At 2:21 PM +0100 4/1/06, Peter Taylor wrote:
For me, there are two big differences between the music of the 60's and now. Today we have an enormous range of electronic sounds and effects that weren't dreamed of then, and the style of composition and record production has inevitably broadened to use them. I don't remember any bands back then who couldn't reproduce their recorded sounds live.
Don't forget that the '60s lasted for 10 years, and that it was a time of enormous ferment and change in popular music, beginning with the new Wurlitzer electric piano (late '50s, and we hauled one all over the Far East when we were in the USAF Band), Elvis, Harry Belafonte and the Kingston Trio at the top of the charts, and West Side Story the big Tony winner, and ending with Chick Corea on the Rhodes, the Stones, and "Hair"! It's also the decade when my group, The Four Saints, was being "The Most Successful Unknown Act in Show Business"! We had an enormously entertaining show, but we didn't do just one thing so the record companies couldn't pigeon-hole us and we never got that one big break leading to national name recognition.
But for the beginning of the '60s, Peter's observation is right on target. Our manager would not allow us to record anything we couldn't reproduce in person, so essentially we (and everybody else) were producing souvenir albums. The live show was what counted. The recordings were a sideline, and thanks to creative accounting very few people made money off them. As our agent said, nobody got rich off album sales, but every time one of his acts got a song on the charts their personal appearance fee went up $500 a night (in 1968 dollars!). I freely admit that when I went to hear Sinatra in Vegas, I expected to hear the Nelson Riddle charts, and I was not disappointed.
I believe the watershed was the "Sgt. Pepper" album in 1967, which used studio effects that AT THAT TIME could not possibly be duplicated live, but at that point the Beatles were no longer performing live and their albums WERE their art. That album used effects being developed in the university electronic music studios where the manipulation of the tape itself with a razor blade was cutting edge (oooh, pun not intended, but why not!?).
As to the electronic sounds and effects, they were on the way but not yet mass marketed. For our sessions for Decca at the end of the '60s they hired a New York guitar player who had electronic (well, probably electrical rather than electronic!) effects breadboarded and operated by former wah-wah pedals, to get sounds nobody else was using. Bob Moog was doing his pioneering work at about the same time, but about the most advanced electronics available for live performance was the Farfissa organ for those who didn't want to hump a B3 around the country!
The other difference is the rise in the number of "manufactured" groups and artists whose sex appeal is likely to make more money in the eyes of the producers than their musical talent. I can only think of the Monkees back then who were manufactured.
Well, one fondly remembers the Sauter-Finnegan orchestra that never existed outside the recording studio, and of course many of the big band leaders like Billy May also used the top studio players for their albums but didn't tour with people like Conrad Gozzo (sp?), Manny Klein, or George Roberts. So the Monkeys were certainly not the first "manufactured" ensemble that didn't plan on touring. Their success was a huge surprise to everybody, and the promoters had to scuffle to put together a live group.
Gone are the days when a few ordinary-looking local lads in Liverpool could form their own little group, write their own music, practice at each other's houses, play at local dance halls and get discovered by talent scouts.
You know what? I don't think that's true at all. The Beatles were new and unique. Peter, Paul and Mary were new and unique, and at least partly manufactured in the recording studio. There's still plenty of opportunity for the truly unique to be "discovered." You just can't do it any more by imitating either the Beatles or PP&M. That's been done. And if I could predict the next unique thing I'd be rich, and I'm not! But it'll happen because there's an enormous market for the new and truly unique, aside from the manufactured ones that are the best the promoters can come up with these days on their own.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
