GRAMMY MUSEUM : THE BEACH BOYS and WHITNEY HOUSTON EXHIBITS

GRAMMY MUSEUM - BEACH BOYS EXHIBIT

Christine here! 

Last weekend I went to the GRAMMY MUSEUM, one of my favorite places in Los Angeles.  I wanted to see the Beach Boy's exhibit, celebrating their 50 years in the business and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.  The exhibit was one long wall and featured a number of guitar reproductions and copies rather than originals, which I understood but felt disappointed by.  Turns out my visit was about the time the Beach Boys were breaking up - again!

AISHA HARRIS of SLATE  "This is only the latest incident in years of public disagreements (and lawsuits) between cousins Love and Wilson over, among other things, writing credits and publishing rights. When the band reunited for the first time in years at the Grammys this past February, the buzz for fans was built around anticipation for a tour that would see all the surviving members on stage again. But even back in June, with the shows in full swing, trouble was brewing: Love had added some South American dates for the fall that would not include the other guys. “That’s news to me,” Wilson told Rolling Stone at the time."

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE AT SLATE

One of the most fabulous things about the GRAMMY MUSEUM is the interactive computer screens which allow you to locate music in history, by genre, and by artist, AND ALL THAT SOUND SAMPLING.  It's truly an exciting educational experience.

Of great interest to me also is the costuming that various artists wore.  Really, anyone studying fashion in the area should visit the museum every few months.  The last time I visited the museum I got chills when I saw the simple red jacket that Ritchie Valens wore in his publicity photos,  and costumes worn on stage by Michael Jackson and Neil Diamond have been featured in the past.  
This time it was the WHITNEY HOUSTON exhibit that caught my attention.  Now I have to admit I'm not a Whitney Houston fan, but then I'm not that much into the "power singers."  As I looked at her costumes and read about her career, which I knew near nothing about, I learned that no one had won more Grammy's than Whitney. 

As a woman I looked at the costumes and realized that she was about my size but I couldn't help but try on the fact that she had achieved more than the vast majority of us, and yet she had lost it all.  I listened as other museum goers discussed what really was the problem with Whitney.  Was it her husband?  Drugs?  Drugs and her husband? Or maybe simply FAME?  It brought tears to my eyes to think of it.

The museum also has a WOODY GUTHRIE EXHIBIT going on right now, and let me tell you, if you happen to be reading this and are in Los Angeles, you can take METRO there and not worry about parking or parking fees around the Staples Center area.

BEACH BOYS : CALIFORNIA GIRLS : SUMMER 1965

(424) SINGER SONGWRITER BOBBY FREEMAN : DO YOU WANNA DANCE?: COVERED BY SO MANY ARTISTS!

With a song writer like Brian Wilson in your group, why cover a tune written by someone else? Because some songs are hits, and a hit is a song that's hard to resist. It can bring in a fortune. This is the 1965 recording.

For the SUMMER FUN of it, here are a number of other covers of the same Bobby Freeman song.

First BOBBY FREEMAN'S ORIGINAL! "Release in April 1958 while Bobby was still in High School and he became a singing sensation which helped this song moved right up the charts to Billboards Top 10." Thanks to the Youtuber who posted this one!

(UPDATE JULY 2012: Sadly we must remove the historical music Bobby Freeman Video as Frank Sinatra enterprises owns the video and made claims on it... We still want everyone to know how great Bobby was and were thrilled to have found the video in the first place! But now I, Christine, making it up to you by presenting the RAMONES version! Beleive it or not, I like it as much as I like Johnny Rivers!)

WHO COULD FORGET my old friend Johnny Rivers' slow, romantic version?



Did you ever think we'd post the Ramones on this blog? Surprise! Surprise!

The great thing about this Bobby Freeman song is that you can listen to all these versions and want more!

Linking to the BBC Music bio of Bobby Freeman!

(423) BEACH BOYS : PROMOTIONAL FOR GIRLS ON THE BEACH SHOWS OFF THE COMPETITION BETWEEN THE BEACH BOYS AND THE BEATLES

The competition between the Beatles, who lead the way of the British Invasion of America, and our home grown Beach Boys was a theme of the summer '65 movie "The Girls On the Beach," as this promo proves. ( Christine : Hey, are those girl guitarists? Who has more fans? Which Beatle or Beach Boy was on the poster on your bedroom wall ?) This might have been the height of the song writing competition between Brian Wilson and the Paul McCartney - John Lennon team.

You can link to the Beach Boys on our sidebar where we just listed their site as it is today, which features their band as it is and a new CD. On this post we're linking to the IMBd movie database about the film so you can learn more! The actress Ahna Capri, who we blogged about in the past, appeared in this film. Use the search feature of this Google Blogger to locate that post and read a little Wes Bryan history.

(371) CAPITOL RECORDS : A GREAT BIG RECORD LABEL

Throughout this blog we've posted on many of the smaller or regional record labels.

These labels were extrememly important to my generation of rockabilly and early rock and roll artists, as was the personality DJ who still was able to pick his or her favorites and give them a spin on the radio, often making stars out of artists. Many of these smaller labels had near no budget for promotion but the great big labels, such as Capitol Records did and so being signed by them usually meant that you'd have a publicity machine behind your efforts.

(YOU CAN USE THE SEARCH FEATURE OF THIS GOOGLE BLOGGER TO look up "personality DJ's" such as Cliff Gleaves, or Wolfman Jack!)

By 1964 Capitol had The Beatles of Great Britain and The Beach Boys of Los Angeles, California. They also had Glen Campbell, who was starting to move forward in his entertainment career after years of performing in small venues. (But let's hold a bit on the Glen Campbell story, which has been in the media lately.)

We're linking to the present day Capitol Records site where we noticed that BRIAN WILSON of the Beach Boys and RINGO STAR of the Beatles are still signed artists with this label!

(249) SURF MUSIC and ME

Maybe songs from the late 1950's like Buddy Knox's "Hula Love" and Pat Boone's "Love Letters in the Sand," and the Hawaii craze that started when Hawaii became a state of the United States, started it...

Although I was not so much into it myself at the time, having been raised in the Smokey Mountains far from any ocean and more into my roots in Country, the summer of 1962 was the summer that California surf music washed across the United States like an tidal wave from west to east!

In the studios I began to meet the surf music stars.

(228) ME AND ERSEL HICKEY "THE LOCKSMITH OF ROCK AND ROLL!"

I performed "Freeze" and other songs on a live stage show in Albany, New York. Albany was my first experience of being chased by fans and having my clothes ripped off by them on the street before I got inside the theatre. Somewhere there's a picture of me standing there almost naked.

I was living the Teen Idol's life. So was Ersel Hickey, who was there.

Ersel laughed like he. He said to me "Gee, Wes, don't you wear any underwear? Your shortcomings are sticking out!"

We got to the theatre, Ersel was still intact. But he was standing in the wings waiting to go out and perform his hit "Blue Bird Over The Mountain." Bob Martin announced him. But he screwed up his name. "Here's the fabulous Edsel Hackey!"

"Man, I'm ruined," Ersel said.

Out he went. And that's when the girls stormed the stage and got Ersel down to ...well... Ersel did wear underwear!

Ersel came from Albany, where he had been a locksmith. We called him "The Rock and Roll Locksmith."

Here's Ersel's version and (surprise!) what the Beach Boys did with the song in 1968!