Memories Are Made Of This : The Golden Years of The Sixties Music Revolution
I suppose my first realisation that music was one thing extra relevant than learning the phrases to carols for the school Christmas live performance was appreciating my Dad’s collection of 78s’. He was a man with uncommon tastes in music. My contemporys’ dad and mom listened to American crooners, like Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and the like, or the massive band sounds of the day.
But my Dad had individual tastes which included Eastern European folks music, Scottish bagpipe ballads and Welsh miners choirs; plus my first introduction to classical such as exciting items like Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance”.
My Mother, a dedicated Crosby fan, disliked these unusual sounds to the extent that she banished any enjoying of the ‘caterwauling’ to our barn, a big wood construction in the back of the house. This suited my Dad, and me, just fine.
He would mend bikes and tinker with machinery in a single corner, while I would curl up on a battered leather-based couch taking a look at footage in old movie magazines, giggling at jokes in again copies of Lilliput and studying girlie sort books (Little Women, Black Magnificence etc.) whereas the haunting strains of Bulgarian womens’ voices, Highland airs or the overwhelming sound of Welshmen giving it their all emanated from the outdated wind up gramaphone; memories are manufactured from this.
Musically I’ve come full circle. with the rising reputation of ‘world music’ I am, as soon as again, enjoying Bulgarian girls’s harmonies and Welsh people songs together with the exciting newcomers from African and Latin American roots.
Each generation, principally, suppose that they’ve skilled the ‘finest’ period of topical music, however I do feel that the sixties were a special case. Think about this; any weekend my associates and I had a tough choice to make. Did we go ‘up town’ to Ken Colliers to see American blues stars like Big Recipt Broonzy or jazz giants like Dizzy Gillespie; or maybe to the Marquee or 100 Club to hearken to the up and coming Britishers like Paul Weller in the Jam, Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds and Georgie Fame with the All Stars.
Or did we stay closer to home and go to the Riki Tik in Windsor and threat asphyxiation in the tiny room listening to an exciting new group called the Rolling Stones. And that was only the beginning; what about Osterley the place you possibly can hear John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and any number of different Southern American blues stars; or Windsor Drill corridor the place, on a Friday night you could get pleasure from one of the best of Cyril Davies and the All Stars, which normally featured one among my favourites, Long John Baldry.
And, if you happen to had been willing to threat parental wrath, it needed to be Eel Pie Island in Twickenham, a den of iniquity where you can hear the very best of new rhythm and blues; odor unusual substances burning in the air and where I first encountered psychadelia within the shape of Pink Floyd whose revolutionary light exhibits of colored lava lamp blobs popping and forming ever totally different shapes had been the precursor of the giant video screens of today. To say we had been spoilt for choice is to not overwork a phrase.
I have never even mentioned the many people clubs sprinkled about which I visited with my pal Lucy as a visitor singing duo, where we shared stages with the likes of Bert Jantz, Duster Bennett, Cat Stevens . . We might journey to remoted venues within the heart of the Berkshire countryside and find ourselves in a barn somewhere, with people sitting on hay bales and listening to the stirring voices and lyrics of Sandy Denny, Davy Graham and John Remborne, and even the Wurzels (carry your personal cider!).
Should you wanted to dance, but strictly not ballroom, you can stomp the evening away at a collection of ‘trad jazz’ clubs. Bands of various types had been at all times on tap; Dick Morrisey, the aforementioned Ken Collier, Acker Bilk; It really was a golden age for live music of each kind. And it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to indulge yourself. If we paid greater than a few quid to get in we felt exhausting performed by. Even special occasions, like seeing the Who or Cream at the Hammersmith Odeon were low cost at the price.
Wherever we hung out with our mates there was music. This was the age of the espresso bar, at all times with a juke box within the nook belting out such classics as ‘Dock on the Bay’, or Buddy Holly’s latest or Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Biaz; the place to stop! Earlier than the fashion for ‘personalised music’ (catered for firstly by the Walkman and now in it’s newest incarnation, the ipod) the latest tunes introduced like minds together. A traditional Saturday outing was to the local report shop the place buddies would crowd right into a sales space together to hear the newest within the ‘charts’.
Possibly it was all just ‘vogue’ however, because the years race by, that sixties music has stood the check of time. Lots of our heroes are nonetheless household names. Our kids still respect such giants as Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding. The likes of Paul Weller, Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones still tour everywhere in the world. Am I displaying my age when I find it hard to understand modern day offerings? Of course I am but no more than every other person who has let music into their life.
From the second the primary cave man (or lady) discovered find out how to make musical ‘sounds’ from reeds or rocks, water or wooden, we now have loved the privilege of an amazing gift. The right way to explain the catch at the back of the throat once we hear a familiar music or melody? Find out how to describe the pure feeling of exhilaration and pleasure as many human voices come collectively to sing some significantly uplifting work. I dare anybody to say they’ve never felt that. And if some hardened souls insist that is the case; effectively I really feel very sorry for them.
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