Frank Beacham's Journal

In 1964 — 57 years ago today — Billboard Magazine reported that the harmonica was making a comeback in a big way. It credited Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Steve Wonder for the renaissance

The harmonica was developed in Europe in the early part of the 19th century. Free-reed instruments like the sheng were fairly common throughout East Asia for centuries and were relatively well known in Europe for some time.

While Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann is often cited as the inventor of the harmonica in 1821, other inventors developed similar instruments at the same time. Mouth-blown free reed instruments appeared in the United States, South America and in Europe at roughly the same time. The reason it was made was so it could be used for classical music.

However, in 1964 — 57 years ago today — Billboard Magazine reported that the harmonica was making a comeback in a big way. The article credited Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Steve Wonder for the renaissance.

Today, the harmonica is known for its use in the blues, American folk music, jazz, country and rock and roll.

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is 90 years old today

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott performs with Al Kooper in New York City, 2006

Photo by Frank Beacham

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is 90 years old today.

Born as Elliot Charles Adnopoz in Brooklyn to Jewish parents, Elliott is a folk singer. He grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy.

Though encouraged to follow his father's example and become a surgeon, Elliott rebelled, running away from home at the age of 15 to join Col. Jim Eskew's Rodeo, the only rodeo east of the Mississippi. They traveled throughout the Mid-Atlantic states and New England. He was only with them for three months before his parents tracked him down and had him sent home

But Elliott was exposed to his first singing cowboy, Brahmer Rogers, a rodeo clown who played guitar and five-string banjo, sang songs and recited poetry. Back home, Elliott taught himself guitar and started busking for a living. Eventually, he got together with Woody Guthrie and stayed with him as an admirer and student.

With banjo player, Derroll Adams, he toured the United Kingdom and Europe. By 1960, he had recorded three folk albums for the UK record label, Topic Records.

In London, Elliott played small clubs and pubs by day and West End cabaret nightclubs at night. When he returned to the States, he found he had become renowned in American folk music circles.

Woody Guthrie had the greatest influence on Elliott. Woody's son, Arlo, said that because of Woody's illness and early death, Arlo never really got to know him, but learned his father's songs and performing style from Elliott.

Elliott's guitar and his mastery of Guthrie's material had a big impact on Bob Dylan when he lived in Minneapolis. When he reached New York, Dylan was sometimes referred to as the “son” of Jack Elliott, because Elliott had a way of introducing Dylan's songs with the words: "Here's a song from my son, Bob Dylan."

Dylan rose to prominence as a songwriter. Elliott continued as an interpretative troubadour, bringing old songs to new audiences in his idiosyncratic manner.

Elliott also influenced Phil Ochs, and played guitar and sang harmony on Ochs' song "Joe Hill" his album, Tape from California. Elliott also discovered singer-songwriter, Guthrie Thomas, in a bar in Northern California in 1974. He brought Thomas to Hollywood, where Thomas' music career began.

Elliott plays guitar in a traditional fingerpicking style, which he matches with his laconic, humorous storytelling — often accompanying himself on harmonica. His singing has a strained, nasal quality which the young Bob Dylan emulated. His repertoire includes American traditional music from various genres, including country, blues, bluegrass and folk.

Elliott's nickname comes not from his traveling habits, but rather the countless stories he relates before answering the simplest of questions. Folk singer Odetta claimed that it was her mother who gave him the name, remarking, "Oh, Jack Elliott, yeah, he can sure ramble on!"

His authenticity as a folksy, down-to-earth country boy, despite being a doctor's son from Brooklyn, and his disdain for other folk singers, were parodied by the Folksmen (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer) in the satirical documentary, A Mighty Wind, in the name of their "hit" album, Ramblin'.

A Mighty Wind also referred to a former member of the New Main Street Singers, Ramblin' Sandy Pitnick, a somewhat geeky-looking white man in a cowboy hat, apparently in parody of Elliott.

Elliott was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998. His long career and strained relationship with his daughter, Aiyana, were chronicled in her 2000 film documentary, The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack.

At the age of 75, he changed labels and released I Stand Alone on the ANTI- label, with an assortment of guest backup players including members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, another curious collection of little-known music delivered with humor and intensity.

He said his intention was to title the album “Not for the Tourists,” because it was recorded in response to his daughter's request for songs he loved but never played in concert. When asked why he did not, he told her, "These songs are not for the tourists."

Here, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot perform Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”

Ramblin' Jack and Wood Guthrie

Ramblin' Jack Elliott with John Sebastian and Bob Dylan looking at albums in Greenwich Village, New York, August, 1964

Photo by Douglas R. Gilbert

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and John Prine on Bobby Bare’s TV show, 1985

The Concert for Bangladesh was held 50 years ago today

George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Leon Russell perform during 1971's Concert for Bangladesh

The Concert for Bangladesh was held 50 years ago today.

The concert was the name for two benefit concerts organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at noon and at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 1 1971. It played to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The shows were to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the 1970 Bhola cyclone and the civil war-related Bangladesh atrocities.

The Concert for Bangladesh was also the title of the accompanying live album, a boxed three-record set, released in December, 1971, and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972.

The event was the first-ever benefit concert of such a magnitude and featured a supergroup of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band, Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and another legend of Indian music, Ali Akbar Khan, performed a separate set.

Decades later, Shankar would say of the overwhelming success of the event: "In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh. It was a fantastic occasion ..." The concert raised close to $250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF.

Although the project was subsequently marred by financial problems — a result of the pioneering nature of the venture — the Concert for Bangladesh is recognized as a highly successful and influential humanitarian aid project. It generated both awareness and considerable funds as well as providing valuable lessons and inspiration for aid projects that followed, notably Live Aid.

As with the live album, sales of the 2005 DVD release of the film continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.

Here is a trailer for the concert film

George Harrison and Bob Dylan rehearse "If Not For You" before The Concert for Bangladesh

The south side of 52nd Street, between 5th & 6th Avenues – looking east from 6th Avenue in New York City, 1948

Photo by William P. Gottlieb

Ahmet Ertegun, one of the most influential figures in the history of American popular music, was born on this day in 1923 — 98 years ago

One of the most influential figures in the history of American popular music was born on this day in 1923 — 98 years ago — in perhaps the unlikeliest of places: Istanbul, Turkey.

The son of a high-ranking diplomat, Ahmet Ertegun enjoyed a cosmopolitan upbringing that included stops in Switzerland, Paris and London before his father's appointment as Turkish ambassador to the United States brought him to America.

Intelligent, well-educated and well-connected, Ertegun had attractive career opportunities to consider when he graduated from Maryland's St. John's College in 1944, but his Americanization had already gone too far.

"I had to decide whether I would go into a scholastic life or go back to Turkey in the diplomatic service," he recalled many years later. "[But] what I really loved was music...and hanging out."

To hold those priorities as a recent college graduate is one thing, but to turn them into a hugely successful career of great historical and cultural significance is quite another.

Along with his older brother, Nesuhi, Ahmet was a jazz and blues aficionado. Together, the two Erteguns had amassed an enormous record collection of mostly black artists — artists who had little hope of mainstream success in the segregated America of the 1940s.

While Nesuhi went west to take over a Los Angeles record store in 1944, Ahmet remained on the East Coast, moving to New York City in 1947 to establish an independent record label with partner, Herb Abramson. That label, Atlantic Records, would play a pivotal role in breaking down the racial barriers that characterized the postwar music industry.

At Atlantic Records in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ertegun worked with artists like Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, The Drifters and Ray Charles to lay down the foundations of a musical style that future Atlantic producer, Jerry Wexler, had only recently christened "rhythm and blues."

The future styles called "soul" and "rock and roll" would also evolve out of the sounds that Ertegun helped to popularize, and the early Atlantic catalog would be instrumental in inspiring the blues-based rock that British bands like the Rolling Stones brought to America in the mid-1960s.

When Herb Abramson departed Atlantic in 1958, Jerry Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun joined on as partners, and after another incredibly successful decade as a true independent, they sold the label to the forerunner of Time Warner in 1967.

Atlantic retained a distinct identity within its parent company, however, even as it moved from the music of Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin in the 1960s and 1070s to gangsta rap in the 1990s.

Born on this day in 1923, Ahmet Ertegun died in 2006 following a fall backstage at a Rolling Stones concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City.

Above photo by Ashkan Sahibi

Thanks History.com

Ahmet Ertegun and Eric Clapton (seated), Felix Pappalardi, the producer, and Ginger Baker (kneeling) and Tom Dowd, the engineer (standing) during the making of Disraeli Gears at Atlantic Studios, 1967

Photo by Don Paulsen

Aaron Weinstein, jazz violinist, mandolinist, arranger and comedian, is 36 years old today

Photo by Frank Beacham

Aaron Weinstein, jazz violinist, mandolinist, arranger and comedian, is 36 years old today.

While still attending New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, Weinstein founded the Stephane Grappelli Tribute Trio, which was named best high school instrumental jazz group by Down Beat magazine in 2002. He then attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts on a four-year scholarship.

Weinstein's debut album, A Handful of Stars, was released when he was 19 years old and had not yet graduated from Berklee.

Weinstein enjoys performing music from the American songbook, while interspersing his performances with a unique understated humor. He has been called “the Groucho of the violin.”

Now living in New York City, he has recorded with J. Geils, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Christine Ebersole and Frank Vignola.

Here, Weinstein explains jazz improvisation in 90 seconds

106 years ago, Louis Armstrong got his first professional gig at Henry Ponce’s honky-tonk in New Orleans

“You play the cornet, don’t you?”

With that invitation 106 years ago at Henry Ponce’s honky-tonk in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong got his first professional gig.

He was 14 and had just emerged from a home for juvenile delinquents, where he learned the cornet — the trumpet’s shorter cousin. That gig lead to Armstrong becoming a musical legend.

“He could have gone the other way, if not for a teacher at the Colored Waifs’ Home who worked with him on trumpet,” music journalist John Swenson told The Times-Picayune.

His early life in New Orleans was rough-and-tumble, and he refused to play there for 10 years because of its segregationist laws. But as he said in 1966, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans.”

Here, Armstrong is pictured front row center during a 1931 visit to a New Orleans boys' home formerly known as the Colored Waifs Home. He was first sent to the home in 1910 when he was arrested at age nine.

Gary Lewis is 75 years old today

Gary Lewis is 75 years old today.

The son of the late comedian Jerry Lewis, Lewis is the leader of Gary Lewis & the Playboys. His mother, Patti Lewis, a singer at the time with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra, reportedly intended to name him after her favorite actor, Cary Grant, but clerical error led to his naming as "Gary.”

He received a set of drums as a gift for his fourteenth birthday in 1960. When he was eighteen, Lewis formed what would become Gary Lewis & the Playboys (then known as "Gary And The Playboys") with four other friends.

Joking at the late hours the bandmates practiced, Lewis referred to them as "playboys.” The name stuck. Lewis was the drummer, but at that time singing duties were performed by the guitarist, Dave Walker.

As the band started, Gary's mother was quietly funding the purchases of equipment, as they believed Gary's father would not have supported the band. This could explain why, even though he lived down the street from the Lewis family, producer Snuff Garrett wasn't aware of Gary's band until a mutual friend, conductor Les Brown, informed him that the band was playing at Disneyland and that Garrett should give them a listen.

Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the Lewis name, Garrett put Lewis' band into the studio to develop, still with the finances of Lewis' mother. Garrett pushed Lewis to improve his drumming skill, even getting Buddy Rich to tutor him. More importantly, he made Lewis the singer for the group.

"This Diamond Ring,” written by Al Kooper and actually recorded by Lewis and the Wrecking Crew in Los Angeles, hit #1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart on February 20, 1965.

It made Lewis an instant star. Besides the Lovin' Spoonful, the group was the only artist during the 1960s to have its first seven Hot 100 releases each reach that chart's Top 10.

His others hits include "Count Me In,” "Save Your Heart for Me,” "Everybody Loves A Clown,” "She's Just My Style,” "Sure Gonna Miss Her" and "Green Grass.”

Following a tour in Vietnam, Lewis retired from music, operating a music shop in San Fernando Valley in 1971. He also gave drum lessons. It was not until the 1980s when Lewis starting touring again, with various incarnations of The Playboys, generally featuring no original members. Lewis and his family reside in Honeoye Falls, New York.

Here, Gary Lewis and the Playboys perform “Count Me In” in 2011 at B.B. Kings in New York City

Gary Lewis and his famous father, Jerry

Kenny Burrell is 90 years old today

Kenny Burrell is 90 years old today.

Burrell is a jazz guitarist known for his collaborations with Jimmy Smith, including the 1965 hit album, Organ Grinder Swing. He has cited jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt as influences, along with blues musicians, T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.

Burrell also serves as a professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Born in Detroit to a musical family (both of his parents played instruments), Burrell began playing guitar at the age of 12. He went on to study composition and theory with Louis Cabara and classical guitar with Joe Fava. While a student at Wayne State University, he made his recording debut as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's sextet in 1951.

He followed that with the "Rose of Tangier/Ground Round," a single recorded under his own name at Fortune Records in Detroit. While at university, Burrell founded the New World Music Society collective with fellow Detroit musicians, Pepper Adams, Donald Byrd, Elvin Jones and Yusef Lateef.

Burrell toured with Oscar Peterson after graduating in 1955 and then moved to New York City in 1956 with the pianist, Tommy Flanagan. Within months, Burrell had recorded his first album as leader for Blue Note and both he and Flanagan were sought-after as sidemen and studio musicians, performing with singers Tony Bennett and Lena Horne and recording with Billie Holiday, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons and Kenny Dorham.

From 1957 to 1959, Burrell occupied the former chair of Charlie Christian in Benny Goodman's band. Since his New York debut, Burrell has had a prolific recording career. Critics have cited The Cats with John Coltrane in 1957, Midnight Blue with Stanley Turrentine in 1963 and Guitar Forms with arranger Gil Evans in 1965 as highlights.

In 1978, he began teaching a course at UCLA called "Ellingtonia," examining the life and accomplishments of Duke Ellington. Although the two never collaborated directly, Ellington called Burrell his "favorite guitarist" and Burrell has recorded a number of tributes to and interpretations of Ellington's works.

In 2019, concerns arose about Burell's well being and living circumstances as he became increasingly socially and physically isolated in his home and major frictions developed between his wife, Katherine Goodrich, 37 years his junior, and others living their Westwood, California, apartment building.

A GoFundMe account was set up to pay medical bills and other putative expenses, which became controversial because he was covered by medical insurance through employment at UCLA and through Medicare. Subsequently a letter from Burrell was published, providing a detailed explanation of the situation and justification for the GoFundMe campaign.

Here, Burrell performs Miles Davis’s “All Blues.” He is joined by Bob Magnusson on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums

On this day in 1964 — 57 years ago — Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up images of the moon

On this day in 1964 — 57 years ago — Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up images of the moon.

The probe took 4,308 images before it impacted with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything previously seen through earth-bound telescopes.

NASA had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year — Ranger 6 — but the probe's cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface.

Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, 1964, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA's receiving station in California.

The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon.

In July, 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.

Thanks History.com

The first image of the moon sent by Ranger 7, July 31, 1964