Rest in Peace Ronnie Spector

[KuruPrionz]

Cancer takes another great singer away from us. She sang Be My Baby for one, an iconic part of our music history.

Thanks for the music Ronnie!!!!

[Anderton]

Veronica Greenfield, age 78. It's countdown time for a lot of people...and I'm not sure if we'll see this kind of golden age of pop music again for quite some time, given the rate at which it's unwinding. Not that I'd be around to see it anyway

 

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of good music being made. But I just don't see it as a golden age when music had huge cultural significance, and mattered more than being just a soundtrack in people's lives. And it's not just me saying "things used to be better." They weren't. But there was a unique confluence of radio, record players, a baby boom, limited exposure, and the rise of electric music where each element multiplied the other. These days, the multiplicity of elements themselves diffuses the impact.

[KuruPrionz]

I agree and feel lucky to have been alive for the great music explosion. I was 9 when the Beatles played 3 weeks straight on Ed Sullivan, my family watched all 3 shows.

Before that, I would lie awake late into the night with a small tube radio up next to my ear. We had 2 channels in Fresno, right next to each other on the FM dial, that played current pop music 24/7.

Fresno was very diverse so we got Elvis, Motown, Roger Miller, Four Seasons, Drifters, everything from early country rock to slow ballads - I remember Funny How Time Slips Away by Jimmy Eldridge was a hit - a big-eared clean cut white boy who sang sort of like Smokey Robinson and who would never make it now. Great singer, very short version of the song.

 

 

Somehow, I remember most of the sounds and the lyrics of all those old songs. Stuck in my head forever.

 

Sort of a country/soul crossover ballad thingie. Music was transmogrifying in all directions and that continued for decades.

I saw the Who on the Tommy tour for $3.50, I went with my brother and it changed our lives.

 

I saw Taj Mahal blow Loggins and Messina off the face of the earth (and they were GREAT!!!) with a banjo and no band.

 

Yep, those were good times indeed!!!!

 

And Ronnie Spector was part of that, I loved the sound of her voice and her records.

[Notes_Norton]

RIP Ronnie. Thanks for the music.

 

I agree, starting with Frank Sinatra and ending with the end of the Beatles, the music of the day marked the generation. It was their collective voice.

 

There was a time when the media was less diversified. When I was young there was the radio stations for the adults that played Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Vic Damone, etc., the EZ listening stations that played the standards with gentle, instrumental, string arrangements, the country stations that played Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and others, plus the Top40 stations. I know there were also 'race' music stations, but none in my broadcast area.

 

In my big sister's era, every young person heard the latest Elvis Presley song and knew all the words. In mine, it was the Beatles songs.

 

Then the market diversified. Instead of one pop music station for the youth, multiple choices emerged, rock, disco, pop, metal, grunge, alternate, emo, EDM, rap, Christian and others (in no particular order). The biggest stars in any of these genres can have a monster hit, and not everybody in the youth market will hear it and know the words like we did when Ronnie sang "Be my baby now". They are listening to different streams, different stations, different genres. So the youth is not all listening to the same music anymore, and therefore the musical artists and their songs don't unite, or identify an entire generation.

 

I don't know if this is good or bad, it's nice to have choices, but as a musician, I'm sorry to see the music no longer being the voice that holds an entire generation together.

 

While I'd rather stop aging and be 21 again, I'm glad I grew up in the golden age of music at a time when it was much more possible to make a living by doing music and nothing but music.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«

[Anderton]

I had a realization that the advent of the transistor radio was a huge deal. Kids could surreptitiously listen to music anywhere, rather than over the family radio, where the parents had control. In today's world, all music is personal, and almost never communal except for live performance.

 

Again, not saying that's good or bad (although I LOVE being able to have 35 GB of music in my smartphone!) but I think it's another piece of data on the societal differences in listening to music.

[KuruPrionz]

I had a realization that the advent of the transistor radio was a huge deal. Kids could surreptitiously listen to music anywhere, rather than over the family radio, where the parents had control. In today's world, all music is personal, and almost never communal except for live performance.

 

Again, not saying that's good or bad (although I LOVE being able to have 35 GB of music in my smartphone!) but I think it's another piece of data on the societal differences in listening to music.

 

Yes, transistor radio was a world changing event.

I'm certain I was not the only 7 year old to sneak radio time.

 

A little later, my brother and I discovered Wolfman Jack, who had huge transmitters in Tijuana, they were illegal in the US but right across the border they weren't so he lived in San Diego and broadcast from Mexico.

At night, AM radio could be picked up at long distances and Dad cobbled up some interesting antenna options. Fresno to Tijuana was not that far and no mountains to interfere so we got the Wolfman loud and clear.

 

That was an eye opener!!! So was Tower Records, they had a huge selection there. My brother used to go hunt down things out of curiosity, we were probably just about the only kids in our neighborhood to have Miles, Monk and Mingus and almost certainly the only ones to have Tibetian Monks chanting, Turkish Village music, m'bira story songs from Kenya and other freaky stuffs.

 

The communal (tribal?) love of group listening/dancing has not gone away, it has changed. Younger people are infinitely curious and now have resources we could not imagine in the 60's.

 

About 12 years ago I was hanging out with my 13 year old nephew, who was learning to play the guitar. He knew the solo from 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson (first album) note for note. His technique was still not quite there but he had memorized the solo. I asked him how he did it and he said "YouTube".

 

Pretty near impossible to put the generations to come into any sort of comfortable box, they are all over the place and have incredible options at their fingertips.

I think the future of music is incredibly bright, the human love of playing and enjoying music is vibrant and inherent in all of us.

[SteveCoscia]

[Yes, transistor radio was a world changing event.

 

This reminds of a June 1971 evening - the closing night of the Fillmore East. That night's shows were broadcast on WNEW-FM for all to hear. I was a 17 year old kid, huddled with my radio and listening to a historic event.

[Muad’Dib]

I first learned about her from Eddie Money"s song Take me home Tonight!

[Notes_Norton]

It seems like hardly a week goes by when another one of the pioneers of rock and roll music gives up the ghost.

 

Sometimes that makes me feel old, but I immediately change that in my mind to feeling like I am a survivor.

 

I do remember my big sister listening to rock on a tube powered portable radio, before transistors. It had two huge cube shaped batteries in it, and was the size of a small boom-box. When transistor radios arrived on the scene, they didn't sound as good, but the batteries were cheaper, and they were much smaller and lighter.

 

Time marches on.

 

Now that early rappers like Grandmaster Flash, Flavor Flav, MC Hammer, Sir Mix A Lot, Neneh Cherry, Dr. Dre, Tone Loc, and others are old enough to move into Florida's 55+ year old communities, (our biggest market), I realize how long rap has been a genre. I never figured it would last that long, but then, I've been wrong before (Flash and Flav are old enough to be on Social Security).

 

When I realize how temporary we are here on this Earth, I'm so glad I'm making a living playing music instead of being a wage slave to some faceless corporation. I wouldn't enjoy that (I tried it once), and in this short life I find being happy the most important asset.

 

Insights and incites by Notes â«