Alright all you hippies, yippies and beatniks. This Saturday nights the coffee house features "Oldies." You gotta come and sing along with us. 7:00 pm this Saturday night. Be there or be square.
This got me thinking, just what is an "Oldie?" Last month we did Beatles; wasn't that Oldies? No, that was Beatles. It kind of goes back to an argument I was making in a previous blog entry. The Beatles were too serious. The Turtles, now that's Oldies. All those animal names. In case you didn't know the Beatles decided to make a play on words from Buddy Hollly's "Crickets" so the came up with Beatles spelled with the BEAT.
So, we're going to do some Turtles, Monkees, Drifters, Hermits and maybe a little Elvis.
Here's some '50's lingo for all you beatniks: Wowsville, daddy-o, cool daddy, good time, voodoosville, big daddy, wow, dig, crazy, hep, string me, allie oop, like way out man, coffee pad, bug me, hep cat, square, squaresville, man, kookie, swingin' , itsy bitsy, crazy pop.
Can you think of any more? Don't make me embarass you, I wasn't born until 1959. Here's some more trivia for you:
In 1954 (50 years ago!!) a House cost $22,000, our average income was $3,960, a new Ford cost $1548-$2415, a gallon of milk cost $.92, gas was $.21 a gallon, a loaf of bread was $.17, a Postage stamp was $.03, Swiss Cheese was $ .69 lb., American Cheese was $.55 lb., a T-Bone steak was $.95 lb., Del Monte Catsup (2) 14.oz bottles cost $.25, Post Grape Nuts cereal - 10 .oz pkg cost $.19, Clorox Bleach - 1/2 gal. was $.19, 20 gallon gas water heater would cost you $75 and a Semi-automatic Kenmore washer would run you $154.95.
If you're cool enough: Rosemary Clooney had two hits in 1954 besides "Hey There." What were they?
Concert for George
The Concert for George, a tribute to George Harrison, was on PBS the other night and we all sat down to watch it. It brought me to tears several times. What exactly brought on the tears? Well, it's like this: Eric Clapton was of course a close friend of George's for many years. So he was the producer of the show. Jeff Lynn was there too. Jeff Lynn is one of the premiere rock producers ever. So the show was just plain good. But what really did it was the authenticity of the guitar work. George Harrison was "just the guitar" player of the Beatles. So they happen to be the biggest rock act ever, he's still just the guitar player. You don't hear the extended solos from Harrison that we've become used to in the rock n roll world. Typically, just 8 bars - sometimes 16. When he took the solo, it counted. It had melody. It meant something.
So Clapton was smart enough to get two great guitarists to back up the sound for this concert. And man were they good. The...