Since it’s almost summer, I thought it appropriate to investigate the world of surf music. Not the culture displayed by vocal surf music, but the sport and the dance as revealed by the instrumental sound . . .
Fifty years ago, Marvin Gaye released one of the best albums ever put on wax, that being the heralded What’s Going On. What made it so great, and why is it still very much relevant today?
Many strict rock ’n’ roll fans think that the Top Forty period from 1959 through 1963 was weak and shallow. Most of the original rockers who molded the ’50s were gone: Elvis had joined the Army, Little Richard joined the church, Chuck Berry went to jail, Jerry Lee Lewis was ostracized, Fats was fading, Bill Haley was retiring, and Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Who filled the void?
The period from 1958 through 1963, a vacuum between the demise of celebrated rock and rollers and the rise of the Beatles, produced teen idols—often called Bobbies, and for good reason . . .