Okay, cats & kittens; time for some video action to back up my excessive verbiage in last week’s I Turn 69 Today: Here’s My 64 Years in Rock & Roll blog.
IN THE BEGINNING
(by the way, could that Ed Sullivan/Buddy Holly handshake have GOTTEN any more awkward?)
THE BRITISH INVASION/AMERICAN GARAGE BAND DAYS
THEN THINGS GOT KINDA DRUGGY & MURKY……
so after being bored-to-tears by and barely surviving psychedelia, laid-back singer/songwriters & country-rock, plus the rise of heavy metal & prog-rock came 1973, my personal Rock & Roll Renaissance; Elliott Murphy, The New York Dolls and the resurgence & glory days of Mott The Hoople.
1973
I really, truly thought rock was gonna roll itself over and have a resurrection in 1973, just like 1964, but I was BADLY mistaken. None of my three favorite acts made ANY kind of discernible impact on the public’s tastes and Colin’s boys KISS were really the Big Winners of the 1973 Sweepstakes.
AND THEN CAME PUNK
1976 was really the year It All Came Down. That was the year rock & roll fans/aficionados either made the leap to punk-rock with The Patti Smith Group, The Ramones and The Clash or stayed put with The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and bought into the Great Corporate Rock/Classic Rock Lie that STILL TO THIS DAY causes grown men to get weepy over The Allman Brothers and Lyrnrd Skynrd and to listen INTERMINABLY to Styx, Journey and Foreigner. God help us.
SALUTING THE 21ST CENTURY (R.I.P. ROCK & ROLL, WE HARDLY KNEW YE)
The Number One Song on the Billboard Charts on the day I was born - June 30th, 1952 - was “Here In My Heart” by Al Martino. (It’s conceivable that my mom & dad OWNED that record.) Obviously, rock & roll had not been invented yet. And since I have rock & roll dying out sometime prior to 2010, that means I was born BEFORE rock & roll began, and have simultaneously OUTLIVED rock & roll. Consequently, I saw it all. And it was wonderful. - Ricki C. / July 9th, 2021.