Beatles singalong taps
enduring love of the Fab Four
DEAN
KAHN - THE BELLINGHAM
HERALD - Bellingham
Herald article
Pause for a moment
to remember these words: "It was twenty
years ago today ..."
It's the Beatles, of course, from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band," an album that came
out more than four decades ago, in 1967.
The Fab Four officially
disbanded just three years later, yet their
music remains as energetic and
dear as the grown
children of boomer parents who screamed
when they first saw the Beatles on "The Ed
Sullivan Show."
Their enduring popularity
is one reason the upcoming Beatles singalong presented
by Kulshan Chorus and
The Walrus rock
band is expected to be a sellout.
Roger Griffith, Kulshan's music director, said he and the
115 or so members of the chorus have grown to appreciate
the Beatles even more while rehearsing for the April 30
show.
"
A lot of what they were doing was very melodic, very simple
and accessible," he said. "It wasn't
just a lot of shouting; it was done with a
lot of care."
Chuck Dingée,
a founder of The Walrus, saw the Beatles in Chicago
in 1966 and played only
Beatles songs with his
first guitar. A popular Whatcom County group,
The Walrus
began as a Beatles cover band, and still
plays plenty of Beatles songs at gigs.
Kulshan Chorus has performed with other bands,
and often includes singalongs at its concerts,
but the Beatles show
will be the first at which the audience is welcomed
to join in from the get-go.
More than 30 songs will
be sung, including some medleys.
"
We're having a blast putting it together," Dingée
said, "making sure they'd be fun for
the chorus to sing and fun for the audience
to
hear and fun
for the band
to play."
Griffith and Dingée have had a mutual admiration
society for their groups for years, and finally decided
to blend the two for a joint concert. The five members
of The Walrus will play the music and sing, sometimes as
soloists, more often with the chorus as a whole, Dingée
said.
I wouldn't be surprised if the show attracts people of
all ages. Two years ago, to mark the 40th anniversary of
the Woodstock music festival, a Pew Research Center survey
found rock music was the most popular among seven types,
with country music a close second.
That doesn't seem surprising,
but remember that just two years after the Beatles
first sang for Ed Sullivan, nearly
half of the adults in this country disdained rock.
Despite that early antipathy, the Beatles were the
only musical
act to rank among the top four among all four age
groups in the 2009 survey, including folks 65 and older.
" When I get
older losing my hair ..."
Why so popular? Well,
most of those early rock-haters have gone to the grave,
and the Beatles did have the good fortune
to come along when baby boomers were old enough
to watch lots of TV and buy lots of records.
Demographics aside, the
Pew survey also found that today's young people have
inherited their folks' love
of rock 'n'
roll. Music once considered rebellious is now
mainstream.
How mainstream? Imagine
700 people at the singalong singing ... "All
you need is ..."
