Contemplating next weeks semicentennial of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan (2/9/64), it seems all the more remarkable that any band stateside managed to discover a map to the future again that was anything but simple imitation. For about 18 months no one did. Finally in summer ’65, an electro-folk fusion of American roots and British Invasion (suede jackets, the Byrds) was making its way from California to Great Britain, where Lennon and McCartney raised the bar ridiculously higher still. This is how We Five cofounder Jerry Burgan experienced it: By the time Bob Jones brought home Rubber Soul, recorded in October and November and released December 3, I was smoking whatever was offered. I accepted Bob’s extra headphones and a pipe and I settled in and watched the needle drop and bob atop the vinyl. With the first three whole-spun notes of the acoustic twelve-string in “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” which opened the American release, you knew what you were hearing: the Beatles had been taken by folk-rock. Maybe a little more Russian folk than American—but folk-rock. “Norwegian Wood” was an even bigger revelation. I’d been used to hearing sitar, anytime Roger McGuinn was around, but only in the context of a raga. Suddenly I was flung into a different realm. My choices were to struggle against the newness or hang on for the ride. The first side ended and we both sat silent for what felt like minutes. Finally Bob removed his phones. “Every one of those songs is a hit record!” We let the words streak like tracer fire, and then fall into a glassy lake, and it was a long few seconds before I managed to respond. “That’s not really rock. They used acoustic instruments.” I even thought, presumptuously, that the Beatles might have heard our album. I didn’t know about their roots as a skiffle group. They could parody almost any genre well enough to play it. As the ridiculous range of what we’d heard began to settle in, Bob said, “There’s another side.” And I began to listen to records in a whole new way.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 02:40:00 +0000
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