On August 27, 1965 Elvis Presley received a visit from the Beatles at Graceland. Because he couldn’t tell them apart and didn’t know their names he addressed each of them individually as “Beatle.”
At age 30, Elvis was the elder statesman of Rock 'n' Roll, the King, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the Maharishi of Pop. One pictures the youngsters kissing the hem of his garment and only half ironically. Elvis appears nine times in A Book of Ages, John and Paul several times each.
Showing posts with label John Lennon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Lennon. Show all posts
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
John Meets Paul
On July 6th, 1957, John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time. John's skiffle band, the Quarry Men, was playing at a church fete in Woolton, Liverpool. Admission: thruppence. John was 16, Paul 15. A recording of two songs from the program still exists. John's instrument at the time was a Gallotone Champion guitar he'd purchased for ten quid. Lennon and McCartney each appear seven times in A Book of Ages.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Hope I Die 'fore I Get Old
It's the birthday of Pete Townshend, the lead guitarist of The Who, writer of operas, smasher of guitars, editor of books, born in 1945. He wasn't as handsome as bandmate Roger Daltrey or contemporaries Lennon and McCartney, or as sexually perplexing and magnetic as Mick Jagger. He was simply an angry working bloke with a mean guitar. Still is. Nowadays he is also an important fundraiser for the hard of hearing.
Rock stars are interesting to chronicle because their lives are one long battle against age. Loud Peter Pans who refuse to outgrow tight pants, criminals who write poetry, travel armed with guitars and banned substances.
Townshend broke his first guitar in concert at age 19. It was an accident, but the crowd loved it, so he made it part of the act. On his twentieth birthday, on a train between London and Southampton, he wrote the anthem of his generation, which featured the nihilistic line "Hope I die 'fore I get old."
But he didn't. Keith Moon and John Lennon and others did, becoming permanent youthful icons. At 31, Townshend suffered permanent hearing loss during a concert at Charlton Football Ground. At 35 he nearly died of a drug overdose at the Club For Heroes. At 38 he dissolved The Who and became an employee of the publishers Faber & Faber. Did he become a man of letters? Not really. Eventually he went back out on the road, as all rock stars do. Is that Townshend I sometimes see pitching Time Life Rock 'N Roll collections on late night TV? When you live that long and play that hard it becomes harder to surprise people.
Rock stars are my favorite subcategory in A Book of Ages. Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Lennon and McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Pete Townshend are our Keats and Shelley and Byron. Doing outrageous things, but somehow managing to remain poetic, funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting.
Rock stars are interesting to chronicle because their lives are one long battle against age. Loud Peter Pans who refuse to outgrow tight pants, criminals who write poetry, travel armed with guitars and banned substances.
Townshend broke his first guitar in concert at age 19. It was an accident, but the crowd loved it, so he made it part of the act. On his twentieth birthday, on a train between London and Southampton, he wrote the anthem of his generation, which featured the nihilistic line "Hope I die 'fore I get old."
But he didn't. Keith Moon and John Lennon and others did, becoming permanent youthful icons. At 31, Townshend suffered permanent hearing loss during a concert at Charlton Football Ground. At 35 he nearly died of a drug overdose at the Club For Heroes. At 38 he dissolved The Who and became an employee of the publishers Faber & Faber. Did he become a man of letters? Not really. Eventually he went back out on the road, as all rock stars do. Is that Townshend I sometimes see pitching Time Life Rock 'N Roll collections on late night TV? When you live that long and play that hard it becomes harder to surprise people.
Rock stars are my favorite subcategory in A Book of Ages. Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Lennon and McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Pete Townshend are our Keats and Shelley and Byron. Doing outrageous things, but somehow managing to remain poetic, funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting.
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