These guys did a concert at a hotel downtown and I was their dressing room waiter. Quite an honor to meet them.

There is an air of innocence about the performances of the late 1950s and into the late 1960s.
It is probably no more naive or innocent than any other time, but it seems that way to me.

These guys worked magic despite all odds.

Portland Native,
I think of music and art that reflect certain landscapes and time, such as Copeland's music, Gershwin NY scenes, and then some pop innocent such as Paul Anka "Put Your Head on MY Shoulder" and just last night on the radio, heard this, a strange feeling about times and where we are today, yet was delightful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6uq49ueugg

Thanks clinamen...
Innocent...in a way...but not.
I think we are better off today. There is more racial and gender equality. There is room for more progress, but the opportunities are available where there were few in the 1950s and 1960s.
Remember what a shocker the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was?
Sex and drugs and what ever version of rock and roll have always been around....human nature hasn't changed much. We just have 24/7 news to spread it around theses days.

One fascinating part is how society is going to approach the old songs and keep these memories alive. When Beethoven died all we had to remember him was a pile of sheet music. What if we could have heard him jam on YouTube? Classical concerts often had a section at the end of the piece where the composer would improvise. That's lost to us and it's a damn shame. I'd love to hear what Mozart could come up with on the fly.

Even these songs of the 50s and 60s were made in a disposable way. They certainly didn't anticipate us out here in the future able to revisit so much music on our computers. Just hearing anecdotes about recording sessions you can tell they weren't thinking 50 or 60 years out, and yet here's the Righteous Brothers in 2013.

The #3 album on the Billboard Charts this past week was by the terrific young singer named Bruno Mars. The #2 album? It's called "People, Hell and Angels"- by.....Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix?

There's a huge expansion of what people can hear and it's great. How our music endures with all these electronic gadgets has not been worked out. This is all new.

The Beatles are more accessible now then they were when they were creating the music. I'm really interested to see how much of the past fades away and what sticks around for generations to come.