Book Review: Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film

I once knew a woman who would begin a topic, branch out into a related subject, add a few footnotes before launching into a similar train of thought until the air between us was filled with such a variety of crisscrossing themes that had the conversation been visible, it would have resembled the veins of a leaf as viewed under a microscope. Not everyone had the kind of time on their hands or patience necessary to listen to all Marianne’s exhaustive (and occasionally, exhausting) monologues, but anyone who did came away enriched and entertained.

I thought of Marianne when I read Steve Matteo’s Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film because while it certainly does fulfill the promise of its subtitle, it also presents a plethora of well-written background information that might be fascinating to some, overwhelming or even dull to others.

But let’s begin with the positive. Matteo is an excellent, descriptive writer. I won’t soon forget the image he paints of the Beatles waving to cheering crowds during the Liverpool premier of Hard Day’s Night while the city police band below them plays “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Ditto for the scene of Paul McCartney sketching out the idea for Magical Mystery Tour on airline stationery while flying home from the US. And while the following might not be news to diehard fans, I found this summation of the White Album quite illuminating:

“The album reflected not only the violence of the era, including protests against the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation and the assassination of political and social leaders, but also meditations on a variety of subjects, originally written on acoustic guitars in the tranquil days the group spent in India.”

Matteo also provides a plethora of insightful background material to set the stage for each new cinematic venture. For instance, I never connected the dots between the plot of Help! and the James Bond films popular at the time. But yes, for all its comedy and musical numbers, Help! is indeed a spoofy tale of international intrigue. Matteo brilliantly (if a bit tediously) sets the film within its historical context by listing and briefly describing each Bond film in chronological order before diving into Help!

However, more than occasionally, Matteo’s fondness for detail overwhelms his narrative, making the writing less descriptive and more encyclopedic. For instance, consider the following paragraph, which I quote in its entirety:

“Much has been said about the Beatles’ deal with UA. The initial budget of the film was 200,000 pounds for a black-and-white film. UA hired Walter Shenson to produce; he would be paid 12,000 pounds, splitting the profits 50/50 with UA. His company, Proscenium Films, had two separate deals with Brian Epstein: one with Northern Songs for the songs Lennon and McCartney would supply for the film (and, most importantly for UA, for the soundtrack), and one with NEMS Enterprises on behalf of the entire group. In the original deal, Epstein had said he wouldn’t accept less than an advance of 20,000 pounds and 25 percent of the net profits). Epstein then passed on the negotiations to his lawyer, David Jacobs. Jacobs quickly realized the number Epstein had floated was too low and eventually negotiated an advance of 25,000 pounds and 20 percent of the net profits.”

Interesting to anyone into numbers and percentages, but most likely, few others.

Act Naturally may not hold the interest of the average Beatles’ fan, but it is certainly an insightful and detailed labor of love and will be appreciated by anyone willing to take some time and a deep dive into the history of the Fab Four’s cinematic endeavors. 

Book Review: Holding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music

Artists who take the advice presented in most books on aging and productivity might find something to do at 60 related to but distinct from what they did at 20. Apparently, the artists featured in David Remnick’s Holding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music, didn’t get the memo, for when Remnick wrote the chapters for this book--originally individual pieces featured in The New Yorker--these aging musicians were actively pursuing their original craft.

What compelled them to carry on when their most productive and lucrative years were already in the past? Perhaps because they could still fill amphitheaters, or perhaps because they couldn’t think of anything else to do, becoming, as Remnick describes the Rolling Stones, “unfailing jukeboxes of their earlier selves.” And while he seems to admire Bruce Springsteen’s continued stage athleticism, his take on Mick Jagger’s current antics is not complimentary: “at his best evoking the spawn of James Brown and Gumby, at his worst coming off like someone’s liquored-up Aunt Gert, determined to trash her prettier sister’s wedding with a gruesome performance on the dance floor.”

Ouch. Remnick is equally honest—though less snarky—regarding the aging Luciano Pavarotti when he quotes an opera critic from the 1990s who told him that “Pavarotti’s high notes ran out some time ago. Now it’s often a strangled bleat.” Like the Stones, Pavarotti continued to perform, in part, simply because audiences kept purchasing tickets. But he also kept singing opera well past that genre’s normal retirement age because he felt the pressure of being “The Last Italian Tenor.” Similarly, Mavis Staples, the surviving member of a once-crowded family act, sings for the love and the legacy of those who have passed on. The work of late great blues players is ever present in the mind of Buddy Guy, who told Remnick he feels “like one of those aging souls who find themselves the last fluent speaker of an obscure regional language.”

Should aging singer-songwriters please their audiences with their old material, becoming those “unfailing jukeboxes,” or should they please themselves with the creative process? Bob Dylan tends towards the latter, creating entirely new albums—granted, not at his former speed of multiple songs per day---and still fills concerts with (perhaps) disappointed fans aching to hear old songs from their old prophet. Conversely, when stage-shy introverted Leonard Cohen took a lengthy world tour in his later years to recoup what an embezzling employee had stolen, he never stopped composing, but gave his audiences plenty of his old songs (albeit in a different key to accommodate the lower range of his aging voice).

Sir Paul McCartney walks a line between Dylan and Cohen, justifying the creation and performance of what he told Remnick was “wisdom art.” But ever the pleaser, he also gives his audiences “Hey Jude” so that, in his words, “everyone goes home happy.”

Holding the Note lacks the glossy section of photographs so often included at the center of biographies, collective and otherwise, perhaps because Remnick’s writing includes elements that most casual observers might miss in a photograph. For instance, Dylan’s strange Newsweek cover of October 4, 2004, is Googleable (and the story behind it even stranger unless you are aware of Dylan’s narcissistic streak), but Remnick’s description is more detailed, not to mention far more entertaining: “By then he was in his mid-sixties and looked like Vincent Price wearing Hank William’s clothes; pencil mustache, white Stetson, and cowboy suit.”

Anyone can watch Aretha Franklin’s 2015 Kennedy Center performance of “Natural Woman” on YouTube, but Remnick’s description shows more: “Aretha comes out onstage looking like the fanciest church lady in Christendom: fierce red lipstick, floor-length mink, a brocaded pink-and-gold dress that Bessie Smith would have worn if she’d sold tens of millions of records.”

Holding the Note is filled with wit, pathos, sharp observations, profound questions and is well worth a read. (less)

 

As we are the History Singers, I was asked to find a suffrage song with which to end my Veteran's Day talk regarding American women's efforts during the First World War and the passage of the 19th Amendment. Throughout our history, Americans have used songs to express their emotions and fire up their purposes and goals, much the way people today share those very things on social media. The American women’s suffrage movement was filled with songs intended to strengthen resolve and promote unity of purpose. What I learned during my recent search: some songs were written specifically for the suffrage movement, but just as the patriots of the American Revolution set their lyrics to familiar British tunes, so someone in the American women’s suffrage movement wrote new lyrics to familiar American tunes.  In this way, new songs could be cranked out and learned quickly—no one had to write a new melody and the singers didn’t have to learn one. The song I sang came from the above-pictured booklet, this one set to the then-familiar tune of the Union Civil War song, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” (which later became the tune for "Jesus Loves the Little Children.") 

It is quite fitting that women who were fighting for the right to vote would set their words to the tune of a war song.

Next Election Day

In our western homes we sit, thinking eastern friends of you

And the noble cause to which you give your might

And our eyes with joy are lit as we read of all you do

For we’re proud of you, our sisters dear, tonight.

 

CHORUS

Tramp, tramp, tramp, we’re onward marching

Good luck, comrades, on the way

And beneath the golden glow of the suffrage flag we know

You will join us on the next election day!

 

We have fought the battle here, we have won the freeman’s right

So, we promise you a loyal helping hand

Bid our sisters all good cheer

For the goal is now in sight

You are crossing now into the promised land.

 

A River, a Skyline, and a People (2009)

When I wrote this recently rediscovered post, my husband and I were in the process of creating our "Chicago History in Song" program, which included my lyrics, "Song of Potawatomi", a version of which was included in the Forest Park Historical Society's Des Plaines River Anthology.

My high-schoolers have an unusual interest in the weather reports, especially if those reports include heavy rainfall.  That’s because their school is just a half-block away from the Des Plaines River, a 150-mile strip of water that stretches from Kenosha to the Kankakee and meanders all through the near-west suburbs of Chicago. If the river gets too high, my kids get a day off.

Even in good weather, and especially if we get stuck – as we regularly do – in Roosevelt Road’s early morning traffic, we always glance at the river as we drive by. Thick clumps of trees and bushes line its banks and grant a visual respite from bumpers and brake lights. I like to think that the river and its bank looked just like that when it provided life and transportation for the Potawatomi.

They were the first Forest Parkers, the folks that traded in the downtown swamp but made their homes next to the Des Plaines River in an area which we also pass on our daily ride, a place currently occupied by many famous and infamous Chicago dead – the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park.

The Potawatomi were friendly with the Europeans who moved into the Chicago area: they traded and intermarried with them, and even came to their rescue during the Dearborn Massacre and the Blackhawk Uprising. But the Great White Treaties were apparently made to be broken and the settlers quickly forgot the loyalties of the Potawatomi, kicked them off their own property and sent them packing, many to an area that later became Kansas.  Except for a few sad stragglers, by the mid-19^th century, the Potawatomi had virtually disappeared from the Chicago area.

It’s a heartbreaking story and I always feel somewhat guilty when I get excited about what comes next: a city rising out of a swamp, like one of those rock gardens that grows to impressive heights when submerged in water.  Actually, Chicago was submerged in water, but the rugged early city leaders didn’t let that stand in their way. With a “one, two, three” they lifted the city out of the muck. They reversed the natural flow of the Chicago River. And when the city burnt to the ground in 1871, it was rebuilt it in time to host the impressive Columbian Exposition of 1893. There has never been such a “can-do” city in all of history.

Last Saturday morning, as I was turning east on to the Eisenhower expressway, with my son heading towards the city, the Forest Park skies were dark and foreboding. But when we passed under the Austin ramp and the Chicago skyline came into view, I got quite a thrill. The clouds behind my favorite buildings were bright with sun and provided a stunning background to one of the world’s more impressive skylines.

After I dropped my son off and headed back to Forest Park, the western skies were still gloomy. And nothing can change the fact that our Chicago predecessors of European descent forced some particularly noble and loyal Native Americans off their own lands. There was a way to build a city without laying a foundation of betrayal and heartbreak. But no one tried to find it. And John and I are going to do our best to make sure that the Potawatomi story is told.

But we’d also like to tell the story of what came next: how sheer determination transformed a swamp into a city. A city with a stunning skyline.

Our daughter's artistic tribute to the Potawaomi on the Circle bridge in Forest Park, part of the village's "cover our rust" art project. 

The Ballad of Albert Parsons

I wrote the following years ago as part of our Chicago History in Song program. We decided to drop it from the line-up when our performance caused a severe outbreak of yawning; it's little wordy and the tune I created to accompany the words wasn't compelling enough to sustain interest through all eight stanzas.

On a more positive note, my sister recently wrote a wonderful post on the Haymarket Martyrs. Read it here.

Albert Parsons was the son of rebels and preachers alike

And he wore grey when he rode a star and scouted for states rights.

But the fate of the freedman caused him grief and he worked for their plight

So the south banished him and he came to Chicago with Lucy his wife.

In the north, Parsons saw low pay made slaves, freedom equaled bread;

Government, business and the press kept workers chained, he said.

When threatened and harmed for challenging pillars of money and greed

He said the system must be destroyed or the workers would wind up dead.

The state protected the business kings, political change was a dream.

Election rigging and business deals made anarchy seem a good thing.

In the city wealth sparkled brilliantly and workers lived like dogs

The black and red protest flags flew high and the Anarchy army grew strong.

“Hurrah for science!  Hurrah for the blast! All is just when snapping chains.

Hurrah for assassins who hit their mark!” cried papers of anarchy fame.              

The lines were drawn, the stage was set, the city was aware,

When plans were made for the fourth of May in the center of Haymarket Square

They came to protest long work days give speeches and stand as one

Harrison came as city mayor heard nothing to cause alarm.

But Bonfield, a cop who’d climbed the ranks by brutal and violent means

Swore to his men by the stroke of twelve they would see blood flowing free.

Dark clouds rolled in, the crowds grew thin, the speeches drew to a close

When Bonfield’s men marched to Haymarket Square and demanded the people disperse.

Who threw the bomb that killed Degan, who knows? It wasn’t the men who were tried

But Parsons and friends they took the stand while their wives and children cried.

The papers screamed as one for the deaths of “the monsters, the killers and fiends”

Who had to stand trial for reckless words they’d spoke for the working man.

The foes of freedom tried to build a bridge between speech and bombs

So the jury sentenced seven good men and the deed was smiled upon.

Labor in chains stood on the scaffold for backing workers’ rights.

The voice of freedom strangled that day, its silence grew in might.

The Chicago Martyrs gave their lives for the sacred right of words

And Parsons said before he died, “Let the voice of the people be heard.”

“Let the voice of the people be heard.”

--Kathryn Atwood

Book review: Everybody had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles

Review by Kathryn Atwood

Sometimes I feel like Agent Irena Spalko, Cate Blanchett’s character in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when, towards the end of the movie she reveals what has motivated her evil actions throughout the entire film by screaming at the demon heads “I vant to know!” Now I don’t normally scream in libraries, bookstores, or even at my Amazon wish list, but I completely understood Agent Spalko during this scene.

Which is why, apart from certain fiction authors, I generally read (and write) non-fiction. But like Agent Spalko, this thirst for knowledge sometimes gets me more than I bargained for. Case in point: When I saw that my publishers were putting out a book whose cover featured Joni Mitchell, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Beach Boys, I had to request a review copy. After all, the music of the 1960s was the soundtrack of my childhood and a connection to my slightly older former-garage band husband; I can sing all the songs by heart but he knows exactly who is playing which guitar solo on hundreds of 60s songs.

So I dove into William McKeen's excellent Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mahem in 1960s Los Angeles, ready to fill in the gaps in my understanding of 1960s pop culture history.

First, the good and the great: Like Wilfrid Sheed’s The House that George Built, McKeen's Everybody Had an Ocean centers on one small cast of characters—in this case, the Wilson brothers—but expands to reveal how they interacted with their universe. The Beach Boys might remain the trunk of this particular tree, but the branches fascinate. Nearly everyone who was somebody in the world of 1960s rock and roll makes an appearance here and the connections are often startling. For instance, Stephen Stills told his friend Peter Torkelson about auditions for a TV series about a rock and roll band. Peter got the part, shortening his last name to Tork. After Joni Mitchell met fellow-Canadian Neil Young in Winnipeg and played “Sugar Mountain” for her, she responded by writing “The Circle Game.” Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas not only had a beautiful voice but a knack for bringing the right people together, in one famous case, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash.


McKeen's writing--which includes a plethora of direct quotes--makes it seem as if he knew these music-makers personally. Although he seems to have been acquainted with Dennis Wilson, one glance at the notes section shows that he relied on an exhaustive bibliography, including many previously conducted interviews. But the inclusion of these direct quotes from the main players brings an exciting immediacy to the narrative.


What I didn’t bargain for was the brain-frying “mayhem” in the book’s subtitle. For instance, part of me wishes I could go back and think of the Beach Boys as those sunny voices singing upbeat songs. But now I know that while the band members could sing in beautiful harmony, their interpersonal relationships rarely reached that state.  It's uncomfortable to realize that Brian Wilson was deaf in one ear, most likely the result of a beating from his abusive father (a man who only calmed down under music’s influence and who adored hearing his boys sing in three-part harmony. You can’t make this stuff up). I wish I could still pretend the voice singing Wouldn’t it be Nice was an earnest young fiancé rather than Brian Wilson fantasizing about his sister-in-law. I especially wish I didn’t know that Charles Manson was once great pals with Dennis Wilson and that the future mass murderer hoped this friendship would open doors to a rock and roll career.


But if I hadn’t read this excellent book, I also wouldn’t know that the first 20 seconds of California Girls was Brian Wilson’s attempt to musically portray a sunrise, or that his girlfriend, hearing him angst about the unattainable beauty of Be My Baby, patted him on the arm and said “Don’t worry baby,” giving him a line he would later make famous in song.

One thing that puzzled me about McKeen's narrative was what I consider to be his gratuitous use of the F-word and similarly coarse language. It certainly shows up enough in the direct quotes but just as often in McKeen's narration. Perhaps he was trying to add a certain seamlessness to the book by telling the story as one of the characters would have. I'm not sure every reader would react similarly but for me it was jarring and eventually tedious.


However, it didn't stop me from reading to the end because all told, this is an entertaining, enlightening read which adds tremendously to the canon of 1960s pop culture.

"The Soundtrack of our Lives" (is one way of putting it).

 

 

"Let Me Call You Sweetheart" was in my head one morning as my eyes carelessly landed on a photo of two beautiful 1940s-era women: my mom and Aunt Wally, photographed with their step-mom. It suddenly struck me like a thunderclap: these women, at the time the photograph was taken, were certainly familiar with the song playing in my head. "Sweetheart" was published in 1910, it's true, years before the beauties in the photo had been born, but its popularity had lasted for decades, certainly well past the 1940s. And for one mystical, magical moment, the somewhat knowing smiles of the women in the photo seemed to connect with me over that song, as if they knew what was playing in my head and were ready to sing along. I know my mom would have sung it with me at the drop of hat; I recall her often breaking into random songs, lovely songs like Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies," a beautiful tune that had apparently been stuck in her head for a few decades before she put it into mine.

Anyway, the reason "Sweetheart" was on my mind that morning was because John and I were prepping for a program to be performed later that day, an eclectic mix of songs for the annual luncheon of a large suburban historical society composed of members aged somewhere between the WWII and Boomer generations. We opened the program with "Sweetheart", continued with "Star Dust," "Night and Day", "I Could Have Danced All Night", "Moon River", and a few others. During the performance I could hear the polite but distinct rumbling of audience participation. These songs had apparently meant something to these people at one point in time. Songs are like that. One Chicago-area radio station hits the nail on the head when it refers to itself as "The Soundtrack of our Lives." When you're young, you almost believe that the popular songs you connect with were written, composed, sung, and produced just for you. Well, most young people don't actually consider production details but when the perfect blend of lyric and melody touches your soul in some way, that moment in your personal history becomes inexorably linked to a song. Your song. My mother had no doubt encountered Blue Skies on "Your Hit Parade." I listened to my songs via transistor radio, our basement juke box (yeah, we had an old juke box), and vinyl. The generation before either of us purchased the sheet music to "Sweetheart" to the tune of five million copies. But however accessed, music becomes part of one's life story, part of one's soul.

You hear the song later, the memories flood in, and you are transported back in time. And there, in that room with the polite sing-a-longers, John and I were like masters of time travel, humbled and honored to be the vehicle bringing back memories for people who had personally connected, at some point, to these stunning songs.

I had one last musical encounter that evening, the day's most powerful. Rewarding myself for the efforts of the day with a viewing of "To Kill a Mockingbird", I was suddenly almost brought to tears by the film's familiar musical motif. That melody not only embodied the bittersweet fictionalized memoir of Harper Lee's Jim Crow South but, perhaps because my day was already in nostalgia overdrive, it touched me with a longing for my own lost world, a world in which the music of multiple generations stirred powerful yearnings in my young soul.

"Sweetheart" may have filled my head that morning, "Star Dust" that afternoon, but the Mockingbird theme, somehow encompassing both, lingered for days.