If You Like the Beatles... by Bruce Pollock

Author:Bruce Pollock [Pollock, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MUS012000 MUSIC / Discography & Buyer's Guides
ISBN: 9781617130700
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2012-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

The Byrds.

9

THE AMERICAN BEATLES

So alarming and unprecedented was the Beatles’ 1964 takeover of the American Top 40 singles chart that it took a moment for the arbiters of culture to adjust to it. But their output was so perfectly pitched to the moment, artistically polished, and prolific that it was difficult if not impossible to find any American rock band capable of copying it. At first, all radio programmers and their hungry audiences could do was let in a slew of the Beatles’ Merseybeat brethren to handle the overflow, including Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, the Seekers, and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, not to mention the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and the Who.

Prior to the Beatles’ arrival on the U.S. charts in 1964, the sound of a real live rock band on Top 40 radio or anywhere else was a rare commodity. Only in 1959 did rock bands make any sort of a dent, but these were instrumental groups such as Johnny and the Hurricanes, the Wailers, the Fireballs, Rock-a-Teens, the Virtues, the Megatrons, the Wild-Cats, and the Frantics. In 1961, Paul Revere and the Raiders came on like another instrumental group with “Like Long Hair.”

From the end of 1961 through 1963, New York City’s Joey Dee and the Starliters had nothing else on their mind but extolling the virtues of the twist. On the other coast, the surf craze began in late 1961, popularized by guitarist Dick Dale (“Let’s Go Trippin’”) and the Beach Boys (“Surfin”). This was also primarily an instrumental genre, with groups like the Surfaris, the Marketts, the Pyramids, and the Rivingtons offering very little in the way of lyric substance. The Rivingtons’ “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow” (1962) was a virtual doo-wop send up. The lyrics to “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris (1963) consisted of the title phrase maniacally cackled by the group’s manager. Similarly single-minded, the Beach Boys followed up “Surfin” with “Surfin’ Safari,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and “Surfer Girl,” which took them to the end of 1963, at which point Brian Wilson began to emerge with “Be True to Your School” and the lonely, wounded “In My Room.” This introspective phase didn’t last, however, as “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “I Get Around,” and “Dance, Dance, Dance” dominated 1964, interrupted only by the plaintive “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” and the contemplative B side “Don’t Worry Baby.” By this time, surf music (and its complementary sidetrack, hot rod music) had invaded inland ports as various as Minneapolis, Minnesota (“Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen), Nashville, Tennessee (“G.T.O.” by Ronny and the Daytonas), South Bend, Indiana (“California Sun” by the Rivieras) and Boulder, Colorado (“Baja” by the Astronauts).

Aside from the fluke success of “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen in 1963, vocal groups prevailed, including a second wave of post-doo-wop, Italian white soul acts, including Randy and the Rainbows, the Duprees, the Belmonts (sans Dion, who was now accompanied by the Del Satins), the Excellents, Vito and the Salutations, the Capris, and the Four Seasons.

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