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'60s Choreography

Watch and learn!

Paul and Linda: 29 years of marriage - 10 days apart

You'll be amazed to find out that Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, stayed only 10 days apart in a 29-year marriage!

Why? Paul spent ten days in a Japanese jail cell when he was busted for marijuana possession :)

However, they never spent any other night apart, usually living quietly in a West Sussex farmhouse, in Scotland. Moreover, Linda always accompanied him on his tours.

They first met on the 15th of May 1967, as she was in the UK on an assignment to take photographs of "Swinging Sixties" musicians in London :)

Beatles' album - Second in Top Most Shocking Banned Album Covers

Guitar World presents the 20 most shocking banned album covers of all time. An Alice Cooper album cover is placed first, followed by The Beatles' "Yesterday and Today".

For their 1966 album, Yesterday and Today, the Beatles presented themselves as grinning butchers, complete with raw beef and dismembered baby dolls. However, the image was not appropriate to the Fab Four's clean public image. Upon receiving advance copies, radio DJs were outraged and Capitol Records quickly repackaged the record with what was apparently the only image of the band it had available.

You can see below the album covers:






The complete top is here.

Then and now: Dion

You can find him on Facebook :)

I wonder why...

"I Wonder Why" is a doo-wop song, written by Maxwell Anderson and Ricardo Weeks, and first recorded by Dion and the Belmonts in 1958. The song was used in the film, A Bronx Tale, in the pilot episode of the television series The Sopranos and in John Carpenter's film adaption of Stephen King's "Christine". (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Dion & The Belmonts




The Chiffons

Shout!

"Shout" is a popular and influential popular song, originally recorded by The Isley Brothers. Released in 1959, it was written by the brothers themselves. The song was inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. It ranked #118 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

The Isley Brothers




The Shangri-Las




The Beatles

"Imagine" John Lennon at 70

Yoko Ono declares:

"Now, 99% of the world is taking a stand against wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. John would have done that but he'd have loved the new communication media.

He would have been writing statements and sending them out to the world as a blogger and a tweeter."

Vanity Fair imagined an interview with John Lennon... today. Everything would have been different:
- he would have lived in his dairy farm in Delaware County
- he would have received the reporter "shirtless—nearly naked, in fact, wearing only skimpy white tennis shorts with the top snap undone and a pair of olive-green Wellies"
- he would have been something like this: "slim, with a deep late-summer tan; the longish hair is mostly white and a bit thinned out on top"
- he would have had a young blond assistant taking care of the animals
- he would have been divorced from 1983
- in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks and Harrison being on his deathbed, Lennon and McCartney would have reached a lasting peace :)

More about this interview, here.

He would have been 70

9th of October was his birth day. Not his birthday anymore.






In order to pay John Lennon a tribute, Google decided to celebrate this date :
(using his own self-portrait)



And Youtube did the same:

John Lennon's birth and early childhood

70 years ago, John Lennon was born. Being the son of Julia and Alfred Lennon, he was named after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and Winston Churchill (as his complete name was John Winston Lennon).

According to some biographers, a German air raid was taking place, and Julia's sister, Mary "Mimi" Smith, used the light cast by the explosions to see her way as she ran through the blacked-out back roads to reach the hospital. Mimi said later, "I knew the moment I saw John in that hospital that I was the one to be his mother, not Julia. Does that sound awful? It isn't, really, because Julia accepted it as something perfectly natural. She used to say, 'You're his real mother. All I did was give birth.'"

Lennon's father, a merchant seaman during World War II, was often away from home and sent regular pay cheques. The cheques stopped when Alfred Lennon went absent without leave in 1943. When he eventually came home in 1944, he offered to look after the family, but his wife (who was pregnant with another man's child) rejected the idea. Under considerable pressure, she handed the care of Lennon over to her sister, Mimi.

In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Mimi and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Lennon's mother followed them, and, after a heated argument, his father forced the five-year-old to choose between his parents. Lennon chose his father—twice. As his mother walked away, Lennon began to cry and followed her. Lennon then lost contact with his father for 20 years.

"Nowhere boy" is relevant for revealing this period of Lennon's life. You can read more here.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Please Mr. Postman

Its origins:



And then:

Gently whispering lyrics (2)

"There's a shimmer in your eyes
Like the feeling of a thousand butterflies"
(Abba - Andante, Andante)

What is wrong with the '60s audience?

Although the songs are brilliant and the performance great, the public seems clumsy, awkward and even scared!

Take a look, they definitely have a problem...

Kokomo Island - named after the Beach Boys' hit

Although few people know, the place referred to as "Kokomo" in the song is fictional!

After the success of the song, two sea resorts took over the name :) One is Grassy Key, Florida and the other - Sandals Cay, Jamaica, as the song also mentions many places around the Caribbean, including Jamaica, Aruba, Bermuda, Bahamas, Martinique or Port-au-Prince (Haiti).

And now, at the end of the summer, listen :)

Gently whispering lyrics

"The leaves on the trees would be softly sighin',
If they heard from the breeze that you left me cryin',
They'd be sad, don't be bad to me."
(Lennon/McCartney)

Blue Moooon

Although I thought it was a '60s hit, "Blue Moon" is much more older, being written in 1933! More info about its origin, here.

Here are some of its numerous versions:

1935 - Connie Boswell



1950 - Billie Holiday



1954 - Elvis Presley



1961 - The Marcels - doo-wop version :)



1964 - Dean Martin



1967 - Diana Ross & The Supremes



1994 - Chris Isaac



2004 - Rod Steward

Unexpected Best Beatles Song

To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' 12th and final studio album, "Let It Be"(1970), Rolling Stone magazine released a special collector's edition issue entitled "The Beatles: 100 Greatest Songs".

And... "A Day in the Life", written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, was ranked first.

On of my favourites, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", was placed second. Here it is, with some explanation :)

Here is the top, enjoy! :)

1. "A Day in the Life"

2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

3. "Strawberry Fields Forever"

4. "Yesterday"

5. "In My Life" - this I particularly like

6. "Something"

7. "Hey Jude"

8. "Let It Be"

9. "Come Together"

10. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Brilliant Paul Anka Mix

1966 great video:

Girl dancers in oldies videos

Or... ladies dancing in a funny way!

Neil Sedaka - "Calendar Girl" - '60s hot ladies




Del Shannon - "Little town flirt" ... but the girls seem to be outside the town :)

Beatles fans Twist and Shout

Lennon used to say he never "sang" when he performed this song... all he
had to do was to shout :))

Here's a piece of Beatlemania*



*Beatlemania = a term originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward The Beatles during the early years of their success; Andi Lothian, a former Scottish music promoter, claims that he first used the term while speaking to a reporter at the Caird Hall Beatles concert that took place as part of the Beatles Mini-Tour of Scotland, on 7 October 1963.

Source: Wikipedia.org