Thursday, January 30, 1964: 'A Change Is Gonna Come'

Sam Cooke records what would become an anthem for the civil rights movement. The song, written by Cooke, was released (as the B-side to "Shake") just days after the singer's death on December 11, 1964.

(Note: Thanks to Peter Guralnick, author of "Dream Boogie" -- linked below -- for verifying the recording date.)

* Entry from "Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings" (Steve Sullivan, 2013): @

* Song review (from allmusic.com): @
* "Sam Cooke's Swan Song of Protest" (NPR, 2007): @
* "Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke" (Peter Guralnick, 2005): @
* "You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke" (Daniel Wolff, 1995): @
* "A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & The Soul of America" (Craig Werner, 2006): @

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Wednesday, January 29, 1964: 'Dr. Strangelove'

Stanley Kubrick's satire of the Cold War and nuclear doomsday opens in theaters, having been delayed from December 1963 because of the assassination of President Kennedy. The movie's full title: "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb."

* Entry from AMC Filmsite: @

* Entry from Turner Classic Movies: @

* Review (Bosley Crowther, The New York Times): @

* Review (Robert H. Estabrook, The Washington Post): @

* Review (Andrew Sarris, The Village Voice): @

* Review (Fernand Fauber, The Toledo Blade): @

* Review (Roger Ebert, 1999): @

* "Almost Everything in 'Dr. Strangelove' Was True" (Eric Schlosser, The New Yorker, 2014): @
* "Doctor's Orders: How a dead serious novel became the nightmare satire of 'Strangelove' " (Bilge Ebiri, Museum of the Moving Image, 2009): @

* "A Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove' " (Dan Lindley, University of Notre Dame): @

* " 'Dr. Strangelove at 40: The Continuing Relevance of a Cold War Icon" (Paul S. Boyer, Arms Control Association): @

* "Dr. Strangelove's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age" (Margot A. Henriksen, 1997): @ 

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Thursday, January 23, 1964: National Museum of Science and Technology

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Science and Technology opens in Washington, D.C. (It was renamed the National Museum of American History in October 1980.)

-- Image of Foucault Pendulum, circa 1970 (from the Smithsonian)

* Smithsonian sites: @ and @ and @

* "Legacies: Collecting America's History at the Smithsonian": @

* President Johnson's remarks at dedication (January 22): @

* "Annual Report of the Board of Regents for the Smithsonian Institution" (for the year ended June 30, 1964): @

* "Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology" (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979): @

* "Narrating 'America' " (Marie Plassart, European Journal of American Studies, 2007): @

* "New Museum Best Tourist Attraction in Capital" (Copley News Service, February 1964): @

* "New Roofs for a Nation's Attic" (The Rotarian, May 1965): @

* "Giant pendulum draws swinging museum goers" (United Press International, March 1977): @ 

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Friday, December 27, 1963: 'What Songs the Beatles Sang'

     The London newspaper The Times publishes a critical appraisal of The Beatles' music.

     From the book "Rock Criticism from the Beginning: Amusers, Bruisers and Cool-headed Cruisers" (Ulf Lindberg, 2005; link here: @).

The British daily press's coverage of the popular music scene was mainly limited to what might be termed, gossip, news or sensations. William Mann's pioneering 1963 review of the Beatles in the arts pages of The Times was definitely more an exception than a trendsetter. Invoking metaphors like "pandiatonic clusters" and "flat submediant key switches," the message of the article is that Lennon/McCartney in fact are innovative composers even thought "their noisy items are the ones that arouse teenagers' excitement." 
* Image of article: @

* Entry from The Beatles Bible: @

* "Found! The Beatles' elusive Aeolian cadence" (from aeoliancadence.co.uk): @ 
* "Aeolian Cadence" (from Aaron Krerowicz): @

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1963: Videotape recorder

     Television has finally completed its invasion of the American home. It will now be possible to record the family's very own Golden Treasury of Dr. Kildare to keep forever. The Cinerama-Telcan does the trick. It is a videotape recorder no bigger than a bread box. Wired into a home TV set, it can record programs off the air as they are being watched. Then, with a flick of the switch, Telcan can play them back immediately or at any future time as desired. The machine can be halted during commercials, or they can be snipped out later. The neatest part of the trick is the price: under $300. The least expensive "home" TV recorder previously available is an Ampex portable unit that turns out tapes of broadcast quality but costs $11,900.

     Telcan has a number of other tricks up its transistorized sleeve. With the addition of a tiny TV camera (about $150), Telcan can turn the living room into a studio so that shots of Sister tap dancing in her new stretch pants, Uncle Al wearing the lamp shade at the party, or Dad doing his R.C.A.F. exercises can be immortalized on tape for instant see-back on the family TV set, like Polaroid movies.
     Telcan (the name alludes to canned TV) was developed by a pair of British inventors. It was demonstrated in London last summer. A television tape of its debut was run soon afterward on NBC's Today show, where it caught the eye of Cinerama Inc. President Nicolas Reisini. Reisini, a man of wide-screen vision, was looking around for a new product to highlight Cinerama's plans for diversification, and he hopped a plane for London that very day and started negotiations for world rights to Telcan.
     Telcan is as simple to operate as any other tape recorder, uses standard one fourth-inch triple-play recording tape on oversized reels. Although the tape speed is necessarily fast—120 in. per second as compared with 7½ IPS or audio recorders—Telcan records hall track so that 44 minutes of programming can be recorded on a single reel. By means of a timing device, Telcan can record television programs when nobody is home, making it possible for a viewer to run off a show exactly when he wants to see it. In fact, the day may come when plays, concerts or operas are video-taped by professional companies and sold to the home market the way phonograph records are.
     -- Time magazine, December 20, 1963
     -- Image from Terra Media (site linked below)
* Entry from BBC: @
* Entry from The Virtual Museum of Vintage VCRs: @
* "See Home Playback At Price Under $300" (Billboard magazine, December 28, 1963): @
* "Home TV Tape -- 1964 Big Item" (Billboard, January 11, 1964): @
* "Home Video Tape Being Tested" (Billboard, February 22, 1964): @
* "Watch Your Favorite TV Show ANY Time" (Popular Science, June 1964): @
* "The quest for home video" (from Terra Media): @ 

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Saturday, November 23, 1963: 'Doctor Who'

DR. WHO? That is just the point. Nobody knows precisely who he is, this mysterious exile from another world and a distant future whose adventures begin today. But this much is known: he has a ship in which he can travel through space and time -- although, owing to a defect in its instruments he can never be sure where and when his "landings" may take place. And he has a great-grandaughter Susan, a strange amalgam of teenage normality and uncanny intelligence.
     Playing the Doctor is the well-known film actor, William Harnell, who has not appeared before on BBC-TV.
     Each adventure in the series will cover several weekly episodes, and the first is by the Australian author Anthony Coburn. It begins by telling how the Doctor finds himself visiting the Britain of today: Susan (played by Carole Ann Ford) has become a pupil at an ordinary British school, where her incredible breadth of knowledge has whetted the curiosity of two of her teachers. These are the history teacher Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and the science master Ian Chesterton (William Russell), and their curiosity leads them to become inextricably involved in the Doctor's strange travels.
     Because of the imperfections in the ship's navigation aids, the four travellers are liable in subsequent stories to find themselves absolutely anywhere in time -- past, present or future. They may visit a distant galaxy where civilisation has been devastated by the blast of a neutron bomb or they may find themselves journeying to far Cathay in the caravan of Marco Polo. The whole cosmos in fact is their oyster.
     -- Radio Times, November 21
* BBC website: @

* BBC America website: @

* Watch episode 1, "An Unearthly Child": @

* "The Genesis of Doctor Who" (from BBC): @
* "The Changing Face of Doctor Who" (from BBC archives): @

* Entires from BBC episode guide: @ and @

* Doctor Who Online website: @

* Doctor Who Reference Guide: @

* "12 Must-Own Books" (from BBC America): @ 

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What didn't happen on November 22, 1963

President Kennedy

     * Speech at Dallas Trade Mart: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * Speech in Austin: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * President's schedule for the day: @

Music

     -- Symphony orchestras in Boston and Chicago, performing in the afternoon as the news of Kennedy's death spread, changed their programs and played the funeral march from Beethoven's Third Symphony.

     * Account from Boston (from time.com): @

     * Original introduction from Boston (from WGBH): @

     * Boston Symphony Orchestra program for 1963-64 season (revised program for November 22 is on Page 9): @

     * Account from Chicago (from orchestra archives): @

     -- On the same day that the album "With the Beatles" was released in the United Kingdom, the band was featured on "The CBS Morning News." The segment was to have been shown on "The CBS Evening News" that night. It eventually aired on December 10.

     * Watch the segment: @

     * "How Walter Cronkite jump-started Beatlemania in America" (from BeatlesNews.com): @

     * "Hello Goodbye: Why the Great Mike Wallace Instantly Forgot His Beatles TV Exclusive" (from The Huffington Post): @

     -- "The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars" was to have performed in Dallas on November 22. The show was canceled.

     * "Dick Clark on the Day America Lost JFK" (John Burke Jovich): @

     * Lineup (from A Rock n' Roll Historian blog): @

     * "Clark Show Off to Big Openers" (Billboard magazine, November 23): @

Television

     From the New York Times, November 23:

     TOKYO -- The first live American television transmission across the Pacific by means of the communication satellite relay was received clearly here today. Pictures transmitted by the Mohave ground station in California and received at the new Space Communications Laboratory in Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Tokyo, were clean and distinct. The sound transmission was excellent. The transmission was received live from 5:16 a.m. to 5:46 a.m. Viewers here saw and heard taped messages from Ryuji Takeuchi, Japanese Ambassador to Washington, and James E. Webb, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A message of greeting from President Kennedy to the Japanese people, which was to have been the highlight of the program, was deleted when news of the President's death was received shortly before the transmission. In place of the taped two-and-a-half-minute appearance of the President, viewers saw brief panoramic views of the Mohave transmitting station and the surrounding desert area. The American Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company shared in producing the program.'

     From The Associated Press, November 22:
     The nation's three major television and radio networks scrapped all commercials and entertainment programs out of respect for the death today of President Kennedy. The National Broadcasting Co., American Broadcasting Co., and Columbia Broadcasting system all said they would devote their entire radio and television programs to news of the assassination and all allied incidents. The Mutual Broadcasting System said it would ban commercials and entertainment features on its radio network until after the President's funeral. ABC said its commercial and entertainment ban would remain in effect indefinitely. NBC said it would observe the commercial and entertainment blackout until "sometime tomorrow night." CBS said it would not return commercials or entertainment programs to its network until after the President's burial. All networks said they would continue broadcasts on radio and TV through the night.
* TV listings for November 22 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; go to Page 19): @

"Dr. Strangelove"

     A New York screening for critics was canceled, and changes to Stanley Kubrick's new movie were made in light of Kennedy's death (detailed below). The film's premiere was delayed; the movie did not open until January 1964.

     * From "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography" (Vincent LoBrutto, 1999): @

     * From Time.com: @

     * From Los Angeles Times: @

Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping

    Three men who were planning to kidnap the entertainer intended to do so on November 22 in Los Angeles, but it was delayed until December 8 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

     * From MentalFloss.com: @

     * From TruTV.com: @

     * From Jan & Dean website (The band's Dean Torrence had loaned money to one of the kidnappers, a friend of his): @

     * Newsreel: @

Other

     * "The most famous magazine cover that never was" *(Washington Post): @

     * Kiplinger Washington Letter planned for November 23: @ and @

     * Where We Were" (People magazine, November 1988): @ 

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October-November 1963: Beatlemania

While there are differing accounts as to just who coined the term and when, a November 2 article in The Daily Mirror helped trigger its widespread use. The article was headlined "BEATLEMANIA! It's happening everywhere ... even in sedate Cheltenham / The with-it bug bites so hard ..." (120 years earlier, a similarly named phenomenon -- Lisztomania -- had swept Europe.)
* 13 October 1963 -- Beatlemania begins: Sunday night at the London Palladium (from The Beatles Bible): @

* 1 November 1963 -- Live: Odeon Cinema, Cheltenham (The Beatles Bible): @

* "Beatlemania bugs Britain's bobbies" (Associated Press, October 30): @
* "Beatlemania" (Newsweek, November 18): @

* "Britons Succumb To 'Beatlemania' " (The New York Times Magazine, December 1): @

* " 'BEATLEMANIA' Is Born" (Slate, October 2013): @
* "50 Years of Beatles: Ladies and Gentlemen, Beatlemania!" (Kenneth Womack, Penn State Altoona, 2013): @ 

* More about Lisztomania: @ and @ 

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October 1963: Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers first appears as the on-camera host of "Misterogers," a 15-minute daily show for children that ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The show was the successor to "Children's Corner" (1954-1961) and the forerunner to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968-2001). From the episode list at The Neighborhood Archive Blog, it appears Rogers' first on-camera appearance was in mid-October, 1963.

Photo from CBC; note the spelling of the word "neighbourhood."

* Biography (from Fred Rogers Center): @

* Biography (from The Fred Rogers Company): @

* Interview (from the Archive of American Television): @

* "Mister Rogers: A Biography of the Wonderful Life of Fred Rogers" (Jennifer Warner, 2013): @

* "Fred Rogers and His Legacy" (chapter from "Pittsburgh Film History: On Set in the Steel City," John Tiech, 2012): @ 

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Friday, October 11, 1963: 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'

Mr. Wilson believes he sees a gremlin on the wing of the commercial aircraft he is taking back home ... from the sanitarium, where he has been committed for six months after a mental breakdown during a similar flight.

     -- TV.com

The "Twilight Zone" episode was based on a 1961 short story by Richard Matheson.

* Watch the episode (from imdb.com): @ 

* Interviews with actor William Shatner, writer Richard Matheson, director Richard Donner (from Archive of American Television): @ 

* Excerpt from "Up Till Now: The Autobiography" (Shatner, 2009): @ 

* "Ride the Nightmare: Richard Matheson's 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' " (from tor.com): @ 

* "Nightmare at 20,000 feet: Horror Stories by Richard Matheson": @ 

* "Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling" (Leslie Dale Felman, 2010): @ 

* Earlier post on "To Serve Man" (March 2, 1962; includes "Twilight Zone" links): @ 

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Thursday, October 3, 1963: Perry Mason loses a case

Dist. Atty. Hamilton Burger defeats Mason in "The Case of the Deadly Verdict." Girl is on trial for the murder of her aunt.
     -- Television listings, Milwaukee Journal, October 3

     There will be a big change in the television season that is about to begin. A Perry Mason client will be found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death. It will be Perry's first unfavorable verdict since he start practicing law over the Columbia Broadcasting System television network on the night of Saturday, Sept. 21, 1957, at 7:30 o'clock (Eastern daylight time).
     ... Viewers tuned to "Perry Mason" will observe a well-nigh peerless Perry facing his darkest hour. ... Although "Perry Mason" episodes usually begin with the early stages of a court case or trial, this one opens with a court verdict. The defendant ... is found guilty of murdering her aunt for money. Presumably this is the first time in six years that Mason, played by Raymond Burr, has been called upon to register surprise.
     The big question is what Perry and his client can do to reverse the circumstance just before the final commercial.
     -- New York Times, September 8

* Summary (from allmovie.com): @ 

* Summary of this and Mason's two other setbacks (from The Perry Mason TV Show Book): @ 

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October 1963: 'Louie Louie'

The Kingsmen's version of the 1957 song is released on Wand Records (having already been released in April on the smaller Jerden Records). It enters the Billboard Hot 100 charts in November, peaking at No. 2 in December 1963/January 1964.

In February 1964, amid reports that the governor of Indiana had suggested the song not be played on radio stations in the state because of what sounded like obscene words, the FBI investigated. The bureau found no evidence of obscenities in the muddled lyrics.

* Listen to song: @
* "The 'Louie Louie' lyrics" (from louielouieweb.tripod.com): @
* Summary from HistoryLink.org: @

* The Louie Report ("The blog for all things 'Louie Louie' "): @

* " 'Louie Louie' through the ages" (Peter C. Blecha, 2007): @
* "The Kingsmen's infamously innocent 'Louie Louie' back in front of the feds at downtown Federal Building" (The Oregonian, 2013): @
* Billboard chart history (from www.song-database.com): @

* List of cover versions (from andymartello.com): @

* "Was 'Louie Louie' Banned in Indiana? " (from Purdue University): @

* "Indiana Gov. Puts Down 'Pornographic' Wand Tune" (Billboard, February 1, 1964): @
* " 'Louie' Publishers Say Tune Not Dirty At All" (Billboard, February 8): @
* "The FBI Investigated the Song 'Louie Louie' for Two Years" (from Smithsonian.com): @

* FBI files: @

* "Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song" (Dave Marsh, 1993): @; author's website: @

* Entry from "The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made" (Marsh, 1989): @

* "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now" (Dick Peterson, 2006): @ 
* 2011 radio interview with original lead singer Jack Ely ("The Allan Handelman Show"): @

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Tuesday, September 17, 1963: 'The Fugitive'

The ABC show premieres with David Janssen starring as Dr. Richard Kimble, wrongfully convicted for the murder of his wife. The series follows Kimble as he searches for the one-armed man who he believes killed his wife while at the same trying to stay one step ahead of police Lt. Philip Gerard (Barry Morse). The show would run through August 1967; at the time of its airing, the second episode in the two-part finale was the highest-rated show in the history of television.

* Video of first episode, "Fear in a Desert City": @ and @ and @

* Review of premiere (from United Press International): @

* Summary from Museum of Broadcast Communications: @

* Episode guide, from TV.com: @

* Producers Leonard Goldberg and Alan A. Armer talk about finale: @ and @

* " 'The Fugitive' broke new ground to become an unlikely hit" (from A.V. Club): @
* "The Fugitive Recaptured" (Ed Robertson, 1993): @
* "The Fugitive in Flight: Faith, Liberalism and Law in a Classic TV Show" (Stanley Fish, 2011): @

* The David Janssen Archive: @ 

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Sunday, September 15, 1963: The Great Pop Prom

The Beatles headline the show at London's Royal Albert Hall. Also performing are The Rolling Stones; it is the only time the two bands played on the same bill. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard would later write: "We opened this afternoon performance and were followed by a bunch of typical British pop acts including Shane Fenton and the Fentones. We got an amazing reception. The Beatles closed the show but we couldn't hang around because we had to head back down the A3 to Richmond to play the Crawdaddy Club that night." (From "The Rolling Stones 50", 2012)
* "The Beatles at the Hall" (from Royal Albert Hall website): @

* Entry from The Beatles Bible website: @

* "The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock 'n' Roll Rivalry" (Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, 2010): @ 

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September 1963: Lava lamp

Created by Edward Craven Walker, the Astro Lamp was first sold in England in 1963, marketed through his Crestworth Ltd. (incorporated on September 3). It arrived in America in 1965, under the name Lava Lite. (In 1992, Crestworth was renamed Mathmos, after the lake of bubbling goo in the 1968 film "Barbarella.")

"It's like the cycle of life," Walker said in 1997. "It grows, breaks up, falls down and then starts all over again. And besides, the shapes are sexy.''

Brochure image from www.flowoflava.com, a comprehensive website about the lava lamp, including its history and the various models through the years.

* Entry from "Inventing the 20th Century: 100 Inventions That Shaped the World, From the Airplane to the Zipper" (Stephen Van Dulken, 2002): @

* "The History of the Lava Lamp" (Smithsonian magazine, March 2013): @

* "The Mystique of the Lava Lamp" (h2g2.com): @
* "Happy Birthday to the Lava Lamp" (Forces of Geek, July 2013): @
* "Vintage Lava Lamps" (from Collectors Weekly): @
* "How Liquid Motion Lamps Work" (from HowStuffWorks): @
* "How It Works: Secrets of the Lava Lite" (Popular Science, September 1997): @
* Mathmos website: @

* Lava Lite website: @
* www.keepbubbling.com: @

* www.hippielight.com: @ 

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