Things Have Changed Since 1906

Another March 3rd came and went this year. My grandfather’s birthday. We lost him in 1980, when he was just 74. A lot of rich meals and all those Camels didn’t help. Early enough, you reach a certain point in life and realize that many loved ones have been gone much longer than you had them around. But their presence in your life remains strong. No doubt, it would’ve been fun to have had my grandfather around awhile longer just to see what he thought about the passing years. Things have changed since 1906.

Things had changed enough, as far as he was concerned, by 1964. One of the grandsons that he and my grandmother loved and indulged was quite taken with the 4 boys from Liverpool, England — those noisemakers known as the Beatles. My brother, David, liked the Beatles as well, but not to the extent I did. David hardly needed to latch on to such interests at the time. He was popular, confident and athletic, always skilled at whatever game was being played at the moment. What he lacked in natural ability, he made up for in hustle and grit. I, on the other hand, had eaten too many grits and was usually the last chosen in neighborhood pick-up games. David was always among the first picked. Sometimes out of necessity, we were a package deal. I’d go out to right field and they’d hope nothing would be hit my way.

But on many summer days while David was scooting around the bases, I was happily inside listening to Top 40 radio. And what a happy time it was for one enamored of the Beatles. In six months’ time, more than three dozen Beatles songs had been revealed. Atlanta’s pop music stations, WQXI and WPLO, seemed to be playing all of them. So no worries. In the years ahead, the fat would disappear and there’d be fewer embarrassing moments on the playing fields, but for a 10-year old in suburban Atlanta, 1964 was the year of the Beatles. Everything else could wait.

Just as they had with comic books and other things we wanted when David and I spent time with them, my grandparents would slip me some coins to buy the latest Beatles singles. On a birthday, an album might be provided. Saturday morning trips to Woolworth or W.T. Grant would result in vinyl purchases. Even more fun was a visit to the Radio Doctor, a shop in College Park, the town William Bell (“You Don’t Miss Your Water”) would eventually call home. The Radio Doctor was a real record store, especially for the South in those days. A wide selection. The array of inventory would be more impressive in other places in years to come, particularly at Peaches Records and Tapes, the upstart chain I worked with for 6 years, but walking into the Radio Doctor in the mid-60s was like eyeing the stuff around the tree on Christmas morning. And one couldn’t help but remember what was purchased on those trips – the 45s and the LPs. Out we’d walk to Pappy’s big ’54 Nash or ’60 Chrysler after picking up “I Feel Fine”/”She’s A Woman,” “Eight Days A Week”/”I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party,” or even better, in June ’65, Beatles VI. Then with the radio blaring, back to the house, with the wrapping torn, one could hear – even then – the various directions the Beatles were taking.

My grandfather, Lamar Clarence Cochran, Sr, was better known around town as Pappy. Given the choice, Pappy was a far better handle. It seemed to fit his personality. While he wasn’t one to laugh loud or long, he generally seemed pleased with life, especially when seated in his lazy chair with everyone else minding their manners. Pappy, however, didn’t enjoy sitting through the Ed Sullivan Show when the new rock groups from England were featured. My grandmother, who we called “Mama Birdell,” leaned over one Sunday night and asked, “Don’t you like the Beatles, Pappy?” “No,” he said, tersely. And that was fine. He always came through on those trips to the Radio Doctor.

When it came to songs by The Beatles, Pappy couldn’t differentiate between “I Saw Her Standing There” and “If I Fell.” The Beatles were a passing phase, a fad, he figured and eventually I would return control of the car radio to him when we’d go riding. The one song by any artist on Top 40 radio that did stick with him, though, was “The Birds and The Bees,” a big hit for Jewel Akens in the first quarter of 65. I really didn’t like it; to my 11-year-old mind, it sounded childish, so Pappy insisted on singing it. He didn’t remember all the lyrics, which was fine as a couple of lines were a gracious plenty. Here’s some of what Pappy had to work with:

Let me tell you about the birds and the bees
And the flowers and the trees
And the moon up above
And a thing called "Love"
Let me tell you about the stars in the sky
And a girl and a guy
And the way they could kiss
On a night like this

Despite the impact The Beatles and The Rolling Stones made so quickly, teen pop wasn’t going anywhere. “The Name Game,” “The Jolly Green Giant,” “I Want Candy,” and Patty Duke’s “Don’t Just Stand There” were among the hits on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1965. Cute, silly, and halfway funny still sold. Thankfully, we were never in the car together when Shirley Ellis’s “The Name Game” came on (which seemed like every 15 minutes). Pappy could’ve never gotten around this:

Very good, now let's do Marsha.
Marsha, Marsha, bo barsha, banana fana fo farsha, fee fie mo marsha, Marsha.

Listening now and then, or from a distance, it would have seemed to someone born around the turn of the 20th century that nearly all pop music of the 60s was written by 12-year-olds. And legend has it that “The Birds and The Bees” was written by the 12-year-old son of Herb Newnan, the owner of Era Records, the company that released the song. On the label, a Barry Stewart was credited as the song’s composer. Playing drums on the song was the great Hal Blaine, who appeared on 35,000 recordings, some obviously just another day at the office. Joining Blaine on the record was Leon Russell on piano. Russell’s inimical fusion of rock, soul, and gospel that defined his style at the keyboards is nowhere to be heard, however. The same can be said for Russell’s “Rainbow in Your Eyes, ” a hit single with his wife Mary in 1976 and perhaps just as bad as “The Birds and The Bees.”

My grandparents were young and in love during the Roaring '20s. Birdell loved the styles and Pappy enjoyed hitting the town with her. Much of the music then was great. The sounds of George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, and other greats made the wireless a noble invention. But there were some silly songs heard over and over again then as well, such as “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” Part of me believes Pappy remembered that when braving his grandson’s favorites. And I wish I had known to tell him that both John Lennon and Bob Dylan considered one of his favorites, Bing Crosby, an influence. Crosby was terrific. Give a listen to the song he recorded with guitarist Les Paul, “It’s Been A Long, Long Time.” I would’ve been indifferent to it in 1965, but now it gets played at my house along with The Beatles, Dylan, and the others Pappy tolerated.

Many of Pappy’s prime working years took place during the Great Depression. While he was lucky regarding military service (“too young for World War I and too old for World War II”), he, like many, found the going tough in the '30s and '40s. But he hung in there. For a time, he worked at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where guys like Al Capone were provided room and board. Later he worked in film distribution and advertising with Warner Brothers, the company with the great gangster films. Had David and I known more of his life among the criminal types, we might have better understood his affinity for the lazy chair.

Top left, my grandmother Birdell Cochran. Bottom right, my grandfather, Lamar “Pappy” Cochran. A big night out, Pappy telling his friends how he kept Al Capone in line at the Atlanta Pen.

Lamar “Pappy” Cochran takes out the trash, like Mama Birdell requested. In the driveway is his beloved Nash, which could really fly.

A decade after riding around town with Pappy, I would visit him and Mama Birdell, often after sentimental journeys to the Radio Doctor. On one trip I showed them Writings and Drawings by Bob Dylan. If anything, I was sure they’d be impressed with my interest in letters, so to speak. At the time I was writing record reviews for Atlanta’s alternative papers, including the most radical of them all, The Great Speckled Bird. My grandparents would no doubt gasp at the political discourse in the pages of the Bird, but they never commented on that. “You write beautifully,” my grandmother said. Whether it was hanging out with socialists or playing rock and roll records too loud, a grandson could get away with pretty much anything.