1960 or Thereabouts: Celebrating 60 Years

Cathy's Clown, Released in April, 1960 by The Everly Brothers goes to #1 for 5 weeks on the Billboard Top 100

In 1960 -

The Beatles, 1960

• The Beatles make their debut under this name in Hamburg, Germany, beginning a 48-night residency at the Indra club. The band at the time comprises John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe on bass and Pete Best on drums.
• In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar non-violent protests throughout the Southern United States, and six months later, the original four protesters are served lunch at the same counter.
• Elvis Presley returns home from Germany to the United States, after being away on military duty for 2 years.
• Several Soviet surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers of the Central Intelligence Agency, is captured.
• The Flintstones, My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, Route 66, and The Bugs Bunny Show aired their first season.
• Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, his way of protesting the discussion of the Soviet Union's policies toward Eastern Europe.
• For the first time, Mary Martin's Peter Pan is presented as a stand-alone 2-hour special on NBC, instead of as part of an anthology series. This version, rather than being presented live, is shown on videotape, enabling NBC to repeat it as often as they wish without having to restage it. Although nearly all of the adult actors repeat their original Broadway roles, all of the original children have, ironically, outgrown their roles and are replaced by new actors.
• 1960 United States presidential election: In a close race, Democratic U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy is elected over Republican U. S. Vice President Richard Nixon, to become (at 43) the second youngest man to serve as President of the United States, and the youngest man elected to this position.
• 14-year-old Neil Young forms his first band in Junior High, The Jades in Winnipeg, Canada. Source: Various Wikipedia articles

Fern McIntosh, Sunday School Teacher
(in front of the window) Grace Baptist Church, 1959

In 1960, I was five years old and at that time probably didn't know any of the songs on the playlist this week as my primary exposure to music was pretty much a Baptist church gathering, starting with...

Jesus loves me this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong

They are weak but He is strong

I do remember a firecracker redhead kid who moved to Santa Maria in 1960 named Billy DeVoe who routinely disrupted my Sunday school class pretty much from kindergarten through high school. I am thankful that a strong Jesus did in fact bring us together as we remain best friends some sixty years down the road.

Doug & Bill - The College Years

However since our college years, we have both come to doubt the fantastical stories and religious fervor that attracted a good number of adult odd-balls and goof-balls from our town to congregate. As adults ourselves, we would never socially mix with such a fearful and loathing group of people lead by Franklin Graham-like ministers, including a string of creepy youth/music ministers who probably turned a good number of our peers around to end up playing for the agnostic team. My disruptive friend was in fact the only 'normal' thing I took from that place. By the way, who in their right mind would sit in those extremely hard pews for hours at a time, listening to a guy who believes three guys are thrown into a large fiery furnace and are just walking around inside the furnace.  I believe in miracles/ where you from/ you sexy thing...

My other thoughts about 1960 or thereabouts take me back to 300 West Sunset in Santa Maria, CA. Specifically, the time my dad started digging a six foot hole and trench from inside of our house in the hallway heater closet, to underneath the middle of the living room. Now before you make the leap that my dad was bat-shit crazy, let me provide a little context. 

Steve and Stephanie
with their brother
(dad was the barber too
for the boys haircuts)

In talking with my mother and younger (twin) brother and sister this past week, we think it probably was more around 1962 because I would have been seven and the twins around five. This also is the timing of the Cuban Missile Crisis as one of our neighbors down the street had actually dug and built a bomb shelter underneath their front yard. Okay, now THAT DAD was bat-shit crazy, but my dad was just a Baptist.

In the early 60's, my dad climbed telephones poles for General Telephone Company and my mom was a housewife. They didn't have a lot of money when they bought the Sunset house for $13,500 in 1956, and later discovered the hot water leak underneath their concrete slab somewhere between 1960-62. I wish my dad were here to tell us the exact timeline, but he's eternally on a back nine foursome with the father, son and the holy ghost...

Buddy McIntosh

Anyway, my mom tells me the living room floor kept getting warmer and warmer and the hot water in the sinks and bathrooms were down to a trickle. There definitely was a hot water leak, and my dad without means to pay an expensive plumbing bill much less hire a lawyer, became a plumber. My dad could do anything, he could be a mechanic, carpenter or any general fix-it man depending on the breakdown. So my dad enlists my uncle's Skeet and Leslie, and they take out the heater and start digging this huge hole in our hallway and piling a mountain of dirt on a large army tarp in the backyard (thanks Steve for that specific dirt memory).

So what do you think the neighborhood was thinking, as my mom recalls, "word spread quickly."
"Bud's gone crazy! He's building a bomb shelter underneath his house!" 

Here's my outstanding memory of that event in time- I'm standing in the hallway looking down at my dad in the hole (with his head below ground level) and he's smiling up to me. The black and white TV is on in the living room with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese calling a baseball game, sponsored by Falstaff Beer. I love how Diz would turn to Pee Wee and call him, "podnuh."

The Playlist this week was a fun task of mixing 1960 pop, folk, R&B, country, jazz and new TV show themes all together in 60 songs. Some of these songs you'll recognize as 70's hits made famous as covers from these 1960 originals. Enjoy and stay well my friends.

Note - The Theme for Bonanza actually started as a TV show in 1959. Also in 1959, The Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take 5. I just couldn't let those two not be part of this collection of songs. 

Wikipedia References - 

• 1960
• 1960 in music
• 1960 in jazz

Paul Simon, The Rhythm Poet

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

from The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon

In my 12th grade English class the teacher Miss Dunn, did a poetry unit on Simon and Garfunkel. She unpacked Paul Simon's lyrics and we explored songs such as, The Sound of Silence and The Boxer as deeply as passages of Dickinson or Thoreau.

Paul Simon is simply one of American music's greatest treasures. By the late sixties, he had reached Bob Dylan's poet stature as the songwriter of Simon and Garfunkel.  But he just never stopped his momentum and continued to evolve as the quintessential instrument to channel American and world rhythms into music as a solo artist.

Last Friday, I got to see Paul Simon for the first time at Key Arena in Seattle. His Homeward Bound - The Farewell Tour is billed as the final tour of his career and at 76 I'm just going to have to take him at his word. His setlist included 25 songs with three well planned but heartfelt encores.

Joining me was my lovely wife Mary Kit, as well as my dear old friend Bill DeVoe and his good friend Neil Wiesblott from Vashon Island. Our foursome was part of the largely "Boomer" crowd that grew up listening to Paul Simon, and in turn, our children listened to Simon growing up with us.

In preparing for the blog this past week, I typically start with the playlist and wanted to feature many of the songs from his recent performances. I got really excited listening to Paul's 70+ year old voice in concert as the man is well preserved physically, vocally and musically.

On Saturday after the concert, I had a chance to have lunch with Bill and he talked about how Simon just continued to evolve as an artist through the decades, not afraid to explore and expose his audience to literally the rhythms and beats from all kinds of cultural influences. Our discussion turned to how historically white musicians have "taken" music from musicians of color and not given them credit for not only their influence but the dollars they have reaped from that influence.

You can go back to the 1920's and discover jazz performers such as Paul Whiteman (literally his last name), who was known as the "King of Jazz" to the larger white audience without publicly  acknowledging the black artists who in fact created the art form of jazz itself.

This too could also be applied to Elvis Presley in the 1950's as the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" to the larger white audience, and if I'm not mistaken, never overtly talked in the media about how black music influenced his music. I will say many black musicians like Little Richard have publicly said how Elvis' popularity actually boosted their careers, but not said by the man himself, in front of a microphone or television camera.

But in the 1960's and by the 1970's this pattern had begun to change. Groups like the Rolling Stones and musicians like Eric Clapton, openly talked about their black musician idols, and "put their money where their mouth is" by getting them big time booking gigs and appearances on TV.

Paul Simon took it a step further. He started putting people like the Jessy Dixon Singers in his albums and on his concert tours. He went to South Africa under Apartheid, hired all black musicians, recorded and toured with these musicians, and caught a bunch of crap for it. There are probably people who think Paul Simon has "taken" African music, but I would disagree. If you don't like the fact that Paul Simon is a musical genius whose world influences have created some of the most catchy rhythmic beat hooks of all-time, you probably just don't get rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' Roll is for everybody but it's important to know where it comes from and to acknowledge the people who brought the beat, no matter who's playing it.

Then I learned to play some lead guitar

I was underage in this funky bar

And I stepped outside to smoke myself a “J”

And when I came back to the room

Everybody just seemed to move

And I turned my amp up loud and began to play

And it was late in the evening

And I blew that room away

Late in the Evening by Paul Simon

Paul Simon rocked Key Arena. He's got one of the most talented bands I've ever seen. I could only image the audition process to join this elite group of people who all seem to perform double duties of playing multiple instruments plus sing harmony or back up vocals as well. The percussion section is hypnotic and the horns are the pure joy of the soul. Paul was fully engaged, telling stories about the songs and his singing voice was fantastic! The crowd couldn't get enough as he moved from acoustic to full orchestral, big sound arrangements and back to acoustic guitars. It was not quite late in the evening and Paul Simon blew me away. I was not alone.

If you're wanting more, I would suggest Paul's new book by Robert Hilburn, Paul Simon the life. Here is a book review in the Seattle Times by Paul de Barrios. I haven't read the book yet, but I think it will be on my bedside table very soon.

And, a very positive review of the May 18th concert at Key Arena in the Seattle Times by Michael Rietmulder.

Update - (Hollywood Bowl review)
Paul Simon's Final Tour A Graceful, Masterful And Jubilant Celebration by Steve Baltin

You know when an artist is so enduring to you that you sing the lyrics and play the music of a favorite song, in your head. For me Paul Simon has that extra quality (like Stevie Wonder) when the rhythm of the instruments just play over and over in your head, in a good way.

Right now as I'm writing this, I'm playing the acoustic guitar lead into Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, in my head, and that my friends is a gift on so many levels.