Forever Young

A while back we bought a book for my daughter titled Forever Young. The text is by Bob Dylan from the song of the same name and the illustrations are by Paul Rogers.  No, not the same Paul Rogers of Bad Company fame though. The illustrations begin by showing a fellow modeled after Woody Guthrie giving an acoustic guitar to a young boy in the honor of a long standing tradition.  The illustrations continue to show the boy playing at home to his parents, playing to a crowd in the park, playing in his room, daydreaming, walking and singing in marches, playing with a group of musicians in the park, and finally giving the guitar to a young girl. My daughter calls this book "the guitar book." We have been reading this book here and there for a while now. However, lately it's been in heavy rotation during our nightly bedtime stories.

Forever Young By Bob Dylan and Illustrated by Paul Rogers (Ginee Seo Books, 2008)

This past Saturday afternoon I found some time to pull my acoustic guitar from it's slumber and noodle around and strum along to some songs while my wife and daughter were out. When they came home my daughter was excited to see the guitar and wanted to strum the strings and play with the guitar pick.  I let her play around with what she wanted and answered her questions as she pointed to different parts of the guitar. 

A few months ago I taught her to talk into the soundhole of the guitar and hear her voice inside the guitar body.  On Saturday she spoke into the soundhole with her mouth up against the strings. Instinctively, I asked her "who's in there?"  Without hesitating and full of confidence my daughter replied back to me, "Bob Dylan!"  This response obviously made my wife and I  laugh heartily out loud.

That's my girl!

Classic.

Little Decisions Could Make The Past Much Different

A co-worker and I were talking about television today and we got on the topic of the new version of V that is starting up again later this month.  I researched the series a little and found that the writer was inspired by the writing of Sinclair Lewis and had originally pitched his idea to NBC as the United States in a dictatorship.  NBC felt this was too cerebral for the normal television viewer and decided to change it to a series about a carnivorous alien race trying to take over the Earth.  *SIGH*  Television executives...

This brings up a whole subgenre of fiction called Alternative History.  To someone with a history degree this is intersting on a number of levels.  One of which is that writers take the time to imagine real people and real events in different ways and then continue to create an alternative timeline from the difference in one event into the future. One need only watch the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" for an example.

Here's a list of books that fall into the Alternative History genre I found that I plan to check out.

It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis (1935) - A populist wins the Presidency and becomes a Dictator
Bring The Jubilee - Ward Moore (1953) - The South wins the Civil War
The Man In The High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962) - The Axis wins World War II instead of the Allies
Fire On The Mountain - Terry Bisson (1988) - Another book about the South winning the Civil War
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth (2004) - Charles Lindbergh wins the Presidency in 1940 not FDR

You may be wondering about Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell or 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke - these works do not fall into this genre as they are not changing history but imagining a future, albeit one that we don't necessarily want to see happen in real life.

Rather than just the events of war or political upheaval, I think it would be interesting to come up with an Alternative History for Rock 'N Roll musicians who have departed the stage too early.  For instance, Buddy Holly on Ed Sullivan, Columbia Records releasing "Mixed Up Confusion" as an electric track on The Freewheelin Bob Dylan in 1962 rendering Newport 1965 moot, The Beatles finally reuniting for Live Aid in 1985 or Jimi Hendrix playing with the likes of Eddie Van Halen or Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Real Rock Radio - New Book On KSHE-95 Now Available

Your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast

So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last

Well you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand

The things you think are precious I can't understand

"FM" - Steely Dan

A new book about music is just in time for the Christmas season is finally out about KSHE-95 and live shows in St. Louis over the past 40 years. The book, written by John Neiman, is titled In Concert: KSHE And 40+ Years Of Rock In St. Louis.  Neiman, a native of Collinsville, IL, graduated from Collinsville High School in the same class (1978) as Michael Stipe, singer for the band R.E.M. The book is a meticulous look at the station through the disc jockeys, employees, listeners, fans, label executives, and bands.  Included are pictures of concerts of some of the most famous acts in Rock history, snapshots of bands at the airport or radio station, transcripts of on-air tapes, station playlists, and countless other artifacts. If you're a fan of Rock 'N' Roll then I highly encourage you to seek out this book if you can, and if you're a native of St. Louis area then this book is a must have!  I found my copy at a St. Louis area Borders store, but I have seen the book for sale on Amazon.com too.

If you're reading this and you're not from the St. Louis area, KSHE-95 is the longtime Rock 'N' Roll radio station that debuted on the airwaves in November 1967. The station was one of the first Rock 'n' Roll stations in the United States on the FM dial. KSHE faced an uphill battle against the Top 40 AM stations of the era like KXOK and WIL in St. Louis.  First, FM radios were not readily available in cars and second, the station played the new underground Rock 'N' Roll that was coming  from U.S. cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and from across the pond in jolly old England.  As the 1970's got underway the station moved toward a Progressive Rock format as groups like Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and later Rush. However, since St. Louis is located close to the middle of the country there was also a strong Southern Rock emphasis from such groups like the Allman Brothers (who had ties to St. Louis music scene in the mid to late 1960's), The Charlie Daniels Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Whenever, I think about KSHE in the early days I think about one of my favorite television shows when I was a kid - WKRP in Cincinnati.  Weirdly enough, the overall story is very identical. Easy listening station changes formats to Rock 'N' Roll and the growing pains involved with the process - listeners, advertisers, employees, etc.

Promotions were a big part of the way the station reached the masses and the bands were part of these promotions to get their product (records) to the masses. In 1972, KSHE adopted a mascot to help promote the station. The mascot, Sweet Meat, was based on the cover of the 1969 album by Blodwyn Pig titled Ahead Rings Out. The cover features a pig with a ring in it's nose, wearing sunglasses and headphones and smoking a cigarette. This type of symbol was perfect for pushing the boundaries against the establishment and status quo in the early 1970's.  Far out!

Blodwyn Pig - Ahead Rings Out (1969)

The book received some local press from Annie Zaleski, Music Editor of the independent weekly Riverfront Times. You can check out her article here. I especially enjoyed the illustration by Dan Zettwoch on the front cover of that week's RFT with the dig toward the baby boomers and a nod toward the current generation of music listeners.

Are you reelin' in the years

Stowin' away the time?

Are you gatherin' up the tears?

Have you had enough of mine?

"Reelin' In The Years" - Steely Dan (1972)

You can visit the site about the book at http://www.stlbook.com/ and the radio station site at KSHE-95