My generation—the cohort of late baby boomers and early Gen X’ers labelled as “Generation Jones”— was awestruck by the Beatles. Not old enough to fully experience Beatlemania or the Summer of Love in full glory, we looked at the older boomer generation with a mixture of awe and envy for coming of age during what’s been portrayed as the golden era of 20th century music. The early-to-mid sixties spawned exciting new genres like Soul, R&B, Folk/Rock, and the California Sound. Music from the British Invasion assimilated earlier Blues and R&B influences and bands like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and others rapidly dominated American charts.
As the decade began, production of recorded music fell into clearly delineated roles. Solo or group vocal performers were charismatic and fit within an expected image and vocal style. Songwriters created content to suit the performers’ image and style. Producers and arrangers provided ingredients to best capture and accompany the performance package on record. By the end of the decade roles were often blended or combined as performers gained ownership of the record production process.
The Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, and Bob Dylan were probably most influential in transforming artists from performers to full-fledged auteurs. I was born the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a year before Beatlemania conquered North America. My awareness of popular music incrementally grew during my formative years, from singing “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” along with the radio to conscious awareness of Beatle singles released after the formation of Apple Records.
A compilation of Beatles songs (referred to as the “Red” and “Blue” albums) was released a decade after my birth. These albums sort of codified the Beatles canon for those of us too young to experience the original albums upon release. This in turn created a narrative regarding the relative value and significance of Beatles tracks. I purchased a book titled ‘The Beatles: An Illustrated Record’ in 1975 by two British music journalists, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler. Although an ambitious read for an 11-year old, this book helped acquaint me with the entire Beatles catalog along with relevant biographic and historical details. This book served as a primer to the significance of Lennon relative to the other Beatles, who were a bit easier to digest and relate to in my childhood. In doing so, the book created an equally potent if not entirely accurate narrative of the Beatles based on the journalists’ biases, which in large part diminished the significance of Paul and George while elevating the significance of John.
Unlike some former classmates or friends of my generation who have attended fan conventions or conferences, I never ventured beyond delving deep into the entire catalog and incorporating songs into my life as both fan and occasional singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, presenter, and publisher within my microscopic corner of the music world.
My quest is to try and decipher and articulate this experience of music through my particular lens. As this is part of my music web page Blog area, any observations will relate directly or indirectly to my perception of music as well as my process for writing and performing songs. Subsequent entries will unpack these observations in greater detail.