on “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” January 19, 1963
1st and title song on the Beatles’ first album

Musically, “Please Please Me” was a big step from “Love Me Do.” It had a faster, more upbeat tempo. It also featured harmony that would typify many of the Beatles’ early and mid-period songs. Paul sang the same high note for the verse, with John dropping his voice through the scale.

It was a technique “the boys” had learned from the Everly Brothers song “Cathy’s Clown.” “Last-night-I-said-these-words-to-myyyy-girl.” By itself, Paul’s single-note vocal sounds odd. But combined with John’s descending melody, it created an exquisite harmony. Then John and George’s guitars pumped the song back up to the second verse. The chorus “Please pleeease me, WHOA YEAH, like I please you” drives the song home!

The combination of melodic, upbeat vocal harmony and forceful electric guitar was fairly new – it’s been referred to over the years as Merseybeat, the Liverpool Sound, British pop, “ear candy” – but it helped change rock ‘n’ roll as we know it!

The Beatles didn’t take off in America until a year later with their release of the U.S. number one “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” followed by their historic appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” This would officially kick off the British Invasion of rock musicians with long hair, matching suits, and cool accents (think Herman’s Hermits, Dave Clark Five, the Stones, Animals, Kinks, Hollies, etc.). But “Please Please Me” was where the ball started to roll, musically.

(Note: if you’re interested in the roaring 1960s, I hope to be doing more of these 50^th anniversary posts. While the first couple years of the ‘60s were an extension of the ‘50s, things started to kick into a higher gear, at least culturally, with the year 1963. So… Happy New Year, and Happy 5oth Anniversary of the ‘60s!)