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Comments

• [1] Roger Greenawalt from Brooklyn January 16, 2009 - 02:12PM

  Can you discuss the end of the Draft, called National Service (19550 in England, and how that impacted youth culture while Elvis had to join the US Army in 1958?

  Also does the author know that the song he got his book title from, Please Please Me, is about Heavy Petting?

  Risque.

  
  
• [2] Leonard Camen from Brooklyn, NY January 16, 2009 - 02:35PM

  Compare the movement in British Film with the British Invasion. A lot of it has of it has to do with the beginning of a new questioning and anger with the class system.

  Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966)

  The Angry Silence (Guy Green, 1960)

  Bedazzled (Stanley Donen, 1967)

  Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963)

  Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965)

  Enginemen (Michael Grigsby, 1959)

  The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960)

  Every Day Except Christmas (Lindsay Anderson, 1957)

  The Family Way (Roy Boulting, 1966)

  Food for a Blush (Elizabeth Russell, 1959)

  Gala Day (John Irvin, 1963)

  Georgy Girl (Silvio Narizzano, 1966)

  Girl With Green Eyes (Desmond Davis, 1964)

  A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, 1964)

  If... (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)

  The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)

  A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, 1962)

  Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)

  The Knack ...and How to Get It (Richard Lester, 1965)

  The L-Shaped Room (Bryan Forbes, 1963)

  Look Back In Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959)

  The Leather Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1963)

  The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)

  March to Aldermaston (Anonymous, 1959)

  Momma Don't Allow (Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, 1956)

  Morgan - A Suitable Case For Treatment (Karel Reisz, 1966)

  Nice Time (Claude Goretta, Alain Tanner, 1957)

  etc.

  Also, the introduction of "psychedelic drugs",

  and, hard to believe today, the great admiration by the British for America.

  Not least, the exploration of American blues and R&B.

  Technology alone cannot explain the British Invasion. The Brits were giving Americans back their own patriomony lost, to a great extent, because of racism.

  IMHO, of course.

  Great Show.. as usual.

  
  
• [3] JEFFREY HILDT from Manhattan January 16, 2009 - 02:38PM

  Your guest is wrong about one thing. I was in LA in the summer of '66 working in the music business and, as it happens, working at Goldstar Studio, which Mr. Thompson said was an 8-track studio. Actually they were late upgrading from 4-track equipment, and that is all they had at that time. (The Buffalo Springfield was recording their first album at Goldstar when I was there in summer of '66. My band plugged into their amps at night to do our demo work. Also, Sonny and Cher's The Beat Goes On was done at Goldstar at that time. I was at that session too.) Other LA Studios were offering 8 and 16 track, especially by the summer of '67 when I was there next (I was in college back east at the time). But Goldstar was strictly a 4-track studio throughout that time. They were, however, a great studio and deserved their legendary reputation.

  
  
• [4] Gordon Thompson from Saratoga Springs, New York January 16, 2009 - 04:38PM

  Jeffrey, thanks for the correction. Goldstar was the example that popped into my head at that moment as an LA studio. I thought they had eight tracks too.

  All the best,

  Gordon

  
  
• [5] JEFFREY HILDT from Manhattan January 17, 2009 - 03:41AM

  My pleasure. I must read your book as hearing about those times brought back a lot of memories. Goldstar, on Santa Monica Blvd, was actually quite small. Studio A was the main sound room, where a few years before Phil Spector had made his "wall of sound" recordings and in 66-67 I happened to be around for the Buffalo Springfield, and Sonny & Cher, as I said, and also when Hugh Masekela made his first US recording there (with the studio completely dark) and when Bobby Darin recorded Tim Harden's "If I Were A Carpentar," which was a hit. Also, of all people, Wayne Newton recorded a song of mine in Studio A which had middling success. The owners were Stan Ross and Dave Gold from which they made the name Goldstar. An engineer there was named Doc Segal, a great guy who did great work and he was very nice to me, just a young guy trying to break into the business at the time. Stan was a sound engineer too, the senior guy, of course. The bouncing of tracks you referred to was called "ping ponging" and they often didn't use a 2nd recorder but would mix down two tracks (of 4) onto one when they put the vocals down. No going back and separating them after that but it opened up another track. But, as I said, I remember some other places were opening up with 8 or 16 track facilities around that time. I don't know what they eventually did at Goldstar since I was only around Hollywood for those couple of years. ( But, oh what years!) Good luck with the book.

  PS — I also remember seeing Phil Spector frequently at Canter's, the Jewish Deli and coffee shop where he ate almost every day. Not a friendly guy, as I recall.

  
  
• [6] Gordon Thompson from Saratoga Springs, New York January 17, 2009 - 09:01AM

  Jeff, a refinement to the above exchange. On our program, John used "Good Vibrations" as his example. A little research shows that Brian Wilson did indeed record the basic tracks on Gold Star's four-track machine; but he then took it over to Columbia's Ampex eight track for the overdubs.

  But you're not going to find any of that in my book which focuses on London and, even there, I'm more concerned with the people than with the technology. The technology and social history material is the focus of the book's introduction; the rest (i.e., the book) deals with how the music and recording industries changed between 1956 and 1968.

  Thanks again for the comments.

  Gordon

  
  
• [7] chowderhead from Massachusetts January 19, 2009 - 07:09AM

  The playing is brilliant on the Rolling Stones' "Little by Little", but the song is hardly revolutionary. It's basically a reworking of Jimmy Reed's "Shame, Shame, Shame", with a new lyric. The Stones were a first rate blues cover band, sticking pretty close to the roots, before branching out to create a sound of their own. Those early albums are a great place to hear and appreciate the musical ground they grew out of.

  
  
• [8] Gordon Thompson from Skidmore College January 19, 2009 - 11:42AM

  Chowderhead, I agree with you. At this point, the Stones really are a cover band..., a very, very good cover band. Richards in particularly says around this time that he never thought of himself as a songwriter, that songwriting was something that other people did.

  I like "Little by Little" as an example of where they were in early 1964, indeed almost exactly 45 years ago. It also shows what good students they were. I imagine that it was Phil Spector who suggested reworking other material to create new songs. That's something they would take to heart, lifting an entire section from the Staple Singers. But that's the subject of one of my sub-chapters.

  Thanks for the comments.

  Gordon