I prepared a reading list of Civil War volumes to hand out to an Olean High School junior year American history class as part of a Civil War presentation on Jan. 15, 2013. The list is short and sweet and my basic premise was that, for the most part, none of the students had read much, if anything, about the Civil War. My intention was to suggest some books that would be scholarly but entertaining and informative at the same time. Also the list had to fit on one page. This is the list I came up with. My feeling is that if any of the students read even one of these volumes they will probably be drawn to read others as well.
Bruce Catton’s trilogy on the Civil War, which includes The Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword, and Never Call Retreat, is a very dramatic and beautifully written set. It’s accurate history but it reads with the verve of a novel. A pretty long novel though.
Bruce Catton also wrote a terrific little book entitled U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition. It’s one of my absolute favorite Civil War books. And it’s short!
There are two excellent one volume biographies of Abraham Lincoln. Stephen B. Oates’s With Malice Toward None and/or Benjamin P. Thomas’s Abraham Lincoln. Another really neat little book is this same Benjamin P. Thomas’s Lincoln’s New Salem.
The best single volume account of the overall Civil War—it’s pretty long and quite detailed but extremely worthwhile—is James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom.
There are all sorts of truly fascinating first person accounts of being a soldier in the Civil War. These books are America’s Victorian literature. We don’t have a Dickens, a Trollope, a Thackery, an Eliott…but we do have these. And they’re not only thrilling and entertaining but they’re also true. There are dozens of these but two of the best are: War Years with JEB Stuart by W.W. Blackford and I Rode With Stonewall by Henry Kyd Douglas.
The Blue and the Gray, edited by Henry Steele Commager, is a chronologically arranged collection of excerpts from contemporary accounts of the Civil War. The entries are usually short. They’re like intellectual snacks. But the selections were chosen because they gave the illuminating sense of “being there.”
If you’re feeling really ambitious, there’s a fabulous set of volumes by Carl Sandburg (he’s the poet)—2 volumes entitled The Prairie Years, and 4 volumes entitled The War Years. Together they constitute a superlative biography of Lincoln and the American cultural and political environment in which he lived and governed. Make yourself a promise to read these volumes some time in your life.
Finally there is an ongoing series The Civil War: Told by Those Who Lived It, which will consist of four volumes published by Library of America. McElfresh Map Company prepared the endpaper maps for each volume.
I went to see the new Spielberg movie Lincoln. I’ve been an avid reader of Lincoln biographies–from where I sit right now I can see more than fifty volumes on Lincoln and I can honestly say that if I haven’t read all of them, there are some that I’ve read multiple times and will read again, including Sandburg’s six volumes–perhaps the most wonderful biography ever written–and Benj. Thomas’s Lincoln’s New Salem which is the most charming Lincoln book of them all. I also have half again as many Lincoln volumes at home. Suffice it to say, I like Lincoln. And I’ve written about him for publication in Civil War Times. Mine is no casual affair. Lincoln and I are for keeps.
Well…Wonder of wonders. I loved–I revered–the Lincoln movie. It was the first movie my wife and I have gone to since Primary Colors. We were startled at the cost of theater tickets ($19 !) but we were thrilled by the movie. My mental picture of Lincoln, framed for ever and ever by the staged photographs of him, has been supplemented by Daniel Day Lewis’s movie portrayal of the 16th president.
I have two quibbles with the movie. The opening scene was a little much. Lincoln, for some reason unattended to and sitting in the rain, seemed a bit unrealistic and daft (the President was a gigantic celebrity in 1864 too, and his being somehow overlooked was as unlikely then as it is now). Then the post battle-scene at the end of the movie…this is presumably in the trenches around Petersburg after the Confederate line is cracked. The movie depicts corpses stacked like the concentration camp images at the end of WWII. There are actual contemporaneous photos of the most gruesome slaughters of the war, scenes from Antietam’s sunken road, indeed photos from the Petersburg field in the battle aftermath. There is nothing like what the movie shows. Maybe modern audiences have to see a carpet of bodies before they’re impressed.
But apart from those two improbable scenes, the film makers did an impeccable job. Lincoln’s office, as filmed, was exact in every detail. The more prominent members of his cabinet (Gideon Wells, Edwin Stanton e.g.) bore a striking similarity to the real men. Secretary of State William Seward was portrayed as a more presentable figure: they skipped the magpie-like features of the actual Seward but that’s understandable. Modern audiences would probably find his looks laughable.
To sum up, considering how awful the movie could have been–and considering how tempting it must have been to go the saccharine route–makes how realistic the movie was all the more commendable. It’salso a treat to see Republicans portrayed as the good guys. People forget the Democrats obstructing role as the nation was locked in a death struggle. And they also forget that the modern Civil Rights legislation was vehemently opposed by the solid South–the South was solidly Democrat in 1964 as well as in 1864–and it was the Republican party that enabled Lyndon Johnson to push his Civil Rights agenda through. Look it up!
Paul McCartney, in spite of characterizing himself as a composer of “silly love songs,” is in fact a superlative lyricist. In my opinion, McCartney’s best lyrics set very comfortably in the company of John Lennon’s and Bob Dylan’s. And perhaps in some ways they’re even better than his two contemporaries.
The acclaimed lyrics of Dylan and Lennon don’t usually survive contact with an unadorned piece of paper. Dylan’s phrasing of his lyrics on the recordings make them valid but they sure sound nutty when someone like Joan Baez covers his songs respectfully and pronounces the lyrics carefully. Ditto for John Lennon. Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life, Across the Universe…lovely and meaningful songs but what we’re talking about is lyrics here. Isolate John’s lyrics and all you’ve got is gobbledygook.
In no particular order, here are a few Paul McCartney lyrics–coherent, evocative and quotable–that surpass Bob Dylan’s and John Lennon’s.
From I’m Looking Through You: I’m looking through you/ Where did you go? / I thought I knew you/ What did I know?
From Rocky Raccoon: Her name was Magill/ And she called herself Lil/ But everyone knew her as Nancy.
From Back in the USSR: Show me round your snow peaked mountains way down south/ Take me to your daddy’s farm/ Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out/ Come and keep your comrade warm.
From Get Back: Wearing her high-heeled shoes and a low neck sweater/ Get back home Loretta.
From Maxwell’s Silver Hammer: P.C. Thirty One/ Says we’ve caught a dirty one.
From Helter Skelter: You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer.
From Her Majesty: I want to tell her that I love her a lot/ But I gotta get a bellyful of wine/ Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl/ Someday I’m gonna make her mine.
From Two of Us: You and I have memories/Longer than the road that stretches out ahead.
From I’ve Got a Feeling: All I was ever looking for/ Was somebody who looks like you.
From She Came in Through the Bathroom Window: And so I quit the Police Department/ And got myself a steady job/ And though she tried her best to help me/ She could steal but she could not rob.
From You Never Give Me Your Money: One sweet dream/ Pick up the bags and get in the limousine.
From Lady Madonna: Friday night arrives without a suitcase/ Sunday morning creeping like a nun/ Monday’s child has learned to tie his bootlace/ See how they run.
From Hello Goodbye: You say yes/ I say no/ You say stop/ And I say go – go – go/ Oh no/ You say goodbye/ And I say hello.
From Let It Be: And when the night is cloudy/ There is still a light that shines on me/ Shine until tomorrow/Let it be/ Let it be.
From The End: Oh yeah !/All right !/ Are you gonna be in my dreams/ tonight?
Do you see what I mean? These are phrases that can punctuate casual conversations. They’re useful hi-lights for everyday use. They have a classic touch. You’d be surprised how handy it can be to drop “You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer” into some cocktail party chit chat. Or get folk’s attention by an impromptu quoting of “Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy.”
The Beatles, among their other numerous qualities, often managed the rare accomplishment of surpassing the original artist(s) when they did a cover version of someone else’s songs. The most obvious example is their version of Twist and Shout. They literally created a new song out of the Isley Brothers’ goof-off rendition. The Isleys did a thin, tinny, high pitched, almost a novelty take on the song. The Beatles instrumental line-up and John Lennon’s vocal transformed the song into one of the all time great rock numbers, a surging instrumental and vocal performance…rock & roll with no holds barred and the floodgates open.
Other bands and singers may have made more noise or screeched higher but I’m still incredulous when I listen to the Please Please Me album version of the song and still more taken with the rendition performed at the 1963 Royal Variety Show after John’s “… the rest of you just rattle your jewelry…” quip. It’s a stunning performance before probably the worst possible rock and roll audience. These weren’t screaming teenagers and shrieking girls out front. These were the Royals and their ilk if you can imagine it.
My fictional rock and roll group The Sparrows in Sidereal Days, The History of Rock & Roll, A Romance, are enthralled by both the song and the performance when they see The Beatles perform it live on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1963. The Sparrows are conditioned to the frantic, gimmicky antics of the stars of the day, the Jerry Lee Lewis’s and the Little Richards, who kicked and screamed and careened around the stage during their wild numbers. The Beatles and John Lennon stood literally stock-still and let loose the massive barrage of controlled shock waves that was Twist and Shout. It was the sedate stage presence of The Beatles while launching into this staggering song that leaves the fictional Sparrows limp with admiration.
(In a hundred years, if it becomes necessary to explain rock and roll to generations as yet unborn and unknowing, I would suggest that the last living fan dust off Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue and The Beatles’ Twist and Shout and stand back to see what happens.)
Less successful – in fact I would have to say, unsuccessful compared to the original – was The Beatles’ take on the American girl group The Cookies’ song Chains. The original is a perfect acoustic rhythm guitar arrangement with classic hand claps (credited in Sidereal Days to the fictional Sparrows grateful for any excuse to be in a recording studio) and the great vocals by the Cookies. It’s a nice easy swaying song with its spare instrumentation accompanied by the innocent but helplessly sensuous vocals of the Cookies.
The Beatles offer up the weakest track in what I still consider just about my favorite of all their albums, Please Please Me. They forgo the steady strum that paces the Cookie’s version and they replace the Cookies’ sultry voices with their bright British vocals. On this cover, Chains, The Beatles prove once again the old adage that nobody but nobody is perfect. Even The Beatles.
The best, and I mean the absolute best article I know of on The Beatles, appears in the August 27, 1966 Saturday Evening Post. It’s entitled “The Monarchs of the Beatle Empire.” The author, James Morris, clearly gives the impression that he is an older, slightly sniffy Brit, distinctly posh and old school, who has been reluctantly and gradually charmed by The Beatles. (The Beatles after all had been household names in Britain since early 1963.) His article is a vaguely aloof, slightly snobby effort to explain how and why this happened to him and what he thinks of them. This generational and class distance that he maintains from his subjects, this sort of ironic affection combined with a wry and witty writing style fit perfectly with his subjects. The Beatles are perfect subjects for James Morris’s approach, being, themselves, rather ironic characters who never took themselves too seriously.
A photo of The Beatles standing together holding up their MBE’s for photographers is given a perfectly appropriate caption, “Standing in a Beatle version of attention, Ringo, John, Paul and George…” It’s the Fab Four casually holding out their awards, unabashedly bored.
Another accompanying photograph is of The Beatles onstage but it’s a shot of them as seen from above. We see them from directly overhead, the amplifiers, a piano, the drums, the pre-amps, chairs, microphones, spare guitars set on the stage floor behind the amps. What catches the attention of the author, and startling to the reader, is the profusion of electrical cords and cables that are strewn about the stage as The Beatles perform. The cords and The Beatles throng to the microphones, to the amplifiers, to pre-amps, to the guitars. The Beatles perform amid a swirl of electrical spaghetti. The photo caption cheerily observes, “Plugged in and fancy free, The Beatles cut loose during a concert inParis.”
A third photo is of John Lennon and Harold Wilson. The caption, “Standing beside Prime Minister Harold Wilson, John Lennon, somewhat a head of state himself, gives an enigmatic ‘V’ sign.”
The clever impishness of the captions rather successfully matches the knock about, off-the-cuff humor of The Beatles themselves. The author manages a literary tightrope of being both erudite and hip.
Morris writes, “No history of the 1960’s will be complete without a Beatle footnote, and, above all, no future history of England will be true to itself unless it has a paragraph, fond or scathing, frivolous or profound, about these irrepressible scions of what Winston Churchill loved to call “The Island Race.”
This is good stuff. Not the pap of the fanzines, not the au courant pop-dash of the Rolling Stone type magazines.
Morris writes knowledgeably of the place of Liverpoolin post-war Briton and notes that The Beatles released the humor, the brash and bouncy irreverent interior monologue that characterized the denizens of what the rest of Briton considered a dreary cultural backwater. The Beatles “…Mersey accent, which not long ago would have seemed to most Englishmen barbaric, now falls with an attractive bite upon the ear.”
Though sick and tired of the “disrespect” so prevalent in post-war Briton, in plays, in novels, in protests, “…The Beatles’ disrespect has been of a different kind. It is eminently genial. Somehow or other it does not often give offense.” Morris goes on to say that The Beatles “…have expressed something that most of us inEnglandhave instinctively felt – that the old values did need a cheerful dust-down. Why should we all be manly? Why should life be quite so real, quite so earnest?”
James Morris brings back the marvelous fun of those early Beatle days and makes it perfectly clear once again what cheerful avatars they were before their immense fame began to encrust them and the cultural vultures broke through their delightful and astonishing nonchalance.
Beatle fans in 1966, maybe especially the ones who lived in small upstate NY towns, had a very remote connection with the band, no matter how fanatical their devotion. Especially perhaps upstate 16-year-old fans whose family didn’t own a television. That would be me.
I had all the albums and the singles, generally two of each, so I could go to sleep at night with one side playing and the flip side ready to drop off the changer and play. News of The Beatles was seldom in the newspapers, occasionally there’d be something in Life, Look or The Saturday Evening Post, the large format picture-type magazines, and sometimes in Time or Newsweek.
Without a TV, it was easy to miss The Beatles occasional appearances on American television. I recall once standing in the lobby of a local restaurant waiting to see the band on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965 when a lightning strike knocked the transmission off the air. Otherwise, if I knew they were going to be on television, I’d have to go to watch them on my grandparent’s TV. I’d be concentrating every atom of my being on their bewilderingly brief appearance and fending off my grandparent’s observations. “They look like girls. Look at that hair.” “They must be wigs. Men can’t grow their hair like that.” “How can you tell the songs a part. They all sound alike.” “Which one is Ringo?”
Adults all knew about Ringo. They didn’t know John, Paul, George.
So for me, The Beatles existed almost entirely in still photographs and magazine articles. (The best article I’ve ever read about The Beatles, accompanied by the best photograph I’ve ever seen, appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and will be the topic of my next blog!) A wonderful enthusiast, fan and editor was Gloria Stavers of 16 Magazine. Invariably there were Beatle photos (“pix” they were called) and interviews (made up I’m sure) and gossip about the Fab Four. “Paul married?” “John divorced?” “George leaving?” “Ringo quitting to run a beauty salon?” More mature but still a fan magazine with more in-depth coverage, was Datebook. Datebook became notorious for innocently reprinting the interview John Lennon had given months earlier in England to Maureen Cleave, a confidante of the group. It caused no stir in England but his remark that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus caused a serious controversy in America. The Beatles had been wanting to break with their “four mop tops” image and this, at least, adroitly accomplished that.
Which brings me to my story. Also on deck was the new Capitol Records Beatle album. Yesterday and Today. As usual, for the American buyers, Capitol had patched together an album consisting of tracks from the British LPs Rubber Soul and Revolver, singles, flip sides of singles and British EPs (extended play records, a format little known in the U.S.) and a couple of tracks intended for future release in the UK. Suddenly, a rumored Dadaist-like Beatle album cover that the group had pushed for—with the obvious intention of breaking the mop top image—had become superfluous and counterproductive. John’s “Jesus” remark had done that in spades and now there was need for some American damage control. No further provocation necessary.
The “fanzines” carried this news. A few copies of the album with the offending cover had actually been released and then pulled from the shelves. Other already printed copies were unpacked from the shipping boxes and had the initial cover removed and replaced. The replacement cover, incidentally, featured four deadbeat, bedraggled, slovenly Beatles standing around a sort of footlocker/packing case staring deadpan and bleary-eyed at the camera. Paul sits in the trunk, John sits cross-legged on top of it, George and Ringo stare blankly. In and of itself rather an extraordinary album cover for the pop music phenomenon of the 20th Century. However, in the hurry to get Beatle product to insatiable fans, Capitol in a few cases simply pasted the new cover over what became known as “The Butcher Album” cover photograph.
The photographer, whom John described while stinting as a deejay on WPLJ in NYC as “a bit of a surrealist,” was Robert Whitaker. Robert Freeman had been the photographer whose soft focus images of The Beatles had graced most of their album covers (With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, and Rubber Soul) and it was Freeman’s evocative photographs that fixed the early image of the group. It was this “image” that John especially was out to break. He resented the rebellious image cultivated by the Rolling Stones and felt that it was gained at the expense of The Beatles. (Insiders were later to say that the Rolling Stones were gentlemen passing themselves off as thugs while The Beatles were thugs passing themselves off as gentlemen.)
Furthermore, The Beatles, and Paul especially, were upset with the liberties Capitol took with Beatle product in the US releases. The group sequenced the running order of the tracks on the UK releases with great care. Capitol, as already noted, scavenged through the available material and repackaged the album tracks as they saw fit. Irksome as this was to the group, the final straw for Paul was on the Capitol release of Rubber Soul. Here, the quick warm-up strums that preceded the opening chords of Paul’s I’m Looking Through You were inadvertently included on the track as it was presented on the US album. Paul was aghast and annoyed at Capitol’s carelessness. (Personally, and Paul notwithstanding, I greatly prefer the offending track on the American LP. I n a way, it’s the first bootlegged Beatle song!)
The Beatles decided to register their complaint that Capitol had “butchered” their Rubber Soul album. They decided that the cover photo they supplied for the next Capitol compilation album would depict the group in white butcher smocks with doll parts and cuts of meat draped around them while the band smiled maniacally at the camera. Paul merely looks innocently bemused. That was the intention of the photo but circumstances, including John’s “Jesus” remark, seemed to indicate that this time, The Beatles had quote—gone too far.
Assiduous fans of The Beatles, even those of us in remote upstate NY were aware of the controversy and followed it carefully. It came out that a few of the albums had been shipped with a replacement cover simply pasted over the offending cover. It was revealed that it was possible to identify these rare specimens because Ringo’s black turtleneck on the “Butcher” cover was could be dimly seen coming through on the upper right hand corner of the replacement cover.
Ah hah!
Mr. Gabriel was the wonderful man who ran Olean’s local record store, Melody Corner, at 235 N. Union Street. Mr. Gabriel had a listening booth lined with salmon colored acoustic tiles and he would allow us high school kids to listen to records to our hearts content. He appreciated his steady clients and I was one of them. After all I bought two copies of all The Beatle (and Bob Dylan) albums as part of my sleeping arrangements. I informed Mr. Gabriel about this rare chance that a “Butcher” cover might slip through. He said, “I’ll tell you what. My new shipment of albums comes in on Thursdays and the new Beatle album is scheduled to come in this week. You go down to the Blue Bird bus depot and pick up the package and you can be the first one to go through it and see if we get one.”
I was at the bus depot. I picked up the shipment, brought it back to Melody Corner. Mr. Gabriel opened it and I began my inspection.
It wasn’t looking good and I was getting down to the last few Yesterday…and Today albums when I saw it. A small V-shaped black smudge showing through the upper right hand corner of the replacement cover. I paid my $3.97 and prepared to set off with my prize. Mr. Gabriel said, “You plan to steam it off and see what’s underneath?” I said “Yes.” He said, “Remember to take the record out of the sleeve before you steam it. Otherwise you’ll warp it.” That was excellent advice and I took it. The cover, held a foot or two away from the steaming spout of a tea-pot, slipped easily off and there it was. The fabulous “Butcher album cover.” The cover was beautiful. The paper it was printed on had a grainy, fabric-like texture. The only other album I ever owned like it was Bob Dylan’s The Times Are Changing Album.
Like the majority of albums at that time (1966) my copy was in mono. The rarity of stereo copies makes them worth considerably more to collectors (a Wall Street Journal article indicated that there are only seven stereo covers known to exist.) The steamed off “steam trunk cover” is also safely preserved.
All of this just goes to show that being a knocked out Beatles fan is not all fun and games.
McElfresh Map Company will be watching a new movie coming to town with more than a little interest.
We received a phone call at our office on the afternoon of August 26, 2011 from Terry Alford, a professor at Northern Virginia Community College. He wondered if we’d be willing to share some information about Civil War map making with some folks making a Lincoln related Civil War movie. I said certainly.
Very shortly thereafter I got a telephone call from a woman named Leslie McDonald. She was with a company called “Office Seekers.” She was interested in having someone with a Civil War map background to answer some questions. She was with a movie company. I said I’d be quite prepared for that eventuality.
We talked back and forth a bit, I answered some general questions. She said she would like to e-mail a detailed set of questions if that was all right. I said that would be fine. She also asked if I’d be willing to suggest additional questions that “they hadn’t asked but should.” That impressed me. She wanted to get things right. “So,” I said, “This is a real movie, a TV movie, or what?”
She told me it’s a movie based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals. The director of the movie was Steven Spielberg. I said, “Ah, this is a real movie.” She laughed. “Oh yes.”
She had some general questions regarding reference material, Civil War map resources, sample Civil War era maps and the preparation and use of maps before, during and after a battle.
That evening (6.06 PM) a list of 12 questions was e-mailed to me. The questions were mostly map specific:
How would they update troop movements and how would they do this for the President?
How did they track movements on maps?
What type of writing instruments did they use to update maps, i.e. pen, pencils, colored pencils?
How would maps in the White House differ from the field maps?
Some of the initial questions also regarded the treatment and handling of battle casualties and soldiers killed in battle:
Did they write down who died right away or after the war was over?
As per Leslie McDonald’s request, the next day I e-mailed her a brief overall perspective of the who, what, when, where, why and howof Civil War mapping. How important maps were, especially to Union forces operating on unfamiliar ground in unfriendly territory. I told her where to find examples of Civil War maps and descriptions of how they were prepared and used and to what effect.
I also emphasized what an immense affair the Civil War really was and how magnificently a ramshackle government inWashingtonmanaged the whole affair. The various departments were casually organized, the army and navy operated in a very off-the-cuff manner compared to the hidebound rigidity of the modern military. The President throughout the war never travelled more than 100 miles from Washington, wrote his own speeches, and ran the nation and the war with the assistance of two secretaries.
To provide perspective, I noted that the death rate of soldiers in the Civil War, if adjusted to the present population of theU.S.would be 3,000 soldiers killed and dying every day for four years.
I also described the topographical challenges faced by road bound, foot and horse-powered armies. How a slight grade or a three foot deep creek could stop 50,000 men dead in their tracks. How the marching armies lived off the land and had to keep moving or starve.
I also assessed the capabilities of the Union and Confederate armies and pointed out that Union forces faced a far greater challenge than the Confederates because they had to march, fight, capture, hold, occupy, supply, and continually advance through the southland. The Confederates didn’t have to fight pitched battles around Detroit, or Chicago or New York. The Union had to capture and hold New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Savannah, Vicksburg et al.
Over the next days and weeks I answered questions:
How would maps be carried in the field?
Answer: Sherman, e.g. carried them in his saddlebags. Others in map canisters. Cavalrymen stuck the maps in their pockets.
What sort of maps did the President have in the White House?
Answer: Most likely Lincoln’s office contained U.S. Coast Survey maps (this organization is the predecessor of the modern National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and standard commercially printed maps (Colton’s e.g.) The maps specifically, historically, known to have hung in Lincoln’s office were a U.S. Coast Survey map of KY and TN and a “statistical” slave map, showing by lighter and darker shading the slave population of the different regions of the country.
What sort of maps were in the War Department’s telegraph office?
Answer: What’s described as “a common U.S. map” on the wall (meaning a commercially printed U.S. map) and then there were map files, filing cabinet-like wide drawers in which maps could be laid flat and stored.
I also described the various instruments the mapmakers would be using: the Schmalcalder compasses, plane tables, field glasses, the watercolor paints that would come in blocks rather than tubes. I further informed the moviemakers that there was no way for Lincoln or Secy of War Stanton to interfere in the actual progress of a battle. I told them Lincoln or Stanton might urge the generals to “put all of your men in” but they’d have no way of knowing what was happening on the actual battlefield.
My last e-mails in early October with the “Office Seekers” crew was to supply names and contact information for locating the appropriate topographical instruments to “decorate” the movie set.
Note the a map displayed in Lincoln’s office in the trailer below.
The “behind the scenes” look at the Ed Sullivan Show in Sidereal Days is based on photographs and descriptions supplied by such informed “we were there,” rock & rollers as Ringo Starr and Jerry Allison, the great Cricket (Buddy Holly and the…) drummer. The various biographies of Buddy Holly provided written and photographic documentation of his two appearances on the show, and The Beatles Anthology is rich with similar data and accounts of their first appearance on the show. (The 73 million viewers in 1964 would be the equivalent of 146 million viewers in 2012. Even the viewership of the Superbowl doesn’t come close to that.)
Ed Sullivan himself is a vivid and familiar figure but a great plus for me in researching the Ed Sullivan material for the book was to see in person appearances by Ed Sullivan and his number 2 man, son-in-law Bob Precht, in the movie Bye, Bye Birdie. I had to scrub the initial description of Precht I’d written because I’d made it up. Figured no one would know or care what he actually looked like. Bob Precht’s brief, fortuitous appearance was the only good thing about that otherwise execrable movie.
The dilapidated state of the production equipment used on the show and described in the book is accurate. Most of it, painted in clumsy khaki, was military surplus. The high drum riser that makes it impossible, during the rehearsals, for Billy Tuck to hear his band-mates actually happened to Jerry Allison when Buddy Holly and the Crickets appeared on the show. The Crickets appeared and performed with that handicap. The Sparrows explain things to the set designer (who was the actual set designer) Bill Bohnert. Bohnert muses aloud about an earlier drummer whose complaints about the same issue were disregarded. He’s thinking of Jerry Allison.
All the incidents and preparations described in Sidereal Days were fact-based and realistic. The man who chauffeured the Sparrows around, “Louis Savarese” was a real person and an actual chauffeur. His appearance in Sidereal Days and his claim to fame is the fact that in February 1964, it was Louis Savarese who chauffeured The Beatles aroundNew York.
Speaking of The Beatles… While their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show is pretty familiar to most of us and has been seen by most of us somewhat recently, it’s a real education to see a rerun of the ENTIRE Ed Sullivan Show. We hear what a jolt the appearance of The Beatles was to the culture of the day. But to see their performance in the context of the rest of the show—including the TV ads and the other acts—is to witness one era being snapped shut like a cheap suitcase and carried out the door. An amazing and instantaneous transformation.
Ten years ago, the family pulled into a rather famous drive-in on Route 16, halfway between our hometown of Olean,NY and Buffalo. Our children were pretty young at the time. They were disconcerted by a particular feature of the more or less “western” themed restaurant. The table legs were settled into cowboy boots. It kinda spooked the kids and I myself felt a little uneasy.
The place is gone now, the owner has passed away–gone to that blue plate special in the sky–so it’s all right to say that the food wasn’t quite the home cookin’ the road sign claimed. But a framed letter on the wall that was the decoration for our booth caught my attention.
It was a letter, circa 1962, a handwritten letter of thanks, sort of loopy and swirly, from Miss Patsy Cline to Mr. Jimmy Dale. Jimmy Dale was a disc jockey and country singer at radio station W-A-L-L in Middletown,NY. Patsy was thanking him very kindly for having her on his show as his “special guest.”
This letter resonated for three reasons. Jimmy Dale was originally from Olean. Had a C&W hit in the ‘40’s–I believe called “Cannonball.” That was #1.
We’d lived for a couple of years near Middletown. That was #2.
And #3, I was a huge fan of Miss Patsy Cline.
Only much later did I recollect the letter and have it serve a valuable, pivotal role in a novel I was working on.
The small town rock & roll band that is the subject of my novel Sidereal Days had to have some plausible occasion to emerge from the shadows of obscurity to begin their climb into the light. My band The Sparrows had great local success in Olean,NY. They parlayed that into playing small gigs in surrounding towns in an ever widening circumference. A local fan arranges a gig with his father, a club owner in Middletown,NY, 250 miles east of Olean. The Sparrows see this as a chance to play near the golden destination at the end of every New York State highway,New York City.
The band makes the most of every appearance they put in anywhere. They send a “press release” to local newspapers. They also try to get a radio interview wherever and whenever they can. They’re savvy enough to recognize that newspapers have lots of pages to fill and radio stations have many hours of time on the air. So the benefits are mutual for the band and the media.
As guests on Middletown’s W-A-L-L (see Jimmie Dale above) they hear for the first time (my guys are rock & rollers) “Crazy,” the mystic, bluesy country lament that ruled juke box play for two generations. As they gasp their admiration of the song to their host “JD the DJ,” unbeknownst to anyone but me, the Sparrows have stepped onto the milieu of the letter framed on the wall of our diner booth. Patsy Cline will be a guest host on W-A-L-L that night…it’s the night on the radio referenced in Patsy’s letter to Jimmy Dale.
The Sparrows meet Patsy Cline, share the midnight spont on the radio with her, and spend a Beaujolais evening afterward in her hotel room. Impressed with the boys and with a song they’ve written, she invites them to open for her a few months down the road, in Kansas City,Kansas at the War Memorial Auditorium. The significance of that show will be sadly familiar to any devoted fan of Patsy Cline.
But the Sparrows have managed the tricky, crucial climb from obscure local heroes to a band on the rise, catching the first glimmering rays of national success.
The earliest photos of the final Beatle line up (in case anyone on earth has forgotten it’s John, Paul, George and Ringo) show Ringo’s bass drum head sporting an extremely run-of-the-mill Beatle logo. Its obviously hand drawn twirly scrawl plays on the insect quality of the word “Beatle” by having insect antennae adorn the letter B. Embarrassingly unimaginative, utterly predictable. Unimaginative and predictable because this isn’t Joe Doe and the Hot Dogs. This is, after all, THE BEATLES.
Soon thereafter, we see Ringo’s bass drum head with a bold new face. And the overall image of the group, the image that will sweep the entire civilized world off its feet, is suddenly fastened in place. This new THE BEATLES graphic is now one of the earth’s best known logos. Think Coca Cola. Think Exxon. Think Apple.
The new logo had a very formal, establishment look. The lettering could have appeared engraved in stone over the front door of a bank or the entrance of an investment firm. Yet somehow this perfectly fit the image of The Beatles throughout their career, from the astonishing squeaky clean, manicured group that overwhelmed Americain February 1964 to the scruffy, bedraggled and dour foursome that glowered their way through the Let It Be film in 1969. And now, in 2012, this THE BEATLES logo is still as striking and evocative as it was when it debuted in 1963.
So, who is the genius behind this classic image? He’s rich, right? Like the guy who designed the Exxon logo?
The gent in question was Ivor Arbiter, the owner of DrumCity, a drum and music store located on Shaftesbury Ave. inLondon. Having bought a Ludwig drum kit from Drum City, Beatle manager Brian Epstein noticed that the name Ludwig was displayed prominently on the drum head. Brian thought, as the owners of the drum kit, the group’s name, The Beatles should be displayed, perhaps even more prominently. Ivor Arbiter, a good salesman, agreed. He drew a circle representing a drum head, and quickly sketched out “The Beatles” with a tiny “The” above and below it, Beatles with a large B that reached up to the level of “The” and the center letter of the word Beatles dropping below the rest of the word.
A part time sign painter named Eddie Stokes who worked at Drum City during his lunch break took Ivor Arbiter’s sketch and produced it on Ringo Starr’s new drum head. Over the course of The Beatles’ career,DrumCity, and presumably Eddie Stokes, prepared seven different but similar “The Beatles” logos for Ringo. Some were larger, some heavier etc. but the iconic image was set.
Ivor Arbiter for his trouble sold a Ludwig drum set (and probably to be fair, quite a few more) and Eddie Stokes made that extra cash during his lunch break. Neither of them saw an extra penny for the logo they had launched upon the world.
If you haven’t already, purchase Beatles Gear by Andy Babiuk, a source for this blog and one of the best Beatle books ever published.
