Them Infamous 1960's

We babyboomers grew up in a world of newfound electronica. We had a glowing glob of circuits and california fairy tales in the living room. We had a tube-newyork buzz, a memphis beat and a british invasion. 

We had dad bringing home the bacon; we had mom cooking in the kitchen. We had grampa squelching memories of Omaha beach and Guadalcanal; we had gramma reading fairy tales at bedtime.

We had it made! 

A few years rolled by, We had a president slain; he had a brother who suffered the same. Fate. We had Vietnam; we had thousands dead; we had millions of miles traveled on brand-spankin’ new interstate highways. We got a spankin’ every now and then.  We had joy, we had fun, seasons in the sun; we had rainy days and wednesdays. We had Saturday morning cartoons. We had Johnny come marchin’ home again; we had Johnny’s memorial on a Washington wall; we had Johnny crackin’ jokes on NBC late night.  We had a dream of what all God’s children, black and white, could do if we could join together. 

Last night we had a trip down memory lane. There we were all in one place, a generation caught up in memory lane, comfortably numb in the space of a theater,. yet alert to the magic of media bringing it all back. . . being entertained in the windmills of our collective mind. ’T’was a great show assembled by some traveling band of musicians; they had summoned up a stream of old audio, hitched up with video snippets carefully selected for our boomer ears. Together a far out staged trip down memory lane, brought to us by  https://toscomusic.org

A groovy time was had by all! The song selections might have been a bit hollywoodish, as compared to what this ole boomer would have chosen, if you know what I mean… they had more Monkee shines than Beatle hits. We did, however, catch  glimpses of Joan Baez and Peter Paul and Mary, but no song selections heard from that folky strain.

We heard a broad assortment of hit songs, Light my fire. . . Raindrops fallin' on my head, Imagine you and me together . . . For every time, there is a a season. . . a time to every purpose. . .

I kept wanting to hear a snippet of my earliest  Beatles’ memory . . “well she was just seventeen; you know what i mean . . .”  but no. So I was thinking that the barefooted Beatle—the one who survived after being “dead” for a while, haha— having perhaps turned somewhat walrus-ish in his old age, might have imposed some very cost-prohibitive copyright limitations on this “ ’60’s” band of meandering memory-makers. But I don’t know. Toward the end, however, a very touching tribute to George Harrison lit up the stage with a presentation of his greatest song: Here Comes the Sun.

In a black-and-white video snippet, a young Bob Dylan’s gentle, but insistent, argument with some reporter was indeed a sign of those times.  That video snippet was followed, appropriately, by one of the “60’s Show” guitarist’s solo-sung tribute to the times and to Dylan’s: The Times They Are a-Changin.

While we Babyboomers had an awesome trip down memory lane at the Knight Theater in Charlotte last night, we do cherish the era and the people who made it all possible. 

I especially enjoyed it because my novel, King of Soul, covers that period of time.