PBS

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Originally from my Facebook page
June 3, 2017

I’ve actually enjoyed my commute time this week — the 50th anniversary of the Beatles releasing “Sgt Pepper!”

While driving I flip around the radio dial to get the good parts of various stations as they go by and I have four PBS stations, which tend to do more special programs.

The “normal” radio stations did their share of Beatles tributes, but programs on PBS like “On Point” and “Fresh Air” give 30 to 60 minute interviews and profiles.

It was 50 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. And I was a couple of years away from picking up the guitar and learning to play. But I had been a Beatles fan since their Ed Sullivan debut in 1964.

My grandparents had sold their grocery store and opened and ladies’ ready to wear shop on the main drag in Norton, KS (right next to the Lennox storefront on State Street for you Norton historians). Mom worked there — the first time she worked outside the home since baffling the world with three unusual sons.

The grandparents bought the first two 45 RPM records (check Wikipedia if you don’t know what those are) issued in the US — “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” on the Parlophone label (before Capitol Records picked them up for US distribution) and played them for background music during the grand opening of The Wards For Ladies.

After the Grand Opening, the grandsons were gifted with these records — possibly still in the collection of brother Bart. I remember playing the records constantly and singing along at the top of my lungs. One memory that sticks with me is when Tim Sterrett came over and we played the records at high volume — I remember singing the bridge with these lyrics:

And when I touch you
I feel happy inside
It’s such a feelin’ that my love
I get hives
I get hives
I GET HIVES!

(I don’t think that was really the words, but that’s what it sounded like in all the excitement of Beatlemania)

When Sgt Pepper was released, believe it or not, most of the copies sold were in mono. After all, stereo home players were not owned except by audiophiles and the radio and TV sets were all mono.

I first heard the stereo version (on headphones) when I was in high school. I remember “Good Morning, Good Morning” ending with the farm animal noises bouncing between ears and I think at the very end is a horse galloping across the stereo spectrum. Also, on “A Day In The Life” the last verse is in the opposite ear from where the first verse played. The cacophony in the middle of the song swirls around and around too.

I was thrilled by the beauty of “She’s Leaving Home” — it sure wasn’t rock ‘n roll. And I really glommed on to “When I’m 64.” My parents asked me to play it on guitar and sing it for my grandma (who turned 64 in 1972, I think) and I played for my own mom when she turned 64.

Sgt Pepper was a landmark of audio recording experimentation. The machines they had at that time were only 4-tracks and there was massive overdubbing. The best recounting of the creation of this album (that I have read or heard) was the memoir by Abbey Road studio recording engineer Geoff Emerick — Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. The fab four were making all kinds of demands to producer George Martin and Emerick. Some of the things they came up with were absolutely wild — like putting a reel of tape on one machine, then unspooling it down the hallway to another machine in another room to get a long tape delay.

The Beatles are legendary and Sgt Pepper is rightfully a legend. Most in the know agree it isn’t the best album the Beatles ever made (some say it isn’t even the best album they made in 1967), but it was the signpost toward their final albums that showed the industry that albums were an art form and that music didn’t have to be tightly squeezed into narrow genres.

The fact that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still alive and productive is amazing and wonderful — we shouldn’t take it for granted.

Now — I hope you are inspired to go out and listen and read and groove on the great gifts given to us by those four working class lads from Liverpool.

https://www.beatlesbible.com/…/geoff-emerick-here-there-an…/

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Do you enjoy public radio?

I drive a lot and prefer PBS — mainly because these kids and their modern music with the hipping and hopping and …. but back to topic.

It bothers me that public radio now has commercials. Isn’t it supposed to be non-commercial? Oh yeah, their are contributors and grants and such. But when revenue started falling off, they started giving more detailed credits to their contributors to convince them to sink money into what is supposed to be a public service. Yes … now instead of one sentence like, “Funding for this program was provided by the Ford Foundation” they give you a full 30 seconds of, “Ford — where the rubber meets the road. See your local Ford Dealer for the new Escalade 9Mz, the going choice of drive-by shootings!”

Then, on their free and unfettered news, they have health spots by Kaiser Wilhelm Permanently Al Dente news service — which is always about what is going on the the Kaiser’s hospital. Did you really think that was NEWS?

And they STILL do their week-long fund drives. But instead of twice a year, they do them monthly.

Do you like public TV? Did you know they show infomercials? And Advertainment? Oh yeah

Every time fund drive comes around (again and again) they show Dr. Whizzbang and his miracle cure for tongue warts — a 90 minute infomercial …. and then Dr. Whizzbang is on during the “break” when they overtly ask for money and give you the 9 DVD collection of Dr. Whizzbang’s entire miracle library.

So has this cut down on listener/viewer contributions to public media? Well … it has cut down on at least this one donor’s contributions (fair disclosure — I used to be one of the dweebs on the phones in the studio — but no more!)

Now … back to classical music. {CLICK}

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