The Subversive Genius of White Christmas

Irving Berlin had concocted a monster, and he knew it.  "I just wrote the best song I've ever written" he told his secretary as he set down his pen.  That's quite an audacious observation from a man who had already written such 'Great American Songbook' standards as "Blue Skies", "Puttin' in the Ritz" and "God Bless America", but in this instance, as time would prove, Berlin wasn't exaggerating.

He had been mulling the concept of the song for a few years, according to later accounts, but didn't sit down to actually write it until 1940.  The opening stanza was primarily autobiographical:

The sun is shining, the grass is green/
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day/
in Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the twenty-fourth/
And I am longing to be up North...

Born in Russia in 1888, Berlin emigrated with his family to the United States when he was five, and like so many other Jewish immigrants, they settled in the teeming tenements of New York City.  His father was a cantor, and Irving (nee Israel) was raised in religious tradition.  But like so many of that generation of immigrant children, Berlin saw himself as an American first, and Jewish second (and Russian a far distant third.  Later, he said that the only memory he still had of his life in the old country was of watching a mob burn his family's home to the ground during one of Russia's bloody pogroms against the Jews).

As a teenager he dropped out of school and began working as a singer in saloons, teaching himself piano.  He eventually got himself a job as a song plugger for music publishers, performing newly written tunes for other singers in the hopes that they would include them in their act, and maybe even make one of those newfangled records out of them (it's a time-honored profession; that's how Elton John got his start in music).  Irving soon concluded that he could write better songs than some of the stuff he was hawking, and he began composing.

Within a few short years, he was a tremendously successful songwriter, creating both standalone tunes (including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," which sparked perhaps the first popular dance craze, 'The International', which swept the U.S. and was equally popular in Europe in 1913), as well as writing Broadway scores, including for "The Coconuts" with the Marx Brothers.  His success allowed him to relocate to Southern California, where with the coming of 'talking pictures', he began writing songs for the movies as well.

But while he appreciated the sunny and warm year-round climate of Los Angeles, Berlin always remained a New Yawker at heart, hence his lament in the opening stanza of his latest tune.  However, Irving's enthusiasm for those lines was shared by few others, and when circumstances later made them awkward to continue including, he grudgingly agreed to strike them from the official lyric sheet, leaving only a scanty eight lines of lyrics in the entire song.  But it was a decision he never had cause to regret.

Berlin hadn't set out to write just another Christmas song.  On a subtle, almost subversive level, he wanted to change American culture forever.  And he did.

The best way to examine this is to study the remaining lyrics:

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas/

Just like the ones I used to know/
Where the treetops glisten and children listen/
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas/

With every Christmas card I write/
May your days be merry and bright/
And may all your Christmases be white.

What do you notice about this Christmas carol?  The distinct absence of any mention or allusion to Christ...or even Santa Claus, who at least (in his St. Nicholas incarnation) has a quasi-religious inference.

For decades, Christmas had been slowly transforming in the United States from a distinct religious observance to a more national, "democratic" sort of holiday, the metamorphosis hastened by the adoption of Europe's somewhat stern Father Christmas (better known in the U.S. as Santa Claus) into a jolly gift-giver designed to appeal specifically to young children.  With the great influx of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, various Old World end-of-year traditions entered into the melting pot, and became a part of the Christmas festivities.

A great many of those immigrants were Jewish and, wishing to integrate into this new land, they found themselves celebrating a Christian holiday that, with each passing year, took on more and more secular shades.

By the 1930s, Christmas had made the transition from a day of feasting and religious observation to feasting and giving presents to family and friends.  Santa Claus could be found on billboards and in magazine ads shilling for Coca Cola.  The Montgomery Ward department store chain created its own original character, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and marketed him with a best-selling children's book, stuffed toys, and various other pieces of merchandise (and in 1949 would produce a #1 hit song about the character, sung by Gene Autry), reaping a bounty in Rudolph-related paraphernalia for generations to come.  The concept of Christmas as an agency of promoting a general peace and good will to mankind, rather than as a veneration of Jesus Christ, further took hold with the era's multiple film and radio adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, which even as far back as 1843 gave only a nominal nod to the Almighty (invoking His grace to bless us, everyone).

Contributing somewhat hesitantly to this transformation were Christmas carols.  In 1940, the most popular remained the old standards, dating back to the 19th Century and earlier, and steeped in religious iconography:  "Silent Night", "Angels We Have Heard on High", "The First Noel", and the like.  Since the latter 1800s there had been a smattering of more secular holiday tunes..."Jingle Bells" (1857), "Up on the House Top" (1864), "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (1934)...but most of the newer entries in the canon hewed closer to religious themes, such as "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" (1925).

Berlin wanted to change that by giving America a truly secular Christmas song that could serve as a veritable anthem for the holiday, the way his "God Bless America" had emerged as a near-substitute for the actual National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner".  He wanted every non-Christian in the world who wanted and needed to celebrate Christmas to have a carol that invited them to enjoy the celebration on an equal plateau as the most devout Christian.

And once he wrote "White Christmas", he did...nothing.  He didn't publish it and make it available to anyone to record.  This is because he had a concept for a musical film that he intended the song for, a movie about a country inn that performed improbably lavish song and dance productions on various holidays throughout the year.  He pitched it to Paramount Studios because he envisioned only one man who could play the lead, and that performer was contracted to that studio:  Bing Crosby.

Bing and Paramount liked the film's concept, but Crosby had one reservation:  "White Christmas".  As an ardent Catholic, he was reluctant to perform a non-religious carol.  Already America's most popular singer, he had scored over 100 hit songs since 1927, when he began his career as the singer for Paul Whiteman's Orchestra (by the time of his death in 1977, Crosby had had more #1 hits than Elvis Presley and the Beatles combined), and had already recorded a number of Christmas carols, but all of them traditional fare such as "Adeste Fideles" (with the first half sung in Latin) and "Silent Night".  Crosby was sympathetic to Berlin's intent on creating a secular anthem, but the Jesuit student in him was already uncomfortable with the commercialization of Christmas (see the aforementioned Coke Santa), and didn't wish to add to it.

But Berlin and others made their cases for the song, and Bing had to admit it was a really good tune.  Finally he consented, but his nearly infallible sense of what made a song work told him to drop the opening lyrics about Beverly Hills.  Berlin protested, but Crosby recognized that the true strength of the song was the universal empathetic nature of the rest of the words, and that 'woe is me' bit about a green Christmas in sunny California worked in opposition to that sentiment.

Prior to filming the movie (with co-star Fred Astaire), titled HOLIDAY INN, Bing gave "White Christmas" a try-out on his weekly radio program, The Kraft Music Hall, just a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, and it produced nary a ripple; there was no feedback from listeners either yay or nay, so Crosby set the song aside.  It wasn't as if anyone expected it to be a hit anyway.  Berlin, Paramount and Decca Records, which was releasing the soundtrack, all pegged "Be Careful, It's My Heart" as the big hit from the film.

But then a funny thing happened:  late in the summer, while the film was doing great box office in theaters, radio station DJs around the country began getting listener requests for "White Christmas".  The trickle became a torrent.  By mid-September it had made the charts and was rising fast.  By Halloween...a full month before retailers in 1942 would even dare consider putting up their Xmas decorations...the song hit #1 on the charts, and stayed there for 11 straight weeks.  For good measure, it also spent several weeks atop the R&B chart, a previously segregated listing, making it Crosby's first...but not last...visit to the "race" chart.

With World War II raging, Crosby pushed aside the stage fright that had kept him from doing live concerts for a decade, and began performing exclusively for either troops as part of USO package tours at home and abroad, while visiting military hospitals, or at war bond rallies.  Without fail, the one song in his entire canon that everyone wanted to hear was "White Christmas".  Sometimes Bing would open his performance with the tune, but the audience would always call for an encore of it at the end, so he made it his regular closing number.

Years later, he would tell of what was perhaps the most poignant moment in his long career.  In late 1944 he was in France with the USO, performing for several thousand U.S. troops in a section of real estate that had been, just days earlier, in German control.  As he sang "White Christmas", a complete hush fell over the large crowd.  Witnesses said you couldn't even hear anyone breathing.  When Bing finished with "...and may all your Christmases be white", the silence continued.  No one clapped or whistled, they all just sat there not making a sound.  Many of them were weeping.  There they were fighting the most brutal war in history, with Christmas fast approaching, but they all knew that, God willing, this would be their last Christmas away from home.  The song touched each of them so deeply, they couldn't let that moment of peace go.

Bing would then follow up that touching observation by grimly noting that the Battle of the Bulge erupted not long thereafter, and all too many of those soldiers didn't live to see that Christmas, nor any other.

The song went on to win the Academy Award.  Indeed, it produced a humorous moment, as Berlin himself happened to be the presenter of that award.  Opening the envelope and reading his own name, he picked up the Oscar and quipped, "I'm glad to present the award...I've known him for a long time."

Decca re-released "White Christmas" at the end of 1945, and once again it went to #1...a feat it repeated yet again in '46.  Re-released in each subsequent year, it continued to chart again and again, until finally in 1962 Billboard created a specific Holiday Songs chart and relegated it to there from the Top 40.  In the U.K. it continued to hit the pop charts until 1998.

A little known fact is that the version we almost always hear now is not the original.  In 1947 it was discovered that the master disc of the song was damaged, and thus any future pressings would have to be from a second generation copy, which would produce a noticeable diminishing in fidelity.  Instead, Crosby and Decca reassembled all of the original musicians and background singers and produced a note-for-note remake of the original, adding only a new touch of flutes and celesta right at the very beginning, and no one seemed to notice the difference.  Recording technology had improved since 1942, and all concerned agreed that the '47 remake sounded cleaner and more vibrant that the first copy.  And that's the version we continue to hear to this day.

To say that "White Christmas" is a tremendous hit would be a monumental understatement.  Crosby's version alone, as a single and as part of various holiday albums, has sold some 50 million copies.  That in and of itself makes the tune the best-selling song of all time.  But then add to that various other versions, performed by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams and Bette Midler to the Drifters, Otis Redding and Elvis Presley, have racked up additional 50 million copies sold.

Crosby, typically, was humble about his role in the song's success, saying that virtually anyone who sang it would have had the hit.  But the truth is, it's hard to imagine any other singer investing as much talent and heart into the song as Crosby did.

Berlin likewise wasn't one to brag about it, but then, he didn't have to.  One need only look at everything that came after "White Christmas" to realize it was every bit the culture-altering triumph he had hoped it would be.  The song's success opened up the floodgates for secular Christmas songs, filling the airwaves with everything from "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and "Silver Bells" to "Feliz Navidad" and "All I Want for Christmas is You".  And perhaps most profoundly, it played a crucial role in transfiguring Christmas into the holiday it is today, where Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindi, Buddhists, and even atheists can share in the spirit of peace and joy, even if they aren't exalting a tiny swaddling babe in a manger.  And honestly, is there anything more 'Christmas' than that?

May your days be merry and bright....

Make Gentle the Life

Despite what historians prefer to predict now, he was by no means assured of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, even after winning the California primary. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey controlled enough non-primary delegates to remain the frontrunner. But RFK hoped to use his California victory to convince Rhode Island to add a primary, and to pressure Humphrey to enter it. Going head to head with the Vice-President, Kennedy was certain he would win, and that win would convince the party bosses who still called most of the shots at the conventions to switch their allegiance to RFK.

That was the plan on the evening of June the 4th, 1968. Mere minutes into the early morning of June the 5th, Bobby Kennedy was sprawled across the floor of the kitchen of LA's Ambassador Hotel, mortally wounded.

The murder of his brother in 1963 was the crucible moment for him. As the Attorney General and protector of JFK's interests, Bobby was driven, devoted, moralistic and, yes, ruthless. But Jack's death put the younger Kennedy through a long night of the soul, and when he emerged, he was a different man: still driven, still devoted, but now feeling kinship with the downtrodden...the poor, the colored, the forgotten.

Elected to the Senate, he became a tribune of the people. He argued for the betterment of those suffering abject poverty in Appalachia, for help for Native Americans, for respect for all people of color. He went to apartheid South Africa and condemned their racist society. He went to Communist Poland and preached liberty, not as some abstract political concept, but as a basic human right.
He made enemies. Few Americans were as polarizing as Bobby. It would come as a shock to many today, I'm sure, that among his non-admirers were many leading liberals. Although RFK is credited as a liberal now, in the Sixties, the New Deal/Adlai Stevenson Liberal Establishment eyed Robert Kennedy with deep suspicion. They despised his arch-conservative father, Joseph P. Kennedy; they hated that Bobby had worked on the staff of Red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy in the Fifties, and retained a personal affection for McCarthy long after the demagogue fell from grace; and they disliked RFK's opposition to many of Lyndon Johnson's welfare programs.

For his part, Bobby was dismissive of what he called the "sick liberals"...the cocktail party warriors who would rather complain about the issues than get their hands dirty trying to solve problems. And he thought that LBJ's welfare programs simply threw money at the ghettos without doing anything to address the root problems of poverty and racism, and did little more than to condemn whole generations of minorities to a lifetime in crumbling public housing, with sub-standard public schools for the children and few decent jobs for their parents.

And then there was Viet Nam, the matter that tormented him the most. In Jack's administration, Bobby had advocated a hard line in Southeast Asia. But as Johnson escalated the conflict...claiming all the while to be carrying on the policy of John Kennedy...Bobby grew more and more opposed to the war. Still, fearful of splitting the Democratic Party, he kept his reservations mostly private...an act that cost him a lot of support from the anti-war movement which yearned for RFK to lead them.

In early '68, Johnson appeared certain of winning the nomination, and in the interest of party unity, Bobby went so far as to publicly announce...through gritted teeth...that he fully expected to support LBJ's reelection. But then a funny thing happened on the way to Lyndon's re-nomination; Senator Gene McCarthy, challenging LBJ as an avowed peace candidate, came in a strong second in the New Hampshire primary. Suddenly Johnson looked vulnerable, and there was growing doubt that he could beat the likely Republican candidate, Richard Nixon.

Against the advice of most of his political allies and advisors...including his own brother, Teddy...RFK then announced that he was a candidate. Seeing the writing on the wall, Johnson didn't even put up a fight, and he announced that he would not seek re-nomination. But behind the scenes, the President intended to use every means at his disposal to deny Bobby the presidency, and to bestow it on LBJ's loyal VP, Humphrey.

Kennedy battled McCarthy in a series of primaries, while Humphrey avoided the primaries altogether and focused on cutting backroom deals with the bosses to line up delegates (in 1968 there were far fewer primaries, and they were not enough for a candidate to secure a majority of delegates before the convention, even if he had won all of the contests. But one of the party bosses privately urging Bobby on was Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who kept intoning, "the primaries matter, the primaries matter!" Daley knew that if Kennedy could prove he could win votes there, 'Hizonor' could convince other party bosses to switch their loyalty from Hubert to Bobby).

And so it all came down to California. RFK had just suffered a primary loss in Oregon, and it was understood that if McCarthy could win the Golden State, he could eliminate Kennedy from the race. It was a hard-fought contest, culminating in Bobby's victory. Kennedy also won South Dakota that day, but McCarthy won New Jersey, and was making it clear that he intended to stay in the race all the way to the convention...largely, many felt, to act as a 'spoiler' to prevent RFK from getting the nomination. Gene McCarthy, for all of his towering intellectual and moralistic gifts, could be a small man at times.

Do I think that Bobby would have won the nomination in 1968? Yes, if a lot of things broke his way. I do believe that even if he didn't get the nod, his very presence in Chicago, and his close relationship with Daley, could have altered the city's reaction to the army of anti-war protestors camped out in Grant Park, avoiding the "police riot" that horrified Americans watching on TV and splitting the Democratic Party in half in its wake.

I think the biggest hurdle for Bobby would have been convincing the bosses and the delegates that he could unify the country and win the election in November. A lot of them were nervous as they watched Kennedy campaign; he drew huge crowds, but they weren't the typical political rallies, but more like fundamentalist religious revivals, in that the crowds seemed chaotic, screaming and shouting and laughing, their hands clutching at Bobby as he sat in an open convertible, his own hands scratched bloody from their grasping fingers, his cuff links long gone, even his shoes pulled from his feet. This wasn't politics, it was madness, and it scared the hell out of a lot of Americans who didn't like the long hair, loud music and sexual permissiveness of the young, and who were growing tired of being labeled as racists simply because they didn't have black or brown or red or yellow skin themselves. In that regard, RFK seemed to be the Pied Piper of the the damned.

But those with savvier political instincts looked closer, not at the rapturous acolytes surging around the candidate, but at the large crowds standing respectfully on the outskirts, waving American flags and cheering Robert Kennedy as well. They were the non-shouters, the non-protestors. They fought in World War II, many were blue collar union men, and although they were registered Democrats, they by no means would consider themselves liberals. They supported the war in Viet Nam, but were starting to have some nagging doubts about it. They didn't consider themselves bigots, and they wanted African-Americans to have their equal rights, but they were still jittery about having them move into their neighborhood. They were voters who would find appeal later that year in the candidacies of Nixon and the independent George Wallace, and who would later shift their allegiance to Ronald Reagan.

Many of them may not have even liked RFK very much...but they trusted him. They admired his courage and they respected his convictions, and an awful lot of them thought that he might just be the one man to save the country in that terrible year. In Indiana...a state where the KKK still held strong sway in many parts...these people voted for Bobby, right alongside the blacks of Gary. The conservative farmers of Nebraska had voted for RFK has well, as had small town and rural folk...the "non-black, non-protestor" people...of California. Unlike any other candidate in the race, Robert F. Kennedy could draw support from across the political spectrum. Of all of the presidential hopefuls, he had the best claim on being able to unite the United States again.

It would have been an uphill fight to get the nomination, and another struggle up the mountain to beat Nixon. I think he quite likely would have done it. We'll never know; three bullets tore into his body. He was too strong to die then and there, and he lingered for over a day with mortal injuries. His final rasped words, as he lay on the floor of the hotel, cradled by an Hispanic bus boy who placed a rosary in RFK's hands, were, "Is everybody okay?" Because even as he lay dying, his last thought was of others.

*****

It's tempting to say that he had to die because America didn't deserve him. He was fatalistic about his destiny, admitting to a friend not long before his death, "There are guns between me and the White House."

But I don't believe we are fated to such tragedies. They aren't beyond our control...we cause them, and we can prevent them. Bobby Kennedy would probably have survived the morning of June the 5th if he had Secret Service protection, or if the LAPD had set up a detailed security plan for the Ambassador Hotel, or if Bobby had followed his original instinct to walk through the crowd of supporters to exit the ballroom, instead of letting himself be led through the less-crowded kitchen area, where the emotionally troubled Sirhan Sirhan stood waiting. These days, serious candidates have a phalanx of bodyguards, and every step taken in public is plotted out to the smallest detail. That came in the aftermath of Bobby's assassination.

Robert Kennedy's assassination brought on two tragedies to the nation. First, of course, it took this remarkable man from us, just when he was most needed. But perhaps even worse, it seemed to rob our national spirit of something essential. His martyrdom didn't rally us as it should. With an occasional ballot box exception, we as a people grew sour about our responsibilities as citizens, preferring instead to complain about things, but not bother to make any real effort to change them. RFK believed to his soul that to those for whom much has been given, much is expected. We owe it to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to the world to take an active part in affairs, and to fulfill our obligations as citizens. He would have been appalled by our low voter turnouts, and by our collective acquiescence at not holding the feet of our public servants closer to the fire.

And so today, on the 50th anniversary of his murder, why don't we all look to our own responsibilities as American citizens and, as RFK himself said in perhaps his most powerful public address, "Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people."

Yes, let us.

On Such a Winter's Day

They weren't The Mamas & The Papas yet...they came upon that name virtually on the spur of the moment later on, after briefly flirting with calling themselves the Magic Circle.  They were just John Phillips, his young wife Michelle, and Denny Doherty, along with their friend Cass Elliot, who had essentially just come along for the ride.  They had driven cross-country and arrived in L.A. in 1965, flat broke and desperate to establish a career in music.

Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, they literally bumped into an old friend from their Greenwich Village folk days, Barry McGuire.  At the moment, quite improbably, the gravel-voiced McGuire was one of the hottest new stars in Rock & Roll, having scored a #1 hit with a protest anthem, "Eve of Destruction".  McGuire invited the quartet to come sing some of John's original songs for Lou Adler, record producer and owner of the Dunhill label, to which Barry was signed.

Cass had wanted to be an official member of their group, but John had resisted adding her.  Phillips was a domineering personality, and Michelle and Denny were much more easy going and willing to let John play the leader.  But Cass was strong-willed as well, and she had no hesitancy to have it out with John whenever she felt he was pushing too hard, resulting in many an angry argument between them.  He couldn't deny that vocally, she blended beautifully with the other three; indeed, with their voices in full flight, they fused together in such a way that it seemed to create a fifth voice in their midst, resulting in an utterly unique sound.  He just wasn't sure he could put up with her standing up to him.

So she tagged along as the others auditioned for Adler.  They ran through several of their songs as the producer sat quietly with his arms crossed, the brim of his hat down over his eyes, saying little more than an occasional grunt.  They thought they had flopped, but when they were done, Adler offered them a contract with Dunhill.  He later said that internally, he was doing veritable backflips, so blown away by the vocal sounds he had heard, but he didn't want to display his enthusiasm for fear the group would demand too much money.

Adler had only one demand:  Cass was in the group, period.

Shortly afterward, Adler brought the group into United Western Recorders on Sunset Boulevard, the favorite recording studio of Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys and Elvis Presley.  Although The Mamas & The Papas were longtime folkies, and John played the acoustic guitar, Adler knew that their best hope for success was in the nascent Folk Rock genre.  So, the producer turned to the "Wrecking Crew", that collection of ace studio musicians who had played on such recent #1 Folk Rock hits as "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, and Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe".  The quartet were joined by drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn, and guitarist P.F. Sloan.

One of the first things they recorded was a song called "California Dreamin'", written by John and Michelle back when they were living in New York City during a particularly cold winter.  When they were done, everyone there agreed it was a terrific recording.  To Lou Adler's ears, it sounded like a hit.  And to his way of thinking, there was only one logical thing to do with it.

He gave it to Barry McGuire.

Needing a follow-up hit to "Eve of Destruction", Adler thought "California Dreamin'" was the perfect choice.  They took Denny Doherty's lead vocals off of the track, but otherwise kept all of the backing vocals from The Mamas & The Papas.  Dunhill put the single out, and had McGuire debut it live on TV's "Shingdig", with The Mamas & The Papas singing backup, their first television appearance together.

And it flopped.  Huge.

It quickly became apparent that this song was not going to follow "Eve of Destruction" up to #1.  Indeed, it didn't even flirt anywhere near the Hot 100.  McGuire would go on to be a One Hit Wonder.  (He did have later success as an actor, appearing in several films, and starring in the original Broadway cast of "Hair").

Ordinarily, that would be that for "California Dreamin'", a failed song consigned to the ash heap of music history.  Except that Lou Adler wasn't done with it yet.  He knew deep in his gut that this had all the makings of a hit.  It was a thoroughbred...he had simply put the wrong jockey in the saddle.

Going back into the studio, he restored Doherty's lead vocals to the tune, and he added something else, replacing a harmonica solo during the bridge with a flute, inspired by "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" by the Beatles.

(Adler was a bit sloppy in erasing McGuire's vocals...if you listen closely at the very beginning, you can hear his rough-hewn voice buried amongst the others.)

Now, certain of success, Adler released the song at Christmastime of '65, and the response was a resounding...nothing.  At least at first.  But slowly, radio stations across the country began to play the song, and it built an audience.  Undoubtedly, it sounded nothing like anything else listeners had heard on the radio before, with those sparkling harmony voices (double-tracked to amplify their power) bursting through the speakers like sunshine, and it took a bit of time for people to understand what they were hearing.  But when they did take a moment to reflect on it, they realized that they liked what they heard.  "California Dreamin'" entered the Billboard charts in January, and by March it had peaked at #4.

And The Mamas & The Papas proved they were no one hit wonders, immediately following up their first hit with "Monday, Monday", which went all the way to #1, as did their debut album, the prophetically titled If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears.

A key ingredient to their initial success was their look.  They made the rounds of multiple TV shows..."Shindig", "Hullabaloo", "The Ed Sullivan Show"...and became immediately identifiable.  There was Denny, good locking and cocksure...John, gangly and mysterious, despite an inviting mega-watt smile...blonde and willowy Michelle...and rotund and joyous Cass, who had an angelic voice that could blast you out of the back seat of the theater.  They helped establish the look of 'hippie chic' with their multi-colored caftans and scarves, and swiftly became the most individually recognizable people in Rock & Roll since John, Paul, George and Ringo.

In retrospect, it's easy to say that "California Dreamin'" was destined to be a hit.  After all, how could it not?  But I think it's more important to recall that before it became a "sure fire" hit, it was a spectacular failure.  And that's often the nature of things, because nothing is certain.  But sometimes you get a second chance...and sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.  For The Mamas & The Papas, the success of "California Dreamin'" put them on the mountaintop for precisely two years, until internal squabbling, drugs the fracturing marriage of John and Michelle, an affair between Michelle and Denny, more drugs, and the pressures of stardom drove them apart.  In the midst of the craziness, they still managed to release four albums, and they put nearly twenty songs on the charts; many hit artists today can't achieve that in a decade.

But for all the troubles to come, there is still the pure, glorious dream promised by this song, and that remains undimmed even decades later.

Maternus Amor

So this Mother's Day is different than any other I've known, because for the first time I'm honoring not one, but two Moms.

As many of my friends know, I was adopted as a newborn.  I knew very, very little about my birth family, beyond the name I was christened with.  As an adult, not surprisingly, I was curious about where I came from, and with my Mom's encouragement I tried to find out some details.

Unfortunately, there were none to be had.  In a plot twist straight out of Dickens, back in the early 1970s there had been a fire at the orphanage where I was given to, and their paper records were destroyed.  All traces of my hidden past were gone.

While it would have been really nice to have known where I came from, and whether I had any siblings, I reconciled myself to never knowing, and put it out of my mind.

Until last September, that is.  That's when, for my birthday, my wife Dahlia got me the 23andme DNA testing.  Truthfully, it was so that I could get a clearer picture of my medical history, since I had no idea what 'runs in the family', and also to determine my actual ethnic nationalities.

Turns out my ancestry is largely British, Irish and French, with a smattering of other various European groups...and, intriguingly, 0.2% Native American.  I'd love to know the story of that hook up.

Health-wise, genetically speaking, I'm in fantastic shape, with no real disposition toward anything scary.  Did you know that Maple Syrup Urine Disease is an actual thing?  Well, now I do, but I'm not worried, because I don't have the variant for it.

The report is eerily specific about physical traits.  Genetically, I'm not likely to have a cleft chin, and I don't.  I should have detached earlobes, and I do.  DNA says I shouldn't have to worry about going bald, which pleases Dahlia to no end.

I do have 296 Neanderthal variants, which is more than 79% of the population does, so I have that going for me.

I found all of this fascinating as I read it for the first time.  Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum with Peripheral Neuropathy?  Nothing I have to worry about!  That Native American coupling likely happened sometime between 1700 and 1820?  Maybe they knew Alexander Hamilton!  I share a common ancestor with King Louis XVI?  Sacré bleu!

So I'm clicking through all of the reports online, and I come to one marked 'Your DNA Family'.  Opening it, I find 1,062 people, most of the listed as second to fifth cousins, and most of them anonymous.

But then there was the one at the top...the one identified only as Aimee.  The one who shares 26.3% DNA with me, and who the report clinically announces "We predict this person is your Half Sister".

Pow.  In an instant, I had a sister.

I was able to send a message to Aimee via the website (and as shocked as I was to learn of her, she surely was just as shocked to, in essence, get an Email announcing SURPRISE!  You have a half-brother you knew nothing about!!!)  We connected, and I got another surprise...I actually have two half-sisters!  Andrea is the younger of the two.

The tale is thus:  Marie was a young, single career girl in Chicago when, in January of 1966, she became pregnant.  Marriage was out of the question, as apparently my birth father quickly disappeared from Marie's life, presumably when she told him the news.  Despite the stigma of being an unwed mother at the time...and a Catholic at that...Marie was determined to have me.

She was also determined to give me up.

I had been asked once or twice in my life if I felt "abandoned", since I was placed in an orphanage at birth.  Just the opposite, actually...I've felt loved.  Because even as a child when I thought about this, I knew a woman carried me for nine months, cared for me, underwent the trauma of childbirth, and despite all of her maternal instincts to keep and nurture me, she gave me to others, because she knew it was the best thing for me.  Marie didn't just give me life, she gave me one of the most unselfish, loving acts a mother can bestow on their child.

I'd have liked very much to have told Marie that, and to thank her.  Sadly, she passed away in 2013.  What makes me most sorry is that I never had the opportunity to tell her that she did the right thing, and that it all worked out fine...that a good family took me, that I've grown up happy, and that my life is a good and fulfilling one.  I'm sure it would have pleased her mightily to know that.

A few years after having me, Marie met a man, and in time they married, had children, and grandchildren.  She raised her daughters with love, and taught them to be the best they can be.  She worked, she retired, she reveled in the role of grandmother.  She lived a perfectly normal life.  I am genuinely happy for her and the life she led.

Since this discovery, I've exchanged emails and texts with Aimee and Andrea.  Aimee lives in Iowa, and not too long ago I drove out to meet her, spending the afternoon talking.  This is going to sound tritely cliché, but it's the God's honest truth...I felt an immediate connection with her, and it felt as if we got on like two people who have known one another forever.  Andrea is in Ohio, and I'm hoping to either find the opportunity before too much more time has passed to go there, or perhaps we can stage a bit of a 'family reunion' for the three of us somewhere else.

And when we do, I'd like to raise a toast to our mother, Marie Frances Cousineau.  Until then, I'll simply wish her...

Happy Mother's Day

So, When Did Rock Finally Rule?

Rock and Roll has been so pervasive and dominant for so long...and for the sake of this piece, we'll encompass Hip Hop and Modern Country under the Rock umbrella as well...it's easy to think that it simply took over popular music right from the very start.

Although Rock and Roll first emerged as a Top 40 force in 1955 with the likes of Bill Haley and Chuck Berry, it was in '56 that it truly emerged as a dominating style, thanks primarily to Elvis Presley, who had four #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for a dazzling total of 26 out of 52 weeks that year.

(The name "Rock and Roll" predated the genre, by the way, having its origins in 1920s Blues music.  In the early 1950s, DJ Alan Freed began calling the high-energy Rhythm & Blues songs he played "Rock and Roll", and the name stuck when the new style, so heavily derived from R&B, emerged.)

Although Elvis and other Rock and Rollers still competed for chart space with decidedly non-Rock artists for several more years (other #1 songs in 1956 included "Lisbon Antigua" by Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra, "The Poor People of Paris" by Les Baxter, and "The Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant...none of which found their way into the later repertoires of the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, unsurprisingly), the sea change had begun.

But Rock and Roll did not come to utterly eclipse all of the recording industry...at least not for quite a few years.  Instead, pop music developed a schism, with Rock prevailing among 45 RPM singles, and other musical forms holding sway over 33 1/3 RPM long player albums.  This was primarily for economic reasons.  The growth of the Middle Class in the 1950s gave Baby Boomers disposable income, and they chose to spend it on 45s, which averaged at a cost of between 50¢ and $1, whereas LPs could be a more princely $3, $4 or $5 apiece.

And so albums became the province of non-Rock genres.  Pop singers like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme would release several LPs in a calendar year, as would Jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington.  Boardway cast album and movie soundtracks were hugely successful (the cast album of My Fair Lady was the best selling LP of both 1957 and 1958!).  In the early Sixties, comedy records from the likes of Bob Newhart and Allan Sherman sold in the millions.

Of course, that's not to say that Rock and Rollers didn't release albums as well.  Generally though, they were considered more disposable by their record labels...a bit of a cash grab that usually consisted of ten or so songs quickly recorded in order to pad around a hit single.

Things began to change rapidly in the mid-1960s, however.  An impetus for this change was the fact that so many British Invasion bands, led by the Beatles, were releasing albums that weren't mere collections of random songs, but had themes.  The Boomer population was at its peak, the economy was roaring, and at last 33 1/3's were easily accessible to Rock fans,

Still, you might be surprised to learn that it still took a bit longer for Rock and Roll to take total charge.  The best-selling album of 1964, the year the Beatles hit in America and unleashed the British Invasion, saw the cast album of Hello, Dolly! outsell everything else.  In '65, it was the soundtrack to Mary Poppins.

It wasn't until 1966 that an album that could arguably fall into the realm of Rock and Roll was the best-seller of the year:  Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.  Now, while Alpert and his assemblage were considerably hipper than, say, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians, a lot of fans might have to be convinced to consider them rockers.

Personally, I think it was the album's cover that helped hawk more than a few copies.  ;)

And then came 1967, the year of Sgt. Pepper.  And that just had to be the biggest seller of the year...right?

Nope.

The biggest selling album of that year, the year of the Summer of Love, was More of the Monkees.  Now, mind you, I'm a big fan of the Monkees, and it's impossible to claim that songs like "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" and "I'm A Believer", both found on this LP, aren't absolute classic pop songs.  But this album is really little more than unused tracks from the first Monkees LP sessions, churned out to capitalize on their massive overnight success.  Heck, the photo used for the jacket was an outtake of a photoshoot they did to promote 'Monkees Clothes' from J.C. Penney!  Creatively, their next two albums released that year, on which they gained artistic control and wrote and played on, were far superior.  But this was the album that sold in the millions.

But at least the Monkees broke the stranglehold on album sales, and at long last ushered in the era of Rock and Roll dominance.  And 1968, in terms of undeniable Rock and Roll, did it right.

Sure, it was the year of "The White Album" by the Beatles, Beggar's Banquet from the Stones, and Wheels of Fire by Cream.  But this time, fans were right on the money, buying in greater quantities the one album that year that is arguably as good, if not better than, those epic milestones:  Are You Experienced? from the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Since 1968, the album charts would be ruled forevermore by Rock and Roll.  Even movie soundtracks like Jesus Christ Superstar, Saturday Night Fever and The Bodyguard...all the biggest sellers of their release years...were steeped in the stylistic trappings of Rock.  Sometimes the all-time annual sellers were head-scratchingly strange:  Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida ('69)?  Some Gave All ('92) from Billy Ray Cyrus?  But other times, they were right on the money.  Because of course Bridge Over Trouble Water by Simon and Garfunkel ('70), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John ('74), Rumours by Fleetwood Mac ('77), Thriller by Michael Jackson ('83 and '84), and both 21 ('11 and '12) and 25 ('15) by Adele had to be the biggest selling albums of their years, because they quite probably best encapsulated what was best about Rock and Roll in those years.  They were certainly all artistic triumphs for the performers who created them.

So now you know some new bits of trivia to amaze your friends with.  Here's one more:  do you know which artist was the only biggest seller in three different years with three different albums?  None other than Sir Elton John!  There was the aforementioned ...Brick Road, while his Greatest Hits Volume I sold like hotcakes in 1975, and he returned to the top in 1994 with the soundtrack to The Lion King.  And on that note, let's go out with some Elton...