RobKirkpatrick.com

Here’s the latest on Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles recorded their classic albums, including their 1969 swan song, Abbey Road. Rumors that the studios had been put up for sale by EMI were apparently untrue, though the owners are looking for ”new capital” toward a renovation project.  

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601014&sid=a803UNSYTsBs

Albums recorded at Abbey Road include Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the film score for The Empire Strikes Back.

Valleys of Neptune, an album of a dozen previously unreleased studio tracks from Jimi Hendrix, is set for release in March from Sony/Legacy. Here’s Edna Gundersen’s piece for USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2010-01-11-jimialbum11_ST_N.htm?csp=34

I spoke to Gundersen in October 2008 for an article she did on Mark Oliver Everett’s memoir, Things the Grandchildren Should Know, which I published at my day job:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-10-20-mark-everett_N.htm

(…with apologies to Public Enemy.)

I intended this to be a letter appearing in the Washington Post, but it doesn’t appear that they’ll be printing it, so I’m posting it here…

1969 vs. 1968?

In response to Carlos Lozada’s comments on my book in his article “2009 is over. But is it history?”, I want to clarify that I did not say I “might have called the book ‘1969: The Year After the Important Year.’” As I explain in my introduction, this was a joke made by a colleague, which I recalled to note the glut of books on 1968 and the gap that I sought to fill with mine.

Mr. Lozada argued that I “must outdo 1968” and incidents such as the Democratic Convention and the election of Richard Nixon. I take it, then, he does not see the significance of a year that witnessed People’s Park, the Stonewall Riots, the Manson Family killings, the War Moratorium, the Days of Rage, the occupation of Alcatraz, the public’s discovery of the My Lai massacre, and the killing of Fred Hampton? Or the importance of Nixon’s inaugural year, in which he escalated the war in Southeast Asia with covert bombings in Cambodia and drew lines in the sand with his famous “Silent Majority” address to the nation?

“When you need the Miracle Mets and the first modern ATM to boost your case, you know you’re in trouble,” writes Mr. Lozada. If he disagrees that the Miracle Mets (which he can reference 40 years later without needing to explain who they were) transcended the sports world, would he also question the importance of another event from baseball that year: Curt Flood’s announcement that he was challenging baseball’s reserve clause, thus signaling the onset of free agency?

If Mr. Lozada isn’t impressed with how the invention of the ATM changed the ways in which he conducts his financial transactions today, does he not believe that the maiden Boeing 747 flight, the first artificial heart implant, and the first computer network connection introduced major changes into modern life?  (Without that last item, I would not have found myself 40 years later reading Mr. Lozada’s article at home on my laptop.)  And, of course, there was a small technological achievement called Apollo 11.

While Mr. Lozada maintains I was applying the “Groundwork Argument” to substitute for a supposed lack of “historical moments,” I would suggest that recent History channel documentaries such as Woodstock: Now & Then and Sex in ’69: The Sexual Revolution in America (for which I was interviewed), as well as NPR’s humor piece on 40th anniversary “burnout,” seem to indicate others agree with my opinion that 1969 was indeed an important year with a unique legacy in America society.

Rob Kirkpatrick
Author of 1969: The Year Everything Changed

Here’s the article to which I’m responding:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102590.html

For a real treat, check out Mixed Bag with Pete Fornatale, which airs Saturdays 4:00 to 8:00 PM on WFUV 90.7 FM in the New York City area or online at www.wfuv.org. Every week, Fornatale – a veteran DJ who first began spinning tunes back in 1964 on WFUV, moved on to WNEW in 1970, and returned to his “native” station in 2001 - reaches into his Mixed Bag and offers eclectic playlists built around a theme. This weekend, he did a bit of role-playing, pretending he was on the mic 40 years ago and celebrated what he described as the best weekend for live music in the history of New York City. A contentious statement, to be sure – somewhat like someone saying 1969 was “The Year Everything Changed” – but his playlist primarily featuring artists who played the city that week make for a strong case. My favorite: hearing Simon and Garfunkel playing their new song, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” at Carnegie Hall:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wfuv/guide.guidemain?action=viewPlaylist&playlistID=550975&eventID=2382

While future Meat Loaf songwriter Jim Steinman was staging his student rock musical in Massachusetts (see below), the future members of Steely Dan were getting busted in a police raid at Bard College that spring in 1969.  The incident would be recounted in the song ”My Old School” four years later on the album Countdown to Ecstasy.  Here’s a 2006 interview with Donald Fagen about the incident, along with memories of a young Chevy Chase backing Fagen and Walter Becker on drums, and of a professor’s young wife who might have been the inspiration for “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1174152,00.html

 1. Hair – The Original Broadway Cast Recording

2. The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album) - The Beatles

3. Abbey Road – The Beatles

4. Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood Sweat & Tears

5. Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell

6. Green River – Creedence Clearwater Revival

7. Johnny Cash at San Quentin – Johnny Cash

8. Blind Faith – Blind Faith

9. Led Zeppelin II – Led Zeppelin

10. TCB – Diana Ross and the Supremes and The Temptations

Wow, I just found this great page on a musical called The Dream Engine, which Jim Steinman (later of Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, and Celine Dion fame) wrote and starred in at Amherst College and then Mount Holyoke in the spring of 1969. The story centers around a Manson-like character named Baal, the revolutionary poet and leader of a tribe of wild boys on the California coast.  

http://www.jimsteinman.com/comeinthenight.html

American Revolution, 1969. The beast lives forever. The creatures are behind you! The universe is in a state of triumph. I am meat. I am muscled space. I am electrified nerve ends! I am colored light! I am chemical blood! I am the meat of the universe! I am the muscles of space! I am the colored light of a god! I am the nerve end of a star. I am the chemical blood of the future.

Dig it.

Here’s the Amherst Student review from April 28, 1969:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/defckcum.htm 

A piece from Steinman himself for the paper on “Nudity in Theater – A Metaphor for Revolution”:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/deltr.htm

And great description of Joe Papp’s aborted New York production, from cast member Bob Sather:

http://www.jimsteinman.com/dreamengine/dereaction.htm

Last week I posted a link to a theologian’s blog, in which he listed 1969: The Year Everything Changed among his best books of the year.  Today, I just came across this posting on An Atheist’s Answer, where the book is listed as one of five nonfiction books to buy instead of the Bible:

http://atheistsanswer.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/good-books/ 

Wow.  No pressure there.

It had me wondering: If I made like John Lennon and declared myself “bigger than Jesus,” would the ensuing book burnings help drive sales?  Whatever helps move stock…

As we close out the decade and radio stations are doing their countdowns of the top recordings of 2009, here’s Billboard magazine’s Top 20 for 1969:

1. “Sugar, Sugar” – The Archies

2. “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” – 5th Dimension (Other sources have said this was the top-selling single of the year, but radio play probably helped give The Archies the top spot in Billboard.)

3. “Honky Tonk Women” – The Rolling Stones

4. “Come Together/Something” (double-sided hit) – The Beatles

5. “Everyday People” – Sly & the Family Stone

6. “Crimson and Clover” – Tommy James & the Shondells

7. “I Can’t Get Next to You” – The Temptations

8. “Get Back” – The Beatles w/ Billy Preston

9. “Someday We’ll Be Together” – Diana Ross & the Supremes

10. “Dizzy” – Tommy Roe

11. “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)” – Steam

12. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” – Peter, Paul and Mary

13. “In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)” – Zager and Evans

14. “Wedding Bell Blues” – 5th Dimension

15. “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” – Henry Mancini

16. “Hair” – The Cowsills

17. “Wichita Lineman” – Glen Campbell

18. “Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond”

19. “Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley

20. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – Tommy James & the Shondells

For the complete Top 100, visit this link:

http://www.chairborneranger.com/top100/top100-1969.htm

Lots of classics on this list: “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Time of the Season,” “And When I Die.”  Big year for Creedence, and for acts covering songs from the hippie rock musical Hair.

If you have a Kindle, you can put 1969: The Year Everything Changed on it.

Order the Kindle Edition at:

http://www.amazon.com/1969-Year-Everything-Changed-ebook/dp/B0031Y7O5G/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2