I never was a great Beatle fan but I defy anyone growing up in the 60s in a little town 80 miles from Liverpool to be unaffected by their influence. Always going a little against the grain, my favourite group was The Beach Boys, almost a sacrilegious thing to say in those days. But via the BBs I got into Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Byrds and the whole LA music scene, and thus Joni.
My mother was always the one in our house who most liked the Beatles, thus it was her who went to see them when they came to my hometown of Bangor, north Wales. Bangor is small but has a university and a teacher training college where they were holding a conference on 'Transcendental Meditation' to be attended by The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and, I think, all the Beatles except Ringo. The rumour spread around the streets but who would believe it? My mother did, and dressed up and walked to the venue and, sure enough, the next day all the press and tv were full of it. Not as full of it as my mother who kept a Dahlia given to her by the Maharishi which lived a long time in a vase on the kitchen window. All we could get out of her for a week was the sentence (almost a mantra) "A Dahlia is a Dahlia", which has since that day been an inside joke in our house. My mother loved the Beatles so much that I'm sure she'll be as upset as anyone by this sad news. Mike NP 'Blackbird' by Jaco Pastorius.
