Seraphita, I chuckled at your comment because I've been experiencing exactly what you're writing about. Why? Because of the weather! October was mostly glorious here, moderate temps, golden sunlight pouring down day after day, gentle breezes, blue skies, the leaves on trees bursting in crimson, peachy orange and saffron yellow. I reveled in walking around town, drinking in all of it.
Now November is happening with rain and gusty winds, both of which have torn hundreds of leaves from trees. The bare branches are wet and loamy brown. I find myself drowning willingly in heavy, dark, gray clouds that sit swollen in the sky. They have their own kind of beauty which nourishes my soul. I may prefer sunny skies but I also love cloudy ones. Just grateful for that polarity, for being human, for being alive. On Tuesday, November 5, 2013 10:26 PM, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: Re "And how about the California Dreamin music scene: Mamas and Papas, Beach Boys, etc": Yes. As a Brit they were the acts that most impressed me. They conjured up a paradisiacal image of a sunny, optimistic, carefree lifestyle very, very far removed from the cold, wet, repressed north east of England where I was growing up. I'm not complaining though, as I went to school a few miles from Haworth where Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights and that kind of doomed-romanticism vibe has a perverse appeal of its own. ---In [email protected], <sharelong60@...> wrote: And how about California dreamin music scene: Mamas and Papas, Beach Boys, etc. ---In [email protected], <noozguru@...> wrote: Before for the Beatles it was regional rock groups that were the scene in the US. There was Northwest Rock which included the Kingsmen, Sonics and way back the Ventures (playing their cover of a jazz tune "Walk Don't Run"). Then the northwest do-wap groups like the Fleetwoods (I played on a revival album they did). There was also an east coast scene, a Chicago area scene and New Orleans scene. These were often regional because the labels were regional without national distribution. Also before the Beatles let's not forget folk period which includes The Kingston Trio, Lamplighters (I backed them up once) and other spin offs. Those morphed into folk rock groups in the later 60s. Regional music scenes in the US would be a lot like European country's and their own scenes. Romance languages didn't translate well into rock so you have the soft muzak rock those countries created. On 11/05/2013 10:37 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: >> >--- In [email protected], s3raphita wrote: >> >> Yep, but we were talking about British imitation rock so >> Vince Taylor and Cliff Richard are two important pioneers >> in the UK. I'm guessing one reason they never made a name >> for themselves in the States is because Americans didn't >> need second-rate copies of their own stars. > >Couldn't have said it better. :-) > >Plus, the music industry mechanism really wasn't in place >to allow for mass distribution of non-US acts at that time. >There was no market perceived for it, so it didn't really >exist. > >BTW, you find the same thing in France, but for another >reason -- the language difference. Plus the fact that rock >sounds *terrible* in French. Rap, it can handle, but rock, >fuggedaboudit. In France, old pop stars like Francoise >Hardy are still minor goddesses, but old rockers like >Johnny Hallyday are major Gods, right up there with >Thor. :-) > >> The Beatles probably made it because they came along >> after rock 'n' roll's heyday and added enough original >> touches of their own to make it more appealing than >> the saccharine-sweet pop that had by then become the >> norm. > >Tell it, sista. The US pop music scene was really in its >doldrums before the Beatles. Many of the people who >had grown up on it had gravitated to folk music because >there was *energy* there, and there t'weren't none in >pop. > >Then the Beatles arrived, preceded by a wave of near- >hysterical media hype. I'm honestly not sure which con- >tributed more to the Beatles' success in the US -- their >talent, or the hype. I lean to the latter. See enough TV >stories (or, in those days, movie News trailers before >your movie) of star-struck Beatles fans and your young >impressionable mind has already been pre-programmed >to love them when you see them live. > >Still, it *was* a phenomenon in the US, Beatlemania. >By the time it struck, I was a full-fledged folkie, both >listening to and performing the "real music," folk >music performed by upscale white artists. :-) So they >had to drag me away from my Dylan and Baez and >the like to listen to a Beatles album. And to be honest, >I wasn't knocked out at first by the sound. Even then, >I was more fascinated by the *trend*, the fact that >so many were so gaga over them. > >It took the Rolling Stones to knock my socks off. :-) > >
