Can I get some input from older Beatle Fans?

[doctorwho]

When I get a chance, I'll add my two-cents' worth of comments ... I was 12 when The Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and it was a true turning point in history IMO.

I will say this for now: when Beatles '65 came out, I did not like it very much at all, but now I find it to be as good as any other album.

[atomic_punk]

I've got to admit, I would have loved to be able to hear it for the first time on the radio when it came out.
I heard the Beatles for the first time playing "Hey Jude" on TV and my mom tells me how excited I was! (I was 4 or 5). She bought me the singles and I wore them out.
But I would have loved to be of an age to be waiting for a new single to come out and hear it and compare it to their last one and hear the progression of the music in comparison to the time it was released in.

[malvernlink]

In 1963 I was 13 and living in Frankfurt, Germany when I first heard the Beatles on Radio Luxembourg. What was so amazing is that they sounded like no one else, and that is why everybody (well, young people anyway) just flipped out. You have to understand, the Beatles were the FIRST. There were no Brit Invasion groups being played on the radio.no Byrds etc. etc. It was the Beach Boys, whom I still love and listen to, and girl groups. It's funny, I didn't see the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in early 1964 because we didn't get U.S. TV broadcasts. Of course I heard about it when we returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1964, but it was years before I saw it on TV. During the summer of 1966 the Beatles played at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles but my friends and I decided it would be too crowded so we didn't go! Oh well. I still listen to their music and enjoy it just as much and with wonder as 46 years ago when in early 1963 I heard a new sound on the radio that changed pop music forever.

[icabod]

I saw them at Maple Leaf Gardens in 64, and 66. I absolutly still love them, and as a bass player, my 2 influences were, McCartney and Motown. Later in 69, John played the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival at Varsity Stadium, part of University of Toronto, and he had Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, and Alan White on drums, and sadly Yoko writhing around on stage in a huge mailbag, and sounding very much like a hurt cat. At the end of they're 1/2 hr set John and Eric left they're guitars leaning against they're amps without turning the guitars or amps off, aand as I had scammed my way into the show, Reggie, who was part of running stuff, asked me to work the stage. At the end of the set when said guitars were wailing away, I finally went over to John's epi, and shut the amp off and then passed his guitar off to Mal Evans. Same day, I got yelled at by Yoko for going into they're dressing room to retrieve the Fender Twin they were using as a practice amp, as Jerry Lee Lewis needed it onstage as his piano amp. The other high-low light, was Ray Manzarek bumming smokes from me...ah the old days......Anyhow, the Beatles are still #1.....R...oh ya..I was 19 at the time

[8mileshigher]

At the end of the set when said guitars were wailing away, I finally went over to John's epi, and shut the amp off and then passed his guitar off to Mal Evans.

It's too bad you weren't able to turn Yoko's mike off when she was spoiling Yer Blues and Cold Turkey

Anyway, now we can smile each time we enjoy our LIve Peace In Toronto CD or watch the D.A. Pennebaker DVD... knowing that a Forumite was involved behind the scenes and influenced the recording .... I just happened to watch the Pennebaker film last weekend and really, the Toronto Plastic Ono Band gig has been underappreciated over the course of time. I think Clapton was pretty good, throwing in his couple of licks here and there.... considering he and JL only practiced Blue Suede Shoes, Money and Dizzy Miss Lizzy while sitting in the first class section of the Air Canada jet on the way over, and no practice at all for Klaus and Alan riding in coach with Mal (and sadly, both EC and JL were using heroin at the time). The funniest part of the story is that John and Yoko hogged the limo from the airport, stranding EC, Klaus and Alan to thumb a ride with the van hauling the gear and when John & Yoko didn't show up for the Press conference, Clapton had to give an unrehearsed and impromptu explanation of John and Yoko's peace campaign.


Regards
Rich F.

[kiramdear]

Anyway, now we can smile each time we enjoy our LIve Peace In Toronto CD or watch the D.A. Pennebaker DVD... knowing that a Forumite was involved behind the scenes and influenced the recording .... the Toronto Plastic Ono Band gig has been underappreciated over the course of time.

+1

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

Maybe I'll come back and tell a more detailed story of my recollections, but I wanted to mention The Generation Gap. I never hear that term anymore, but in the 60's it was a really big deal. The "younger generation" and the "older generation" were embroiled in a cultural war, and the main front was in the home. Sure there were riots and protests...but the real battle was a daily thing happening between parents and children. Guess what side the Beatles represented?

My father just hated The Beatles and all they brought with them. They were held completely responsible for drugs, violence, and the collapse of American culture and modern civilization. And, as a youngster, I came to the conclusion that my parents were wrong. Ouch! Truly, what a drag. I know my daughters don't feel that way. Sure, they don't want to do chores sometimes, but they don't look at me with the outrage that we felt about the whole Eisenhower-Nixon/Father Knows Best/Hard Drinkers Who Hate Drugs set.

That's the part that's hard to convey...and The Beatle's were like the gas and the match all at once. They were powerful beyond understanding because of their absolutely effective influence. We loved them, old people hated them. So there was a whole lot of adrenaline and high drama involved in listening to them, in loving them. We were not encouraged in that love...we had to fight for it, get in trouble for it, argue with higher powers for it.

There is now a wondrous payoff for all of that...we know now that they really were as good as we thought. It's a payoff to know that you love the same things today, Daniel. I never stopped listening. They still excite me, still don't bore me, and even though I know way too much about them, I still get surprised by something I suddenly notice in some song I've heard a kabillion times.

So now it's all the fun, but no more fear.

[dwinn]

Mark, that's what I wanted to hear! There is nothing like that today. This generation is satisfied with mediocrity. People are famous now just for being famous. Read a People magazine. Half those people were in reality shows or are sons and daughters of semi-famous people. That is so awesome that a band really was the scapegoat for the generation gap of two generations.

[gregga41]

You are incredibly spot-on Mark. I recall those same emotions as a 9 year old in 1969, where my parents referred to The Beatles as those "long-haired louts". So we agreed to disagree.
Fast forward 20 or more years, my father asks if i can lend him the BBC recordings and the anthology discs!! I wonder if that generation gap "thingy" was so strong back then, that he couldn't admit that he really was a fan. I wish he was still alive, as it's one of many things i'd love to discuss.

[wmthor]

Like a couple of the others, I was 12 when The Beatles made the first appearance of The Ed Sullivan Show. However, I wasn't that impressed at the time as I preferred The Beach Boys and later, The Rolling Stones over The Beatles. I started paying more attention to them when Hey Jude/Revolution (I bought the 45) was released during my senior year of high school. Even then, I preferred Cream, The Byrds, CCR, The Who, and Steppenwolf over the The Beatles.

It wasn't until '73 or '74 before I bought my first Beatles albums (actually 8-tracks). They were 1962–1966 (the "Red Album") & 1967–1970 (the "Blue Album"). Today, those two Beatle CDs that I own.

[8mileshigher]

The Beatle's were .... powerful beyond understanding because of their absolutely effective influence.

Very insightful, Lyle. I enjoyed your synopsis.

Rich F.

[dwinn]

Just looking back at this post, 3 years later. These are some great responses.
Perhaps others may want to chime in that didn't see the thread the first time around?

[winston]

I agree Dan.........this thread was an interesting read 3 years ago and it was an interesting read again just now. Thanks for bringing it back to the forefront.

[beatbyrd]

Thanks for reviving this thread. The various posts succintly put into words some of the feelings I've had about the Beatles over the years, but never actually verbalized. I was nearly 13 when they were first on Ed Sullivan. Prior to their appearance, pop music had been (for me, at least) made up mostly of the Beach Boys, Everlys, Four Seasons, male singers (Elvis, Roy, Del, Ricky, Pitney, etc.) and girl groups. Once I heard the Beatles, all of the stuff I had been listening to until then dropped in significance. I think Kira mentioned this before, but I had never heard that amount of pure joy and energy come blasting out of a speaker before. To this day, I haven't heard anything that approaches the energy level that their earlier songs have. And they found a way to deliver this youthful exhuberance repeatedly - song after song. Whenever I heard 'She Loves You', 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Twist & Shout', 'I Saw Her Standing There' , (and many, many more), I felt that jolt and my life seemed better. There's an expression about capturing lightning in a jar. To me, the early Beatles recordings are the best real-world example of this.

The guys looked like they were loving life in their TV, movie, and photo appearances. They were charming and continually joking around with everyone. The press loved them because they were such fun to interview and be around. They were the life of the party. My parents (unlike those mentioned earlier in this thread) thought that the Beatles were funny, in a goofy way. They never made a negative comment about the group.

I believe that 'Help' was a turning point. I enjoyed Rubber Soul and Revolver, but noticed at the time that the energy level had dropped considerably. Now, it's easy for me to imagine that the hectic pace, being yanked around by the public and press, as well as the escalating use of drugs, had taken its toll on the band. They no longer seemed to project the same youthful exhuberance; they just seemed tired. They also went from a bunch of blokes in a band to being 'artists'. I own and still enjoy all of their standard releases, but play 'Help' and before to recapture the same feelings of Beatlemania that I had back when I first fell in love with their music. I don't own any solo releases. Individually, the Beatles were each very good. As a band, they were the best; far more than the sum of their parts. Tom

[FretlessOnly]

I just read through the whole thread and didn't notice that it was three years old for the most part. Great read. I will say that the generation gap was still pretty strong in the late 70s/early 80s when I was in High School. Although it was probably less severe, those crazy rock and rollers were still viewed as the reason for the decay of American society. My father was rather old school, but I still remember the day in '71 or '72 that he asked me, on the way to the barber shop, if I wanted to grow my hair out some "like those rock stars do." So, it wasn't all bad, but it's odd sometimes to think that one band of four guys could change the world as much as they did in as short a time as they did.

I didn't become aware of the Beatles until they had broken up; around '71 probably, when I began listening to the radio as much as I could. FM radio exploded and we can probably thank songs like Hey Jude and Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone for that, since bands began routinely began producing longer tracks once they saw that they were radio-viable. But the Beatles were my favorite band for a couple of years, around '76 and '77, and remained important for a few years before fading away as other music became known to me: Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, King Crimson, Yes, ELP, etc. Not to mention the 9-10 year period where all I listened to and played was jazz ('92-2001). Then four years in a symphony orchestra.

I had an odd realization a few years ago. My first real bass was an '80 4001, and I got it because of Geddy. At least that's what I thought. When the Beatles came back to the fore in my catalog around 2007, I was listening to them very often, and dissecting the bass parts, because when I first became a fan, I was a guitar player but not a bass player. One night it suddenly dawned on me, as I was trying to figure out how I had been influenced on electric bass and why I played the way I do, and it crystallized: Paul McCartney was my biggest influence all along. I think when I listened so persistenly back in '76-77, the power of his lines etched themselves in the creative portion of my brain so indelibly that I couldn't help but draw upon them even though I wasn't playing bass when I first listened to them.

So yeah, powerful stuff.