Because the Beatles

I was in Maine last week to help my mom get ready to move, cleaning, packing boxes, taking stuff to the dump. When I needed a break last Saturday, I drove into town to pick up some groceries. I turned on the car radio...

And got stuck in the store parking lot, listening to a commercial-free half hour of music. It was October 9th, John Lennon's birthday. The station I had found was spinning Beatles records, and I could not get out of the car, because I was singing along, exulting, and crying.

I love a lot of music. Without Bach, without Count Basie, I would be a different me. But most of all, without The Beatles, there may well have been no Laurel Massé on stage for almost 40 years now, because one day in 1962 in Solihull, England, I saw a band on the telly and was forever changed.

Here are the lads, the two young lads who never grew old, and the remaining two who have - but that was all yet to come when they did this concert in 1965. Two weeks later, they would be hitting the stage at Shea Stadium, and I would be there.