7/31/2019 Redcoats, Rockabilly & Black Leather Jackets

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Redcoats, Rockabilly and Black Leather Jackets by Mike MairnoForget the Big Bang Theory! The Rock and Roll Universe was created by a down anddirty big back beat of rockabilly with attitude, cascading duck-tails piled high , greased up and dressed head to toe in black leather, and it carried a switchblade and a pack of ribbed rubbers for the back seat communion of underaged bodyand flesh sweating to the beat, naked and spent by the time the song ended. Itwas three plays for a quarter down, and 50 cents and a gallon of gas got you laid.It was Fifties America, and we ruled the rock and roll kingdom. Haleys Comets and a handfull of Crickets were ripping the doors of the Hit Parade off their hinges and the crooners and swooners were collapsing faster than a paraplegic tryingto walk after taking too much morphine. Doris Day's day was as dead as a Kennedy and Sinatra was replaced by Presley, doing Hound Dog his way. It was Jerry LeeLewis, Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, bopping Lula to a be bop beat, Eddie Cochran suffering from too much Summertime Blues and Little Richard was Little Queenie before Little Queenie. Good Golly, it's Miss Molly Penniman.Meanwhile across the pond, there were four Liverpudlians who were feasting on asteady rock and roll diet of Buddy Holly and Elvis, Cochran and Vincent, Holly and Penniman. American rockabilly and British skiffle were now unknowingly headedon a collison course that would trigger a tsunami of Mop Top Mania and an earthquake and rock aftershock that would swallow a whole generation in it's wake.John, Paul, George and Ringo were the Fab Four equivilent of the Lewis and Clarklooking for a route to the top of the American music charts. The land of Billboard, the bible, the gospel according to the record buying teen public. The Rock

God was number one with a bullet and the Virgin Mary was a backup singer in sequins.The Beatles? Don't you mean the Quarrymen, (good working class title for workingclass lads) who formed in 1957. By 1960 they had morphed into the Beatles, or at least the first incarnation of the Beatles as back up group for Tony Sheridanand the Beatles. Who the fuck is Tony Sheridan? Not a Fifth Beatle by any stretch. He ain't no Pete Best or Stu Sutcliffe. Speaking of Stu, he was Lennon's bestfriend at the time, and is the one who proposed the name, "Beetles" as a working band name.It was borrowed from the black leather jacket punk cinema big screen drive-in film "The Wild One" with Marlon (I'ev Got Real Balls!0 Brando. The story was basedloosely on the Hells Angels rampage in Hollister, California in the post-war 1940's. The film also showcased a young real life bad-ass Lee Marvin as leader of

one of the gangs, The Beetles. Although they all liked the name, it was John Lennon who suggested the spelling we are more familiar with...The Beatles. Yeah, yeah, yeah..the Beat.At first they played small clubs in and around Liverpool as well as dingy dive clubs in Munich, most notably the Star Club. Their following began to grow and with Brian Epstein at the helm as manager they got a recording contract and released their first single Love Me Do in the UK, it made it's way to the US and blasted through the roof. Hit after hit followed from She Was Just Seventeen, I Wantto Hold Your Hand to the all familiar, She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...there was no stopping them at this point.The initial Beatles sound was heavy on the pop side of the fence before it got more experimental with the concept album Sgt. Pepper and songs like Norweigian Wood. The early sound according to Lennon was influenced by the Pineapple Princess

and former Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello! The studio elements are what the Beatles liked, the beat, the movement of the song and was adopted by them at first,which paid off in hit after hit.By 1964 a tour was arranged in the US and when they landed at the airport in NewYork to thousands of sceaming fans to greet them, the boys didn't know it was for them. Lennon asked if the Presidents plane had landed. When it finally hit them it was overwhelming. They knocked 'em dead across the country in stadiums andlarge indoor venues. While on this first tour, Epstein contacted America's oldest living teenager at the time anyway, Dick Clark. Dick is dead for those keeping track, but for whateve reason, he delcined.

7/31/2019 Redcoats, Rockabilly & Black Leather Jackets

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Maybe it was the name - American Bandstand...the Beatles were not American afterall..Dick had spent years with young new artists bent over forwards and treatinghim like God Almighty, but here was something bigger than Bandstand and Dick knew it, so the next call was to Ed "Really Big Shoe" Sullivan, the anti-Christ ofBroadway. The anti-Christ recognized the ratings bonanza and even though he wasan asshole in real life, he was also a realist and a showman.Sullivan was their first "live" appearance on American TV, however taped performances where shown prior to Sullivan on CBS News with Walter Cronkite, the MiltonBerle Show and Jack Paar. By the way, in case you didn't know, Dick Clark is dead.The tour got bigger after the Sullivan show, Beatles hits fired off like bulletsfrom a Gatling Gun taking over the charts as never before mowing down the old guard, and the way was paved for the next British Invasion of the former colonies...it was the age of Mods and Rockers, and it was time for Bobby Rydell and evenElvis to move over and make way. The Redcoats were landing once again on our shores in a vinyl record assault that would rule the AM radio dial and forever change rock and roll and the way we listened to it.