Posts with the Paul McCartney tag

Barris Beat

Music of our lives

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Beatles For Sale – the music of our lives..

Most regular readers of the Barris Beat have recognized from the vintage of some of my memories that I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s. During most of those formative years, I lived either in or around Toronto. So, whatever was going on in the Big Smoke culturally, either I was in the middle of it, or I missed it by accident.

Of course, there is that famous quote attributed to one of Robin Williams, Pete Townsend (of The Who) or Timothy Leary:

“If you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.”

The implication, of course, is that youth culture of the 1960s meant its participants wasted themselves 24/7 on drugs, alcohol, sex, love-ins, rock ’n’ roll, revolutionary literature and/or anti-war demonstrations. Well, I admit – with one or two exceptions on that list – that I was there. And I can remember it. (more…)

Barris Beat

A winter tale of music lost and found

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It happened sixty-four years ago tonight. Their tour, “the Winter Dance Party,” had just finished a show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. But several of the rock ’n’ roll performers were suffering under winter conditions on the road in the U.S. Midwest.

Singer J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. Big Bopper, had the flu. Drummer Carl Bunch had frostbite in his feet from travelling on a frigid tour bus for 10 days. Bass guitar player Waylon Jennings was suffering too. A long bus ride in the cold to Moorhead, Minn., lay ahead.

Waylon Jennings – back in 1959 a very fortunate sideman for Buddy Holly.

“Buddy (Holly) told me he had chartered a plane for me and him and (guitarist) Tommy Allsup,” Jennings said in a YouTube interview 10 years ago. “But the Big Bopper had the flu real bad. He asked if he could have my seat on the plane. I said OK.”

Meanwhile, Tommy Allsup and Ritchie Valens met backstage, Allsup explained. “And Ritchie said come on (Tommy), let me fly. So, I pulled a half-dollar coin out of my pocket and flipped it. He called ‘heads’ and it came up ‘heads.’” (more…)

Barris Beat

The road taken

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A once-in-a-lifetime Paul McCartney concert
A once-in-a-lifetime Paul McCartney concert (courtesy thewritersrefuge.wordpress.com)

An acquaintance of mine told me about the night he met up with a music legend. For weeks, before Paul McCartney’s most recent concert stop in Toronto, my acquaintance and his partner debated whether they should part with the cash required to get into the Air Canada Centre to see and hear the former Beatle. My friend said they vacillated over the expense. Then, realizing they might miss an opportunity to see and hear the creator of such landmark songs as “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “Live and Let Die,” the couple gathered as much cash as they could, dashed to the ACC, but arrived after the concert had begun.

“The scalpers were there with a few last tickets,” my acquaintance said. “But with the concert already underway, I guess they figured they’d better unload the tickets.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Twitter this!

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment

Hands up, if you believed the statement that President Barack Obama is a radical Muslim who would not recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. Or more recently, and closer to home, the story that began circulating last Thursday, that Canadian folk music icon Gordon Lightfoot is dead. When the legendary singer-songwriter heard about his so-called demise he contacted the Toronto media outlet CP24.

“I haven’t gotten that much airplay of my songs in weeks,” he told them.

(more…)