"Own the Tour Rider That Proves the Beatles Weren't Racist"

 

I am so relieved to know the Fab 4 weren't racist. It took only 47 years to find out. Thank goodness. Whew!

From the article: The mid-1960s were both a tumultuous time for race relations in the U.S. (Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963 and was assassinated five years later) and a landmark period for English rock & roll invading American shores (the Beatles arrived with their famous Ed Sullivan Show performance in 1964). The Guardian reminded us how those two cultural forces often intersected today by bringing our attention to a Fab Four tour rider that is currently on the auction block -- a document that specifies John, Paul, George, and Ringo would not play to a "segregated audience."

In addition to indicating the Beatles refused to perform to a crowd in which black and white fans were kept apart, the documents detail the fee the band collected for the gig ($40,000), the number of police officers required to keep order at the show (at least 150 uniformed), and the size of the platform needed for Ringo Starr's drum kit (10' by 6' and 4' high). Ticket prices for the show ranged from $4.50 to $6.50, including tax.

P.S. Tonight's song is from the "White Album." Perhaps my most favorite Beatles album. An eclectic mix of tunes. And a double lp to boot.

From wikipedia: I had been doing poetry readings. I had been doing some in the last year or so because I've got a poetry book out called "Blackbird Singing", and when I would read Blackbird, I would always try and think of some explanation to tell the people, 'cause there's not a lot you can do except just read the poem, you know, you read 10 poems that takes about 10 minutes, almost. It's like, you've got to, just, do a bit more than that. So, I was doing explanations, and I actually just remembered why I'd written Blackbird, you know, that I'd been, I was in Scotland playing on my guitar, and I remembered this whole idea of "you were only waiting for this moment to arise" was about, you know, the black people's struggle in the southern states, and I was using the symbolism of a blackbird. It's not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it's a bit more symbolic.

— Paul McCartney, Interview with KCRW's Chris Douridas, May 25, 2002 episode of New Ground (17:50 - 19:00)