Mixed Media
Promoter Irvin Feld booked the fall edition of the Biggest Show of Stars to cover 28 states and 5 Canadian provinces with a total of 80 shows. Even before the tour began, it made headlines when the September 8 show in Washington DC was cancelled when city commissioners banned headliner Fats Domino from appearing because his behavior would lead to a riot requiring every policeman in the city. Feld, a native of Washington DC, moved the show to Annapolis. This package adds the red-hot Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
Talent: Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly & Crickets, Paul Anka, Spanials, Drifters, Everly Brothers, Eddie Cochran, Frankie Lymon, Lavern Baker, Jimmy Bowen, Buddy Knox, The Diamonds, Clyde McPhatter, Johnnie, and Joe, The Bobbettes, Paul Williams Orchestra
May 12, 1958
Alone in downtown Seattle, waiting for a Greyhound bus that would take me to Olympia where my grandparents lived, I had a few hours to kill. Seeing a long line of kids in front of the Orpheum Theater I went to investigate.
The ticket booth for the first show, at 4 pm, was not yet open. I got in line, so excited but trying not to show it. I loved the Everly Brothers, I didn’t have enough money for a ticket, I got in the line anyway.
I saw a young man talking to the kids in line, he was almost to me when I realized it was Phil Everly.
Phil Everly took my hand, I was 14 years old, and will never know how I had the courage. I asked him “Do the presidents of your fan club get to go backstage?”
Phil said, “Sure come with me.”
“I don’t have a ticket” I said.
“You won’t need one, if you don’t mind watching the show from backstage.’
Was he kidding?
I followed Phil. He took me to the “Stage Entrance” around the side of the building. Once inside, the guy who opened the door, gave a me a backstage pass. Phil said that would allow me to stay until the end of the show but that he had to leave to get dressed.
Before Phil leaving he introduced me to Eddie Cochran. Newcomer, Eddie’s hit “Summertime Blues” became Maybe the archetypical rock ‘n’ roll song.
Punk rock before punk rock, ‘Something’ Else’ went on to be covered by the post-Johnny Rotten Sex Pistols for the riotous The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle soundtrack, with bassist Sid Vicious taking lead singing duties.
Written by Eddie with his girlfriend Sharon Sheeley and older brother Bob, ‘Somethin’ Else’ is one of a trio of all-timers.
I met Sharon Sheeley in 1981, she was with Eddie when he died.
Chuck Berry, waiting in the wings for his show, said hello to me. He was the nicest man and asked if I was becoming overwelled as the small backstage area filled with acts waiting their turn.
He didn’t know that I was nervous because I was not the president of the Everly Brothers Fan Club, a young guy who had just introduced himself to us.
Phil came back with his brother Don; they had matching outfits on. I had a huge crush on Phil and was so embarrassed when the fan club president introduced himself. I was busted but everyone laughed.
It’s a bit of a blur now that 66 years have passed, but I think Buddy Holly and The Crickets followed Fats Domino before The Everly Brothers closed the show.
That afternoon, totally in awe, I met musicians who were making history despite the obstacles that would come, I was hooked, these were my people.
For many young people, rock n roll, often called the Devil’s music, almost disappeared in the first cycle of moral panic during mid to late 50s when rock ‘n’ roll was first sort of invented.
The early to mid 60’s brought another wave of Rock and Roll that was not going down without a fight from the youth of America.
January 30, 2024. Victoria Cavaleri
Music started to connect to other social movements, like the civil rights movement. This was also a time of the second wave of the women’s movement, and you had music connecting to those ideas. You had music connecting to the general hippie counterculture – free love and rejecting materialism and adult “square” society.
There were four things coming together in the 60s: the second wave of the women’s movement, continuation of the civil rights movement, the counterculture in general and the anti-war movement. The anti-Vietnam movement was not as strong in the beginning as people think, but it did happen, especially after the bombing of Cambodia. That started off all these protests of these young people shutting down campuses, and the calling out of the National Guard, the shooting and killing of four students at Kent State University and two at Jackson State University.