Be My Baby Rock 'n' Roll America

# Aw, let's go... #

Unfurling from Fats Domino's left hand,

Bill Haley stumbled upon it,

Little Richard preached it

and Chuck Berry defined it.

Rock'n'roll spread from the deep south and shook up the USA.

It twitched Elvis' hips,

possessed Jerry Lee Lewis

and inspired Buddy Holly.

But in the late '50s, it would be repackaged as pop...

It was like apple pie and rock'n'roll - it was all right.

..and twisted into a craze.

We were exploiting our sexuality while being fully dressed.

It would be refined by girl groups...

We had sex appeal.

..reimagined by Motown...

I said, "Man, this is a hit."

I knew it was a hit.

..and soundtrack the west coast dream.

# Shake it, baby, shake it... #

What was once crazy was getting smart and suburban.

Rock'n'roll was spreading across America

and being reshaped in the big cities of Philadelphia,

New York, Detroit and LA.

MUSIC: Rave On by Buddy Holly

# Well, the little things you say and do

# You make me want to be with you

# Rave on, it's a crazy feeling... #

By 1959, rock'n'roll's originators were missing in action.

# I love you... #

Private Elvis Presley was in the army in Germany,

Jerry Lee Lewis was disgraced for marrying his 13-year-old cousin

and Little Richard had turned to the Lord.

Hope lay in the hands of a new generation.

# When you say I love you

# You rave on to me... #

On a bitter winter night,

just before one in the morning,

Buddy Holly left Mason City Airport

on the next leg of the Winter Dance Party Tour.

# Well, rave on

# It's a crazy feeling

# And I know it's got me reeling... #

Five minutes later,

ground control lost radio contact.

MUSIC FADES OUT

Three young singers who soared to the heights of show business

in the current rock'n'roll craze

were killed today in the crash of a light plane

in an Iowa snow flurry.

The singers were identified as Richie Valens, 17,

Buddy Holly, 22,

and JP Richardson, known professionally as The Big Bopper.

# I'll be all right

# I'll be all right... #

Buddy Holly had set out on tour reluctantly.

# I'll be all right... #

He faced legal problems and needed money

having recently split with his band - The Crickets.

The night Buddy got killed,

it was a terrible feeling

and it made me wish I'd have been there

cos I think maybe I could have talked him out of getting on a plane

at one o'clock in the morning in a snowstorm.

So, there's a little guilt

for not being there.

He was a good friend, he was a friend of mine.

One of the very few people you meet in this business

that are friends, you know. That remain your friends.

You don't meet many Buddy Hollys any more.

The pioneers were absent and, without them,

rock'n'roll was set to become something very different.

The Boss With The Big Hot Sauce and ladies and gentlemen,

when you go hang out with The Geator With The Heater.

Where do you want to go when you're going to rock'n'roll

with the Big Boss With The Big Hot Sauce?

Where you going to go?

# At the hop

# Well, you can rock and you can roll it

# You can stop and you can stroll it at the hop... #

Philadelphia - the unlikely home for

rock'n'roll's translation by television.

# Do the dance sensations... #

Television ownership exploded in America

from 9% of homes in 1950

to 87% by the end of the decade.

-# Let's go to the hop

-Oh, baby

-# Let's go to the hop

-Oh, baby... #

In Philadelphia's newly built suburbia,

teens were keen to tune in to rock'n'roll...

but TV also had to please mum and dad.

A local show found the winning formula.

Welcome to American Bandstand.

Once again, this is Dick Clark with 90 minutes

of some fun and frolic we think you'll enjoy.

I think parents generally saw the American Bandstand show

partly because of who hosted it, Dick Clark, as OK.

He was what America was looking for to make our music acceptable

cos he was acceptable.

OK, the song is by Fats Domino. It's fast.

If you'll take that side,

you folks take the middle,

here's the Big Beat.

# The big beat keep you rocking in your seat... #

From 1957, American Bandstand

was beamed from this tiny

Philadelphia studio

across the United States.

From 3:30 to five o'clock in the afternoon,

it goes nationwide from New York City to Los Angeles, California.

And when Dick Clark plays a record, the whole country hears it.

All right, we're ready for mic check.

The kids would all line up coming home from school

trying to get in there

cos everyone wanted to just have their face seen on TV,

and some of those kids became famous

by being dancers on the show.

# Come on, gang, let's swing and sway

# The big beat make you act this way... #

If you were the camera, you're shooting us now,

and we would get this close to the cameras.

You just stay still with the camera

and we would be right up against the lens.

THEY LAUGH

But the boys were worse than the girls, I have to say that.

The girl would be like this and,

as soon as he saw the red light, he'd go...

HE LAUGHS

There would be his face, the boy...

# Clap your hands and stomp your feet... #

The American Bandstand show,

it was like holding a mirror up to the teenagers of America.

They were on the show, they were the dancers - it was their music

and now they saw themselves.

MUSIC: Runaround Sue by Dion

-# Hey, hey

-Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh

-# Hey, hey

-Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh

-# Hey, hey

-Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh... #

Dick Clark was very strict about our dances.

He only preferred us to do the slow dance,

the jitterbug and the cha-cha.

And if you went on a weekend to a dance

and there were some black kids dancing their dances,

we would bring it to Bandstand and

Dick Clark would not allow us to do it

because it just wasn't clean enough.

# I keep away from Runaround Sue... #

There wasn't a lot of bumping and twerking.

It was kids dancing in acceptable ways.

It was like apple pie and rock'n'roll - it was all right.

# They say the years

# 'Twixt twelve and twenty... #

Bandstand regular Pat Boone had kept parents happy

with safe covers of rock'n'roll since the mid '50s.

In 1959, he was married with four daughters,

a 25-year-old shaking hands with Eisenhower

and putting his English degree to good use.

It was the number one non-fiction bestseller for two years

called 'Twixt Twelve And Twenty.

I wrote about things that were of interest to teens

and that's why I wrote what's on the flyleaf here.

"I'd like to talk with you about the whole list of challenges

"you meet as a teenager,

"altered relations with parents and friends,

"dating, going steady, petting, earning money, planning a future,

"getting an education and developing spiritually.

"I think the better we understand

"what makes our wheels turn during these years,

"the more we can make of them and the more we can enjoy them.

"Now, let's look at them together."

MUSIC: Venus by Frankie Avalon

The music business did not want to

be dependent upon a genius.

# Hey, Venus

# Oh, Venus... #

They wanted to go back to the '50s and cookie cut.

If they liked the way Elvis looks,

we'll get a guy who looks like Elvis and we'll do an Elvis song.

# A girl who wants my kisses and my arms... #

In Philadelphia, the original mavericks of rock'n'roll

were being replaced.

Promoters packaged local teens as wholesome heart-throbs.

The one and only Bobby Rydell!

GIRLS SCREAM

# Whoa, wild one, I'm-a gonna tame you down?

# Tame me down

# Wild one, I'll get you yet

# You bet... #

Everything had a kind of, class, smooth sound to it.

Where Chuck Berry was...

HE MIMICS HEAVY GUITAR RIFF

Ours was like...

HE MIMICS CALM GUITAR RIFF

# Oh, wild one, I'll make you settle down... #

If you want to put it into a rock'n'roll genre,

I would say Wild One was probably...

my best attempt... HE LAUGHS

..at rock'n'roll.

# Come on, wild one

# Be wild about me... #

It was a great record, it had a nice beat,

you could dance to it and the kids loved it,

and it became my first million seller -

but lyrically?

Come on, I mean, we're not talking Gershwin here.

Fabian Forte was another of Philadelphia's teen idols.

Oh, hi there.

You know, so many wonderful things have happened to me

in a short space of time, thanks to you.

He was spotted by his manager at just 14 years old,

sitting outside on his doorstep.

I guess he saw something in my face, my being,

that he'd like that look for the rock'n'roll business.

Fabian's dreamboat features were the perfect raw materials.

He was greased, groomed and marketed as the ultimate teen idol.

In the beginning, it was like puppets -

I was like a puppet.

In the press...

"Fabian? Who is Fabian?

"Fabian is coming.

"What's a Fabian?"

I mean, they did a fantastic job.

I was a fantasy boyfriend and this is what

that bullshit was all about.

# Cuter than a baby walking down the street

# When I look into your eyes, I wanna leap

# I can't conceal that you make me feel like a tiger

# Oooh, like a tiger

# Oo-ooh, I see your smile and it drives me wild

# I wanna growl, wow. #

The girls screamed for Fabe,

but the critics screamed at him to stop.

Critics would say things like,

"A rebel without a clue" -

that was my favourite one.

# Like a tiger

# Oo-ooh like a tiger... #

I don't know, I've blocked a lot of it out.

Some of it was really hurtful.

# I wanna growl, wow... #

In spite of critics, Fabian recorded seven albums in three years,

had three gold records,

and found fame as a film star -

but his manager's conduct led him to quit the rock'n'roll business.

He was trying making advances on me

and I'd have to...

I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be on me,

so I sent him to the hospital.

I went to my guardian and said,

"I want out. What's it going to cost?"

And I bought out my contract

and never recorded again.

Bolstered by American Bandstand,

Philadelphia's cartel of local labels

sold rock'n'roll to middle America as pop.

In 1960, emerging from the whitewash came one black phenomenon.

If you are ready...

MUSIC: The Twist by Chubby Checker

..I've got to tell you about the dance sensation called...

# Come on, baby...

What do you want to do, Chubby?

# Let's do the twist... #

What do you say you want to do?

# Come on, baby, let's do the twist... #

Let me see you shake your, oooh!

# Take me by my little hand

# And go like this... #

Former chicken plucker Ernest Evans was rechristened Chubby Checker,

in tribute to Fats Domino,

and he started a craze on American Bandstand.

We brought something along that this type of music

didn't have before -

rock'n'roll did not have a dance.

They were swinging to Elvis, they were swinging to Chuck Berry,

they were swinging to Jerry Lee

and Little Richard and Fats Domino,

and then the twist came along

and the kids had their own dance.

I'm looking at the girl,

the girl's looking at me

and we're exploiting our sexuality

while being fully dressed.

They wanted to be more sexy than the other one.

You had to really move and get down.

I don't think the twist was that sexy.

It was a safe sexy.

I mean, this and this is not this and this.

How can it be sexy when you're five, six, seven feet apart, you know?

This was sexy,

when you hold a girl and you hold her in your arms,

and you dip a little bit and kiss.

Maybe on the neck,

little something in the ear.

# Come on, let's twist again

# Like we did last summer... #

The Twist was the first solo dance craze.

It was catchy and clean

and got adults dancing to rock'n'roll for the first time.

The Twist, when it first came out, I mean,

every head of state of every country

was learning how to twist -

Saudi Arabia, Italy - it was big.

The Queen of England was trying to learn how to do the twist.

I made that up, but I bet she was.

It's still spreading, it's still here.

How far has the telephone gone?

How far has the electric light gone?

I fall into that category.

# Twisting time is here, bop bop. #

Philadelphia tamed and domesticated rock'n'roll.

It had America transfixed with television,

mooning over teen idols

and got the whole world twisting.

In 1960, there were few rock'n'roll originals,

but one man stood out from the crowd.

I asked Elvis, I said,

"Elvis, if you had to pick and choose

"one of your favourite singers,

"who would it be?"

And he thought about it...

He thought about it for a sec and he said,

"Roy Orbison."

# Only the lonely... #

Just days before Elvis recorded Are You Lonesome Tonight,

Roy cut Only The Lonely in the same Nashville studio.

He turned teen heartbreak into pure tragedy.

Roy came from a little town called Wink in West Texas.

Have you ever been to West Texas?

West Texas will influence you...

Its wide open spaces.

Miles and miles and miles.

# They're gone forever... #

Roy was physically not a movie star handsome.

That was totally anti everything that was going -

the Frankie Avalons and so on, you know.

Fabians - the pretty boys.

Of course, they couldn't sing like Roy.

There was more to Roy than teen angst.

# I was all right

# For a while

# I could smile for a while... #

I had suggested changes and even made changes,

some major, some minor, in every song we had done,

until we got to Crying.

He came in and he sang Crying for me with just a guitar.

# That I'd been crying over you

# Crying over you... #

I said, "Wow! There's only one thing wrong with it, Roy."

He said, "What?"

"It's not out yet."

He said, "You don't want to change anything?"

I said "No, sir."

And that's as perfect a song as I've ever heard.

# Crying over you

# Crying over you... #

He then jumped around and ran around and

did handstands and cartwheels,

he just did it with that voice.

# Crying over you... #

I still miss him.

HE HOLDS NOTE

MUSIC: Why Do Fools Fall In Love by Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers

Back on the east coast,

rock'n'roll was also finding new voices

in the Big Apple.

# Why do fools fall in love?

# Why do birds sing so gay?

# And lovers await the break of day

# Why do they fall in love? #

Girls had been the subject matter,

not the stars in rock'n'roll's first flush.

But in the late '50s,

inspired by Frankie Lymon's genderless doo-wop falsetto,

New York girls began forming groups of their own.

Well, back then,

the public schools opened up at night

for the teenagers, from seven to 11.

Sometimes they had dances

and sometimes the boys played basketball,

but there was always a group of guys

that would stand off in a corner and sing.

All the girls, they would dress up fancy

and go and just listen to them.

When I started to think in terms of how I wanted to present,

I was impressed with the male singers.

Doo-wop harmonies prompted 13-year-old Arlene Smith

to start her own group - The Chantels.

The first show was right here at The Apollo.

And, you know, when you're wearing all these crinolines

and your little legs are hanging out,

my knees started to tremble because

I'm thinking in my head as I'm singing,

"Ooh, they don't like us.

"They're not saying anything, nobody's doing anything."

It was so quiet and then they clapped.

They were like, "Whoa."

# Maybe if I pray every night

# You'll come back to me

# And maybe if I cry every day

# You'll come back to stay

# Oh, maybe... #

There was nobody singing anything like that and, of course,

being an adolescent you have a lot of feelings.

Your sexual stuff is trying to surface.

You don't know who you are, you're still talking orders from parents,

you still have curfews, you know what I mean?

So, there's a lot of things going into that intensity.

# Only in my dreams...

# Maybe if I cry... #

We were innovators.

We opened up the possibility

and that's all you really need,

and you have a whole bunch of people coming through.

# And maybe if I cry every day

# You'll come back to stay... #

In downtown Manhattan, the Brill Building

had long been home to Tin Pan Alley's

music publishers and songwriters.

But across the road, at 1650 Broadway,

a new school of Jewish songsmiths started penning hits

for black girl groups.

It attracted young teenage writers for the teenage market.

I brought my girlfriend Carole King up with Gerry Goffin

and then Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil,

and Ellie Greenwich and Geoff Barry,

and we had little cubicles that we would write

from ten in the morning till five in the afternoon five days a week.

I was 18, I think Carole was about 17.

It was the first time that teenage writers

were writing for teenage audiences.

# Tonight you're mine completely

# You give your love so sweetly

# Tonight the light of love is in your eyes

# But will you love me tomorrow? #

In the autumn of 1960,

Gerry Goffin and Carole King had just one night to write a new hit

for east coast girl group The Shirelles.

Their song gave rock'n'roll a female voice.

We were the very first black female vocal group

to have a number one record.

# I'd like to know that your love... #

Gerry Goffin wrote the lyrics.

Carole didn't write the lyrics, she wrote the music.

I like that, yeah, but it's got to be harder.

When we write the lyrics to it, it'll be different.

And it's very much a young woman's,

or any woman's, attitude towards having sex.

I never thought of it in those ways at all.

I still had the mind of a young person.

I wasn't thinking in terms of,

"Will you still respect me in the morning?"

The fear of a woman,

"Will you come back?

"Is this one night only?

"Will you love me tomorrow?"

I thought it was a groundbreaker.

# Will you still love me tomorrow? #

New York writers brought fresh female perspective

and a new sophistication to rock'n'roll.

# Will you still love me tomorrow? #

In the studio, veterans Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller,

who wrote Hound Dog, also expanded the sound.

MUSIC: There Goes My Baby by The Drifters

I started playing this figure...

HE HUMS INTRO

..it was, sort of, you know,

Borodin or Rimsky-Korsakov.

Anyway, Gerry heard what I was playing, he said,

"Oh, that sounds like violins."

I said, "Hey, why not? Let's try it."

# There goes my baby

# Moving on down the line... #

Leiber and Stoller brought orchestral innovation

to a standard R'n'B song written by Drifters frontman Ben E King.

# I broke her heart... #

We had violins, we had timpanis,

we had trumpets,

we had tenor saxophones -

we had the whole gamut in that one Atlantic studio.

# There goes my baby... #

I wasn't aware of the fact that

they were using instruments

that had never been used on R'n'B songs before.

# Did she really love me? #

Atlantic Records boss Jerry Wexler

was a little sceptical about the experimentations

on There Goes My Baby.

Jerry was eating lunch at his desk,

a tuna fish sandwich,

and we played him the new record.

He went ballistic.

He said, "I HATE this thing.

"Where the hell did you find this? You've got kettle drums..."

HE HESITATES

The tuna fish was splattered over the wall.

He said, "You're flushing our money down the toilet.

"It sounds like three stations are playing at the same time."

But eventually they released it on the back of something else,

it became number one R'n'B, number one pop....

Everyone then decided they're going to go strings and kettle drums

and cellos, and all of these great instruments on their records.

# There is a rose in Spanish Harlem... #

Leiber and Stoller's widescreen production

inspired one ambitious kid in LA.

We sent him a ticket to come to New York

and he, kind of, lived in our office.

# It only comes out when the moon is on the run

# And all the stars are gleaming. #

Phil Spector co-wrote Ben E King's first solo hit,

Spanish Harlem, with Leiber and Stoller.

It was an irresistible taste of pop production and power.

How would I describe him?

Unpleasant.

HE LAUGHS

A little nasty, you know.

Phil's ambition was to rule the world.

SINISTER MUSIC PLAYS

Spector imagined productions of Wagnerian proportions

and used girl groups as his means to an end.

He would always say,

"These are my records. These are not your records.

"You're just like one of the band members,

"the horn player or whatever."

# See the way he walks down the street

# Watch the way he shuffles his feet

# My, he holds his head up high

# When he goes walking by

# He's my guy... #

He's A Rebel was a number one hit for Spector.

Although credited to The Crystals,

seen lip-syncing here,

the voices on the record belonged to Darlene Love and The Blossoms.

I knew at the time, when I got ready to record that song,

that I was recording it for another group.

# He's a rebel and he'll never be any good

# He's a rebel cos he never, ever does what he should... #

I thought I sounded good and the record was good,

but I didn't think a record like that was going to sell.

But then when it was a hit, then I wanted everyone to know it was me.

SHE LAUGHS

I have to have oohs behind it, OK?

After the success of He's A Rebel,

Darlene Love signed with Phil Spector.

# Every evening when the sun goes down

# Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh... #

She presumed it would be her name on their next recording -

He's Sure The Boy I Love.

I was driving home one day

and I heard the record come on the radio as The Crystals.

MUSIC: He's Sure The Boy I Love by The Crystals

Not only was I mad, I was shocked.

SHE LAUGHS

# He's sure the boy I love... #

How can somebody do that to you?

What I didn't realise at the time,

that Phil was trying to become a star too.

He really wasn't interested in making his artists bigger stars -

it was about making a name for his self.

# Never be a big businessman... #

Spector called his records "symphonies for the kids"

and in 1963 he struck gold

with a trio of dancing girls

from New York's exclusive Peppermint Lounge.

-We had sex appeal...

-SHE LAUGHS

..and no other girl group had the sex appeal that we had.

When I saw girl groups, I didn't want to be anything like them.

We went the other route.

All the other girls were wearing the big flare dresses.

I said, "No, we've got to wear tight dresses, slits up the side

"so we can turn and shake. Hair up to here and eyes out to there.

# He's sure the boy I love... #

The Ronettes brought that missing ingredient

to Spector's wall of sound production.

They had to fly me to California to make Be My Baby,

which I thought was scary.

They had a booth for me

and all these musicians - Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, two drummers -

all these people are playing behind me,

so I get in my little booth and...

SHE MIMICS DRUMS

SHE HUMS INTRO

# The night we met I knew I... #

Bam!

# The night we met I knew I needed you so

# And if I had the chance I'd never let you go

# So won't you say you love me...? #

Be My Baby saw teen America fall in love with

rock'n'roll's first bad girls.

It was Spector's love letter to the girl he'd marry five years later

and hide away in a Hollywood mansion.

# Be my, be my baby

# Be my little baby

# My one and only baby

# Say you'll be my darlin'

# Be my, be my baby

# Be my baby tonight... #

The first couple of months after I was married,

he'd take me to the studio,

just to pacify me.

But when I figured I wasn't making any records,

it was like taking candy from a baby cos he knew I loved it.

He was like, "Here, I'll give you a bit of the candy.

"No, I'm taking it back, all of it."

# I'll make you happy baby

# Just wait and see

# For every kiss you give me

# I'll give you three... #

MOTORBIKE REVS

IN SYNC: By the way, where did you meet him?

# I met him at the candy store... #

They wore boots, they wore black, they wore white blouses,

they wore black vests or black leather jackets.

They were tough girls.

# The leader of the pack... #

MOTORBIKE REVS

They were the girls who were going to pull your earrings out

if you got in a fight with them.

The Shangri Las were a rare exception

to the mostly black girl groups

and took the bad girl image to new heights of moody melodrama.

They were vulnerable. They had that veneer of toughness,

with that vulnerability,

pure neediness

in the voice of this terrific-looking young woman.

# It's been two years or so

# Since I saw my baby go

# And then this letter came for me... #

They gave us, as teenagers,

another view of how a woman could behave.

Producer Shadow Morton carefully scripted his heroine's heartache.

He saw the whole thing.

It was a story, it was a play.

# Oh, no

# Oh, no

# Oh, no, no, no, no

# Remember

# Walking in the sand... #

He created these little teenage dramas.

They were soap operas...

..for kids.

# Whatever happened to

# The boy that I once knew?

# The boy who said he'd be true... #

Girl groups were born on the east coast

and gave rock'n'roll a sassy female voice.

# Detroit City... #

Meanwhile in Detroit,

one black entrepreneur was shaping

the raw materials of rock'n'roll into a production line.

# Yeah, Detroit City... #

One of the unique things about Detroit was the factories,

so that means the people, no matter where you arrived in the north,

seemed like you ended up coming to Detroit

because that's where the jobs were.

By the 1950s, Detroit was the beating heart

of America's automobile industry.

Its population had soared to almost two million

as southern blacks flocked to a city

that oozed potential for advancement.

The whole black middle class has expanded -

we get black elected officials coming into play.

All these blacks are beginning to get a certain amount of power

and all of this is inspirational.

Berry Gordy Jr was a talented songwriter from a business family.

He'd worked the line for 86 a week and, like Phil Spector,

he wanted to turn rock'n'roll into mass production.

Working in the factories gave him a lot of ideas

because of the entrepreneurial zeal that he possessed,

and then recognising all this energy and talent around him,

and how you can bring it all together in an assembly line fashion

based upon his work experience at Ford motor company and then,

boom, there it is.

The company comes into existence.

Let me take you back to the very beginning, ladies and gentlemen,

originally on the Anna label, a fellow by the name

of Barrett Strong, THIS was the first HIT for Berry Gordy.

In 1959, Gordy recorded Money at a house in West Grand Boulevard.

He called it Hitsville USA.

# The best things in life are free

# But you can give them to the birds and bees

# I need money

# That's what I want

# That's what I want

# That's what I want... #

I was just 14 years old.

I was broke.

I was a young guy and wanted to help my parents.

My father was a hard working man.

This man worked every day of his life at a rubber factory.

I just need some money right now to help my parents get a nice house

and help my father get out of the factory.

# That's what I want

# That's what I want

# That's what I want

# That's what I want... #

And therefore Money came up,

he was an engineer, he said...

"Berry, come up and hear what he's doing. It sounds great."

Berry said, "I like that. I like that, let's cut it."

Yeah, it was great, it was rocking and he said, "This is a hit."

I knew it was a hit.

# Money don't get everything, it's true

# But what it don't get, I can't use

# I need money... #

It was his first hit in a studio.

I guess he was looking for the same thing I was looking for - money.

That record helped him get some money to advance himself.

Gordy fuelled his hit factory with R'n'B and

took Detroit's moniker for his record label.

In 1961, five girls from the Inkster suburb

gave him his first billboard number one.

# Oh, yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman

# Wait, Mr Postman... #

It brings back a lot of old memories

because we were only 16 years old.

# Please, Mr Postman

# Whoa, yeah... #

Who played the drums for us on Please, Mr Postman?

Marvin, I think.

Marvin Gaye?

-I think so.

-Was that Marvin Gaye?

I believe it was Marvin Gaye.

I think he played the drums on Please, Mr Postman

if I'm not mistaken.

# I've been standing here waiting, Mr Postman

# So patiently

# For just a card, for just a letter

# Saying he's returning home to me

# Please, Mr Postman... #

Please, Mr Postman was the first record I promoted at Motown Records.

The interesting thing about that song is

all the kids knew one line -

"Deliver de letter, de sooner, de better."

# Deliver de letter, de sooner, de better... #

So, when I met Berry Gordy, I said,

"It's interesting about that song, Berry,

"that all the kids know that one line."

He said, "Russ, remember these words -

"that's the HOOK in that song.

"It reaches out and grabs you."

# So many days, you've passed me by... #

I think Please, Mr Postman set the stage.

-Well, Please, Mr Postman started it off for everybody.

-Yes.

For The Temptations, The Supremes - it started the ball rolling.

Please, Mr Postman topped the charts at a time

when The Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum

in America's segregated south,

but Gordy was more interested in popularity than protest.

Berry Gordy made music for the masses -

he didn't care whether they were white, black or polka dot -

he just made music that he thought would sell.

His favourite word was "commercial."

Berry was open.

He had big ears,

so he was interested in all these different dynamics

and how they began to appeal to each one of those audiences out there,

and make something that could be marketable

and purchasable across the globe.

Gordy rolled out the records like Model T Fords.

Motown's black-owned business

re-imagined rock'n'roll and presented

the new aspirational face of black music -

the sound of young America.

Meanwhile, on the west coast,

rock'n'roll was finding a place in the sun.

SURF ROCK PLAYS

A bunch of aspiring amateurs from Tacoma

stumbled upon a soundtrack for America's

emerging west coast lifestyle.

My partner and I, Bob Bogle,

we bought two guitars in a pawn shop in 1958.

He had an album

called Hi-fi In Focus

by Chet Atkins and it had a song in there called Walk, Don't Run...

MUSIC: Walk, Don't Run by Chet Atkins

..and he played it finger-style,

jazzy - we couldn't do that. We just learned how to play,

so we had to learn how to do it in our own style, which we did.

MUSIC: Walk, Don't Run by The Ventures

The record came out, I think, at some time in July -

which was good time - summertime, beach time.

But for an instrumental, we got to number two

and stayed there for about three months.

In 1960, The Ventures' DIY approach on Walk, Don't Run

inadvertently created a new rock'n'roll genre.

When we first started with Walk, Don't Run,

there was no such thing as surf music.

The Ventures, I don't think were aware of

being a surf band.

They were just an instrumental band - a really good one.

We all went to the school auditorium on Friday and Saturday nights

to see these spectacular surfing movies.

MUSIC: Pipeline by The Ventures

There was no narration or anything,

so we used the Ventures as background music

for the surfing movies.

They became a surf band, unbeknownst to them.

It was about a lifestyle - freedom, liberation.

These people lived at the beach,

they smoked some sort of mysterious substance,

they gathered around a fire like tribal people

that you read in Lord Of The Flies

and, for sport, they went in on a board

and surfed the waves - it was free power.

MUSIC: Misirlou by Dick Dale

Instrumental rock'n'roll and California culture

birthed a guitar shaman, who defined the surf sound.

First of all, Dick Dale played like this - backwards.

He actually brought in that double-picking style, like...

HE PLAYS MISIRLOU

Well, the excitement of watching someone on a big wave,

on a board, going through that curl

with waves breaking over his head, he has to duck down and,

"Oh, no, he's wiped out!"

And he shoots out through the foam and he's OK, and it's just exciting.

There's all kind of suspense and the music was going right along with it.

This glistening west coast utopia was co-opted by Hollywood,

burnt onto celluloid

and projected into the minds of young America.

Disneyland is just opening up,

there's the wonderful world of Disney on television,

and these images of California

and the lovely bright sunshine

are saturating TV and...

surf culture was happening right under the nose of Hollywood.

# Gidget is the one for me... #

That movie Gidget probably had more impact than anything

and that really is what brought surfing

into the mainstream consciousness.

'This is the story of Gidget -

'a cuddling, befuddling teen,

'who set out one summer morning on the beach at Malibu

'to find herself a man of her own

'and found seven.'

Gidget's success spawned a wave of

bubble gum beach flicks in the early '60s.

What's going on with Gidget, Beach Blanket Bingo -

those films are actually quite, what you'd call, sort of clean teen pics.

The parents aren't there,

but they're not doing anything their parents wouldn't want them to do.

You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?

# Two girls for every boy... #

If you lived in New York

and you saw those Gidget movies,

you wanted to go surfing too.

Life was about a surfboard,

life was about a bikini,

life was about doing the frug.

There's no tall buildings, there's no ugliness - there's just sun.

It was all going to go Southern California -

car, culture, ocean.

Good-looking women, two to one,

come out here and have some fun.

And they came, they came by the millions and millions, and millions.

# You know we're going to surf city

# Gonna have some fun... #

Surf city was the teenage American dream

and five beach-bum school kids turned the fantasy

into pristine California pop.

# Little deuce coupe, you don't know

# You don't know what I got... #

Hey, let's go for a ride with the Beach Boys.

# Well, I'm not bragging babe so don't put me down

# But I've got the fastest set of wheels in town... #

The Beach Boys sang about hot rods, girls and surfing,

and combined rock'n'roll rhythms with barbershop vocals.

# She's my little deuce coupe

# You don't know what I've got... #

Brian took a music class in high school

and he started listening to The Four Freshmen

and doing vocal arrangements.

# We'll remember always

# Graduation day... #

Carl and I both got guitars around the same time.

I was ten years old, Carl was around 12.

Brian kind of liked the sound of those electric guitars,

so we started playing with him and he incorporated that, like,

surf guitar instrumental sound

in with his Four Freshmen vocals.

That was the first time, I think, those types of vocal harmonies

were used in rock'n'roll.

# She's my little deuce coupe

# You don't know what I got... #

The Beach Boys took high-school harmonies,

mixed them with a Chuck Berry classic

and, in 1963, wrote America's surf anthem.

The record Surfin' USA

was originally a record by Chuck Berry

called Sweet Little 16.

It was on his album Chuck Berry's On Top, which we really loved.

# They're really rocking in Boston

# And Pittsburgh, PA... #

Brian just adapted that song

to put the words to Surfin' USA.

Both versions named all the cities and everything,

so we thought that would be clever.

# If everybody had an ocean across the USA

# Then everybody'd be surfin, like Californ-I-A... #

Chuck Berry wasn't really happy with that version of his song

because, first of all, I believe that his name

wasn't on the record...

# You'd catch them surfin' at Del Mar

# Inside, outside, USA... #

I know it was eventually resolved,

but I believe Chuck was pissed about that - rightfully so.

# All over Manhattan

# Inside, outside, USA... #

I remember sitting down next to him in a doughnut shop in Boston

next to the Jazz Workshop and I introduced myself,

told him who I was and everything,

and he didn't look up from his doughnut or say a word -

he just walked out.

# Inside, outside, USA

# Pacific Palisades

# Inside, outside, USA

# San Onofre and Sunset

# Inside, outside, USA

# Redondo Beach, LA...

# Inside, outside, USA

# All over La Jolla

# Inside, outside, USA

# And Waimea Bay... #

I think the rock'n'roll music from the south and the Midwest,

it kind of worked its way west somehow

and when the surf-influenced bands started playing that style of music,

it turned into its own genre.

I think that's where rock'n'roll met the west coast,

that's where it met the ocean.

By 1963, rock'n'roll had spread so far it was in the sea.

The Beach Boys, Motown,

Phil Spector and Roy Orbison

had only begun their musical journeys,

but teens were going steady

and most of American pop now seemed prematurely old.

# I love you

# No use to pretend... #

When that's all the fare that you have,

you'll eat shit muffins and say they're good,

if that's all you've got.

In January 1964, Bobby Vinton was at number one crooning this song,

which had previously topped the charts way back in 1945.

# There I said it again... #

But in February, aliens from across the ocean

replaced Bobby at the top of the charts

and reignited the kids in America.

# Well, shake it up, baby, now

# Shake it up, baby

# Twist and shout

# Twist and shout

# Come on, come on, come on, baby... #

# You know you look so good...

# Look so good...

# Just like I knew you would

# Like I knew you would... #

I was in a friend of mine's office,

he showed me this picture of The Beatles and said,

"This is a new thing coming out of London.

"They're going to be a smash."

I said, "Who?"

# The best things in life are free

# But you can keep them for the birds and bees

# Now give me money

# That's what I want... #

Then I heard them sing and I said, "Man, these guys are...

"They look one way and sing another." I said, "They're great."

# That's what I want

# That's what I want... #

# Oh, yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman... #

-I can tell you what impact they had on the girls.

-Yes.

-Deary.

-Oh, the girls went crazy over The Beatles.

-Right.

The Beatles landed in America long-haired, at ease, unique

and self-assured.

They think your haircuts are un-American.

Well, that's very observant of them, cos we aren't American, actually.

# Oh, yeah, I'll tell you something... #

They covered Motown and R'n'B,

but it was their string of self-penned hits

that transformed rock'n'roll into Beatlemania.

In its most extreme form, of course,

it's a, kind of, out of control, teenage excitement -

a group worship of idols who are different,

non-conforming and who have a lot of musical appeal,

a lot of sex appeal. And, of course, there are four of them,

which makes them four times better than any other teenage idol

we've had in the past.

Did it hurt us? Yeah, absolutely.

Every radio station in the world was playing everybody

who was coming from Britain at that time.

Suited and booted, British bands arrived en masse.

Rock'n'roll was suddenly tribal.

It was about being young, cheeky and in a gang.

Herman's Hermits, The Beatles,

Dave Clark Five, Manfred Mann.

All of a sudden, very few American artists are getting the play.

# I said the joint was rockin'... #

In June 1964,

with Chuck Berry records in hand,

The Rolling Stones went to the source

and recorded at Chess Records.

They came and recorded in Chicago, and that blew me away.

It was the first long-haired guys that was really around.

It was the first guy that I saw drink whisky out of a bottle, you know.

# Well, it sounds so sweet

# I had to take me a chance... #

And I drove Brian Jones back to the hotel

and people were screaming "homo" cos he had the long hair.

In Chicago that was, like, weird. I remember, at a red light.

SCREAMS DROWN OUT MUSIC

# Yeah, reeling and a rocking

# What a crazy crowd

# And they never stopped rocking

# Till the moon went down... #

Sometimes they'd be sloppy, they'd be horrible,

stoned, not showing up.

Some nights they'd become one.

When I want to enjoy some black music,

I just turn The Stones on

because they do us better than most people do us.

And then he's singing, "I can't get...",

with his big lips out like some black guy.

# Can't get no satisfaction

# And I try and I try... #

All he's doing is a black guy.

# And you never stop rocking

# Till the moon went down... #

They discovered the blues and Chess, and early rock...

They were like the fire.

I think they discovered it stronger than American kids.

The Stones weren't the only Brits to remind America

of rock'n'roll's roots.

Five Geordies, The Animals,

growled the tale of a Storyville brothel

and looked south to where it all began.

# There is a house in New Orleans

# They called the Rising Sun

# And it's been the ruin of many old boy

# And God, I know, I'm one... #

Well, the guys who said,

"I'm going to rock you, baby, rock you all night long",

they weren't talking about a child in a crib.

"I'm going to rock you, baby..."

No, it was sexuality. It was sex!

# My father was a gambling man

# Down in New Orleans... #

Their best music, their culture was lying around.

We put our hands into the collective garbage bin in America

and pulled out this thing called rock'n'roll.

I mean, we were preaching it -

preaching rock'n'roll.

It became our new religion in a way.

# There is a house in New Orleans

# They call it Rising Sun... #

Rock'n'roll's shape had shifted

and its attitude was reborn.

Suddenly the kids were screaming again.

# And God, I know I'm one... #

The morals are dangerous, that's all I know.

You can't get away from it,

you can't clean it up, cos it's dirty to begin with.

And for those who gave it life,

rock'n'roll will never die.

The boy has gone, but the man is still here...

..and will continue to charge on.

A whole lot of shaking going on.

# Let's go, one time

# Shake it, baby, shake it

# Shake it, baby, shake it

# Ooh, shake it, baby

# Come on, baby

# And then shake, baby, shake

# Come on over

# A whole lotta shakin' goin' on... #