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Anniversary, Beatles, Music et al

Beatles Meet Washington

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Beatles Meet Washington

February 11, 1964
The Beatles Meet Washington
poster for Washington, DC concert. The first US Beatle concert performance.
Beatles Meet Washington

Snowstorm cancels flight

A snowstorm had cancelled their flight, so the Beatles took a train to Washington DC and made their live concert debut in the US at the Washington Coliseum. Over 350 police surrounded the stage to try and control the 8,000 plus screaming fans. One police officer who found the noise so loud stuck a bullet in each ear as ear plugs. The Beatles had to stop three times and turn Ringo’s drum kit around and re-position their microphones so that they faced a different part of the audience. The set list: ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘From Me to You’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘This Boy’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Please Please Me’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘Twist and Shout’, and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

Beatles Meet Washington

George Harrison remembers

George Harrison summed up his experience this way: That night, we were absolutely pelted by the fuckin’ things. They don’t have soft jelly babies there; they have hard jelly beans. To make matters worse, we were on a circular stage, so they hit us from all sides. Imagine waves of rock-hard little bullets raining down on your from the sky. It’s a bit dangerous, you know, ’cause if a jelly bean, travelling about 50 miles an hour through the air, hits you in the eye, you’re finished. You’re blind aren’t you? We’ve never liked people throwing stuff like that. We don’t mind them throwing streamers, but jelly beans are a bit dangerous, you see! Every now and again, one would hit a string on my guitar and plonk off a bad note as I was trying to play. (from The Beatles Off The Record, Keith Badman)

Beatles Meet Washington

Paul McCartney remembers

In 2010, Paul McCartney remembered, We’d seen a lot of British stars come back from America with their tails between their legs. We made a promise to ourselves to not go until we had a No. 1. We were so excited to be madly popular in America, which was to us the Holy Grail because every shred of music we ever loved came from there. It was euphoric, and now we were heading to Washington on the train, which was very glamorous. And to cap it off, there was that beautiful snow. (Washington Post article)

Beatles Meet Washington

John Lennon remembers

John Lennon’s memory of the reception following was a discomforting one: People were sort of touching us as we walked past, that kind of thing. Wherever we went we were supposed to be not normal and we were supposed to put up with all sorts of shit from lord mayors and their wives and be touched and pawed like A Hard Day’s Night only a million more times. At the American Embassy, the British Embassy in Washington, or wherever it was, some bloody animal cut Ringo’s hair, in the middle of… I walked out of that. Swearing at all of them and I just left in the middle of it. (John Lennon, 1970. Lennon Remembers by Jann S Wenner)

You can listen to the whole concert with the YouTube link below:

Today, the concert site looks a bit different than in 1964.

The Beatles Meet Washington

Reference >>> Beatles Bible site

Beatles Meet Washington
Beatles, Music et al, Today in history

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

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Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

February 9, 1964

If February 3, 1959 was the “day the music died,” then five years later, it was reborn.

From the NY Times article, February 9, 1964: Beatlemania creeps in slowly. Collar­less jackets, usually worn Saturday nights on Forty‐second Street, are turning up in the strangest places, like the safe suburbs. Teen‐agers who once considered the G.I. crew‐cut the height of adolescent fashion are letting their locks curl down their necks and over ears and across foreheads. Twenty thousand beatle wigs have been sold.

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

The day the music died

Everyone has milestone dates. Generations share dates. For Don McLean February 3, 1959, the day a plane crash killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens, was “The Day the Music Died.” 12 years later, McLean wrote “American Pie.” In it , a 13 year old newsboy remembers that “February made me shiver/with every paper I’d deliver”

For Boomers, shared “where we were” dates are likely: when we found out President Kennedy was killed or later Martin Luther King, Jr, or that same year, Robert Kennedy. Each, like McLean’s, a sad day.

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

The day the music was reborn

February 9, 1964 is at the other end of that spectrum. Rather than the music dying, the music was born.

That was the evening we sat in front of our black and white TV (the only one in our home?) and watched The Beatles inaugural performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Unless you are a Beatles trivia fan, you may not know that that afternoon the Beatles had recorded Twist And Shout, Please Please Me, and I Want To Hold Your Hand, in front of a different audience than the one that saw their live debut that evening. Ed Sullivan broadcast that set on 23 February on their third appearance. By the 23rd, John, Paul, George and Rich were back home in the UK.

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

“Sorry girls…“

On the evening of February 9, 1964, the Beatles performed “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You,” which featured the names of the group members superimposed on closeup shots, including the famous “Sorry girls, he’s married” caption on John Lennon, and “She Loves You.” The act that followed Beatles in the broadcast was pre-recorded, rather than having someone perform live on stage amidst the pandemonium that occurred in the studio after the Beatles did their first songs. They returned later in the program to perform “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for US television.

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles

How he met the Beatles

How Ed Sullivan’s and the Beatles’ paths crossed is open to some guessing. The most popular story is that Ed Sullivan and his wife happened to be in London’s Heathrow Airport on October 31, 1963 when they encountered thousands of screaming teenagers. (Ironic, I suppose, as he’d have to get used to such happenings in just a few months!)

When he asked what the commotion was all about, he was told that a band called the Beatles  were arriving.

He decided that such popularity was something he’d love to bring to his American show.

Whether that is actually the sequence or not matters not.  By mid-November, Beatles manager Brian Epstein had booked the Beatles.

And like the moon landing, we all remember where we were.

I’d love to see comments about where you were!

Ed Sullivan Meets Beatles
Birthdays, Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

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Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

born February 8, 1946
Happy birthday
[Tommy Johnson – Canned Heat Blues (1928) – where the band got its name]

Canned Heat began its set at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair on Saturday evening around 7:30 after the Incredible String Band and before Mountain.

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

Nickname band

I suppose we could call them the nickname band:

Their set is not one of the most talked about sets that weekend. Unless you were there. And then you wonder why their performance isn’t ranked up next to all the many super sets.

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra
from the film Woodstock
Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

More

Here’s 10 minutes and 46 seconds of great music by a great band: On the Road Again. 

Unfortunately for Canned Heat, death dealt them a horrible hand. Just 13 months later, Wilson died. Hite died in 1981.

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

Mexico

The band continued and Adolfo de la Parra continued on drums. Born in Mexico, he had played in several bands there before moving to Los Angeles in 1966. Fito’s first gig was December 1967 and he’s never left.

In recent years he was the only member of the 1960s Canned Heat line-up that toured with the group, although in 2010 (and for most shows in 2009) Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel rejoined the group and together with Fito. Currently Mandel is having medical issues and the band isn’t touring.

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra

Livin’ the Blues

In 2000, de la Parra published Livin’ the Blues a book that (according to the site) …is the true story of the Canned Heat Band’s psychedelic hippie days as lived by Adolfo “Fito” De La Parra, a man who never forgot how to boogie and still escaped with his life! This is his story, journaling four decades on the road with boogie-blues music legends CANNED HEAT. This is a saga of hit records, world tours, drugs, sex, outrageous behavior, and death. From the heights of their world-wide fame during the Woodstock era, to the bands rebirth in the ’90s and thier continued success today ,this is the real story of the wild and excessive lifestyles of the music world!

Visit the Canned Heat site to see what is new and how you can help Harvey Mandel.

Canned Heat Adolfo Fito de la Parra