Food sixties style

“Sassy Franks” 

                                        Astronaut Neil Armstrong making pizza in 1969

A&W Rootbeer stand

Fred Gwynne on lunch break during the filming of the first season of THE MUNSTERS. He is drinking a Schlitz beer.

Jim Delligatti with his invention The BIg Mac (1967)

Filming the Magical Mystery Tour

James Bond,Carly Simon and her sister and three-way romp

James Bond is so vain, he boldly tried to talk a young Carly Simon and her sister into a three-way romp, the singer claims about the original movie 007 Sean Connery.

In her new memoir, “Boys in the Trees,” Simon claims that in 1965, when she was 20, she and her 22-year-old sister, Lucy, met Connery aboard the SS United States traveling from England to New York.

The sisters became friends with the then-35-year-old actor, and after having drinks with him one night, met him in his cabin.

There, he proposed having the ménage-à-trois — or as one of Carly’s friends called it, a “Simon sisters sandwich,” the book says.

They turned him down.

Lucy, however, spent the following night with Connery, who was married to actress Diane Cilento at the time, and didn’t come back until 5:15 a.m. the next day, Carly Simon writes.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da': Beatles Plagiarism Controversy

Matthew Trzcinski 

 “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by the Beatles has divided fans and critics alike since it was first released in 1968. Some listeners feel that the song is a fun foray into Jamaican music. Others feel that it’s one of the kitschiest songs that the Beatles ever wrote. The controversy surrounding the song extended beyond that; Paul McCartney was accused of plagiarizing the song’s lyrics.

According to AllMusic, Jimmy Scott was a Nigerian congo player who worked with both Stevie Wonder and the Rolling Stones at the height of their fame. In the 1960s, Scott became acquainted with Paul McCartney. During this time, Scott had a band called the Ob-la-di Ob-la-da Band. The band’s name came from the Yoruba phrase “ob-la-di ob-la-da,” which translates to “life goes on.”

Scott’s use of the phrase inspired Paul McCartney to write “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Although the Beatles were an essential part of the 1960’s counterculture, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” celebrates traditional domestic bliss.

The track is a ska song about a singer named Molly who falls in love with a man named Desmond Jones that she meets in the marketplace; the two get married and have children as Molly continues her musical career. Spin claims that Desmond Jones’ name is a reference to Desmond Dekker, a ska and reggae musician whose work influenced the song.

After the song was recorded, Scott came to believe that he deserved a co-writers’ credit for introducing Paul to the phrase “ob-la-di ob-la-da.” Paul disagreed; he felt that since Scott did not coin the phrase, Scott did not deserve a writing credit on the song.

A short while after, Scott was thrown in jail for failing to pay alimony. McCartney agreed to pay for Scott’s legal bills under the condition that he would no longer pursue a co-writers’ credit on “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Scott would go on to join a punk rock band called Bad Manners. He died in 1986.

‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’: John Lennon and Others Hated the Song

Perhaps, in retrospect, Scott wouldn’t have wanted a co-writers’ credit. In 2004, the BBC reported that a Mars poll of 1000 people selected “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as the worst song ever written. The poll’s list of the worst songs ever included Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and 5ive’s cover of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

The poll’s findings mirror John Lennon’s feelings about the song. Spin reported that John Lennon disliked the song when he first heard it. Midway through its recording, John left the studio in frustration. He then smoked cannabis and returned to the studio. When he returned, he decided he liked the song. Ultimate Classic Rock said that John later dismissed the song as “granny s ***.”

George Harrison disliked the song as well. He criticized it in another song from The White Album, “Savoy Truffle,” which features the lyrics “You know that what you eat you are/But what is sweet now, turns so sour/We all know Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da/But can you show me, where you are?”

Something Come Together

 

“Something” by George Harrison was released, with Lennon’s “Come Together,” as a double A-side in the US on 6 October 1969 (it was released in the UK at the end of the month). It was the first Harrison song released as an A-side by the Beatles (John Lennon thought it was the best song on Abbey Road and lobbied for the song to be released as a single) and was the band’s 18th #1 single, breaking the record held by Elvis Presley. It was also the first single by the Beatles to include songs that were already available (Abbey Road had been released a week earlier).

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. 

             

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. 

We're more popular than Jesus

John was scared. We were all pretty scared. – Paul McCartney

One night during that tour on a show in the South somewhere somebody let off a firecracker while we were on stage. There had been threats to shoot us, the Klan were burning Beatle records outside and a lot of the crew-cut kids were joining in with them. Somebody let off a firecracker and every one of us – I think it’s on film – look at each other, because each thought it was the other that had been shot. It was that bad.– John Lennon

Mary Wilson of the Supremes: ‘Motown was like walking into Disneyland’

Barbara Ellen

The Supremes’ founding member talks about the girl group’s influential fashion and the lack of hate in the Motown family

Mary Wilson, 75, was a founding member of the Supremes, with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard. At their 1960s peak, with Detroit-based Motown records, the Supremes rivalled the Beatles. Wilson’s 1986 autobiography, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, was a bestseller. She had three children (one of whom, Rafael, 16, died when the Jeep Cherokee his mother was driving overturned on a highway in 1994). Meeting to discuss her new book Supreme Glamour, a sartorial history of the Supremes, Wilson is friendly, warm and delighted to be back in Britain, where she first toured in the 1960s, later living here for a while: “I fell in love with it here – I thought I was going to marry an Englishman!” Featuring creations from designers from Michael Travis to

You call the Supremes “the original pop fashionistas”.

We were! You can look at Beyoncé, and I’m sure it wasn’t she who copied us, but her mother would have grown up with the Supremes. We loved to dress up. Other girls, like the Shirelles, wore gowns, but our clothes were like couture.

The Supremes’ style was also a political statement – about black affluence and sophistication, all the huge social and cultural changes of the period.

Yes, my brother would say: “Mary, why don’t y’all wear some afros?” I’m like, no, we’re making a statement in our own way. That was the time of “black is beautiful” and “black pride”, which was cool. We did it later.

You were just teenagers when you joined Motown...

It really was like walking into a Disneyland. All these creative people. People say: “Motown, it was this big building”, but I always say no, Motown was always a collaboration between the people, with Berry (Gordy) at the head of course.

You’ve had disputes with Motown over the years, but you’re like a family?

Yes, a family. I think we all think of ourselves as distant cousins. There are some things, but there’s no hate – I still would want to be at Motown. And you know, there’s always going to be something – even if you’re married to the man you love, maybe he leaves up the toilet seat?

For a time, the Supremes outsold the Beatles. Didn’t they meet you and call you “square”?

We were – there were rock’n’roll girls and we were good girls! I don’t think there was rivalry between us and the Beatles. Paul [McCartney] called me when Diane [Diana Ross] left, saying: “Why did she leave – what’s going on?” Entertainers are really quite friendly with each other. Unless some person irks you and you think, “That person irks me!”

Wasn’t Princess Margaret rather rude to you at a Royal Variety Performance?

Yes. She said: “Is that a wig you’re wearing?” And it was loud! I thought [with] royalty, you’d meet them and it would be: “It’s lovely to meet you”, but it was: “Oh, is that a wig you’re wearing?” Whoa! She sounded like one of my neighbours in the projects.

You write about the Supremes touring the deep south, dealing with segregated hotels and bathrooms.

There were signs that said “No coloured”. If you drank out of a water fountain that said it was for white people, they could hang you. People can’t even imagine what most black people endured.

Now there are movements such as Black Lives Matter...People are still fighting for their right to be a human being. When Obama won, it was amazing. Most of our parents had died. Had they still been alive, they would not have believed that could happen. Someone asked me: How do you feel?” I said: “I can see my mom, my aunt, my uncles, all saying, ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’”

There’ve been rifts with Diana Ross. Are you back on friendly terms – you call her “Diane” in the book?

She grew up as Diane, and Florence grew up as Flo. We’re friends but we don’t call each other constantly. We’ve grown apart, but it’s not because we don’t like each other. My love for Flo and Diane is pretty much almost the same as for my sisters – we had so much together, we grew up together.

It comes across strongly in the book that you’re still grieving for Florence. (After leaving the Supremes, Ballard, who’d been sexually assaulted as a child, struggled with depression and alcoholism and died of a heart attack, aged 32.)

Oh God yeah – because she got the short end of life. She didn’t have a chance. Can you imagine if somebody raped you at the age of 14? You’d be angry, you’d be hurt, you’d be… broken. Back then, your parents protected you by not telling anyone, but that was not protecting. What hurts me is that some people say: “One of the Supremes was an alcoholic.” Flo drank to cover the pain. She only become an alcoholic because of that.

You still feel protective?

I feel the same way about Diane. I can tell you things about Diane I wish she wasn’t. I can tell you things about me, I wish I wasn’t. It doesn’t mean it’s all bad. I was very lucky all my life until I lost Flo. And then my son [Rafael]. I think you’re lucky if you don’t get that kind of loss in your life. You can lose a job, you can lose a love, but the loss of a child, and the loss of a dear friend, can be very detrimental. It helped me grow up and I don’t mean in a good way. It made me see that life can be very cruel to someone you love.

The Supremes achieved incredible fame. You must be recognised everywhere you go.

I tell my daughter: “I’m very normal” and she says “Mom: you’re not normal”. I’ve gone incognito, to the grocery store, no make-up on, and been recognised. I’m like: “How can you tell?” And they’re like: “Oh girl, we can tell”. I told one: “I wish I was Mary Wilson – I wish I had her money!”

You talk in the book about the importance of daring to dream.

We, the Supremes, can’t take all the credit. The writers and producers at Motown gave us the music and sound that people loved. And then there was the glamour. My whole life is like a dream. I tell you – if I were not a Supreme, I would want to be a Supreme. I’m living the dream.

Supreme Glamour by Mary Wilson, with Mark Bego, is published by Thames & Hudson; Hitsville: The Making of Motown is in cinemas on 30 September. For tickets visit Motown.film

Abbey Road ...it was fifty years ago

September 26, 1969 - “Abbey Road”, the eleventh album by The Beatles is released (US release is on October 1, 1969). Produced by George Martin, it is recorded at EMI Abbey Road Studios and Trident Studios in London from February 22 - August 20, 1969. Following the acrimonious recording sessions for “Get Back/Let It Be” earlier in the year, the band decide to put aside their personal differences, to record one more album free of the conflict that marred those sessions. Though it isn’t exactly like their past working relationship, the sessions are productive and largely problem free. The first half of the album consists of individual songs, while the second half comprises mostly of a nearly side long medley running nearly sixteen and a half minutes with most of the songs written by Paul (“You Never Give Me Your Money”, “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, “Golden Slumbers”, and “Carry That Weight”, with “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam” being written by John). The end result of the sessions is one of the strongest albums of the bands career. Though at the time of its releases, it receives mixed reviews from critics who also complain about its then record high list price of $6.98. The albums iconic cover by photographer Iain Macmillan (with graphics designed by John Kosh “aka Kosh), is taken in the zebra crossing in front of the famed recording studio. It spins off the double A-sided single "Come Together/Something” (#1 Pop). “Abbey Road” spends eleven weeks at number one (non-consecutive) on the Billboard Top 200. It is the first of The Beatles albums to pass the ten million mark in sales worldwide in 1980, becoming their largest selling studio album. It is the first Beatles album to be issued on CD, when it is released by EMI/Odeon in Japan in 1983 as part of the “Black Triangle” disc series. However, it remains in the marketplace for only a brief time before it is withdrawn, as it has been released without legal clearance from Apple Corps. “Abbey Road” is officially released on a worldwide basis in 1987, and is remastered and reissued in 2009. The vinyl release of the album, out of print since the mid 90’s is remastered and reissued as a 180 gram LP in 2012.  To commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, the landmark album is newly remixed in stereo and DTS 5.1 surround sound by Giles Martin. Released on September 27, 2019, the deluxe edition is issued as a 3 CD + 1 Blu-ray disc, and as a 3 LP box set. The session outtakes include twenty previously unreleased tracks, documenting the evolution of the album. The set is also available as a 2 CD edition, single vinyl LP and as a limited edition picture disc, including the 2019 remix. “Abbey Road” is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 1995, and is certified 12x Platinum in the US by the RIAA, receiving a Diamond Certification.

The Mob in Connecticut ..............

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