Monthly Archives: April 2016

Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Cannot Buy Beatles Love

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Cannot Buy Beatles Love

April 4, 1964
Hit #1 on Billboard
Cannot Buy Beatles Love
cover for the 45 of Can’t Buy Me Love. Note the cigarette in Paul’s hand.
Cannot Buy Beatles Love

Number 1

It’s April 1964 and Beatlemania is world-wide.  The Beatles released “Can’t Buy Me Love” on March 16 of that year and by April 4 it was, not surprisingly, #1.

Oh yea, and numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 were also Beatle songs!

Beatles Can't Buy Me Love
from Billboard magazine
Cannot Buy Beatles Love

Me love or my love?

As infected as any teenager, I automatically loved the song, though the title seemed grammatically confusing.  Did they mean, “You cannot buy love for me”? Unfamiliar with the British use of “me” for “my”, “You can’t buy my love” didn’t occur to me. 

In any case, I had my transistor radio on as I walked weekdays delivering the local evening newspaper or on Friday evenings collecting the paper’s weekly charge (33 cents)  from my customers.

My radio was simply AM, of course. I hoped WABC or WMCA would play a few in a row and skip some commercials. It was still a few years away from a couple FM station owners realizing that these kids with paper routes had money to spend.

Cannot Buy Beatles Love

Paris inspired

The Beatles had performed for 18 days at the Paris Olympia Theatre, on a nine-act bill, playing two and sometimes three sets each day from January 16 to February 4, 1964.  They had just two days off in the run, on 21 and 28 January. It was during this time that Paul wrote “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

By the way, keep in mind that three days after that grueling 18 day visit, they flew to the United States for the first time for their famous Ed Sullivan Show appearances. 

Cannot Buy Beatles Love

Can’t Buy Me Love

Paul McCartney in Barry Miles’s Many Years from Now  said, “‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ is my attempt to write a bluesy mode. The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well but they won’t buy me what I really want. It was a very hooky song. Ella Fitzgerald later did a version of it which I was very honoured by.”

“Can’t Buy Me Love” was mostly recorded on January 29, 1964 at EMI’s Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris. It was the first the first Beatle single to feature just one lead singer.

Cannot Buy Beatles Love

Allan W Pollack

Allan W Pollack at his amazingly thorough Soundscape site writes: “We have here a very standard long form with two refrain-like bridges separated by two verse sections, one of which contains a guitar solo. However the combination within the same song of a verse section so traditionally bluesy with a refrain, intro and outro that is equally so non bluesy is far from routine and makes this number truly groundbreaking in its own quiet way.”

That’s exactly what I was thinking in 1964 while I delivered The Bergen Evening Record.

NOT!

Cannot Buy Beatles Love
Black history, Death penalty, Today in history

Anthony Ray Hinton Released

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Anthony Ray Hinton released

“They took off the white robe and put on a black robe.”

Released April 3, 2015
Anthony Ray Hinton released
Bryan Stevenson, Anthony Ray Hinton
Anthony Ray Hinton released

Conviction

An Alabama jury convicted 29-year-old Anthony Ray Hinton of murdering two  fast-food managers in separate incidents in 1985.

The evidence was weak and his defense weaker. The only evidence linking Hinton to the crimes were bullets that allegedly had markings matching a revolver that belonged to Hinton’s mother. There were no fingerprints or eyewitness testimony. After Hinton was convicted, subsequent tests found the bullets at the scene could not be matched to the gun he was accused of using.

Anthony Ray Hinton released

Death Penalty

But Alabama sentenced him to die. In 2003, a New York Times article wrote, “There are reasons beyond the firearms evidence to doubt Mr. Hinton’s guilt. He was at work, several people testified, when the third shooting happened. The car he was said to have driven on the night of the third shooting had been repossessed months before. The restaurant robberies continued after his arrest.” 

Hinton’s court-appointed lawyer had spent only $1000 on an expert witness (despite the fact that Alabama law provides reimbursement for any reasonable defense expenses.) whose testimony was so weak he could not answer basic questions. 

Equal Justice Initiative

On February 24, 2014, through the efforts of the Equal Justice Initiative group, the US Supreme Court declared that “the criminal (Hinton) defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated if his trial attorney’s performance falls below an objective standard or reasonableness and if there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different.” (full text of Supreme Court decision)

According to the EJI site, “The Equal Justice Initiative is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system.”

The site also states that, “3170 people in the United States currently are under a death sentence. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 1314 men, women, children, and mentally ill people have been shot, hanged, asphyxiated, lethally injected, and electrocuted by States and the federal government.”

Victory

Anthony Ray Hinton greets family and friends upon his release (Credit Bob Miller for The New York Times)

On April 3, 2015, Anthony Ray Hinton  was freed after EJI and its experts undermined the Alabama’s case.

Anthony Ray Hinton released

ABC News report

Post release

Since his release, Hinton has spoken in various venues about the injustices of the Alabama judicial system and other issues related to his conviction and imprisonment. He completed a memoir entitled The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (2018), and has given readings and talks around the country about the book and his experiences.

Anthony Ray Hinton released
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Richard George Manuel

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Richard George Manuel

April 3, 1943 – March 4, 1986

Richard George Manuel

“She Knows” 1985-12-13, O’Tooles Bar, Scranton, PA by Rick Danko & Richard Manuel
Richard George Manuel

E  Pluribus Unum Band

It goes without saying that the five members of The Band were an amazing ensemble. Each contributed to a greater whole. Levon Helm’s spice from the American South; Robbie Robertson’s compositions; Rick Danko’s humor; and Garth Hudson’s keyboard anchor. An angelic Richard Manual hovered over all. Mainly on piano, it was his voice, sometimes a pulsating baritone, other times a hair-raising falsetto, that glued all.

Richard George Manuel

The Beginning 

Richard George Manuel was born in Ontario, Canada. His musical path parallels that of many musicians: he began playing piano at an early age and later formed a band, the Revols, with other teenage friends.

Dame Fortune always plays a part on our journey and after the Revols shared a bill (theirs in smaller letters) with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. Hawkins recognized the genius of Manuel and put him in the band.

Richard George Manuel
The Squires (the Hawks without Ronnie Hawkins): L – R…Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, and Robbie Robertson.
Richard George Manuel

Dylan arrives

In 1966, Dame Fortune smiled again. Or perhaps she smirked a smile. Having left Ronnie Hawkins and gone out on their own, Bob Dylan asked the five of them to back him on his new electric adventure. They did and became Bob’s band before simply becoming The Band.

It was through Dylan that the band met his manager, Albert Grossman. And also through Dylan that, following his recuperation from a motorcycle accident, the band moved to  a house in West Saugerties, NY near Woodstock. The house was pink and, of course, the inspiration for their first album.

Richard Manual wrote three of the album’s twelve songs: “In a Station,” “We Can Talk,” and “Lonesome Suzie.” He co-wrote “Tears of Rage” with Bob Dylan.

Life in music’s fast lane offers many diversions and addictions to heroin, cocaine, and alcohol grasped Manuel. His songwriting and general contributions to the band diminished.

Thanksgiving Day 1976 brought the Band’s figurative and literal Last Waltz. The five would never take the stage again.

Richard George Manuel

Time out

The break-up provided Manuel with a respite which he used to recover from his addictions. During the early 80s he again performed, sometimes with a reconfigured Band, sometimes as part of an acoustic duo with Rick Danko.

Unfortunately, but the mid-80s, his addictions controlled him again and on March 4, 1986 he wife found him dead. He had hung himself.

In 1994, Manuel was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Band.

               Three songs were later written in his memory:

  • The Band, “Too Soon Gone” (1993)
  • Ronnie Hawkins, “Days Gone By” (1995)
  • Robbie Robertson, “Fallen Angel” (1987)

…of the three, Robbie Robertson’s is my favorite:

Are you out there?
Can you hear me?
Can you see me in the dark?I don’t believe it’s all for nothing
It’s not just written in the sand Sometimes I thought you felt too much
And you crossed into the shadow land And the river was overflowing
And the sky was fiery red
You gotta play the hand that’s dealt ya
That’s what the old man always said Fallen angel
Casts a shadow up against the sun
If my eyes could see
The spirit of the chosen one In my dream the pipes were playing
In my dream I lost a friend
Come down Gabriel and blow your horn
‘Cause some day we will meet again		 All the tears, all the rage
All the blues in the night
If my eyes could see
You kneeling in the silver lightFallin’, fallin’, fallin’ down
Fallin’, fallin’ down
Fallin’, fallin’, fallin’ down Fallen angel
Casts a shadow up against the sun
If my eyes could see
The spirit of the chosen one All the tears, all the rage
All the blues in the night
If my eyes could see
You kneeling in the silver lightIf you’re out there can you touch me?
Can you see me? I don’t know
If you’re out there can you reach me?
Lay a flower in the snow
Richard Manuel’s grave at the Avondale cemetary in Stratford, Ontario.
The grave is located in section 23A, grave 193. Section 23A is near the very back of the cemetary (as far west as you can go). There is a pathway right through the section. Richard’s stone is just to the right (west) of the path.
Richard George Manuel