Awakening

Sad to read of Phil Everly’s death.

The Everly Brothers were part of that exotic American culture which was so exciting to a youngster growing up in 1950s Newcastle. So exotic we couldn’t hear it on the BBC, we had to tune our radios to Radio Luxembourg and put up with Bird dog fading and coming back as the AM signal bounced around the mountains.

Music is so important to those of us lucky enough to be in that post-war generation.

In our schooldays, we had Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Everlys, Eddie Cochran and Duane Eddy. No one was called Buddy, Elvis, Chuck or Duane in Newcastle.

In our teens, the culture suddenly became local and even more exciting as groups in Liverpool, London and, yes, even Newcastle burst into the charts. There were boys called John and Paul, Eric and Alan in my school.

In the 50s the news was all grown-up stuff. In the 60s, we were in the news. What we listened to, what we wore. What Bob Dylan sang was more relevant than what politicians said.

Everyone remembers the time when they moved from child to adult as the golden years. My golden years coincided with the country changing from a regimented do-as-everyone-else-does society to the do-your-own-thing society we live in now.

Little Susie wasn’t the only one who woke up.