By Staff
I kind of groaned at Rolling Stone's (first of three) 40th anniversary issues because it seems like lame lists are all it publishes anymore (this one has "40 Songs That Changed the World"), but it was a pleasant surprise to find interviews with Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Norman Mailer, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern and Jane Fonda.
Not a bad batch of people I have met, interviewed, covered or otherwise seen in person.
I wasn't yet reading RS in 1967, though even in fourth grade I was aware John Lennon appeared on the first cover promoting "How I Won the War."
The summer before the Summer of Love the Beatles, reviled for being bigger than Jesus, released "Revolver" and quit touring only three years after "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
McCartney inaugurated the psychedelic era in January by turning up in a mustache. "It's part of breaking up the Beatles," he said. "I no longer believe in the image."
Feb. 13 Capitol released the two-sided single, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." Later we learned that there was an actual place in Liverpool that inspired characters dressed in bright colors, walking in time to baroque trumpets.
"Strawberry Fields Forever," of course, would be famous as the handiwork of George Martin stitching together two completely different versions, speeding one up and slowing the other down until they met in the middle.
In England, Lennon and McCartney were honored as their own runners-up, as "Michelle" had been the most-performed song of 1966, followed by "Yesterday." For good measure, "Yellow Submarine," which I first heard while playing miniature golf at Five-Mile Corner, was Britain's top-selling record for 1966. And the Fab Four garnered a Grammy for "Eleanor Rigby" as best song of the year.
Also, in 1967, an artist stood before 5,000 people and let volunteers snip away her clothing until she stood naked. Lennon would become smitten with Yoko Ono.
On Saturday mornings I watched Beatles cartoons and the Monkees on Monday nights. I not only saw Micky Dolenz with Tiny Tim at the Cass County Fair, but also with Davy Jones and Peter Tork (no Mike Nesmith).
That summer we drove to New York state and visited Niagara Falls and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. In Horseheads I bought "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which had been released June 2, and gaped at the amazing cover and played with the cutouts inside for the eternity it took for the meandering drive home to Dowagiac before I could unleash an LSD ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds") laced world of aural carnival colors. Never mind that "A Day in the Life" came from a Daily Mail article literally about a Lancashire councillor who so deplored the state of the roads in his county that he counted the Blackburn potholes or that a circus poster inspired "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."
No one heard the Beatles perform it, so hearing McCartney play its songs years later was a thrill of a lifetime.
The Aug. 27, 1967, death of manager Brian Epstein seemed to change the group forever. At that age the whole Maharishi Mahesh Yogi excursion meant nothing to me except I knew I hated George Harrison's sitar experimentation with Ravi Shankar.
I happened to be in Detroit the day the riots broke out for the Tigers game with Mickey Mantle's New York Yankees. I remember asking my dad about smoke visible over the stadium wall.
Let's eavesdrop on the insights of these "artists and leaders who helped shape our time," from the War on Poverty to the war on the poor.
Jann Wenner may have been at this for 40 years, but Dylan still exasperates his interviewer.
"The atom bomb fueled the entire world that came after … I know it gave rise to the music we were playing … all these early performers were atom-bomb fueled. Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran. They were fast and furious, their songs were all on the edge. Music was never like that before … I come from a time when you had to be original, and you had to have some kind of God-given talent … Lennon to this day, it's hard to find a better singer than Lennon was, or than McCartney was and still is. I'm in awe of McCartney. He's about the only one that I am in awe of."
– Bob Dylan