Concerts at the Crossing will present a show at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Titusville Feb. 14 celebrating the Beatles’ first U.S. appearance as well as their continuing influence on our music and culture.
They were a ray of sunshine in our national winter of discontent.
Forty years ago this month, the Beatles arrived in the United States, giving a much-needed lift to America’s mood depressed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy just months before. With their wit, sexy hair, stylish clothes and cool English accents John, Paul, George and Ringo were the antidote for the February doldrums, especially for a generation of young women bored with their older sisters’ heartthrobs.
The Fab Four electrified the state of pop music. They didn’t sound like anything we’d heard before, and quite a few contemporary musicians believe we haven’t heard the likes of them since even four decades later.
Pop-folk husband and wife singer-songwriters Pete and Maura Kennedy draw similarities between the enduring appeal of the Beatles to that of classical music giants like Johann Sebastian Bach.
"People still enjoy Bach and Handel even though they were writing music in the 1600s," Mr. Kennedy says. "They had really great melodies and they harmonized them really well."
The Beatles have a way to go before they can clock 300 years of musical greatness but a 40th anniversary is pretty impressive. That’s why Concerts at the Crossing will present Under the Influence of the Beatles at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Titusville Feb. 14.
The concert celebrates the Fab Four’s first U.S. appearance as well as their continuing influence on our music and culture. In addition to The Kennedys, guests include multi-instrumentalist Tony Trischka and singer-songwriters Jim Boggia and Patti Shea. All four artists will perform their favorite Beatles tunes individually and collectively, along with original material influenced by the Beatles and other groups from the ’60s.
The Kennedys were so taken with the Beatles they recorded an entire Beatles-esque CD Evolver (Rounder Records, 2000,
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