Category: Music

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.

Belgium, by way of Native America

As a kid I heard this guitar instrumental on an 8-track tape sampler that came with the 1966 Ford Country Squire station wagon my father bought. Being a station wagon, it had speakers way in the back, making it my first exposure to surround sound.

After getting my driver’s license I was still listening to that tape in the “New Old Girl” (a family in-joke), but in the front seat. I enjoyed that tape so much, and some others that came with the car, that my mother bought an 8-track tape player for me to use with my first stereo system.

8-tracks being what they were (click here for more), there was no rewind, so I’d wait for the player to click to the next stereo track then I’d click ahead to the one with “Maria Elena” to hear it again. It was an entry to enjoying the fabulous guitar playing of Belgian Django Reinhardt.

Recently I was listening to an online radio show that featured Native America musicians, hearing “Maria Elena” for the first time in ages, and was reminded of good it is. Then I heard it again yesterday on WMBR’s 88 Rewound. I took the cosmic hint, and a blog post was born.