Monthly Archives: October 2016

Music of the 60s

Wednesday Morning 3am

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Wednesday Morning 3am

Simon & Garfunkel

Released October 19, 1964

1964 v 1965

What is the difference between 1964 and 1965? Listen to the 1964 “Sound of Silence” on Simon and Garfunkel’s debut album, Wednesday Morning 3AM. 

Then listen to Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson’s 1965 overdubbed electrified version re-released on Simon and Garfunel’s Sounds of Silence album and you will hear what that difference is.

When Simon and Garfunkel recorded Wednesday Morning 3am Beatlemania has just blossomed in the USA and Bob Dylan the folk singer was still the pied piper for future folk singers.

Wednesday Morning 3am

Hey Schoolgirl

Wednesday Morning 3am

The Everly Brothers-inspired school friends and aspiring folk singers Simon and Garfunkel. In 1957 they’d had had minor success as Tom and Jerry singing “Hey Schoolgirl” written by Jerry Landis and Tommy Graph. 

Wednesday Morning 3am

He Was My Brother

The song that caught Tom Wilson’s ear was Paul Simon’s “He Was My Brother.” Andrew Goodman was one of the young men that the Ku Klux Klan killed on June 21, 1964. Goodman had also been a classmate of Simon and Garfunkel.  [see Freedom Summer]

Like most folk albums of the time, it was acoustic:

  • Paul Simon – acoustic guitar, banjo on “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”, vocals
  • Barry Kornfeld – acoustic guitar
  • Bill Lee – acoustic bass

It was a tough year for musicians. Beatlemania had erupted and the band dominated the music of 1964–they had had five #1 songs.

The album had no commercial success. Paul Simon went to England to pursue a solo career. Art Garfunkel returned to Columbia to pursue his studies.

Wednesday Morning 3am

Tom Wilson did it

Until Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson was one of Columbia Records main producers. He’d produced Dylan’s break-out electric album, Bringing’ It All Back Home. Bob wasn’t working on Maggie’s farm no more. Wilson gathered a few electric musicians and overdubbed “Sounds of Silence.”

That version is the version we are mainly familiar with. The electric version. The version with drums.

The song, as we already know, became a huge hit. One of the biggest songs in the American songbook and is included in the  National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress.

Wednesday Morning 3am

Try try again

Image result for sounds of silence album cover

With the success of the single, the duo reformed and recorded The Sounds of Silence album. Recorded in the middle of 1965 and released in early 1966. Its success led to fans noticing their Wednesday Morning 3am.

Here are the track listings for the album:

  • You Can Tell the World
  • Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream
  • Bleeker Street*
  • Sparrow*
  • Benedictus
  • The Sound of Silence*
  • He Was My Brother*
  • Peggy O
  • Go Tell It on the Mountain
  • The Sun is Burning
  • The Times They Are a-Changin
  • Wednesday Morning 3am*

The asterisk indicates Paul Simon (aka Paul Kane) compositions. Like many upcoming artists who became famous because of their compostional genius, Simon was still on a learning curve.

Columbia Records staff photographer Henry Parker had taken the album’s cover photo on the lower subway platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, New York City. Art Garfunkel  has related that during the photo session many of pictures Parker took were unusable due to the “old familiar suggestion” on the wall.  Those type of graffiti inspired Paul Simon to write the song “A Poem on the Underground Wall” for the duo’s later Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album.

Here’s is AllMusic’s current review of Wednesday Morning 3 AM.

Wednesday Morning 3am

By the way, the location of the Wednesday Morning 3am album cover was the lower subway platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, New York City.

Wednesday Morning 3am
Vietnam

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

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15 October 1969 National Moratorium

Speech from Moratorium Day Rally at UCLA

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

National Moratorium

Autumn 1969. The Vietnam War continued. Protests continued. David Hawk and Sam Brown, two antiwar activists, forged a broad-based movement against the Vietnam War called the National Moratorium.

The organization initially focused its effort on 300 college campuses, but the idea soon grew and spread beyond the colleges and universities. Hawk and Brown were assisted by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which was instrumental in organizing the nation-wide protest.

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

Anti-anti

Many felt that these organizers were unpatriotic. Before the event, Los Angeles Mayor Samuel W. Yorty described them as “loud, marching, foolish and subversive dissenters.”

President Nixon urged Americans not to “buckle under” or “run away” from a “fair peace.” Senate minority leader Hugh Scott (R-PA)  scolded protesters they encouraged the US to “cut and run” and capitulate to the enemy.

Keep in mind that in 1969 TV for most people meant only nine letters: ABC, CBS, and NBC. If you didn’t see something there it wasn’t important. None of those networks planned on live coverage of the October 15 National Moratorium.

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

Pro-anti

Ben Kubasik, executive director of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, said of the networks’ decision: What passes for the commercial networks’ news judgement astounds me. If a famous man had died, a manned moon space shot were launched, or President Nixon chose to go on the air to say he would be unmoved by the moratorium, those would have been carried alive. The Vietnam Moratorium is the greatest peaceful outpouring in our history and the networks choose to ignore it as it is happening by running regular programming.”

In New York City, as in many large urban areas, local electronic media did cover the event. For example alternate rock station WNEW-FM suspended all advertising for the entire day. WOR-TV devoted more than seven hours to coverage. WBAI-FM covered the event in its entirety.

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

Vietnam time zone

Vietnam is 11 hours ahead of Eastern time and so when a group of 20 young Americans assembled in front of the American Embassy at 10 AM on October 15, 1969, the National Moratorium began.

In New York City, the New York Times  headline was that “Tommie Agee’s Bat and Glove Lead Mets to Second World Series Victory.” Baseball fans across the country would be able to see game four that night and watch the Amazin’ Mets take a 3 – 1 lead on its way to an improbable World Championship.

Other smaller headlines that morning read “Massive Protest On Vietnam War Expected Today” and “Nixon Challenges Protest Leaders.”

Across the United States over two million people in their own cities and neighborhoods held protests against the War. Some read names of the war dead in town squares, some churches tolled their bells for each of the dead. One of the largest demonstrations occurred when 100,000 people converged on the Boston Common. Walter Cronkite called it “historic in its scope. Never before had so many demonstrated their hope for peace.”

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

…and the beat went on…

On April 28, 1970, Nixon authorized U.S. combat troops to cross the border from South Vietnam into Cambodia.

On April 30 Nixon announced that invasion and the expansion of the war.

On May 1 protests erupted on campuses across the US.

On May 3 during a press conference, the Republican governor of Ohio, James A. Rhodes, called anti-war protesters “the worst type of people we harbor in America, worse than the brown shirts and the communist element.” Rhodes ordered the National Guard to quell a demonstration at Kent State University.

On May 4, 1970, National Guard troops shot and killed four Kent State students protesting the war.

On May 6 hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation shut down as thousands of students join a nationwide campus protest.

Vice-President Spiro Agnew stated, “We have listened to these elitists laugh at honesty and thrift and hard work and prudence and logic and respect and self –denial. Why then are we surprised to discover we have traitors and thieves and perverts and irrational and illogical people in our midst?

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

15 October 1969 National Moratorium

Construction retaliation

On May 8 about 200 construction workers in New York City attacked a crowd of Vietnam war protesters. Some workers use pipes wrapped with the American flag. More than 70 people were injured, including four police officers. Peter Brennan, head of the New York building trades, was honored at the Nixon White House two weeks later. He later became Secretary of Labor.

On May 15 in Jackson, Mississippi police confronted a group of student protesters. The police opened fire, killing two students.

On May 20 around 100,000 people demonstrated in NYC’s Wall Street district in support of the war.

15 October 1969 National Moratorium
LGBTQ

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

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Anita Bryant Pied 1977

October 14, 1977

Many young people today don’t recognize the name Anita Bryant, but for Boomers she is someone who we associate with at least two things: selling orange juice and selling homophobia.

Bryant was born on March 25, 1940 in Barnsdall, Oklahoma. As a child she enjoyed singing and sang on stage starting at the age of six at various fairgrounds. Bryant also sang occasionally on radio and television.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Miss Oklahoma

Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America beauty pageant at age 19. She had just graduated from high school.

In 1960, Bryant married Bob Green. They had four children together.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Singer

In the early 60s, she had a successful singing career with minor hits such as  “Till There Was You” (1959, US #30), “Paper Roses” (1960, US #5), “In My Little Corner of the World” (1960, US #10); and “Wonderland by Night” (1961, US #18).

Bryant performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl III in 1969 and sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” during the halftime show of Super Bowl V in 1971 and at the graveside services for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson

In 1969 Bryant became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission and was often seen on commercials that featured her singing “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree.” She also appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Holiday Inn and Tupperware.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Political activist

In 1977, Dade County, Florida, passed an ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant led a campaign to repeal the ordinance as the leader of a coalition named Save Our Children [later the name changed due to the actual Save Our Children group protesting against the group’s use of the name]. Jerry Falwell assisted her.

She said, What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. […] I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.

She also stated, “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.”

Bryant’s campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance in June by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. Following the repeal, the Florida legislature approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption, a ban that lasted until 2008.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Anita Bryant Pie

Emboldened by her success in Florida, Bryant and her husband went national with their anti-gay message, but on October 14, 1977  while in Des Moines, Iowa,, a gay rights activist pushed a whipped cream pie into Anita Bryant’s face during a press conference. Her reaction  was to say “Well, at least it’s a fruit pie” (being derogatory) and with her husband’s encouragement, praying for the activist and asking for his forgiveness.

As her campaign grew, so did a reaction to it. Gay organizations began an orange juice boycott which eventually many celebrities supported, including Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Dick Clark, Carroll O’Connor, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Schulz, Billie Jean King, and Jane Fonda.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977

Decline

In 1979, the Florida Citrus Commission dropped let Bryant’s contract lapse.  She divorced her husband in 1980, which angered many of the fundamentalist Christians that had supported her anti-gay campaigns.  She and her second husband tried to reignite her career with the  “Anita Bryant’s Music Mansion.”  It went bankrupt as did other business ventures.

She continues to defend her anti-gay activism and views. In an odd way, one can argue that her vocal homophobia helped organize the LGBTQ community in ways that had not happened before. Having said that, it also organized the anti-gay movement that continues today.

Anita Bryant Pied 1977