I love the Beatles. Well I don’t actually love the two remaining members in the true sense of the word, but I i do truly love the music. Their music has shaped my musical l career and in essence shaped my life. I know I’m not alone in this and many millions of people around the world feel the same. Still, I know that I am who I am as a result of the music made by the flour lads from Liverpool.
Last February, Valentines Day to be exact, I produced a Beatles tribute show at a local club called the Slo Down Pub. It was wildly received and we a great night. My concept was to feature the songs as the star of the show so I proceeded to find as many musician friends as I could and get them all to contribute by playing. We performed 47 different songs that night. There were four bands, 5 additional singers, and a sing-long between set changes. It was nuts.
This venue is small and when word got out lots of people were afraid there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone who wanted to attend. People began showing up 2 hours before the show and by show time we were at capacity. An hour into the show we had a line of 100 people outside waiting to get in! I would estimate that the average age of these Beatles fans to be 40+., an age group that would normally follow the rules. Well no! The ones who couldn’t get in the front found a way to sneak in through the back and side doors. It was actual Bealtle-mania, with wall to wall dancing and singing fans.
All of this craziness was very intense and I was caught up right in the middle of it running the whole show! I sang and played on nearly every song, except when I has to turn the reigns over to a friend to handle a few minor problems with the ”talent”. It was awesome and I loved it.
My stage name is Screaming Jimmy and I got that name because of a certain way I use my voice. I am often asked how I came up with this particular style . It’s what I do and I don’t really know why or where it came from, but it is fun.
That night we sang song after song and then I found my self singing Hey Jude, backed by a great, high powered band while playing a grand piano and surrounded by 200 frenzied sing people. We had been encouraging people to sing along all night so of course when we hit the end of Hey Jude ( the sing-a-long part) everyone was feeling it and singing loud. Imagine , if you will, 200 partying people singing along on the “la da da ... hey $Jude “part.
If you recall the song you will remember there is a part near the end where Paul McCartney ad libs a high vocal over the top of the singers singing “Hey Judy, Judy Judy Judy.” This part is right smack dab in the middle of of where my voice lives...Screaming Jimmy-land .and of course I sang it loud and proud and then an amazing thing happened.
In the midst of the mayhem and music as the song played on the crowd faded away and I was transported back to a scene I had long ago forgotten.....
It’s dark and cold in my basement bedroom the dead of winter. It’s 6 Am and the clock radio has just turned on. It’s time to get up and get ready for school. I am laying there, shivering, a 13 year old junior high student in Billing Montana. I am just learning how to play guitar and very much a Beatles fan.
As I lay there in the darkness the radio is playing Hey Jude and I am hearing it for the first time. I am blown away by the song and it’s message. I don’t move . I just sink into the song and listen. Then it gets to the end and the amazing sing-a-long part. I sing along and the Paul does his high voiced “Hey Judy, Judy, Judy Judy” thing and I say to myself. ”that’s what I want to do” I set this intention very deep “That’s what I’m going to do” and from that moment Screaming Jimmy was born, though I didn’t know it at the time.
At this time in my life I was not yet in a band or singing nor did I even know how to go about doing that. I just knew that the part Paul sang at the end of that song meant something important
The following spring I got in my first band and I have been playing ever since. I sing like Paul sang at the end of Hey Jude and never realized it until that moment in The Lo Down Pub where it came
Suddenly I’m snapped back into the present, people pressed all around me singing and shouting as we finish the song. Only a few seconds passed, surely, as I had this memory, but for me it felt like a a lifetime. And it was
Time is funny. You might think that as time passers the urgency of a desire decreases. In some cases it’s just the opposite. Tine compresses and distills a single desire into a lifetime of trial and error until that dream is realized many many years later so surprisingly and so sweetly.
It has taken a lifetime, but now I know where my voice comes It comes from that little basement bedroom in Billings Montana in the dead of winter. Lying there listening to Paul Mc Cartney sing with my life still ahead of me. And then 40 years later, on that Valentines night I finally realized my dream become a Beatle if only for an instant..
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