A Cold War Heats Up!

September 1961 saw the breakdown of the informal nuclear testing moratorium that had lasted for most of the previous three years.  The Soviet Union were the first to resume atmospheric testing on September 1, 1961.  The United States would soon follow with underground testing in Nevada and atmospheric testing in the Pacific.

The resumption of nuclear testing would inaugurate a period of heightened conflict between the US and the USSR which included the escalation of the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

50 years later it is pretty difficult to imagine the testing of hydrogen bombs in the open atmosphere.  Let us hope that the world today would not accept the use of nuclear weapons.  It makes me wonder why the US and Russia need to have nearly 20,000 nuclear warheads between them.  Go figure!

Have a really great day!

Rob; in Vancouver.

"And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life." 

Robert Jay Lifton 

Patsy Cline - "I Fall to Pieces"

Patsy Cline began to enjoy both pop and country success with this enduring classic.  One of the best of 1961. Enjoy!

It's Now or Never - Elvis Presley

Elvis was back on top of the charts in September 1960 with "It's Now or Never".  Enjoy!

Cassius Clay - Olympic Gold

September 5, 1960  Rome, Italy

18 year old Cassius Clay defeated Poland's Ziggy Pietrzykowski to win the Olympic Gold Medal in the Light-Heavyweight division.   The Gold Medal win would mark the end of Clay's amateur boxing career and the beginning of his pro career.

In 1964 Clay defeated Sonny Liston, becoming the World Heavyweight Champion.  The next day he changed his name to Muhammad Ali signifying his relationship with the Nation of Islam.  In 1966 Ali refused the Draft and became an outspoken critic of the War in Vietnam. 

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 

has wasted 30 years of his life."
Muhammad Ali

The Beatles in Hamburg - 1960

 Pete  -  George  -  John  -  Paul  -  Stu

The period from August 1960 to December 1962 marked a significant period in the development of The Beatles.  Beginning on about August 17, 1960 The Beatles played at a series of Hamburg clubs including the Indra and the Kaiserkeller.  The group at this time was John, Paul, and George with Pete Best on Drums and Stu Sutcliffe on Bass.   Pete was auditioned and recruited the day before they left Liverpool!

Their schedule was intense.  The Beatles performed 7 days per week, often for 7 or 8 hours per night.  Living conditions were squalid, as Paul McCartney remembers... "We lived backstage in the Bambi Kino, next to the toilets, and you could always smell them. The room had been an old storeroom, and there were just concrete walls and nothing else. No heat, no wallpaper, not a lick of paint; and two sets of bunk beds, with not very much covers—Union Jack flags—we were frozen."  

These were the years that The Beatles gelled. Their skills were honed, their repertoire was expanded, and their reputation was begun.  The Beatles emerged from this period ready to be launched into the stardom that would follow.

 
Rock on!!  Rob; in Vancouver 

"In Hamburg we got very good as a band because we had to play eight hours a night and we started building a big repertoire of some of our own songs, but mainly we did all the old rock songs. In fact, we did everything." George Harrison

The Beatles in Hamburg

"Love is Strange" - Mickey and Sylvia

Ewan McGregor and Louise Germaine lypsynch this classic '57 hit by Mickey and Sylvia.  Enjoy...

August 6 - Hiroshima Day

On August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  15 years later, August 6, 1960 saw the US and the USSR in the midst of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War.   65 years later, August 6, 2010 sees us still living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

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Muddy Waters 1960 - "Hoochie Coochie Man"

Newport Rhode Island Jazz Festival

July 1960

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Personnel

• Francis Clay – Drums
• James Cotton – Harmonica
• Pat Hare – Guitar
• Otis Spann – Piano, Vocals
• Andrew Stevenson – Bass
• Muddy Waters – Guitar, Vocals

Top of the Charts - "Shakin' All Over"

UK #1  August 1960 - Johnny Kidd and the Pirates

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British Skiffle Music

Enough on the American political front.  There was certainly a lot more happening in the Summer of 1960 than the lead-up to a US election.  There's British music!  August 1960 would see the Beatles begin a 2-year stint in Hamburg, Germany.  This is a significant period which would see them refine their music, settle on the their band, and develop their early repertoire.  The Beatles would emerge from Hamburg in late 1962 and begin their meteoric rise to stardom.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in this story.   Where did their music come from?   We've already looked at Buddy Holly as a significant influence in the formation of The Beatles' sound.  Now let's have a quick look at the British "Skiffle" scene.

From Wikipedia...

"Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly associated with musician Lonnie Donegan and played a major part in beginning the careers of later eminent jazz, pop, blues, folk and rock musicians."

Lonnie Donegan made a musical living on "Skiffle Revival".  His hits included the great hits of the "Skiffle Genre" from across the pond in the US.

• "John Henry" (1955)
• "Cumberland Gap" (1957) 
• "Gamblin' Man" (1957) - UK #1
• "The Grand Coulee Dam" ('58) 
• "Midnight Special" (1958)
• "Tom Dooley" (1958) 
• "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour..." 1959) - UK #3
• "Battle of New Orleans" (1959) - UK #2
• "I Wanna Go Home" (1960) - UK #5
• "Michael, Row the Boat" (1961) - UK #6
• "Pick A Bale of Cotton"  (1962) - UK #11 

Wikepedia

"He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man." — Paul McCartney

"I wanted to be Elvis Presley when I grew up, I knew that. But the man who really made me feel like I could actually go out and do it was a chap by the name of Lonnie Donegan." — Roger Daltrey

More from Wikipedia...

"A large number of British musicians began their careers playing skiffle in this period and some became leading figures in their respective fields. These included leading Northern Irish musician Van Morrison, British blues pioneer Alexis Korner as well as Ronnie Wood, Alex Harvey and Mick Jagger; folk musicians Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and Ashley Hutchings; rock musicians Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Robin Trower and Dave Gilmour; and popular beat music successes Graham Nash and Alan Clarke of The Hollies. Most notably The Beatles evolved from John Lennon's skiffle group The Quarrymen."

How cool is that!!  A few fun "skiffle" clips follow.

SKIFFLE ON!!   Rob; in Vancouver

"Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, 

American folk music with a beat."
Van Morrison

Lonnie Donegan - Jimmy Page

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1960 US Campaign - The Stage is Set

Author David Pietrusza describes the 1960 campaign as "The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies", JFK, LBJ, and Nixon.   Considering the continuation of the Nixon presidency under Gerald Ford, the 1960 campaign would influence the next 16 years of presidential leadership.

This is indeed a pivotal time in American politics.  A new era of leadership is emerging and a new generation is stepping up.  Nixon and Kennedy are both younger and have recruited older, seasoned running mates to bolster the appearance of experience on their respective tickets.  The choices made by these three men, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon, in the course of their presidencies would determine the course of the nuclear arms build-up, the cold war, the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, the space race, and a score of other issues which would define both the 60's and the 70's.

Rebuilding the Republican Right
This would also signal a time of rebuilding the "Republican Right",  as alluded to in Barry Goldwater's 1960 convention speech...    "...let's grow up conservative's.  Let's, if we want to take this party back someday, and I think we can, let's get to work!"  Goldwater would be back as the Republican Presidential nominee in 1964, but it would not be until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that the Republican Right would finally find their muscle.  They have been flexing it ever since.

Lodge-Kennedy Dynamics
Another significant element of this campaign is the nomination of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee.  The Lodge's were long-time Kennedy rivals from Massachusetts, with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. narrowly losing his senate seat to JFK in 1952.  Lodge's son George would lose a bid for the same seat, vacated by JFK when he was elected President, to Ted Kennedy in 1962.  (I still have a Kennedy '62 tie-clip to commemorate that Senate race!) Despite the historic rivalry, Kennedy would appoint Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his ambassador to Vietnam at a crucial moment in the history of US involvement there.  One wonders if the two weren't working at cross purposes then, but that is another story.

Remembering and Reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

"Few presidential elections have been quite as close, 

as dramatic or as controversial as the 1960 election 

between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy turned out to be."

Isaac McPhee

1960 Republican Convention

The Republican Party met in Chicago from July 25 - 28, 1960 to nominate Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge as their President and Vice President candidates for the 1960 election.  The following videos highlight the convention with speeches from Nixon, Goldwater, Lodge, and a brief clip from Martin Luther King Jr.

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Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

 1960 SUMMER FUN:  Brian Hyland

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JFK Acceptance Speech: July 15, 1960

The New Frontier

50 Years ago today John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic Party nomination with this rousing speech on the New Frontier.  It is filled with a sense of optimism about the future that I remember as a child growing up in Michigan.  In spite of all the threats of the Cold War; the nuclear arms race, and the Vietnam War, there was an abounding optimism and faith that our new found technological prowess would help us to eradicate hunger, cure diseases, and usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity for all.  Alas!

Ella Fitzgerald: "Mack the Knife" 1960

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