Happy b-day John!

Subject: Happy b-day John!
From: J-boy
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 06:12 PM

John Lennon would have turned 70 today.Do any mudcatters have some Beatles stories?I wasn't around then so I'd love to hear 'em.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 06:37 PM

I was a round, but a young mother with no money to spend on much of music, but my ex and I did buy the very first cassette of Sgt. Pepper's and almost wore it out. I had the White Album until someone stole it. I also have a 45 of I Wanna Hold Yer Hand, Paperback Writer, and Help, all bought for me by a sweet young boy when we were about 13.

The Beatles and their songs were always a part of my daily life, with the radio on a lot and singing.

Most recently, I remember the day John was shot. I bought the Playboy that day as it was his last interview and my girlfriend and I bought a bottle of some kind of hard liqueur, drove out to the mini-ranch that Rog and I had about 15 miles outside of Casper, WY and drank all day long in shock and grief...from that day on, no matter where we each lived, we've always called one another on that day. Still miss John and so wish that IMAGINE actually was the world's reality.

kat

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 07:49 PM

I didnt really get into The Beatles at first = I was too busy playing Jazz Reeds , and only got into their songs when lads turned up at Folk Evenings doing the odd Lennon/McCartney song in the Seventies !

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: GUEST,J-boy
Date: 09 Oct 10 - 11:37 PM

I was born after the Beatles broke up but I can't remember a time when I wasn't a fan. Their music transcends...well, everything,really.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: alanabit
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 12:56 PM

It is really impossible to convey the excitement of the Beatles to a generation, who only knows music as it has been since they appeared. Before the Beatles arrived, all the pop music, which I saw on TV, was by nice young men and women, of the type your Mum and Dad would want for in laws. Their songs were chosen by the producers and people like Russ Conway, Ronnie Carroll, Conway Twitty and Kathy Kirby were pop stars. Within two years, there was a whole culture of groups playing their own instruments and writing and arranging their own songs and presenting their own image. What made the Beatles stand out so much was that they had the ability to make a phenomenal amount of musical progress in a very short time, yet they still constantly captured the mood of the moment. They were always able to take their audience with them on the next stage of the adventure. The music business has long since reverted to its innate conservatism, but no one who experienced the excitement of the sixties will see its like again. Like him or loathe him, John Lennon was a seminal figure in that movement.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 02:29 PM

Spot on, Alanabit. I saw the Beatles in the Autumn of 1963. Paul did all the announcements but John stood there and , to me, oozed 'presence'. I have never liked 'Imagine' but there are plenty other great songs to listen to.
Hearing him talk admiringly about other artists on his 'Jukebox' was fascinating and showed much humility.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 02:37 PM

Carol, my wife of 43 years, saw/heard them live twice in Chicago------at the Comiskey Park (where the White Sox played), and at the International Amphitheater on south Halstead Street. As an old folkie, I resisted liking them. But as an old song says, "time has made a change in me." Alas, they were pretty good.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 02:55 PM

Thank you for your birthday wishes, I thought.
Then I saw it was John Lennon, not John MacKenzie.
Fond remembrances John Lennon.

John

I could share my DoB with many worse people.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: alanabit
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 04:49 PM

John MacKenzie: a belated Happy Birthday from this quarter!

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 05:03 PM

This may be no more than obliquely "a Beatles story", but: in Feb.1964, I caught the bus in front of an old hotel, bound to be sworn in to the Navy. As I was getting on the bus, my nephew, 4 years old, was standing on a cement cornerpost of the hotel steps singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The nephew is now a Sargent Major in the Army,and would probably be retired apart from current circumstances.

Subject: RE: Happy b-day John!
From: J-boy
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 08:52 PM

Thank you for the great stories,'catters!