About Oldies Connection

Welcome to the official blog for Oldies Connection, which is celebrating its 10th year online in 2014. When I first started Oldies Connection in early 2004, the site consisted of fewer than twenty pages; since then, it has evolved to more than 1,000—all of which pay homage to the singers, groups, and great music from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

In addition to original writeups and music reviews, Oldies Connection contains two birthday lists (one by date, one alphabetical); three memorial pages (one alphabetical, one by date, one by year); an Oldies Radio page, which lists oldies broadcast radio stations by U.S. state; an Internet Oldies page (online-only oldies stations); and the pièce de résistance, The Artists of Oldies Connection, which features an alphabetical list of links for nearly one thousand singers and groups who got their start in the '50s, '60s, or '70s; each link navigates to a page that has links to the artist's official web site, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and MySpace profile, if applicable, as well as to Wikipedia pages and YouTube search results and/or official channels. Each artist page also has graphic links to CD/MP3 product pages on Amazon.com; many of these are via widgets that update automatically with the latest releases.

There's also Laura's Little Shop of Oldies, powered by Amazon.com, where visitors can browse for music and books directly on Oldies Connection. I've done the work so you don't have to; everything is organized by category, and clicking on a category name (i.e, The Beatles) will bring up any subcategories (i.e., John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr). The store includes a Search box in case you don't see what you're looking for.

Oldies Connection is all over the Web. In addition to the main site and Facebook Page, there are also Twitter feeds, Pinterest boards, and several blogs on Blogger, Wordpress, and Tumblr. An "Arrivals and Departures" blog is posted every Sunday on the Oldies Connection blog, commemorating birthdays and anniversaries of passings coming up that week. Latest news is posted via Twitter, which is embedded on the home page. The newest page on Oldies Connection, Photos, has links to photo albums, Tumblr, Pinterest, and a few dedicated photo sites. The social media pages are continually active, and the main site is updated frequently and constantly expanding with new content. I refer to Oldies Connection as "your one-stop source for info on artists from the '50s, '60s and '70s," and that basically describes what the site is all about. Thank you for visiting Oldies Connection and for your continued support for these wonderful groups and singers from rock & roll's golden era.

Paul McCartney Cites Mark Wirtz' "Teenage Opera" as Influence

No sooner does Oldies Connection post a blog about the new single by former EMI producer Mark Wirtz than Sir Paul McCartney cites the Wirtz classic "Teenage Opera" as a major influence on his songwriting!

In an interview conducted by Paul Draper from the band Mansun and posted on Drowned in Sound, Sir Paul discusses songwriting in general and his 1971 album RAM (which has just been re-released as a special edition 2-CD digipak) in particular. During the interview, when asked about influences, Sir Paul responds that "A Teenage Opera" by Keith West was the record that helped him to realize that songs could be "cut like a film," with key and tempo changes.

The entire "Teenage Opera" concept was the brainchild of Mark Wirtz, who literally dreamed up the story of Grocer Jack (the first character in what would turn out to be a TO trilogy) one night and subsequently mentioned it to Geoff Emerick, the engineer Wirtz shared with The Beatles. Keith West from the band Tomorrow co-wrote the song "Excerpt From a Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack)" with Wirtz and recorded it at Abbey Road Studios in early 1967. The rather charming track, which features a children's chorus brought in by Wirtz, was released in May of that year. It peaked at #2 and paved the way for the "Teenage Opera" project, which was slated to become an actual rock opera (predating The Who's "Tommy" by two years). The second single, "Sam," which told the story of a steam-train engineer and also featured what had quickly become a Wirtz trademark—a children's chorus—was recorded by West and released that October. Unfortunately, although "Sam" made the Top Forty, it didn't rank as highly as its predecessor. After Keith West left the project, Wirtz recorded the third song, "(He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman" under his own name. EMI ultimately brought the curtain down on the "Teenage Opera," and it wouldn't be until 1996 when an approximation of "what might have been," featuring various Mark Wirtz tracks, was released on CD.

Despite the shelving of the project, the "Teenage Opera" concept and productions by Mark Wirtz influenced McCartney and other musicians in their own work, and continue to be fondly remembered by fans 45 years later.



(Below) Mark Wirtz MP3s on Amazon.com
(includes A Teenage Opera plus new Mark Wirtz release, Lost Pets 2)
Click on the player to hear sound samples