My Decades - Episode 1 - The 60's

My culture has been influenced by music and I have been listening to music for 5 decades now, have to say I don't really remember the 50's but neither Rock and Roll nor Country and Western do anything for me - Elvis and Dolly Parton - you can keep for a start. If I had to choose just one artist from the 50's that I will listen to it is probably Buddy Holly.

Having come to that (very easy) decision I decided to think about the favourites of the decades I lived through.

Of course there are other lists I can include (so I will) but music was probably the most important to me.

We moved up north from London in the early 60's and as a young teenager I was into what I see to remember was called "Mod" music - the Kinks, the Who, Small Faces graduating onto the harder sounds of the Rolling Stones, Cream, Buffalo Springfield and especially the Doors. Funnily enough I was never much of a Beatles fan at the time - I put it down to my rebellious streak as your parents could live with you listening to mummy's boy Paul McCartney - but not bad boy Jagger.

Altogether the sixties, at least from '64 onwards was a superb time to be going through your teens, and I don't mean all that "peace man" stuff which I could live with but "oop north" we were a bit out of the "swinging sixties" culture. No I mean the music of that time was inventive with most artists having something different to offer unlike the multiple boy bands of today (I will get to the '00s another time).

To the lists - but don't forget we didn't have iPODs, video tracks, CDs, even tape players were rare and very poor quality if you had one. No - you bought your music on vinyl, 7" Singles (or 45's) and 12" Albums (although they did play at 33rpm not 78). My first record player, after graduating from using Dad's side-board sized gramophone, was an orange and cream "Elizabethan" that eventually I had to have a weight on the arm before it would play without jumping! All my pocket money went on Melody Maker and NME (New Musical Express) both long gone now but a bit different from the musical comics of today. Oh and the occasional Rolling Stone magazine when I could find (and afford) it.

• First single bought: Monday Monday - Mamas and Papas (yeah OK - peace man)
• First album bought: Live at Kelvin Hall - Kinks (this was a concert venue in Glasgow I believe).
• Favourite Artist of the era: The Doors
  
• Favourite Single: Difficult choice so many good ones but to be firm and just pick one: Light my Fire - The Doors
• Close seconds: See Emily Play - Pink Floyd, My Generation - The Who and Alone Again Or - Love.
• Favourite Album: Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks
• Close seconds: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere - Neil Young, In Search of the Lost Chord - Moody Blues and Waiting for the Sun - Doors
  
• Best Instrumental: Albatross - Fleetwood Mac
  
• Freakiest record of the era: Got to be MacArthur Park - Richard Harris - unbelievable - 8 minutes of torture but unmissable.
• One Hit Wonders: The Turtles (Elenore), The Flowerpot Men (Let's Go to San Francisco)
  
• Worst record of the era: Has to be Sugar Sugar - The Archies - absolutely AWFUL.
• Best Live Venue: The Hammersmith Odeon
• First Gig: (gotta get in with the language of the day) The Who - Nantwich Civic Hall Jan 1st 1968.
  
• Most Disappointing Gig: The Isle of Wight Festival 1969. Travelled all the way down just to see the Doors, having been a fan since Hello, I Love You .... and they were POOR.

When I was growing up in the this decade - it was fashionable for the young to have Communist leanings - not that any of us really had a clue what this meant. I went through the phase and my two favourite books of the time were at totally opposite ends of this political spectrum.

A Biography of Lenin - can't remember who wrote it but it was fascinating and HUGE. The second was Animal Farm by George Orwell, I happened to study this for "O" Level but found I was reading it because I actually enjoyed it. By the way kiddies - "O" Levels were difficult GCSEs to try and equate it (sorry!).

Finally on the reading front, one of the other classics I had to study was Shakespeare's Henry V, again a really good read and 40 years later I can still remember parts of the more famous speeches - strange the things you remember. I can only say my reading titles have somewhat deteriorated when I look back at my 60's list. Mind you I was also working my way through most of Agatha Christie and Leslie Charteris' "Saint" books from the local library (I had better things at that time to spend what little pocket-money I had than on books).

I was never much of a film buff (still not really) but I guess the film of the decade had to be Clockwork Orange, which was considered so horrific by the film censors that it never saw the light of day on general release until the 80's - this would seem strange now as it is relatively tame to some of those issued these days. If I had to choose my particular favourite of the time then it would be one of the early Bond films (i.e. those with Sean Connery starring).

As stated above there were very few technical innovations (from a teenager's point of view at least) at that time - television was just about graduating to 3 channels with the arrival of BBC2 but it was all pretty awful except one or two - Danger Man springs to mind (John McGoohan's first real exposure on TV i.e. pre-The Prisoner), Z-Cars after Dixon of Dock Green was finally killed off (again! Anybody who saw the film The Blue Lamp released in 1949 will know what I mean).

Of course I mustn't forget the Westerns of the time which were very popular like Wagon Train (who remembers Ward Bond and Robert McCulloch) and Rawhide (this is where a young Clint Eastwood kick-started his career and he remained a favourite through the next few decades).

Of course the parents controlled the switches (and I do mean switches - believe it or not we had to get up off the chair to turn the TV over) so choice was even more limited - you might laugh at Morecambe and Wise now - at the time it was pure torture.

But actually we didn't care (because we knew no different). We played football day and night and all weekend in all weathers, with whoever had a ball and on any relatively flat surface and as we got into middle/late teens we just replaced the football with females and sometimes both.

I can remember losing more than one girl by forcing her to accompany me to my"organised" games and she would have to stand in pouring rain, while I slid around kicking lumps out of anything that moved (sometimes even the ball). Great!

As far as I can remember 63/64 was about the time I started supporting Arsenal - a throwback to my birthplace and I had to keep something of the old home after being transplanted so far away (well it seemed like it at the time). Joe Baker - now that was a player - the Thierry Henry of his day (well OK maybe not - but certainly the John Radford). Sorry but if you don't know the Arsenal of the sixties you haven't a clue what I am talking about.

I tell you - at that time I had to take some REAL stick - Arsenal were useless, absolutely useless until 1968 - I know you wouldn't believe it now but there you go Leeds fans (although of course we haven't been relegated from the top division since 1913, something NO other current top team can say) maybe you will have something to look forward to in 20 years!

Everybody around me either supported Man U, Liverpool or at a stretch Everton - nobody supported southern teams except other refugees from that end of the country. A bit different now with all the Arsenal (and more recently Chelsea) shirts around the town.

While on the topic of football - of course I can't let it pass that this was the ONLY time we won the World Cup so - if you are under 50 hard luck - you missed it - 'cause it ain't likely to happen again for another 50!

Next time I will move onto the 70's. - which just happens to coincide with the end of my school days and I was forced out into the jungle known as "the working environment" and also the start of the rebirth of Arsenal as a World Power.