Denro pointed out that Tuesday was the 50th anniversary of the Beatles starting work in Hamburg, Germany. On August 17, 1960, a contract was signed by their agent at the time, Allan Williams, committing the boys to play until October 16. A fire-singed fragment of the contract survives. In the picture above, John Lennon watches the Beatles’ van being loaded onto a ferry in Liverpool, bound for the Netherlands, August 16, 1960.
The Daily Cartoonist reports that ABC-TV has signed a five-year contract to continue airing the Peanuts holiday specials. Which is good, because ten years after moving from CBS, I still need more time to get used to them being on ABC!
Not too long ago, I posted an item about the fascinating work in electronic music by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The Bob Moog Foundation has an excellent article called MoogHistory Unveiled: Brian Kehew Explores 1965 R.A. Moog Co. Electronic Music Workshop.
Brian Kehew is the co-author with Kevin Ryan of the book RTB: Recording the Beatles. Interviews with Kehew and Ryan about the book can be heard on Musicians Radio…
[audio:http://www.musiciansradio.com/podcasts/mrshow_55.mp3 |titles=Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan on Musicians Radio]… and seen on Electronic Musician.
[flv:http://emusician.com/videos/interviews/Rec_the_Beatles_Interview.flv http://www.dograt.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RTBeatles.jpg 480 360]
More vis Mitch Miller, compliments of Denro:
This the 1st song from the 1st “Sing Along With Mitch” album, from 1958. The odd thing, which I didn’t realize, is that the album contains several WW II era songs!!! He knew his audience — so he did songs from their childhood, their parents’ era and their own adulthood! “Don’t Fence Me In” and “Bell Bottom Trousers” are on there, alongside “The Old Mill Stream” and “Silvery Moon”.
This was how Miller started the sing-a-long craze? But it’s such a sad song! How sad is it? It’s “Snoopy with a root beer” sad!
I don’t have an iPhone 4, and I’m no longer on AT&T, but despite that, or because of it, I think this is very funny…
[Adobe Flash Object No Longer Supported]
I should ask former “Jazz snob” Margo Guryan if she can guess who this is. Starting at 2:30 it’s fairly obvious, even for me. There’s a lot of Big Band in this Sixties Jazz sound.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/OdeToBillyJoe.mp3]