Category: Beatles

Miami Beach ’64!

Barbara was my Art History instructor in college. My love of Flemish Renaissance painting came from one of Barbara’s courses. American Art was her only class I wasn’t able to take, due to a scheduling conflict, but my best buddy Denro took that one. Barbara is presently enjoying life in Miami Beach.

In 1964 The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS originated from Miami Beach. The opening of Goldfinger in 1964 features the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel.

Also in 1964, the second appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show happened at the Deauville Hotel on Miami Beach. Unlike the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, where The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is based, the Deauville has fallen on hard times.

After all these years, the only thing left about the Deauville with any resonance is its significance in Beatles history. The latest on the status of the hotel is at this link.

Love Me Do-lby

In 1982 I bought a British import 12-inch 45 reissue of the Beatles’ first Parlophone single, “Love Me Do.” Side 1 has the take with Andy White on drums. It was mastered from the original tape, and to me it sounds fab and gear.

Side 2 is the take with Ringo on drums, and it was mastered by necessity from a 1962 Parlophone 45. Compared to the first side it sounds like you’re playing it on speakers while wearing headphones that aren’t plugged in. It’s all explained here, in exhaustively delightful detail. Or is it delightfully exhaustive detail?

Barber Shop

I first heard Chris Barber’s recording of Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” about 40 years ago on a favorite LP of mine, “Roots of British Rock.”

Hugh Laurie, who I know from “Blackadder,” but you may know from “House,” talks about, and with, Chris Barber.

This is a little Paul McCartney ditty…

… that Barber recorded. It’s on another favorite LP.

The Sun Never Sets on the British Invasion

An important name, but not widely known, in Sixties British music, has passed away. Hilton Valentine’s guitar on “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals, released in America on August 8, 1964, is unmistakable from the first note.

The thing about the British Invasion is there wouldn’t have been one without England having a lot of bands ready for export, following the Beatles in jumping across the pond. Many acts, like the Animals and Hollies, formed in 1962. The Springfields, with Dusty, were on the American charts with “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” in 1962, before the Beatles released “Love Me Do” in the UK.