So here resides my obituary of rock and roll.
Most likely I was conceived after my yet to be parents had been to a East St. Louis R&B concert. They were both big fans. Ironically it wasn’t until in my late teens that I found the love of R&B and Soul being an anglophile musically upon initiation of R&R.
As a child I harbored pretensions of liking only Classical music. I certainly didn’t get the adulation that older kids and teenagers felt about the Beatles and I found Elvis to be an unspeakable bore in the countless movies that we saw at the Drive-In.
Of course I had to have the single Snoopy Vs the Red Barron. I believe that everyone who was born in 1957 or around had that as their first R&R 45. Am I wrong?
There were two major changing points in my views.
I lived right around the corner from a neighborhood picture show. The Shenandoah Theater. From about 8 to 12 I would see every movie playing there every weekend. This was the days of the double features. On a good weekend there would be a Godzilla movie but sometimes there would be movies with collections of music from rock to country.
One of these Go Go Mania hosted by the disgraced music host Jimmy Savile played and while I found most of the acts to be uninteresting to me, including a bookend of live Beatle footage there was one band that stood out. The Animals doing House of the Rising Sun was the number.
I don’t recall I ever saw anyone sneer while singing but it spoke to me in ways that would manifest my music taste and interests for a lifetime.
The second was watching a prime time Dick Clark and he played two prototype music videos by the Beatles. Penny Lane and more importantly Strawberry Fields Forever.
I was now officially recruited into the Rock and Roll Days. These were days of debauchery and fun, laughs and heartbreak, petty jealousies and intrigue.
Looking back at them I feel so sorry for today’s youth who are growing up in world where rock is dead.