by Kevin Burton There would come a time, in a year or so, when you could not escape disco. But at its inception 50 years ago, you couldn’t have seen it coming. “Disco snuck up on America like a covert operation,” wrote Alice Echols in her book “Hot Stuff, Disco and the Remaking …
Category Archives: Beatles
Happy Birthday To Sir Paul McCartney, 82
by Kevin Burton When Paul McCartney was 14 he wrote a whimsical song called “When I’m Sixty-Four.” As of today he’s 82. Can you believe that? On that pivotal night, Feb. 9, 1964, when the Fab Four Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, their collective age was 86. A …
A Female Version Of The Beatles? Who Knew?
by Kevin Burton I have read maybe two dozen books about the Beatles on talking book. But I didn’t know this. In books by and about other contemporary artists, the Beatles emerge, as a yardstick, a cultural happening, a turning point. But not so much as a syllable about this. Until very …
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Billy Joel To Release New Song Thursday
by Kevin Burton Is it just that easy, like flipping a switch? Guess we’ll find out Thursday, when Columbia Records drops the first new Billy Joel single in 17 years, a song called “Turn The Lights Back On.” “In a press release from his label, Columbia Records, the song is said to …
New Beatles Song Is Neither Now Nor Then
by Kevin Burton Think of the individual Beatles’ colossal talents, with egos to match. Think of the group putting together an album. It’s John Lennon trying to get his songs on the record, Paul McCartney doing the same and George Harrison fighting to be heard at all. There is creativity, artistry, but …
One Final Encore For The Beatles
by Kevin Burton I’m guessing the final Beatles song, to be released later this week, will be neither a bang, nor a whimper. Or maybe it will be a bang, and a whimper and everything in between. That would be fitting for a band that was and is “ way beyond compare” to …
Carolina And The Mind Of James Taylor
by Kevin Burton You can take the boy from Carolina but you will never extract Carolina from James Taylor. That’s how it works. Our inner compass points toward home. When we can’t be there physically, our minds take us there. Sometimes it’s better that way. Just as Penny Lane is in the …
Lieber & Stoller’s “Kansas City” A Classic
by Kevin Burton The musical catalog of lyricist Jerry Lieber and pianist Mike Stoller has been described as “some of the most authentic rhythm and blues that white Jewish guys ever wrote.” Eight years before Norman Mailer published “The White Negro,” these two transplanted easterners submerged themselves in the LA black culture and began …
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I Guess Static Cling Is A Thing After All
by Kevin Burton Serving up quibbles and bits for Saturday breakfast on Page 7. Stray ideas, quick hitters, random asides. It’s food for thought, albeit maybe not real deep thought….. So, I spent the first 90 percent of my workday Friday with a washcloth stuffed inside my shirt. I put on a …
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A New Beatles Song? We’ll Take It!
by Kevin Burton From a beloved uncle or a dear friend who has passed away, you find a previously unknown letter. How precious is that? It’s a piece of that person that you never had, at a time when you thought there would be no more glimpses into their being. Would you not …
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