The End of the Long and Winding Road

Aside from my mystical discoveries of girls, art and new trends in music, 1970 didn’t feel any different to me than 1969. The gravity of life was still a puzzle to me, and I felt completely out of sync with most of the world. The sixties were over, and so far, I had nothing on this new decade. Growing up faster than I cared for created new bumps in the road, none of which ever got smoothed out satisfactorily. This, I suppose, was the curse of the teenage years, where finding myself was impossible since I had nowhere to look.

The new decade was a proving ground; I was halfway through my first year of high school and by summer's end I entered my sophomore year; I was at the age where all the glory, hopes and dreams that childhood permitted me, were over. Like the times, my interests were-a-changin’. My love for music found me replacing 45 singles with full albums. I took a serious interest in hard rock, and by 1970, I had the start of a rather savory record collection.

In 1970, the world, and I, lost The Beatles. Their breakup was a devastating event that for the music world was just plain catastrophic. It happened during the spring of that year, and as new life, and leaves sprouted green on the trees, The Beatles were no more. On April 10, 1970, Paul McCartney made it official by announcing he was leaving The Beatles.

To a non-Beatles fan, this is ho-hum information, but to a kid who'd embraced the entire Beatle culture, and lived, and breathed them, the breakup was devastating news. The end of The Beatles even made it to our nightly news station. Word of the event hit England even harder than it did for us here stateside; The Fab Four, being Great Britain's native sons, had hit their first sour note.

Fortunately, I'd had a bit of premonition that this was coming: the album "Abbey Road" was too perfect, even more perfect than the production excellence of Sgt. Pepper. Abbey Road was sheer brilliance. The record concluded its second side with an inspiring jam session that was for me, epic. It felt like a swan song, and as I listened to the record over and over. I had a sort of premonition, that on a very unique level, with a shuddering “don’t-go-there” feeling in my heart and mind, they were saying goodbye to us.

The next Beatles release came in February as an odd hits-based LP that contained the full studio version of their monster success "Hey Jude". Bearing that song as its title, the LP consisted of filler Side B tunes, and some previous earlier hits. The record only made me suspicious; They'd never done anything as odd as this before, so why now? This was a record that felt as uninspired as any could be.

There was absolutely no effort to it, and The Beatles had always come through with sparkling new material. The “Hey Jude” album was not their style at all. My first thought was they’d forgotten to put “Hey Jude” on the White Album, so they had to create a quick release to add it." It also had the hit song "The Ballad of John and Yoko", which was a fun song despite the fact that it was a paean to John's Ono transference.

Again, by April of that year, the news was out, and the damage was done. The Beatles, as a band, were done. A final LP—and in my opinion—a truly inferior bit of tripe called "Let it Be" was released. The album looked, sounded, and felt like garbage. It appeared to serve only as a vehicle for two of their final hits "Get Back", and "Let it Be", yet didn't feature the studio perfected versions that comprised the singles. This was a set of live studio outtakes that were only marginal in quality. “Let it Be” had some good compositions on it, but those songs should have been on other albums with real performances.

In essence, it was like listening the effects of an impending divorce on vinyl. The quality of the music was marginal, and didn't have the polish that even the odd sock White Album had. "Let it Be" was a sad commentary, and a sadder piece of history. I believed then as I do now that this was their personal memo to the world regarding their breakup. McCartney made his history making announcement before its release, otherwise, I believe everyone would have suspected the end of something great.

Still, with, or without The Beatles life went on. I trudged forward through my freshman year of high school until we moved yet again to north Portland. This was an area that we had no real knowledge of. There were several black families in the area whereas before, in southeast Portland, we were surrounded by whites. We moved a few streets off of north Columbia Blvd. to an interesting, and older two story house with a full basement. I still had strong interests in art, the exploding music scene, and the blonde bombshell of a girl who lived next door. Oddly enough, she likewise, took a strong interest in me.

By this time, the neo-hippie culture was in full swing—and full transition, and as the culture gravitated toward the new decade, a new breed of longhairs had emerged. Growing from the roots of the original sixties era hippie tree, the seventies gave us a new, and improved, highly inspired version of the peace and love machine. People had hair, and they were growing it! The Woodstock festival had become legend. Nothing like it had ever happened on such an epic hippie level. International Pop festivals were happening all over, but Woodstock was the event that seemed to rubber stamp every pop festival that came after.

Psychedelia, a remnant from the sixties era, was a natural ingredient in my new art technique which blossomed into a series of black light posters. I was developing as an artist, and black lights were the fuel and inspiration for my new found abilities. Flat art came alive like nobody's business under the purple-blue glow of a ultraviolet light. With florescent paint and brush in hand, I imitated almost everything I came upon that moved me. I was greatly inspired by the works of Peter Max and the sixties era San Francisco poster art. I learned from friends, pictures in magazines, and was inspired by the music I listened to. I probably spent more money on Sanford and Prang brands of florescent temperas than anybody else in town.

In late 1970, I came upon a happy accident: black acrylic paint and a piece of sheet rock left behind by my brother Mike. He was married and had a place of his own. He'd been doing some work at his house, and for some reason left a piece behind with us. I painted a huge portrait of Jim Morrison on it. This painting became something of a public attraction. Once the word got out, many kids from school had to come over and see it. That experience drove me to "working large", and on big surfaces; sheet rock was an interesting discovery, and a perfect surface to work on. However, it was dangerously fragile, and that was the only element that kept it from being an archival medium.

In summation, I bled 1970 dry. I managed to go on living after the breakup of The Beatles, and embraced the new hippie culture. I learned to survive in a diametrically opposed culture. I also developed as an artist, becoming quite serious, and by 1972, was actually earning money with my paintings.