Great Songwriters - Beginnings

In the second decade of the new millennium it's apparent that the song writing benchmarks established by these three men at virtually (and remarkably) the same time in history, are still the gold standard by which all that followed is judged. Almost every aspect of the modern songwriter's art is defined and encapsulated in their body of work, and from these giants others have taken the torch and carried on their traditions. The trio rose to prominence via their own use of the shoulders of giants like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in Dylan's case, and Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Little Richard in the case of the young English boys. Common to all three was an adolescent passion for the King of rock and roll, and the reason the youth of the world fell swooning at the earth shattering sound of the era, the charismatic boy from Memphis, Elvis Presley. Not only did Presley excite the airwaves of Duluth in Minnesota, where the young Bob grew up, but his clarion call crossed the Atlantic and lit up the radio in Liverpool, England, a place still reeling from the calamity of World War II. "Nothing really affected me until Elvis." "Before Elvis there was nothing."
"When I first heard "Heartbreak Hotel," I could hardly make out what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We'd never heard American voices singing like that". – John Lennon While Presley's significant legacy can not be understated in a performing sense, it set the template for success in the music world; Presley did not write his own material. The true game changing aspect that the three post Elvis icons came to represent was the idea of self sufficiency. In the rock world songs were mostly sourced via the publishers of Tin Pan Alley and Denmark Street, and in truth the folk world was not entirely different, even though many of the songs were in the public domain. The commercial aspect of the music business meant that the performers who supplied specific arrangements for these folk songs could claim writing royalties to the same effect of actually having written the song themselves. Dylan worked in this tradition and then completely changed it, in that sourcing traditional material became unacceptable in the mainstream which, thanks to what Pete Seeger dubbed "the great folk scare" of the 1960's, is where Dylan's music found itself. The Beatles revolutionised the concept of the sourcing of 'product' in the pop world to such an extent that after 1965 no self respecting act could not supply its own material. "I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow" – Bob Dylan While both The Beatles and Dylan shook the world in the early 1960's, and they both went on to mature successes and even greater glories in their latter years, it's their beginnings that occupy us here. They were working from different ends, Dylan primarily occupied in the political atmosphere of the struggle for civil rights and The Beatles interested in the escapist fun, and youth culture rebelliousness of rock and roll. They were such notorious and famous examples of different ends of the musical spectrum, but given their common antecedents and their common impulse to push boundaries in their art, it would seem destined that they would interact. They did establish personal relationships, and certainly they were to profoundly influence each other, but to go back to the start is to meet three starry eyed dreamers who were ready to take on the world….

In Beginnings Vol 2 we look at two of the most significant American popular songwriters of the modern era, both who rose to prominence during the tumultuous 1960's and whose work and influence will live on for many years yet. In some ways it's a tale of two coasts, as Paul Simon emerged from the pseudo-intellectual folk scene in New York, while Brian Wilson and his group, The Beach Boys, emerged from the nascent surf scene in Los Angeles, but both writers soon left any easy attempts at musical categorisation behind. War Babies, born 6 months apart on either side of America's belated entry into WWII, the pair came to maturity during a post-war boom, when America enjoyed a consumerist explosion of pre-Cambrian dimensions, accounting for the purchasing of 60% of the world's consumer goods. By 1960, per capita income was 35% higher than in 1945, and 61% of American families were classified as middle-class, as opposed to just 30% during the 1930's. Paul Simon grew up the son of a college professor and his education gave him a particular insight into the humanities and after falling under the spell of the Everly Brothers he moved into folk music, a musical form that allowed a more appropriate place for his humanist/intellectual musings. Brian Wilson was similarly energised by sweet harmonies, specifically the complex and jazz influenced harmonies of The Four Freshman. Wilson took the energy of rock and roll and applied the four part harmony singing of the Four Freshmen and also of the 1950's Doo-Wop groups, a genre equally beloved by Simon. Simon and Wilson shared a love of music in their upbringings, but that's where the similarities end. Paul's father was a musician, "My daddy was a family bass man", and an academic, but Brian's father was "an asshole, he treated us like shit", according to his brother Dennis. Murry Wilson was a frustrated songwriter, a driven and unforgiving authoritarian who beat his three sons regularly and Brian certainly blamed his father for the fact he was effectively deaf in one ear, as he was told it came from a blow to the head he suffered as a two year old. The teenage Brian may have watched Fred MacMurray, the benign and attentive father in the hit TV series My Three Sons and wondered at the gap between the TV fiction and the brutal reality the three Wilson sons suffered. Murry was a real life, if more violent Willy Loman, an unhappy salesman who took out his frustrations at home. For Paul Simon music was an adventure, for Brian Wilson it was an escape. The two entered the fray at a good time for music in industry terms, as the growth initiated by the first wave of rock and roll from 1955 to 1960 saw the music industry in the USA increase in net value from $60 million to $205 million and it would increase again by 1965 to $600 million, as Baby Boom teenagers found significant disposable income. For many Americans the anodyne, antiseptic and absurdly prosperous 1950's came to a shattering end, not in 1960 but in 1963, with John Kennedy's tragic assassination and both Simon and Wilson were professional musicians by then. Both men came to prominence within a few short years of each other and even though they were separated by the width of the continent they actually shared a key connection, the Wrecking Crew, Phil Spector's ace session players, who played on several iconic Simon and Garfunkel and Beach Boy tracks. Paul Simon and Brian Wilson also shared an inquisitive and relentless curiosity about music, both pushing their knowledge and refining their capabilities, rather than rest on their laurels. Paul became an accomplished and virtuoso guitar player and Brian became the last word in stacking and layering vocal harmonies to enrich his compositions.