Insight: Rock n’ Roll everlasting

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Time marches on for devoted fans of the rock n’ roll music genre, that is, unless you’re a fan of the Rolling Stones or The Beatles. Both the Stones and The Fab Four are back on the charts with new music this month and paying no mind to the fact that the heyday of both legendary bands from Great Britain was nearly 60 years ago.

In February 1965, I was in seventh grade and was waiting for the school bus when a classmate walked up to me and asked me what I thought of the Rolling Stones. I informed him I had never heard of them, and he said if I had $3, he’d sell me their “12x5” record album. The next day I gave him $3 in quarters that I had been saving for a Hardy Boys book and he handed me a paper sleeve containing the vinyl album without its album cover.

After listening to the album, I liked the song “Time is on my Side” the most on the album and it made me want to know more about Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Brian Jones of the Stones.

From listening at night to my AM transistor radio, I knew who The Beatles were. I saw their record albums for sale at Woolworth’s but never had enough money to purchase one. That all changed once I began my paper route on my 13th birthday in 1966 and I had limited cash of my own, usually in the range of $8 to $12 a week, to spend or save.

After hearing many of the songs by The Beatles on their “Rubber Soul” album and knowing the words to the songs by heart, I chose to make “Rubber Soul” the first album by Beatles’ members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr that I would add to my growing music collection that also included “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds, and “Let’s All Sing With The Chipmunks” by Alvin and The Chipmunks.

The “Rubber Soul” album happens to be among my all-time favorites and features such classic songs as “Norwegian Wood,” and “In My Life” and “Michelle.” My personal favorites on that album are “Girl” and “I’m Looking Through You.”

My fascination with The Beatles began in February 1964 when my father wouldn’t let me watch their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on television because he disapproved of their long hairstyles. To make it up to me, he offered a few weeks later to let me watch a rival band to The Beatles called The Dave Clark Five when they appeared on Ed Sullivan’s program.

By the time I was a sophomore in high school in September 1968, my record collection was thriving and filled with quite a few Rolling Stones and Beatles albums. When The Beatles decided to go their separate ways following the “Let it Be” album in 1970, I clung to the hope that someday the group would reunite for more music. At a college fraternity party in December 1972, I remember the crowd dancing to every song from the “Hot Rocks 1964-1971” album by the Rolling Stones.

I was watching a Monday Night Football game in December 1980 when sportscaster Howard Cosell announced to viewers that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside his apartment building in New York City. I was devastated and thought that the Beatles reunion would now certainly never happen.

Just a year later in December 1981, I attended a Rolling Stones concert in Tempe, Arizona and I thought that it might be one of their last shows ever in America. Was I ever wrong about that notion and about The Beatles.

In 1994, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, gave the surviving members of The Beatles three tapes of songs John had written before his death. Using John’s vocals, two of the songs were recorded by McCartney, Harrison and Starr in 1995 and released as Beatles’ singles “Real Love” and “Free As A Bird.” But the third cassette’s quality was bad, and they abandoned the idea of trying to record it.

The Rolling Stones have kept on recording and touring and now after more than 70 years of playing together and despite the deaths of Brian Jones and Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood joining the band in 1976, they continue to make music, releasing a new album in October called “Hackney Diamonds” which is topping the music charts worldwide. Now in their 80s, Jagger, Richards and Wood will embark on a new tour promoting the album early next year.

As for The Beatles, McCartney never forgot about that remaining cassette tape from Lennon. Back in 1995, Harrison had laid down some guitar tracks for the song, but he died in 2001. Harnessing 2023 technology, John’s voice was finally able to be extracted crystal clear from the tape and McCartney and Starr were able to finish recording “Now and Then,” featuring Lennon’s vocals and Harrison’s unmistakable guitar performance. It was released last week.

Everything old is new again is truly more than just an expression. When it comes to the Rolling Stones and The Beatles, it’s a fact.

Insight: Peering into the crystal ball

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

As previously mentioned, way back in the 1990s I never missed a New Year’s Eve episode of ABC’s Nightline television program because that always featured their annual predictions show.

Nightline’s Ted Koppel would host the same celebrity panel every year of prognosticators that featured Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and former presidential speechwriter William Safire; economist Arthur Laffer, the so-called “architect of the 1980s supply side economics” movement; and former Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford, the dean of American sports commentary. For 60 minutes each New Year’s Eve, Koppel would steer the panel through a discussion of their ideas about the future and then each panelist would make three bold predictions for the new year after a short review of the accuracy of the panel’s previous year’s predictions.

It was riveting television for me because I’ve always appreciated the wit and insight of Koppel as a moderator. He was able to move with ease from topics ranging from politics to religion to business to sports, all while keeping panelist egos in check and the discussion focused on what would be in the news in the year ahead.

When Koppel retired from ABC in 2005, the annual New Year’s Eve prediction show ended. William Safire died of pancreatic cancer in 2009 and Frank Deford passed away at age 78 in 2017.

Despite the Nightline prediction program’s demise some 17 years ago, I find myself missing the panel’s humor, intuitiveness, and boldness in predicting future events. Last year, I started my own New Year’s tradition by making a few annual predictions of my own.

Let’s review three of my predictions published in this column last year for 2022 and then I’ll offer five new ones for 2023:

** I predicted last year that former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady would retire at the end of the 2021 season and instead would run for Massachusetts governor and win in a landslide election. Fact: I was partially right. Brady did retire, but then unretired soon thereafter and returned to professional football. He did not enter politics.

** I predicted last year that the price of gasoline for American motorists would stabilize at about $3 per gallon by the end of 2022. Fact: I was wrong. The current price of gasoline in Maine averages $3.44 for a gallon.

** I predicted that the Major League Baseball lockout would end in mid-March 2022, and I predicted the New York Mets reaching the 2022 World Series but ultimately losing in six games to the Toronto Blue Jays. Fact: I was partially right. The MLB Lockout did end on March 10, but the Mets and the Blue Jays both failed to reach the World Series, although each team did make the postseason playoffs. Houston defeated Philadelphia in six games to win the championship.

Here are my five new predictions for 2023 and when we revisit this end-of-year column in The Windham Eagle a year from now, let’s see how accurate my conjectures prove to be.

** Quarterback Tom Brady will be released following the end of this year’s NFL playoffs by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he will be signed again for one final season by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Brady will provide a spark that will help push the Patriots and Coach Bill Belichick back into the playoffs next year.

** The film “The Pale Blue Eye” starring Christian Bale will win the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2022. Cate Blanchett will win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “Tar” while Austin Butler will receive the Best Actor Award for his tour-de-force role in “Elvis.” The Best Director Oscar will be awarded to Sam Mendes for “Empire of Light” in an upset over Steven Spielberg for “The Fabelmans.”

** In women’s fashion, anything crocheted will be a hot commodity, including oversized tops and midi-length dresses. The hottest fashion trend for 2023 for men will be the return of denim to massive appeal and V-neck collars for sweaters and pullover shirts. Pink will be the trendiest color for women’s apparel while cereal and cartoon-themed Croc footwear will explode in popularity among children.

** America will accelerate scientific efforts to harness fusion, which may turn out to be a plentiful and carbon-free energy source without the associated dangers of nuclear fission power developed after World War II. On Dec. 5, scientists in California were able to use a laser to successfully ignite fusion fuel, but commercial use for nuclear fusion is still a long way away. Yet fusion does hold enormous promise for the future and could eventually power automobiles, eliminate carbon emissions for the environment and send humans into space at a mere fraction of the cost of any current energy resource. It would eliminate America’s fossil fuel energy dependence and significantly bring down the cost of everything for consumers from groceries to airline travel to the expense required to heat homes.

I’m certainly not in the league of Nostradamus or the Nightline panel, but as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Wishing a Happy New Year in 2023 to one and all. <