David Soulsby Reflections

by David Soulsby, author of the novel "Somewhere in the Distance"

• The Searchers Still Going Strong - Hundreds of screaming girls, arms thrust forward in frenzied animation, their bodies shaking with intense excitement, create a crescendo of noise so loud that the song being performed by the smartly dressed group on stage is barely recognizable.
• The Hollies Hit 50 - Eagerly flicking through the racks at the local record store, my gaze is attracted by the five fresh-faced young men smiling out from the bright, colourful album cover. Their eyes are   focused fully on the camera, confident in what they’re doing, not in an arrogant way, but simply letting everyone know that they’ll be doing the best they can to make a name for themselves in a tough, highly competitive music business. 
• Summer of 1962 -Is it really almost 50 years since I was a gangly 16-year-old-coming-on-17, as I was at the start of the summer of 1962? Where has the time gone? Rewind back all those years and golden anniversaries are everywhere, some personal, others universal 
• Shouting about the Twist -Rummaging in the loft just after New Year, I came across some of my old vinyl records. Flicking through them, one in particular caught my attention: it was Chubby Checker vs Gary U.S. Bonds, a Canadian issue LP that I’d bought in the late 1970s.   
• Gentle Glen on My Mind - Early 1965 and I’m tuned-in to the early-morning radio, getting ready for work when from out of the blue comes this thunderous opus, a song that crackles through the air and swirls round you like a cloak. It’s the Phil Spector–produced Wall of Sound classic, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, by The Righteous Brothers, and I’m instantly hooked. 
• 1963: Good Times, Bad Times  - With his trademark cheeky grin and bubbly delivery, Gerry Marsden with his group The Pacemakers performs his latest single for an adoring television studio audience. It’s October 1963 and the song is You’ll Never Walk Alone. 
• Once Upon a Time in a Western - Seated expectantly in the dark, my eager young eyes transfixed on the big screen with its larger-than-life figures towering overhead, I would be transported to another time and place, a Hollywood-hued world that was more often than not the wonderment of the Wild West. 
• 1969: Tommy's Amazing Journey - YES, I can hear you, Tommy, loud and clear. It was resoundingly so in 1969 and still rings true today. The years may have flashed by like a speeding pinball, but the impact remains — and now, more than 40 years on, we have a resurgent Roger Daltrey triumphant after touring England with a refreshed rendition of the iconic rock opera, breathing new life into the deaf, dumb and blind kid’s rocky rite of passage. 
• Rave on Buddy Holly - I’ve finally caught up with the stage musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, which has been running at theatres round the world for a staggering 20-plus years. 
• 1967: The Who and The Beatles - The Beatles had the clever, toe-tapping, delightfully-melodic songs, the Stones had the pulsating, animalistic, howling songs, but it was The Who that had the chest-pounding, lung-searing, ear-deafening songs, songs that rocketed and roared, slapping against the audiences’ faces like sharp tentacles hurling from the stage, the thunderous roar of the guitars and drums reverberating through their bodies from the bottom of their feet to the top of their heads, a truly awesome visceral and cerebral experience. 
• Bob Dylan Hits 70 - My, how time flies! One minute he’s an enigmatic young newcomer, stirring up the music business, the next he’s 70! It’s as if everything Bob Dylan has achieved in nearly 50 years of performing and song writing has happened in the blink of an eye. It does make you realise that life is, indeed, short. You don’t, of course, think like that when you’re young and growing up: old age just seems so remote, so very distant in the future. You might, to paraphrase a Dylan song, try to stay forever young, but time is relentless and unstoppable… 
• "Recalling Roy Orbison" - Possessing a big voice that was blessed with a range as imposing as Texas, his home State, his songs were equally as big, grandiose and operatic in their intensity. He had a big, commanding stage presence that held audiences in his spell. Roy Orbison was indeed The Big O. There was just no one quite like him. 
• "Million Dollar Memories" -  Just back from seeing the London West End version of the musical Million Dollar Quartet, based on the famous 1955 jamming session at Sun Records when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis created great balls of fires!  
• 1961: Seven Special Songs - It’s February 1961 and I’m just four months into my 15th year, John F Kennedy has a few weeks ago been sworn-in as America’s 35th President (‘a momentous event’ according to one teacher at school, ‘what with him being so young and charismatic’), and the song going the rounds in the school playground is The Shirelles’ Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? 
• Them Old Winter Blues - 5,4,3,2,1 … there I was counting down the days to an invigorating shot of Sixties nostalgia at the Maximum Rhythm ‘n’ Blues concert at the English coastal resort of Southend, when what should come along to spoil things but the heaviest early-winter snowfalls to hit Britain for nearly 20 years. 
• Jimi Hendrix-The British Experience - The Seattle-born Hendrix lived in the top-floor flat at number 23 Brook Street between 1968/69, and would have been seen regularly on the streets in around the capital city’s Mayfair, Soho and West End areas, wild-haired and dressed in his trademark colourful clothes.