by Brad Roberts
It's neat that there's a celebration next Sunday at The Echo that is a tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the release of The Beach Boys's Pet Sounds album, released in 1966. Over the last few years I've enjoyed indulging in my own personal 50 year anniversary salutes to those years when I was conscious enough to have solid memories, say from 1957 to 1968, as I aged from 7 to 18 years old, my formative years. Those were also the years of revolutionary changes in the world all around me: in the news, in war, in rock and roll, in movies and the arts, in my own teenage-ism. I'm finally old enough to view these years objectively, and assess their qualities with the hindsight gained during all that time.
I like to grab as many of the best films of the year on DVD, pull out all my record albums, even catch the current TV shows of the era and watch and listen to them...and re-evaluate and remember. Aging can be fun, if you know how to work it. Pet Sounds was released on May 18, 1966, as I was finishing up my sophomore year of high school and, I remember, it was greeted with a bit of skepticism and curiosity as it was such a departure from the pop-happy rock and roll of their previous albums.
The singles it produced were strange and unusual when compared with songs like "Fun, Fun Fun". Over the years the album's reputation has soared and it is now viewed for its place in the explosion of changes happening in rock music everywhere around us. And times were changing fast and the effects of experimentation with LSD and the birth of the hippies was having an impact. Not yet in the suburban Massachusetts town I was growing up in but it wouldn't be long before the effects were felt, particularly on the east and west coasts during 1967. By 1968, things were definitely different.
All of a sudden there was all this music that I loved. I remember listening to "Sloop John B" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" on the radio all summer long on the beach, along with "Along Comes Mary", and later "Cherish", by The Association, "Wild Thing" by The Troggs, "Sunny" by Bobby Hebb, "Monday Monday" by The Mamas & the Papas, "Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful, "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan, "You Can't Hurry Love" by The Supremes, "Day Tripper" and "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles, "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones, "Cherry Cherry" by Neil Diamond, "Guantanamera" by The Sandpipers, "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers, "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35" by Bob Dylan, "Somewhere My Love" Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago by Ray Conniff and the Singers, and of course radio stations were still playing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra and "Strangers in the Night" by dad Frank. And that's not even half of the songs that popular radio stations were treating us to showcasing the huge variety of music choices at that time.
It was also the year that I transitioned from buying singles to purchasing rock and roll albums, a big deal at the time. Across the country on the other coast Grace Slick joined Jefferson Airplane and San Francisco bands bloomed from Grateful Dead to The Steve Miller Band to Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
When I was on vacation from work a couple of weeks ago I had a mini film festival and watched a bunch of 1966 films like Arabesque, After the Fox, Blow Up, Hawaii, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and four of the Best Picture nominees that year: The Sand Pebbles, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and A Man For All Seasons. Alfie was the other nominee but I don't own it. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? broke the motion picture production code that year and was the first movie to restrict admission to people 16 years old and older. I was so fixated on that movie that when it came out a month before my 16th birthday I made my mother take me to see it once and my grandmother take me to see it a second time. After August I could see it again on my own. Back then if I liked a movie I would go see it five or six times as the future concept of home video or home theatres was incomprehensible. And throughout the entire year The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago, from 1965, would continue to sell out every performance in their 70MM reserved seat engagements in every major city, and I saw both many times. And other movies from the year before were still having an impact because movies had such a longer shelf life back then, like A Patch of Blue and Darling with their astonishing lead actress' performances.
Excuse this outburst of autobiographical nostalgia, but I wanted to share this and the Pet Sounds Tribute triggered it. Featuring some of the most accomplished artists in our current scene, this should be a remarkable show on Sunday at The Echo, and I look forward to sharing in all this nostalgia. As far as I'm concerned, I've earned it. And by the way, to those who think the expression "if you remember the sixties you weren't there" is accurate...excuse me...I remember every minute.
I have a ticket to see Andrew Bird at The Theatre at The Ace Hotel at his sold out Saturday show, thought there are still tickets of his follow up set on Sunday. This will be my first trip to this historic venue that was known as the United Artists Theatre during the golden age of movies and I can't wait to see it's stunning interior design (at right). When I saw Bird at Teragram Ballroom last February his album, Are You Serious, was not yet released, so I was hearing much of the material for the first time. Now that I have the album and have feasted on it probably a hundred times, this concert will be most special. Looking forward to it and I've got a ticket in the third row!
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