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Fact #84176

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Short story:

The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, USA, inspired almost as many songs as it did conspiracy theories. Among the most memorable are He Was A Friend Of Mine by The Byrds [and others], Abraham, Martin And John by Marvin Gaye [and others], Dallas 1pm by Saxon and November 22nd 1963 by Destroy All Monsters. And let's not forget JAMES DOTSON - A Tragedy In Dallas, THE JUSTICE BROTHERS - The Tragedy Of John F. Kennedy, THE SOUTHERN GOSPEL BAND - The Death Of John F. Kennedy, HASIL ADKINS - Memories Of Kennedy, JIM KLINK - The Death Of John F. Kennedy, BUDDY PASTUCK - John F. Kennedy, BILL KUSHNER - J.F.K.bAnd That Terrible Day, HONORABLE BOB PETERS - A Sunny Day In Dallas, HAYDEN PRIVETT - The Death Of John F. Kennedy, JOHNNY DEE - A Tribute To President Kennedy, RALPH RYAN - The Death Of John F. Kennedy, LOWELL YODER - Don't Blame The State Of Texas, HASILADKINS - Memories Of Kennedy, JOHNNY TUCKER - Mr. Kennedy, BOBBY JENZEN - Two Brothers, HOMER HENDERSON - Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine. In March 2020, Bob Dylan will release a seventeen minute song, Murder Most Foul, which focuses largely on the assassination of Kennedy.

Full article:

THE DEATH OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
By Johnny Black, January 2011

Politics and popular music are often considered strange bedfellows but, once in a blue moon, events in the political world take such a dramatic turn that musicians are irresistibly moved to record that moment in song.

Such a moment came on November 22, 1963 when US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in the streets of Dallas, Texas.

On that same day a rock'n'roll touring package, Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars, was scheduled to play in Dallas. Record producer Sam Montel recalls, "Myself and Dick Clark, along with Dale And Grace, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Clanton and Brian Hyland, stood on the steps of our hotel and, as President Kennedy's motorcade turned onto Elm Street, we applauded the President and his wife. Three blocks later, the tragedy happened. We went back to our rooms and didn't find out about it until three hours later." Immediately, of course, that night's show was cancelled.

Kennedy had been a beacon of optimism for the young people of America. As a young man himself, he seemed to represent values of fairness, honesty and integrity that pointed towards a brighter future.

His death sent shock waves around the world, and musicians felt his loss as hard as anyone.

Before the day was out, sam cooke had cancelled the remaining dates of his week of shows with Mary Wells at The Apollo Theater in New York City, USA.

The Beach Boys didn't cancel their show at Marysville Memorial Auditorium, Yuba City, California but, after that show, they did re-purpose a song they had begun writing the night before, The Warmth Of The Sun, so that it more accurately reflected their feelings about Kennedy. The opening lines, "What good is the dawn, that grows into day, the sunset at night or living this way" perfectly expressed the hopelessness that the entire nation was feeling.

On that same night, Roger McGuinn of The Byrds re-wrote the words of an old folk song, He Was A Friend Of Mine, to make them more appropriate to the death of the President. "I wrote the song the night John F. Kennedy was assassinated," McGuinn has explained. "I suppose you could say it's one of the earliest Byrds songs. The arrangement used was as I'd always sung it."

On the other side of the world, The Beatles were playing at The Globe, Stockton-On-Tees, UK, and their road manager, Tony Bramwell recalls, "We heard about it just as The Beatles were about to go on stage, which was a downer for everybody."

Next, on hearing of the assassination, Phil Spector cancelled the release of his Christmas album, A Christmas Gift For You. "Only I could spend nine months on an album and release it the day President Kennedy was assassinated," Spector said later. "Naturally, that depressed the whole country. Certainly no-one was buying Christmas records - everybody was in mourning which was only right. A president died and the public changed."

New York-based band The Raindrops had recently released an upbeat, happy single, That Boy John, which was gathering wide airplay and had just entered the chart. It was immediately withdrawn lest anyone imagine it was about the president. The Raindrops' promising career vanished before their eyes.

Every sector of the music industry wanted to pay its respects in its own way. During a concert at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, Louis Armstrong spontaneously played a rendition of God Bless America, in tribute; during her US tv show, Judy Garland sang The Battle Hymn Of The Republic in Kennedy's memory.

Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, teen idol Bobby Rydell, pop queen Toni Arden and Broadway star Kate Smith all recorded versions of one tribute, In The Summer Of His Years, but were beaten to the charts early in 1964 by Connie Francis who reached No46 on the Billboard Top 40, despite being banned by several major radio stations who felt that profiting from a national tragedy was in poor taste.

All of this, of course, was just the immediate aftermath, the spontaneous outpouring of the grief of a nation still in shock.

What is perhaps more illuminating is that the feeling did not pass.

Sensing the mood of the nation, record producer Pete Welding set about documenting the despair and sorrow that had fallen on black musicians. In the weeks following the assassination Welding went into a studio in Chicago with blues legends Otis Spann, Big Joe Williams and others to records songs such as He Was Loved by All the People, A Man Amongst Men and Sad Day In Texas.

The result was an intensely moving compilation album, Can't Keep From Crying : Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy, a record in the truest sense of the word, as moving as any book or film on the subject.

In the folk world, Eric Von Schmidt recorded Kennedy Blues in 1964, for his Prestige Records album Eric Sings Von Schmidt. Even a tribute album, John Fitzgerald Kennedy: The Presidential Years 1960-1963, based on Kennedy's speeches and broadcasts, reached number eight on the Billboard album chart.

Much has been written about how the so-called British Invasion of the American charts, led by The Beatles, came just America was emerging from its period of mourning. As Billy Joel remembers it, "The president had been assassinated in November of 1963, The country was in a funk. We had the blues. I mean, for this man to be taken away, this young vigorous vital man who represented youth and progress and the future was snatched from us, and the country really had the blues."

Even the look of John Kennedy had an impact on the world of popular music. One of the most successful British Invasion bands to conquer America was Herman's Hermits. Record producer Mickie Most later revealed why he had signed them up, explaining, "They had a persistent manager who kept calling me, saying he had a group called Herman's Hermits and would I come and see them? I said I would when I had a chance, and he sent me a picture postcard of them. I saw Peter Noone and I thought he looked like a young President Kennedy. 'I like the look of this mob,' I thought."

Herman's Hermits went on to score two US No1 hits and a string of Top Ten entries.

The Byrds' song He Was A Friend Of Mine remained a prominent item in their live shows, with vocalist David Crosby often prefacing the performance with a rant about the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. Asked why, Crosby said, "Who killed the President?" basically … we used to do it every single time we did He Was a Friend of Mine. The introduction for a year solid was: "We'd like to do a song about this guy who was a friend of ours. And just by way of mentioning it, he was shot down in the street. And as a matter of strict fact he was shot down in the street by a very professional kind of outfit. Don't make you sort of wonder? The Warren Report ain't the truth, that's plain to anybody. And it happened in your country. Don't you wonder why?"

Since then, many songwriters have reflected on the death of Kennedy and been moved to write songs, including The Day John Kennedy Died by Lou Reed and Crucifixion Blues by folksinger Phil Ochs, but the most memorable is perhaps Abraham, Martin and John, a 1968 composition by Dick Holler. First recorded by Dion and later by Marvin Gaye, the song places Kennedy (and his brother Robert F. Kennedy) alongside two other icons of social change, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Sam Montel (record producer) : Myself and Dick Clark, along with Dale And Grace, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Clanton and Brian Hylandstood on the steps of our hotel and, as President Kennedy's motorcade turned onto Elm Street, we applauded the President and his wife. Three blocks later, the tragedy happened. We went back to our rooms and didn't find out about it until three hours later.