I ROBSON (HAS, June 4) lists popular musical artists whose creative life was limited and this included Elvis whose raucous genius was stunted after army service in 1959.
But Elvis’s achievements of the Fifties are a matter of record, literally. The guy took the world by the scruff of the neck and turned it inside out. Religious leaders condemned him; radio stations had public Presley record smashing sessions. TV stations were ordered to show him only from the waist up.
The rampant revelry of Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and others contributed to the glorious sense of total disorder in poular culture.
And then came the Beatles, standing stock still with zero stage presence and negligible musical taste, trotting out Tin Pan Alley doggerel. Compare Love Me Do to Jailhouse Rock and then tell me this was not a wicked regression; from King Creole to Yellow Submarine represents the theft of the young generation’s right to their own music, to cock a snook at their parents.
P Dobson (HAS, June 4) suggests that without the Beatles there would have been no Sixties boom in British music.
Exactly. And that compounds their crime.
They opened the door to the blandness of Billy J Kramer, the infantile Freddy and the Dreamers and Herman’s Hermits, the dreadful Searchers and Gerry with his Pacemakers, the sound-alike Mersey Beats and Yardbirds. This execrable catalogue of rubbish tainted music for years.
And America took its revenge with the dreadful Osmonds!
Leave the last word to John Lennon’s lyric from How do You Sleep, directed at McCartney: “The sound you make is musak to my ears”. Yes indeed.
Rob Meggs, Hartlepool.
VJ Connor’s remarks (HAS, June 1) about the Beatles’ “repetitive, raucous melodies and lyrics” and “infantile behaviour” are an injustice.
There are three landmarks in pop music history. The first was the invention of the solid bodied electric guitar, the second Elvis Presley and the third the Beatles.
The Beatles were responsible for many firsts in music. Sir George Martin provided arrangements which yielded great songs such as Yesterday.
Their “raucous melodies”
included Here, There and Everywhere, The Fool on the Hill, Eleanor Rigby and scores of others which influenced songwriters up to the present day.
Their “infantile behaviour”
was part, of a social revolution that brought a different perspective to music and the arts in the Sixties. Suddenly it was cool to come from the north and talk in a regional accent, in sharp contrast to the Forties and Fifties, and this was reflected in theatre, television and film.
It was also a time when young people were starting to question and show a healthy disrespect for the establishment – and with good reason.
The Beatles may have passed VJ Connor by, but their legacy lives on and their influence spans generations.
Peter Simpson, School Aycliffe.
CLEARLY, there is no accounting for taste when it comes to preferences in music and VJ Connor is entitled to his opinions (HAS, June 1). But, by comparing the influence of the Beatles on music to that of the Krankies on comedy is ludicrous.
It is difficult to imagine such an outrageous insult to one of our national treasures.
Within the music industry, particularly in Britain, The Beatles are considered giants; artistically, commercially and culturally, regardless of one’s personal taste.
Who would be Mr Connor’s candidate for a greater contribution to the British music scene in the Sixties?
It was just as well for the rest of us that Beatlemania passed him by: he would probably have spoilt the fun.
Paul Harland, Pittington, Durham.
ANYONE who, as I did, saw A Hard Day’s Night when it was released in the summer of 1964 is bound to disagree with VJ Connor (HAS, June 1).
I was living and working in Derby at the time and it was there that I saw the film.
It had been announced in the newspapers that Richard Lester would be the director and it was he who said that the title made sense.
It opened on a Sunday afternoon and the theatre was packed.
I also remember the late comedian Alfred Marks saying that the Beatles had saved the pop music industry just when it was dying on its feet and he thought them magnificent.
LD Wilson, Guisborough.
I ALWAYS hated the Beatles and their so-called “music” which was, and is, absolutely pathetic.
All I can say to I Robson (HAS, June 2) is that he must be easily pleased.
As for his statement about the “drab, regimented austere years of Fifties” Britain, I am certainly not in agreement. The Fifties were definitely not like that.
The Beatles were completely useless and Paul McCartney is the worst of the lot.
Mary Wire Lewis, Marwood, Barnard Castle.
MY favourite from that era was Michael Holliday, Britain’s answer to Bing Crosby who signed to EMI Records in 1955 by producer Norrie Paramor. His number one hits were The Story of My Life and Starry Eyed.
Sadly on Tuesday, October 29, 1963, Michael Holliday passed away at the age of 34. He had a large number of fans and the music and the legend lives on.
Terry Christie, Sunderland.
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