History of the Rock & Roll Era: "Be My Baby"

In the first month of my History of Rock & Roll Era class, we hit "Be My Baby" (1963) by The Ronettes, and who can argue with such an incandescent blast of raging hormones and girl group glee? If you need a reminder, here ya go:

The song was added to the National Registry of the Library of Congress in 2006:

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/BE%20MY%20BABY.pdf

More info on "Be My Baby" is here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-ronettes-be-my-baby

And here's an essay from the BBC on why "Be My Baby" is oh so perfect:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200811-why-be-my-baby-is-the-perfect-pop-song

Amid its many charms, "Be My Baby" has quite a remarkable drum figure, courtesy of the legendary Hal Blaine (of the L.A. group of session musicians who became known as The Wrecking Crew, who of course have their own documentary). That insistent drum beat has popped up in a lot of places, as these links will tell you:

https://music.avclub.com/kick-kick-kick-snare-repeat-15-songs-that-borrow-the-1798240471

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7866041/the-ronettes-be-my-baby-drum-intro-artists-sample-interview

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/30-songs-use-hal-blaines-iconic-be-my-baby-beat

Aside from the beat from "Bo Diddley," it's hard to think of a more distinct piece of rhythmic insistence in rock and roll history. Here are two of my favorite interpolations of that beat:

"Don't Worry Baby" (1964) by The Beach Boys:

"You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve" (2006) by Johnny Boy:

What's your favorite example of the "Be My Baby" beat?

Comments

"The Silver Gun" by Robert Palmer (1983)

I mean...Urdu? Seriously, Urdu . On an already eclectic and worldly album -- Pride , from 1983 -- "The Silver Gun" closes a chapter in Robert Palmer's career by singing a song about a horse in a language spoken daily by over 100 million people. The liquid bass line and propulsive electronics set out a bedrock for Palmer to ping phrasings rather out of place in Western music, askew astride even the peripatetic minimalism of the rest of the record. Somehow, in the middle of Michigan's Appalachia, I had this on vinyl a few years before the CD era officially commenced. It was an album of effort -- even the cover, a pointillism-and-bronze work, had Palmer's head barely above the water -- but the stitches didn't show to my pre-adolescent eyes and ears. In a career marked by zigs and zags, Pride and "The Silver Gun" were most certainly Other, and for a kid that felt like he didn't belong much of anywhere, it was nice to have those discrete feeling...

Some 2024 Listening Pleasures

It started with a gift of two JBL Control 25 speakers, and by "gift" I mean "borrowed" -- a.k.a. "will never return" -- from an obsolete tech detritus pile at work. I may have snagged more than two gifts, of course, but the raw footage proving such a claim remains elusive. And after installing the JBL speakers into the upper corners of the music room, and after installing speaker stands for the rear speakers I already had, and after making the hard choice between a big-ass bean bag and a comfy leather recliner to properly center myself in the audio field (R.I.P., big-ass bean bag), there was only one missing piece: the Apple TV 4K unit. So for me, 2024 was the year I streamed a lot of music in Atmos through Apple Music, surrounded by new tunes and old bops in thrilling new dimensions. Some might say you don't need surround sound, 'cos the two ears + two speakers modality has been dandy for a while now, but that's like saying you don't need ...

The Natural's Not In It

For nearly seven years on the button, Courtney and I lived on Perch Lake, just outside of Gaylord. Right next to Perch Lake was The Natural Golf Course, eighteen holes that twisted and turned through the best nature that the 45th Parallel could offer. The picture above is the view of the first green, and if you left the wooden bridge to the right and briefly ambled through the woods and over a rusted metal fence, you'd get right to our old driveway. Every now and again, an errant golf ball would appear at the edge of our property, like a single egg laid by an itinerant duck. Of the three major elitist sports -- golf, tennis, skiing -- I golfed because the barrier to entry was pretty low and the interest in golf on my Dad's side of the family was high, from playing the sport to watching it on television on the weekends. As spare clubs were abundant and my growth spurt had yet to overwhelm statistical norms, my grandmother would take prepubescent me to the Roscommon driving ran...

THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Search This Blog