Monthly Archives: June 2016

Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

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Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Released in the USA on June 20, 1966

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Sort of new

Every once in awhile there would be a new Beatle album. Sort of. Yesterday and Today was a new Beatle album. Sort of.

I was one (of the legions of) American kids who didn’t realize that Beatle albums we bought  were different than the Beatle albums UK kids bought. Perhaps the reverse was true as well.

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Backlog

The Beatles UK releases typically had 14 songs, not like the 12 on American releases. As a result there was a backlog of Beatles songs that didn’t reach American kids on their Beatles albums.

It doesn’t take much actuarial thinking to figure out that releasing an album with those backlogged songs and a couple of others made all kinds of business sense. The Beatles themselves did not like the idea of releasing two different versions of their albums. The UK version with 14 songs was the one they wanted. They took time deciding the sequence of songs. By 1965, they designed their albums as a whole, not a collection of single songs.

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

USA Yesterday and Today

In any case, here’s the breakdown of the Beatles Yesterday and Today:

  • from the UK LP Help!, “Act Naturally” and “Yesterday” 
  • from the UK LP Rubber Soul, “Nowhere Man” and “What Goes On”  “Drive My Car” and “If I Needed Someone”
  • the single “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out”
  • from the not-yet-released UK LP Revolver, the tracks “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Doctor Robert”, and “And Your Bird Can Sing.”
Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Controversy

And as was often the case the Beatles stepped in some controversy. The original album cover, nowadays known as the “butcher cover” barely saw the light of day.

The photo was part of a shoot by Robert Whitaker. The Beatles were tired posing for typical group shots and Whitaker’s idea of putting them in butcher smocks, holding pieces of meat, and broken doll parts seemed a good change of pace.

John Lennon later joked, My original idea for the cover was better–decapitate Paul. [from Anthology]

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Backlash

It seemed a good enough idea for Capital Records to print 750,000 copies of the record and send them out. Immediately some critics, radio stations, and fans (lucky enough to get a copy) complained. Insensitive. Gross. Inappropriate.

Keep in mind that in 1966, a band had a toilet removed from its cover!

Capital recalled all. Some covers went to a landfill. Some had the new cover pasted over the old.

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today

Defense

John Lennon and Paul McCartney defended the decision saying that at a time when so many defenseless men, women, and children were dying in Vietnam, such a cover spoke to that senselessness.

George Harrison later said in Anthology: “I thought it was gross, and I also thought it was stupid. Sometimes we all did stupid things, thinking it was cool or hip when it was naïve and dumb, and that was one of them. But again, it was a case of being put in a situation where one is obliged, as part of a unit, to cooperate. So we put on those butchers’ uniforms for that picture.”  

Bad idea or not, the refurbished album reached #1 on the US Billboard charts by 30 July 1966 and certified gold soon after. It stayed at number one for five weeks.

My Lai Massacre

635 days later was the My Lai Massacre. 1,295 days later Americans could view those pictures.

 

Controversial Beatles Yesterday Today
Music et al, Music of the 60s

Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay

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Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay

Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay

Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay

Monterey

The Monterey International Pop Festival. Jimi Hendrix had exploded on that scene, but Otis Redding’s appearance on the second night had also placed him high up on the list of amazing performances.

Likely Redding’s set was as good as every one of his: outstanding. This time, though, it meant more white kids saw where that sound they all loved so much came from. The rhythm and blues style around for so long and influencing so many, was finally blossoming into the main stream.

…just one more time…

Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay

R & R

Basking in the glow of that success, Redding retreated to a rented houseboat in Sausalito. The setting was perfect. Neverending.

Sittin’ in the morning sun I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes

And so began Redding’s best-known song. One he would never know reached such success.

Artistic freedom

The 60s allowed and encouraged musicians to look inward. Was where they were where they wanted to be? Where they wanted to stay? Redding was listening to Bob Dylan, and like so many other artists was struck by Dylan’s independence and individual path.

Slow to germinate

The song stayed a summer seed slowly germinating. Famed sessions guitarist Steve Cropper (also well known from Booker T & the MGs and the Blues Brothers movie) helped Redding finish the song. He and Redding knew they had something special.

The Stax Records suits were not enthusiastic. Jim Stewart, its President, felt the song was too much of a departure from Redding’s previous successes.

Re-recorded

Redding recorded “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay” one more time before going on the road in December 1967. That day’s recording went on to be his #1 hit, a million-seller, winning Grammy Awards for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song.

Tragedy

On December 10, while touring and flying in a small plane to his next gig, the plane crashed. Redding and four members of his band, the Bar-Kays, [Jimmy King, Phalon Jones, Ronnie Caldwell, and Carl Cunningham], a valet, Matthew Kelly, and the pilot, Richard Fraser, died. Ben Cauley, a trumpet player in the band, survived.

Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay
Festivals, Jimi Hendrix, Music et al, Music of the 60s

Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

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Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

June 18, 1967
from Monterey movie trailer: Mike Bloomfield followed by Eric Burdon’s song.
Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

Day 3

June 18, 1967. It was day 3 of The Monterey International Pop Festival. The first day had included Simon and Garfunkel, Eric Burdon and the Animals. The second day included future Woodstock performers Canned Heat, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Butterfield Blues Band (I wonder how much those bands being part of Monterey influenced Woodstock Ventures to include them two years later?).

The third and final day’s lineup included Big Brother again because the organizers really wanted Janis in the film they were making and had finally convinced the band to let them film their performance. Other future Woodstockers were The Who, Ravi Shankar, the Grateful Dead.

Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

No bells

Few if anyone realized what they would witness that evening. The crowd may have seen the name Jimi Hendrix Experience listed, but like someone today seeing the name The Paupers,  the name rang no bells.

Hendrix’s stateside story had been one as a sessions musician and briefly in Greenwich Village fronting his own group. His fortuitous move to England under the wing of Chas Chandler unlocked the door to success. The Beatles were also instrumental: Jimi Hendrix Plays Sgt Pepper.

Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

9 song set

Hendrix played nine songs that night. Four his own, five (*) covers:

  1. Killing Floor*
  2. Foxy Lady
  3. Like a Rolling Stone*
  4. Rock Me Baby*
  5. Hey Joe*
  6. Can You See Me
  7. The Wind Cries Mary
  8. Purple Haze
  9. Wild Thing*
Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

Hey Joe

Selecting one of those songs, “Hey Joe,” one sees encapsulated what left the crowd lost in amazement. Had they ever witnessed another performance anything like this?

The outfit, the hair, the upside down guitar, gum-chewing, the swagger, how those fingers moved, how that tongue stuck out and wiggled, those teeth played the guitar, behind the back, how that guitar became a phallus, and by the way, the Mitch Mitchell‘s demonic drumming and Noel Redding’s bass playing pulling us into this maelstrom.

Here is the video of “Hey Joe.”

         Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire

Climax

And if that weren’t enough, the set closes with destruction. We’d seen The Who smash things up. Some of us already knew about that so it was cool, but no surprise, but setting a guitar of fire? Who is this and where am I?

Pictures

While Hendrix was lucky enough (as were the other performers) to have his performance well-filmed and recorded, there were other still photographers there, too.

Ed Caraeff was only 17 when he took his iconic photo of Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival.

In Caraeff’s book, “Burning Desire: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Through the Lens of Ed Caraeff,” the he brought together never-before-seen images from the two years he spent shooting Hendrix’s performances.

Hendrix Sets Monterey Afire