60 Years of Music • January, 1963

The Beatles are coming...

January 2 – Mary Kit Smith celebrates her seventh birthday.

January 3 – The Beatles begin their first tour of 1963 with a five-day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single, "Love Me Do", beginning with a performance in Elgin.
January 7 – Gary U.S. Bonds files a $100,000 lawsuit against Chubby Checker, claiming that Checker stole "Quarter to Three" and turned it into "Dancin' Party." The lawsuit is later settled out of court.
January 11 – "Please Please Me" is released in the United Kingdom by the Beatles, with "Ask Me Why" as the B-side.
January 12 – Bob Dylan portrays a folk singer in The Madhouse of Castle Street, a radio play for the BBC in London.
February 16 - The Beatles achieve their first No. 1 hit single, when "Please Please Me" tops the charts in the UK.
February 22 – The Beatles form Northern Songs Publishing Company.
March 5 – 1963 Camden PA-24 crash: Patsy Cline is killed in small plane crash near Camden, Tennessee, while on her way to Nashville, Tennessee, from Kansas City, Missouri, at the height of her career, together with Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the UK.

from Wikipedia, 1963 in Music

In 1963, music singles are king. In looking at the singles recorded in 1963 it was amazing to see that many were released just a month later. The mentality was, get it out there, and then, get another one out there. Kids were buying 45's with the marketed 'hit' on the A side, and then typically a deeper cut on the B side that would eventually be part of a released album coming soon. (The Beatles would later buck that trend, but that's a story for another day.)

In January 1963, I'm seven years old and mostly unaware of the pop music around me other than hearing songs on the radio. My parents were not listening or buying any kind of records and the only music I heard live was the singing of 1850's white hymns in church. I loved that part of the service because you got to get up and stretch your legs, fidget about and do something besides sit and listen to some old man talking. My mom said to me when I was in my 30's, "Why didn't any of you kids continue to go to church?" Yeah mom, I wonder why? Now maybe if I'd gone to a black church where they were singing and moving to gospel music...

Another memory.  Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass were big on the radio in the early and mid-sixties. Hearing The Lonely Bull this past week hit me like a lightning bolt where I'm in a downtown shop with my mom probably W. A. Haslam's and that song is playing through their sound system.

This past week, I watched on Hulu,  If These Walls Could Sing - Mary McCartney's 2022 documentary on Abbey Road Studios' 90 year history with a big chunk involving her father. I highly recommend it as it will get you thinking about the Brian Epstein and George Martin connection, and the rest as they say is history.

Enjoy my friends, the British are coming.

P. S. I Love You Mary Kit Smith!