Talkin’ Music with Jack – The Beatles and then some

February 26, 2014

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Talkin’ Music

By Jack Coll

2-26-14

This Week’s Talkin’ Music is brought to you by Dominic A. Coccia, Certified Public Accountant &

Flanigan’s Boathouse, located in Beautiful Downtown Conshohocken!

The Beatles

And Then Some

“Ladies and Gentleman, The Beatles,” I watched the grand celebration of 50 years since the Beatles were introduced to America on the Ed Sullivan Show, “She Loves You” Yea, Yea, Yea,–yea, yea,– yea, yea, yea. I personally never considered it that big a deal in my life, not when I was young, and now that I’m not so young. I like the Beatles, but I’m not nuts over them, and I could have done without the more hype than substance on the return of Paul and Ringo. But the reunion served two good reasons, the first being “Ratings,” every good television executive loves ratings, ratings = money. The second good reason for Paul and Ringo’s reunion was to give record companies a great chance to showcase their young, up and coming talent. What’s not to like about that, every good record executive knows that showcasing their young talent, particularly off the backs of the Beatles means more money, yea, yea, yea.

Like everyone else ever put on this earth I’ve sang along with the Beatles tunes over the years, but perhaps more than the music I’ve enjoyed the back-stories circling around the fab-four. There are thousands of stories that go with the Beatles, and most of us only know about a thousand of those stories. You know like the time Paul came out of a recording studio only to see a meter maid placing a ticket on his windshield, Paul pleaded with her to not ticket him, but “Lovely Rita” refused to give in, Paul paid the ticket and then wrote a song about her, “Lovely Rita Meter Maid.”

Every once in a while you hear a new story, or a story you haven’t heard before, at least you can’t remember if you heard it before and that was the case this past Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning I get up early to hear the Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown. Casey is retired now, according to his daughter Kerri he is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Casey Kasem started the “Top 40 Countdown” on July 4, 1970, and broadcast in one form or another until July 4, 2009, capping a 39 year career on the radio.

Casey also performed many TV commercial voiceovers for companies and products like A&P, Chevron, Ford, Red Lobster, Raid, Oscar Mayer, Hoover vacuum cleaners, Velveeta, Joy dishwashing liquid, Heinz ketchup, Sears, Prestone, Dairy Queen, Continental Airlines, and many others.

Casey also stayed busy with many, many voice overs in television shows, he was Shaggy Rogers in all the Scooby-Doo shows and movies, and appeared in “Ironside,” “Police Story,” “Quincy M.E.,” “Skyhawks,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries,” “What’s New Mr. Magoo,” “The Transformers,” and dozens of others.

Anyway back to the top 40 countdown, many radio stations throughout the country will run the Casey Kasem Top 40 re-runs. For music lovers like me it’s pretty exciting to hear the top 40 hits of the day in re-runs, for instance local radio station WOGL Oldies 98 will run different years from 6:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings until 9:00 a.m. You’re likely to hear the top 40 hits of the week from 1973, 1978, or anywhere in the 1980’s. Along the way Casey tells some interesting stories.

So this past Saturday morning I’m climbing out of the shower with the radio on, (I know you didn’t need to know that) and I’m listening to Casey count down the top 40 hits from February 21, 1980. So I’m climbing out of the shower and Casey says “Coming up is the story of the guy who taught John Lennon of the Beatles how to play the harmonica, he’s making his first appearance in the top 10 hits, and he comes in at number 8.” Wow, that kinda peaked my attention, this guy taught John Lennon how to play the harmonica, it had to be what, 20 years ago, (per the 1980 countdown) and now he’s jumping the Top 10 Hits of the week in 1980, this guy must be old. I mean if he was 20 years old when he taught John, that would make him old in 1980, for goodness sake he would have to be at least 40 years old now. (I was 29 years old in 1980, anybody 40 years old was, well, old. Think about it, when you were 19 years old, anybody who was 30 years old, was old, now that I’m over 60 years old, anybody who is 70 years old, is really old)

So then Casey goes into the Lennon harmonica story, he states that back in the early 1960’s, a guy by the name of Delbert McClinton, who was a blues harmonica player and was at that time playing harmonica for Bruce Channel’s Band, you might remember Bruce Channel who had a Number One Hit with the song “Hey Baby,” It was Number One for three weeks back in the winter of 1962, it had this great harmonica in it played by McClinton. (Hey Baby, I wanna know, if you’ll be my girl.)

Anyway it turns out that the Beatles were opening for Bruce Channel for a three week period when McClinton meets Lennon, (and the rest of the Beatles of course) and according to McClinton Lennon was curious as hell about the mouth organ. (Harmonica) So over the next couple of weeks McClinton shows Lennon the finer points of playing harmonica, and sure enough the Beatles came out two years later with a hit called “Please Please Me,” a song they recorded in 1962 highlighting the harmonica, and a Number One song two years later with “Love Me Do” featuring John on Harmonica.

McClinton was really quite a good musician, and is further proof why I don’t like instant success with a television show. McClinton worked with a bar band back in Lubbock, Texas, (also home of Buddy Holly) he was a member of The Straitjackets, and played back-up for guys like Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Jimmy Reed. After paying his dues he hit the road with Channel’s band and while touring the United Kingdom along with Channel, the Beatles were the opening act.

McClinton turned out to be a pretty good writer as Emmylou Harris had a Number One hit in 1978 with his composition of “Two More Bottles of Wine,” and his “B Movie Boxcar Blues” was covered on the first Blues Brothers Album, “Briefcase Full of Blues.” In 1980 McClinton cut an album called “The Jealous Kind” producing the hit single, “Giving It Up For Your Love,” climbing the charts to Number 8.

After listening to the harmonica story the thing that hit me was going back to the Beatles when they were relatively unknown. I mentioned about a week or so ago in another music piece that a group called “The Cyrkle” had opened for the Beatles on a six week US tour back in the early 1960’s. But the Beatles were well known by then. But hearing the harmonica story recalled another story in my mind that came before the Beatles became music gods.

Bob Frost and I attended a concert a few years back, January 2012 I think it was, (I’m not gonna stop and look it up, but I think it was 2012) It was a great day for us, we arrived at the Kimmel Center around lunch time, grabbed a bite to eat in the performers dining hall, before heading out for the sound check. Bob and I were attending the Jerry Blavat Tenth Anniversary Extravaganza in the main hall known as Verizon Hall. (A beautiful venue for any and all musical performances) Following lunch we were excited about attending the sound check, most bands and performers do a sound check before the show, making sure everything is in working order and going over the music with the other musicians. Frost and I had a front row seat, (the only two people sitting in the entire Hall) to watch Ben E. King, (Stand By Me, Spanish Harlem) Chris Montez, (Let’s Dance, More I See You, Call Me) Darlene Love, (the greatest female singer ever in my opinion) Edna Wright & the Honey Cones, Edna Wright is Darlene Love’s sister, the Honey Cone members also consisted of Carolyn Wills, former member of Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, and Shellie Clark, former member of the Ikette’s, of Ike and Tina Turner. Shirley Alston Reeves, (Soldier Boy, Mama Said, Tonight’s The Night, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow) Lenny Welch, (Since I Fell For You, Ebb Tide, You Don’t Know Me) and finally The Trammps, (Disco Inferno, Hold Back The Night, Storm Warning)

Attending a “sound check” is a pretty special event because you get to see the performers un-dressed, meaning their real personality. Most of the performers tend to be light, funny and happy to talk to you and pose for photographs.

Following the more than three hour sound check it was time to head for dinner back in the performers dining hall. Frost and I sat at a table and were later joined by Lenny Welch, Chris Montez, Ed Cermanski of the Trammps and a few other musicians. I always find it interesting to chat with the performers, if they are relaxed enough they have some great stories to tell.

I knew Chris Montez had a number of hits in the early 1960’s, even though he pulled several of them from 1940’s movie soundtracks. What I didn’t know was that he had toured with Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, The Platters, and Smoky Robinson and the Miracles. When Chris was on top in the early 1960’s he toured London, York, and Northampton while performing with Tommy Roe. The Beatles opened for Montez during a short six week tour throughout London, and that’s what he wanted to talk about at the dinner table with me, Frost, Cermanski and the rest of us.

Chris Montez noted that he toured with the Beatles and barley knew who they were at the time. I was 17 or 18 years old back then noted Montez, I was up on top enjoying my success and I tried to keep up with the British scene but I didn’t really know these guys. Well I jumped right on that and wanted to know more about the tour and Montez said “Well, we were all young back then and everything was new to us. He went on a little bit about staying in the hotels and noted that one night when he and a couple of the guys including Paul McCartney went over to Paul’s hotel room, that when Paul opened the door there were about seven or eight girls just sitting on his bed dressed in different sorts,” He said, “Paul just closed the door and walked down the hallway, we’re not sure how they got in the room, but Paul didn’t want anything to do with them.” Montez told us a few other things not to be repeated here but did note that he and John Lennon got into a fist fight on the tour bus one night, things got a little heated and as young boys do, the fists started flying until members of the band and a couple of the other Beatles jumped in to quite the scene, I think the two were arguing over a song.

Montez also talked about one of his hit songs that he fought not to record. “The song “Call Me” was this slow ballad that his producer Herb Alpert wanted him to record. “Call Me” was already a mild hit by Petula Clark, written by Tony Hatch the guy who help make Petula a star, but Montez really wanted nothing to do with it. Montez was a huge fan of Richie Valens and wanted to rock and roll with some of the up-tempo stuff Valens hit it big with.

Lenny Welch talked about his travels and growing up in Asbury Park. While Lenny had early hits with “Since I Fell For You” and “Ebb Tide.” “Ebb Tide” was a song featured in the movie “Sweet Bird of Youth” starring Paul Newman, I always enjoyed his version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” from the winter of 1970

Ed Cermanski is a native of West Conshohocken and one of the founding members of the Trammps, I gotta say and I’m sure Frost will back me up on this, if you’ve never seen the Trammps perform live, don’t miss out, they’ll be playing somewhere local this summer and they are a Must-See if you are a music fan. Cermanski has been a Conshohocken resident for many years now and can be heard jamming along with his band mates at his house located in the upper end of the borough. Frost and I have seen them play on many occasions and partied with them in Atlantic City not too many years ago. Cermanski is a great musician with many stories to tell and we enjoyed a few stories he laid on the dinner table the night of Jerry Blavat’s Tenth Anniversary Extravaganza.

When we finished dinner it was time for the performers to prepare for the show. For most of the night, Frost, Blavat, Darlene Love, Jerry Butler, Ed Cermanski, Ben E. King and myself stood throughout the show from the side of the stage and marveled at each and every performer, what a day, and what a night.

So thank you Casey Kasem, thanks for mentioning John Lennon learning the harmonica from Delbert McClinton, ain’t it funny how the mention of something brings the memories flooding back, and ain’t it funny how time slips away.

Thank You to

Dominic Coccia Jr., Certified Public Accountant & Flanigan’s Boathouse located on Fayette Street

For sponsoring this week’s Talkin’ Music with Jack

We’ll be talking to you next week

Enjoy a few of my photographs below: