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(" . . .oh those transgressions")

With the current wave of scandals hitting Tiger Woods, I have come to realize Sports and Scandal have become synonymous . . .at least for the past hundred or so years.

I suppose what's different now is the nature of our society and the ever-scrutinizing media; our need for scandal, our obsession with icon-bashing, not to mention the element that fame and power are aphrodisiacs. Sports certainly has no exclusivity rights on that one - politics jumps to mind quicker. It all comes down to the spectacle of seeing the mighty fall, feigning shock and revulsion while poring over the tabloids for more.

But the whole issue of Sports and Morality has been a subject of discussion with a lot of people over the years. This particular clip is one I located from May of 1964. A discussion featuring sports figures Joe Garagiola and Jackie Robinson on the subject of Morality and Sports. Although by todays standards the discussion is quaint and surface and the product of a different time - barely mentioning the issue of personal codes of ethics since, at the time an athletes personal transgressions were kept carefully hidden from public view.

Joe Garagiola: “Jackie, how would you define morality in sports?”

Jackie Robinson: “Well I think, Joe, that we’d have to define it by saying whether the athlete knows the difference between right and wrong. And then we’d have to go a little bit further and say there are circumstances, even though there are rules on the books that an individual do certain kinds of things that are perhaps are not within the law, but he is circumventing it, as you pointed out a short time ago before we came on the air. And my estimation is that morality is just simply knowing right from wrong, whether its in sports or our everyday life.”

Jimmy Carter once indicated that America had lost its moral center. I'm not so sure that hasn't always been the case. What is different now as opposed to scandals in history is the level of scrutiny we have at our disposal today. Were there just as many moral indiscretions in 1964 as there are today? Probably.

We just chose not to notice them.

It's That Time Of Year

As you know, Newstalgia is committed to digging into history and pulling up gems for your reference libraries. It's what we do and it's what we love doing. The task is huge - digitizing over a quarter million analogue recordings takes time, energy and equipment. Equipment breaks down and has to be replaced. The archive is constantly acquiring new material and it all takes money.
So . . .if you like what we're doing and want to see it continue, would you mind tossing whatever you can into the cause by hitting the button below and making a donation to keep this thing going?

As always, we'll be here as long as you're here.

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(Francoise Hardy - when people ask to describe the 60s, I point to her)

It's hard for me not to think of the 60s without conjuring the image of Francoise Hardy. Aside from being the epitome of 60s style, she had a wonderful voice, wrote great songs and was everyone's idea of what French girls looked like - in short, everyone I knew (myself included) had fallen in love with her.

So she could have sung from the phonebook, it's true. But that she was a major talent who was, and still is, recording some great music, as well as writing it, puts her at icon status for whole generations.

This track, Et Meme is almost an homage to the Brill Building/girl groups sound of the early-mid 1960s.

I don't know - call me crazy, it still sounds fresh.

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(Nikita Khruschev and friend - On this day he and the turkey had a lot in common)

On this typical average day in 1964 news came from Moscow that Premier Nikita Khruschev "needed a rest" and was quickly removed from office, sending more than the average shockwave around the world.

Sam Jaffe (ABC News Moscow): “From all outward appearances, the Soviet people responded calmly to the news that Nikita Khruschev has been replaced. Most Muscovites learned of the changes on their way to work today. All Soviet newspapers carried a brief announcement that Premier Khruschev had requested retirement because of his age and poor health”.

This newscast, via WXYZ in Detroit from Friday October 16, 1964 also mentions the ongoing Auto Plant and newspaper strikes and an ever-folksy Paul Harvey extolling the virtues of yet another life insurance policy.

All in all, a typical average day. Kind of like this one.

Or not.

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(Nancy Wilson - Nat "King" Cole - In a word, magic)

October 4, 1964 - hard to imagine it was 45 years ago this past week, but that particular Sunday night saw an extraordinary group of people assembled on stage at the Hollywood Bowl to raise funds and awareness for defeating a Proposition on the November ballot. Proposition 14, or the attempt by Realtor groups and the John Birch Society to nullify the Rumford Fair Housing Initiative that passed in 1963. A veritable who's who of Hollywood, with orchestra led by none other than Nelson Riddle and emcee's Joey Bishop and Milton Berle introducing a lineup of talent that included Nancy Wilson and Nat "King" Cole.

I've extracted the Wilson and Cole sets out for this segment. I will add the rest over the coming weeks.

This goes under the heading of "previously unknown concert tapes", as I don't believe any commercial (or otherwise) copy of this concert has been available before today.

You get to hear it first.

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(Sargent Shriver in 1964 - Peace Corps to The War On Poverty in one fell swoop)

As an extension of the JFK Administration, the LBJ Administration launched a number of Programs focusing on domestic poverty. As former head of The Peace Corps (a successful program begun in 1961 under the Kennedy Administration) Sargent Shriver was put into service as head of the Poverty Program, a wide range of social services designed to raise the economic and basic standards of the nations poor. No small feat, even in 1964. And of course, there were the detractors.

On March 22, 1964, Meet The Press did an interview with the newly installed head of the Poverty Program Sargent Shriver to answer the critics and to outline just what the program entailed.

Lawrence Spivak: “Mister Shriver, as you must know, that there are people, and they’re not all Republicans, who believe that this is just another political gimmick, and that there’s going to be a great deal of talk about it up until election time but that we’re not going to see many results. Now how long do you think it’s going to take you to show some tangible results?

Sargent Shriver: “Well let me, right off the bat deny that it’s a political gimmick. I wouldn’t have anything to do with it Mister Spivack, if that’s all it was. We have tried to establish . . . create a program which would meet the test of criticism and represent the consensus of intelligent thinking in this country. And I’ve been very much gratified by the number of leading businessmen, for example, as well as labor leaders who have been attracted by this program. You’ll notice that so far in Congress that it has not been attacked once on its substantive merits. There hasn’t been one criticism from the Republican or Democratic side about the substance of this program.”

The Poverty Program or The Great Society as it came to be known, probably would have been a great success, had it not been for a little thing called Vietnam and Nixon in 1968. The war managed to suck the life out of a lot of things, and the Nixon Administration gutted most of what the program was about, and good intentions were the first to go.

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(Peter Asher (L) and Gordon Waller (R) - A very important wing of the British Invasion of 1964)

I was very sad to learn today that Gordon Waller (the Gordon half of Peter and Gordon) died yesterday at his home in Connecticut.

It reminded me of how much of a presence Peter and Gordon were, during the British Invasion of 1964 and just how long ago that was.

I never saw them live, but rather via television. Their popularity waned by the end of the 60's, with Peter (Asher) turning to producer and being responsible for a string of hits for artists such as Linda Ronstadt.

But it was their sound, their voices that made such an impression. Several of their early hits were written by Lennon-McCartney, and I'm sure it had much to do with their initial success, but they were talented song writers on their own.

By way of a tribute, I dug up a live version of "World Without Love" originally featured on an album "Tribute to Michael Holiday" recorded in 1964 and added as a bonus on a Japanese CD release in 2002.

I doubt if it's been heard very much. I'm sure you're all familiar with the hit studio version. I thought I would offer something special.

Because they were and Gordon was.

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(Bocky & The Visions - Sounding a bit like James Brown on Steroids)

In anticipation of Hump Day, I thought I would add this somewhat frantic entry by Cleveland's own Bocky & The Visions. Released in 1964, I Go Crazy was the James Brown track, only this version pre-dates crack by about 30 years. It is so turbo-charged and over-the-top that, as a 14 year old, it answered just about every one of my hormone imbalances.

Sadly, it didn't chart all that well (it was the year The Beatles and the entire British Invasion dominated the charts) and the few other singles they issued didn't fare much better. But if they released nothing else, this track alone would gain them a toehold on immortality.

This track might go well with the first cup of coffee . . . just sayin' . .

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(The Walker Brothers - reinventing many times before the right combination hit.)

Just prior to becoming The Walker Brothers, Scott Engle (Walker), Gary Leeds and John Maus went through a number of different incarnations before scoring major success. One of their incarnations was under the name The Strangers (they was also known as The Dalton Brothers, but that's another entry in the future and no relation to the U2 side-project), at least that's what they were known as on a single issued by the indie Hollywood label Linda Records in 1964. The track is "Tell Me" an early Jagger-Richards composition that became the mainstay of just about every garage band in Southern California, if not the world, from 1964-1966.

But even this well-worn classic has the unmistakable touch that became The Walker Brothers signature - the Scott Walker voice.

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(Making an indelible impression on a curious teenage mind.)

If there was one single thing, one defining moment that turned my life around as a teenager, it would be the first time I heard "The Dreams" in 1966.

No, The Dreams are not a band - nobody played guitar, you can't dance to them. The Dreams was the first part of a four part Electronic Music piece originally broadcast over the BBC in 1964 and released by the BBC Transcription Service to radio stations in the U.S. shortly after.

It was described as "an invention for radio" conceived and written by Barry Bermange and scored by The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The result was haunting, hypnotic and totally overwhelming for these fifteen year old ears. It completely changed the way I listened and reacted to music.

Having only captured half of it on tape at the time, I waited years to find the complete recording, when a radio station tossed out their BBC Transcription library. We collectors are adept at being dumpster divers, even before it was fashionable.

For a long time I thought Barry Bermange (a talented writer on his own) was the one behind the whole concept. I didn't realize until much later that The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was actually the brainchild of Delia Derbyshire, and she was the one responsible for the incredible electronic sound that accompanied the voices.

Her work has been sadly neglected over the years (she died in 2001), but reading about her I came to realize she had a huge influence over a lot of people in the 60's, from Luciano Berio to The Beatles.

Hearing The Dreams today is just as fresh as when I first heard it that Saturday night in 1966.

Some things are just destined to stay with you.

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With the renewed interest in Cuba and the possibility of talks a potential reality, not to mention we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the rise to power of Fidel Castro, I thought it would be interesting to present a Sunday Talk Show from 1964 featuring a rare interview with Che Guevara. ABC's Issues and Answers, in pretty much the same mold as Meet The Press and Face The Nation, this interview, conducted in Havana pulled no punches.

Guevara is heard through an interpreter and now that we have the Crooks and Liars Media player, you get to hear the whole thing, uncut, exactly as presented on March 24, 1964.

(Had he lived, he'd be 80 this year

(MFQ - Hollywood Bowl - September 23, 1964)

A change of pace this week. One of the influential West Coast bands of the folk/post-folk/folk-rock genre in the early-mid 1960's, MFQ crafted a hybrid of different musical styles right at a time when music in general was taking different directions. The result was adventuresome and you can hear their influence in a lot of West Coast music of the period (early Grass Roots, early Association, the U.S. Kaleidoscope, Deep Six - the list goes on).

When this concert was recorded (September 23, 1964 at a Political rally) they were still entrenched in folk by playing standards of the time like "Draft Dodger" and the Phil Ochs arrangement of "Bells", with Banjo figuring prominently in their lineup. But by the end of their set, when they switch to electric guitars, you can tell bigger things were on the horizon.

A fine band whose first incarnation broke up around 1966, their lineup in this concert was Cyrus Faryar, Jerry Yester, Chip Douglas and Henry Diltz.

Good stuff and a nice slice of history. And that's sort of what we do here.

(The bread was okay, but the ads were priceless and were on every bus, subway, construction site and billboard in New York in 1964)

One of the perqs of having a sound archive is the effortless ability to pull things at random, on a whim, and just listen. As someone pointed out to me, there's history all over the place, and no matter how inconsequential any particular day seems to be, something is always happening.

Case in point - I decided to randomly grab a news broadcast from February 20, and the first one to fall into my hands was from 1964. Not an earth shattering day in the big scheme of things, but a day where events happened.

This newscast, an hourly from ABC Radio starts off with the Civil War in Cyrpus, the ongoing dispute between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots with the British Army stuck somewhere in the middle. This particular day also sees a ceasefire, which is declared as the broadcast is happening. The next item deals with the border dispute between Algeria and Morocco.. It had been a hotbed of violence and unrest since the late 1950's and a key element in the continuing Independence movement on the African continent. Then things turn domestic with the New Hampshire Republican Primaries between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller. The broadcast winds up with a piece on the newly installed monarch, King Constantine of Greece.

Just a typical day - like all typical days. And all typical days are loaded with history.

The broadcast is run complete and in its entirety as it was broadcast with no edits. I say that because in 1964 Cigarette advertising was still going strong and the jingles are catchy. This one is for Camels. If you find it offensive, it's only the first 45 seconds of the newscast, so you can forward through it.