Some of you might know me through my CasinoAnswerman.com blog. Some
may even have read my books on casino games, or followed me in
newspapers, web sites, and magazines including Casino Player, Strictly
Slots, Midwest Gaming and Travel, Casino Journal and Slot Manager. I
didn't set out to write about games, strategy, casino trends and
technology, but a series of accidents and circumstances made it the main
thrust of my career. Life is what happens when we're busy making other
plans.
Though that's what pays the bills, I've
continued to write about other topics, mostly out of passion. I write a
Fest for Beatles Fans preview each year for the Chicago Sun-Times. Yes, I
get paid, but I pitch the stories because I love to do 'em.. Baseball
has been love of mine since I was 7 or so, and now I'm fortunate enough
to write a weekly sabermetrics column.
The limits of
newspaper space means I can't get to everything I want to. Take this
year's Fest for Beatles Fans preview at
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/people/21773040-421/liverpools-billy-j-kramer-headed-to-beatles-festival.html
It's
a Billy J. Kramer interview, and I'm happy with the way it turned out,
but it's just the taste of a much longer conversation. In the next few
days, I'm going to post the transcript of the full interview --- there's
some terrific material I just couldn't fit into the story. I'm going to
give the same treatment to a few other interviews I've done --- a
half-hour conversation I had several years ago with the late Doctor Who
actress Elisabeth Sladen that wound up as a three-quote special in the
newspaper.
Just to get the ball rolling, I want to
start with my day-by-day of this year's Chicago-area Fest, the annual
celebration of the Beatles and everything that is fab and gear. I
originally posted these on Facebook the morning after each day at the
Aug. 9-11 Fest:
*** Day 1 at The Fest for Beatles Fans was a blast, as always
Delivered a copy of my Sun-Times Fest preview/Billy J. Kramer preview
to Billy and his wife Roni. I've written tons over the years, and mostly
just leave one behind and move on to the next, but hearing "Thank you,
that's a fantastic article. We saw it online, thank you for such a
wonderful article" from one of my boyhood favorites does bring a rush.
Friday's a short fest day, so there were combined panels, one for
authors, one for musical guests. At the latter, Chad & Jeremy talked
of having a U.K. hit with "Yesterday's Gone," then were surprised when
their manager told them it was rising in the U.S. .... on the country
charts. They didn't even know it had been released Stateside. Success on
the main Hot Hundred followed. Chad & Jeremy started as a folk duo,
and when they broke through and found themselves booked into large
arenas, they had to hire a band. Jeremy nodded to Billy J. Kramer,
mentioning that he and others had started by playing it bands, but they
had to learn on the job.
The one negative: The parking
situation. With the Fest at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and Comic Con next
door at the Rosemont Convention Center, the Hyatt is full. So Hyatt
parking is taking only overnight guests. The rest of us were directed
out to a different convention center lot, and from there it was a
20-minute walk to the Hyatt, then 20 minutes back late at night. Not
sure these old bones are up to three days of that.
***Saturday,
Day 2 at the Fest for Beatles Fans. Just outstanding. One of the best
days in the history of the event formerly known as Beatlefest. The debut
of the documentary "Good Ol' Freda" was just amazing. It focuses on
original Beatles Fan Club secretary Freda Kelly --- lots of laughs and
smiles, and not a dry eye in the house at the end. Award-worthy stuff. I
interviewed Freda for her first Fest
appearance last year --- very gracious, well served by a brilliant film.
It'll have a short, limited theatrical run, as documentaries tend to
do, then be out on DVD in December.
Closing concert by the
house band Liverpool brought on all the musical guests to do their thing
--- Billy J. Kramer did the old hit "Bad to Me" along with "To
Liverpool With Love" from his new CD, "I Won the Fight." He had the
crowd on its feet with the line, "Why Isn't Brian Epstein/in the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame?" Little known fact: Two artists took the
Lennon-McCartney song "From a Window" into the Billboard Hot Hundred.
Billy J. Kramer took it to No. 23, and Chad & Jeremy to No. 97.
Billy & Chad sang it together in the closing concert.
Chad
& Jeremy did an hourlong performance, singing their old hits
including "Yesterday's Gone" and "A Summer Song," and told some stories.
In the '60s, they did the rounds of American TV, doing "Batman," "The
Patty Duke Show" and the "Dick Van Dyke Show." In rehearsal with Dick
Van Dyke, Chad was given the line, "You have a beautiful home here, Mrs.
Petrie," then Jeremy ad-libbed. He pointed to a piece of furniture and
said, "You know what we call this in England?" Dick asked what. Jeremy
said, "A chair." Dick liked it, it stayed in the show. Funnier than the
line, Jeremy said was that just a couple of years ago, Chad & Jeremy
were checking in at an airport," and the guy at the counter saw the
names, saw the guitar cases, pointed at them and said, "A chair."
****Sunday, final day wrap up at the Fest for Beatles Fans, #ChicagoFest.
The musicians panel B.U.I. --- Beatles Under the Influence --- is one
of my favorites every year. It starts with music that influenced the
Beatles, things they would have listened to while growing up, and morphs
into the changes they made that made the music their own and changed
the course of rock 'n' roll.
The panel is free-form,
unrehearsed, and a little different every year. Every year's panel
seems to get around to "Rock Island Line" for a mention of Lonnie
Donegan and skiffle, and Mark Hudson makes sure Elvis' "That's All
Right, Mama" is part of the show. But Billy J. Kramer and Badfinger
guitarist Joey Molland, both Liverpool guys, went all the way back to
George Formby, a Liverpool actor/comedian/pop singer of the 1930s-1950s
for an impromptu version of "Leaning on the Lamp," later recorded by
Herman's Hermits. Liberty Devitto gave a drumming demonstration of the
shuffle that survived the jazz age into early rock 'n' roll and how
Ringo changed that to give us the big beat. And there was a
demonstration of Everly Brothers harmonies, and how the Fabs took the
traditional thirds-fifths harmonies and started using fourths. There are
times I think this panel has become a little too programmed from its
organic beginnings --- I winced last year when Mark Hudson headed
Lawrence Juber off at the pass and stopped a fantastic diversion on
musical forms of earlier centuries and how they evolved into rock 'n'
roll. But there are always a few new wrinkles and some good rockin'.
Billy J. Kramer had his full band Sunday, the only day of the Fest they
were all there. Their afternoon concert was terrific --- he's really
assembled a great band. He sang the old hits, but the highlights were
really his new stuff --- "I Won the Fight," "To Liverpool With Love,"
"You're Right, I'm Wrong." His new CD is a good one, and he sounded
great doing the new material live.
And finally, I was able to
park in the Hyatt garage on Sunday, so I didn't have those
15-to-20-minute walks to and from the Convention Center garage. Hooray!
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