September 22, 2011 September 22, 2011 September 22, 2011

A special section dedicated to the A special section dedicated to the A special section dedicated to the

Baby Boom Generation Baby Boom Generation Baby Boom Generation

Top Albums of the 60s & 70s Top Albums of the 60s & 70s

Fashion’s past becomes present Fashion’s past becomes present

1910 Fruitgum Company keeps rockin’ 1910 Fruitgum Company keeps rockin’

Concerts are still the ticket Concerts are still the ticket

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Page 2 BOOM The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011

By LYNDSAY CAYETANA BOUCHAL

lbouchal@njherald.com

Bold and bohemian, psyche-delic and sexy, 1960s fashion belonged to the women.

Fashion was fun.“We loved hot pants, mini-

skirts, boots — up to or over the knee — and we loved pink,” said Terry Mattil, 61, of Wantage.

In the late ’60s, early ’70s, the hippie movement dominat-ed the fashion scene: Bell-bottom blue jeans, low cut hip-huggers, tie-dye, slim-cut midis, flowing maxi-dresses, halter tops, long cotton skirts, Bohemian blouses, psychedel-ic patterns, love beads, head-bands, head scarves, and

fringe leather jackets adorned the backs of the younger gen-eration— all fashion concepts that have been revived in recent years, some of which are popular today.

“I still have my bell-bottom jeans with the patches on them,” Mattil said. “They were basically my uniform back in the ’70s.”

“The more patches you had on, the better,” she said.

“Army jackets were big, too, thick leather belts, tie-dye T-shirts, leather floppy hats, feather earrings, beads — clothes were influenced by Eastern cultures.”

Emerging from the conserva-

‘We loved hot pants, miniskirts, boots’

’60s and ’70s fashion fun then, still fun now

AP File Photo

At left, a paper dress, made of cellophane with colored paper circles stuck here and there, is a Rudi Gernreich creation, left, modeled in New York on Jan. 13, 1967. A flesh-colored body stocking is worn underneath. At center, Oscar De La Renta created the jeweled lace pants, center, worn with a blue crepe blouse, which has jeweled neck-line. Model at right holds the miniskirt which goes with her Gernreich bikini. Each side of the top is a different color.

Photo by Tracy Klimek/New Jersey Herald

A knitted hat, from PB&J Stores in Newton, that would have been popular in the 60s and 70s, is still a popular, fun style today.

Continued on Page 3

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The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011 BOOM Page 3

tive ’50s housedress and the slim, clean A-line skirts and dresses modeled by former First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis, the fashion move-ment harbored a form of social rebellion.

“Women were reinventing themselves,” said Sara Megletti, owner of PB and J clothing store on Spring Street in Newton.

Mattil, a 1968 High Point graduate said female students were not allowed to wear pants during her years in the school. The year after she graduated, Mattil said, the school changed tis dress code.

“All of a sudden, women were allowed to wear pants and it was like, ‘whoa’,” Mattil said.

Outside of school, Mattil wore go-go boots and mini-skirts, which were created by

Mary Quant during the Mod period and the British Invasion of music and culture.

“We went gaga over British anything,” Megletti said.

And, “If you wanted status, you wanted shirtwaist dresses with Peter Pan collars from Villager or Ladybug,” Mattil said. “Those were the two name brands.”

Megletti said fashion contin-ues to hugely reflect current economic times.

“When the economy is down, there is a resurgence of (the) “do it yourself” (move-ment),” she said. “Women dis-cover they can sew — embel-lish, embroider. (Today,) there is a throwback to the craft movement big in the ’70s.”

The ’60s also gave birth to the skinny jeans. The cigarette-style pant was made popular by actress and fashion icon Audrey Hepburn. Today, skin-ny jeans and leggings are a fashion staple among teens and young female adults.

Then came the disco era, marked by funky jumpsuits, Pucci designs, bright, bold

patterns, and of course, the lei-sure suit. While much of ’70s fashion influences design houses today, the leisure suit remains dead.

“Ugh, I forgot all about them,” Mattil said, sounding like she had just bitten into a sour grape. “They were poly-ester and had wide lapels and were just ugly things.”

With the rise of disco, man-made materials, big hair, flared trousers and pantsuits, the

punk movement rebelled against it all, and their fashion demonstrated the same.

“I was a bad girl,” said punk rock fan Cathy Kut, 57, of Andover. “I listened to Led Zeppelin, Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. I wore black leather bracelets with studs on them, skin-tight black jeans, and studded necklaces.”“The leather pants are back and the skinny jeans are back,” Kut said.

From Page 2

AP file photo

George Karl, then Seattle SuperSonics head coach, smiles as the crowd cheers him on for wearing a leisure suit for “Turn Back the Clock” night during their game against the Toronto Raptors Wednesday night Jan. 15, 1997, in Seattle. Karl is now the coach of the Denver Nuggets.

Hemlines were both up and down in the 1960s. This Jan. 20, 1967 Associated Press file photo shows dress designer Susan Delfont, 19, right, wearing a dress with a hem-line eight inches below the knee (which became known as a “maxi”) in contrast to the miniskirt worn by Barbara Thompson, 17, in London.

Page 4 BOOM The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011

By ROBERT PRICEbprice@njherald.com

Frank Jeckell and Glenn Lewis were children of the ’60s. They’re Baby Boomers with a special fondness for the music of the era, which they still play profes-sionally to this day, both in their duo, Frank and Glenn, and as members of the 1910 Fruitgum Company, a modern-day revival of perhaps the first “bubblegum” group of the late ’60s.

Jeckell, 65, was a founder of the original 1910 Fruitgum Company, which took the music world by storm from 1967 to 1970 with such hits as “Simon Says,” “1-2-3 Red Light” and “Indian Giver.” But both Jeckell and Lewis had a much wider interest in all forms of rock ’n’ roll, and they still do.

“The music was fantastic. It seemed as if no style of music was too different or too bizarre to make it into the Top 40,” Jeckell said. “It was great time with all the variety and I loved every bit of it from 1960 through 1969. I loved the music of the early ’60s like Roy Orbison, Elvis and all the great girl groups. I also loved the folk movement including Peter, Paul and Mary, Dave Van Ronk and Phil Ochs, who was more of a protest singer I guess.

“Some great memories for me personally included seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966, seeing Simon & Garfunkel at the Singer Bowl in Queens in 1967 with a surprise opening act, which was The Doors. I also saw Moby Grape at Fillmore East and the Blues Project at the Bitter End, both of which I thought should have been more successful than they were. I remember seeing the Fugs and the Mothers of Invention in the Village and both were really excit-ing. I got to sing on stage with Frank Zappa, which was totally cool,” Jeckell said.

Lewis, 63, a longtime Sparta resident, was “fairly conservative,” even in his musical tastes. “My favorite rock band of all time is the Doobie Brothers. I was still pretty much into AM (radio) back then. I didn’t get into FM until later on,” Lewis said.

Lewis and Jeckell have different memories of the original 1910 Fruitgum Company, but neither was fond of the “bubblegum” label.

Jeckell, the group’s lead guitarist, obviously lived the memories. Lewis, who first met Jeckell when both were still in high school, was on the outside looking in at that point ... and he wasn’t particularly interested in “bubblegum” music.

“I didn’t dislike it, but to me it was Saturday morn-ing kiddie music, I was more into the Beatles ... some Motown ... I was even in a folk group at one point,” said Lewis, the bass player and backup vocalist for

the current Fruitgum Company revival group, which is still headed by Jeckell.

“Now, when I look back, it was clean, good family-type music. We all love playing it now ... and the audiences love it too, both adults and kids,” he said.

Jeckell said there was no such thing as “bubble-gum” music before the Fruitgum Company came along, and while the band’s hits certainly fit the label, much of their music did not. “Our shows consisted of quasi heavy metal and Motown hits in addition to our original stuff, so the teeny bopper girls who came to see us didn’t get to hear any ‘bubblegum’ beyond our hits. We were just a garage band of the time who had some talented musicians, singers and songwrit-ers who lucked out and connected with a successful record producer,” Jeckell said.

Lewis and Jeckell first met — and first played together — at a battle of the bands at Rahway High

School in 1964. Lewis attended Rahway High and Jeckell went to Linden High, and they played in dif-ferent bands. “We borrowed Frank for a night. We needed a guitar player,” Lewis recalled.

Shortly after graduation, Jeckell hit the big time with the 1910 Fruitgum Company, named for an old gum wrapper he found in his attic. In 1967, the band was signed to Buddah Records, where it released five LPs and a variety of singles. At the time, Buddah was the main recording proponent of the bubblegum concept sound.

The band’s first chart-topper was “Simon Says” in 1968, which was fashioned after the beat and style of the hit record “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs. With the success of “Simon Says,” the band started touring, opening for many of the top acts of the time such as The Beach Boys and Sly and the Family Stone.

‘The music

Members of 1910 Fruitgum Company

Photo by Sara Hudock-Cole/New Jersey Herald

Glenn Lewis, left, and Frank Jeckell, of the 1910 Fruitgum Company revival group, performed recently at Sogo’s Japanese Restaurant in Denville as Frank and Glenn.

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Today’s 1910 Fruitgum Company mixes in other ’60s groups’ songs during its shows — mostly light-heart-ed, upbeat tunes such as “Happy Together” and “She’d Rather Be With Me” by The Turtles, “I’m A Believer” and “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees and “I’m Telling You Now” by Freddy and the Dreamers.

The group plays a couple of times a month — its upcoming gigs are Oct. 14 at Merighi’s Savoy Inn in Vineland and Oct. 15 at the Wounded Warriors Show at Roslyn (N.Y.) High School, also featuring The Happenings, The Classics and The Chiffons.

The Fruitgum Company’s latest album is called “Simon Says Listen to the Sixties.” They’ve also released “Bubblegum’s Best” and a Christmas album in recent years.

While the original 1910 Fruitgum Company lasted only about five years, and the revival has been per-forming, part time, for just the last decade, Jeckell and Lewis, aka Frank and Glenn, have been playing togeth-

er non-stop for more than 35 years. They cover mostly rock ‘n’ roll music from the 1950s and 1960s.

“I think our voices blend well together and we always do a lot of harmony,” Lewis said, when asked about the key to the duo’s success and longevity. “Plus, we really try to make the songs sound like they origi-nally sounded on the radio. It’s not always easy with just two guys, but we try to make them sound as close as possible to the originals.”

Frank and Glenn’s repertoire includes Everly Brothers, Dion, Simon and Garfunkel and, of course, the Beatles, Jeckell’s favorite group.

“Simply put, the Beatles are and always will be the most innovative, original, interesting, talented band with unmatched songwriting ability,” Jeckell said. “Their material is time-less. People will be enjoying their work forever, much like classical music. They will never die. Glenn and I currently perform about a dozen Beatle songs on a regular basis.”

The 1910 Fruitgum Company lasted only until 1970. So when Lewis need-ed a singing partner a few years later, someone suggested Jeckell. “By that time, Frank was already in and out of the Fruitgum Company. I said, ‘he’s a superstar ... why would he want to come and sing with me?’ But we had his number ... and he said ‘sure.’ We started as a duo on Super Bowl Sunday in 1975, and we’ve been singing together ever since.”

Jeckell and Lewis both have vivid memories of 1960s history and cul-ture. They wore bell bottoms and grew their hair long, though the curly-haired Lewis quickly gave up on long locks when his fell out every time he used a pick. “Now I don’t have any hair at all ... but I’m fine with it,” Lewis said.

On a more serious note, Jeckell said, “I remember being sad when JFK was assassinated. I remember being proud when we landed a man on the moon. But mostly I remember the ’60s in a fond way since it was a

generally good time for me and my family personally. I didn’t care much for the unrest caused by the civil rights movement and the anti-war protests but I understood them and generally supported their goals.”

Lewis, a county resident for more than 30 years, has been into music his whole life. He sang in high school chorus (making all-state two years), and learned to play the bass at age 16. He majored in English education at Newark State College (now Kean University) and taught briefly, while continuing to pursue music as an avocation.

Lewis and Jeckell both have “day jobs” — Lewis is director of develop-ment for the Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice; Jeckell is an IT consultant for the New York City Police Department. But the real passion of these two Baby Boomers remains rock ‘n’ roll.

“Every time I sing a song of that era it takes me back to a time when I was young and carefree and life was sim-ple. This is a good thing,” Jeckell said.

The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011 BOOM Page 5

was fantastic’

keep rockin’ with the hits of the 1960s

“Simon Says”

“1-2-3 Red Light”“Indian Giver”

“May I Take a Giant Step”“Special Delivery”

“The Train”“When We Get Married”

“Reflections in the Looking Glass”

Here are the top five selling albums of the 1960s and 1970s, according to the “Top 100 Albums” app by Amber Books, Ltd.

’60s 1. “The White Album”Artist: The Beatles Sold: 20,250,000Release: November 1968

2. “Abbey Road”Artist: The BeatlesSold: 13,750,000Release: October 1969

3. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”Artist: The BeatlesSold: 12,750,000Release: June 1967

4. “Led Zeppelin II” Artist: Led Zeppelin Sold: 12,680,000Release: October 1969

5. “Led Zeppelin” Artist: Led ZeppelinSold: 10,500,000Release: January 1969

’70s1. “Led Zeppelin IV (Four Symbols)”Artist: Led Zeppelin Sold: 24,450,000Release: November 1971

2. “The Wall”Artist: Pink FloydSold: 24,300,000Release: December 1979

3. “Rumours”Artist: Fleetwood MacSold: 19,700,000Release: February 1977

4. “Dark Side of the Moon”Artist: Pink FloydSold: 18,500,000Release: March 1973

5. “Hotel California” Artist: Eagles Sold: 17,900,000Release: December 1976

‘My favorite rock band of all time is the Doobie Brothers. ‘

Glenn Lewis

Page 6 BOOM The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011

Centenary College of Hackettstown honored Deborah Harry as one of its six distinguished alumnae in 2004. Harry, a member of the Class of 1965, is the lead singer of the punk rock band “Blondie,” named after her stage name. In 2006, Blondie was induct-ed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Blondie has just released its first new album in eight years, “Panic of Girls.”

Did you know? Hundreds of shows later

By LYNDSAY CAYETANA BOUCHALlbouchal@njherald.com

Since his first concert in 1970, Jesse Roe, 59, of Branchville, has seen more than 800 shows, 187 of which were The Grateful Dead, or bands with original Dead members in them.

“I’ve been to so many shows I stopped counting — only thing I never stopped counting were the Dead shows,” Roe said.

Music and the Boomer generation are intertwined, as those born post World War II, between 1946 and 1964, have danced to rock and roll nearly all their lives. Many, like Roe, passed down that passion for music to the next generation.

Roe took his eldest son, Jesse, to his

Concerts are still the ticket

Photo by Daniel Freel/New Jersey Herald

Cathy Kut, of Andover Borough, holds a guitar pick given to her by Keith Richards during a Rolling Stones concert in 2008 as she dis-cusses her love of punk and rock and roll music in her Andover home. Cathy and her husband, Andre, have attended more than 300 shows together since the early 1970s.

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first concert in 1987, a Bob Dylan concert, where the 4-year-old cried and whined a majority of the perfor-mance. The younger Roe, now 28, will far sur-pass his father’s 800 concerts as an eclectic music enthusiastic and diehard Phish fan.

After Jesse, the first of Roe’s three children, was born in 1983, the elder Roe slowed to seeing about a dozen shows each year. He recently saw The Zombies and will see Lindsey Buckingham and Further this fall.

The sounds the Boomers grew up with in the 1960s and 1970s can be summed up in one word: Legendary.

“It was a renaissance of music that was abso-lutely amazing,” said Terry Mattil, 61, of Wantage. “Folk, surfer, the British Invasion, country rock, southern rock, ska, reggae, all in a short period of time and it was all wonderful.”

Mattil said, among her most memorable musical experiences was the first time she saw Bob Dylan play with The Band after they reunited in 1974 at Madison Square Garden.

“I remember feeling like I was in the same house as God,” she said.

She also saw The Band, The Allman Brothers, and the Grateful Dead at the Watkins Glen Festival in the summer of 1973.

“The crowd was larger than Woodstock, but it didn’t go down in history as famously,” she said.

Then there was the time she saw Neil Young, third row at the Beacon

Theatre in New York. She recalled fans blowing in his hair as he played, “Like a Hurricane.”

“It was just a moment that I remember well and it just blew me away — like a hurricane,” she said.

Mattil has also seen the Dead, The Stones, and The Who at least a dozen times each.

One of the farthest dis-tances she remembered traveling was to Atlanta to see The Who with a group of friends in Roe’s infamous van. Roe, 59, said his father suggested painting the vehicle an “inconspicuous color,” so he painted it Orbit Orange. Inside the van had a carpeted platform for lounging and was covered with old canvas that “made it look like a tent on the inside, so it looked like you were camping,” Roe said.

“It was a commercial van with no windows in the back,” Mattil recalled. “(Roe) was a cowboy. He’d just drive anywhere, pack as many people as he could in the van and we’d go to a show.”

Mattil has taken all three of her children to various concerts throughout their lives, including Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who, Neil Young, Allman Brothers, and Bob Weir and Rat Dog.

“I’m very happy my son has a good sense of music,” she said. “I’m glad he appreciates Levon Helm, The Who, The Dead. He wasn’t born in that time, but he understands how good that music was and that makes me happy.”

As time moved for-ward, Mattil, Roe, and other concert-goers also began to see a hike in

ticket prices, from $10 to hundreds. Roe said the most he spent on a con-cert was $250 to see Cream in recent years.

Hard rock punk junkie Cathy Kut, 57, of Andover, said the most she’s paid for a concert was $600 to see The Rolling Stones a few years ago, an astronomi-cal jump from seeing them for $6.50 in 1972.

The self-proclaimed punker said she and her husband, fellow music fanatic, Andre, 59, have seen more than 300 shows together, includ-ing The Who, The Kinks, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple, and seven straight nights of Led Zeppelin. Further, Kut said she has seen The Stones, The Pretenders, Rod Stewart, and Joan Jett 25 times each.

She boasted, “I went to CBGBs eight months pregnant to see Joan Jett.”

“(My three sons) were in my belly when they heard all that music, they have no choice but to like it,” Kut said.

She continued, “Some bands are better live than you will ever hear them on any album: Jethro Tull is incredible live, The Rolling Stones are unbe-lievable live; The Clash were unbelievable. They just loved performing live.”

Mattil said a majority of today’s music, like pop artists Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, saddens her.

“The popular stuff is based on a driving beat; lyrics don’t matter; vari-ety and the melody don’t matter; the instruments don’t matter,” she said.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Mattil said music was tied to the protest

movement and politics of the day.

“Where are all those songs about getting out of Afghanistan?” she asked. “That made it more appealing as well

because the musicians were making a statement, they were saying what we wanted to say but they could say it better and to music.”

She sighed.

“The times they are a-changing,” she said. “In my lifetime, that period, that was the renaissance of music ... I don’t know when it will ever be topped.”

from Page 6

Photo by Daniel Freel/New Jersey Herald

Cathy Kut, of Andover Borough, holds a 1979 concert ticket for The Who.

Page 8 BOOM The New Jersey Herald, Thursday, September 22, 2011

The years of our lives By STEVEN EIGHINGER

TOP SITCOMS FROM THE 1970sThe top 10 sitcoms from a decade that

began to redefine what and how we watch television:

1. All in the Family: Television was never the same after Archie Bunker and the Meathead became a part of our liv-ing rooms on Saturday nights.

2. Mary Tyler Moore Show: Mary made us all realize being single was nothing to be ashamed of.

3. The Bob Newhart Show: He played a Chicago psychologist with the drollest, understated humor of any show on TV.

4. WKRP in Cincinnati: Johnny Fever, Les Nessman, Venus Flytrap and Bailey Quarters. Need we say more?

5. M*A*S*H: All successful comedies are only as good as the complete cast. MASH brought together the perfect ensemble, from Hawkeye to Hot Lips to Radar.

THE BEST 1970s TV DETECTIVES1. Kojak: Testosterone levels were

always high on this Telly Savalas (Lt. Theo Kojak) crime drama.

2. Mannix: Actor Mike Connors’ Mickey Spillane-esque character. Mannix was a loner who relied solely on his fists, handgun and his secretary, portrayed by Gail Fisher.

3. Streets of San Francisco: Karl Malden was always billed as the star of this San Francisco-based police drama, but it was a young Michael Douglas, who played Inspector Steve Keller, who connected with a younger viewing audience. This show is what launched Douglas’ own successful movie career. 4. Columbo: Peter Falk and his ever-present trench coat appealed to a more cerebral audience, and helped intro-duce a thinking man’s approach to TV crime solving.

5. Baretta: Robert Blake starred in this ABC production, one of the net-work’s (successful) attempts to lure a younger viewing demographic.

The top 10 girl groups from the 1960s, the decade many believe defined an entire generation:

1. Diana Ross and the Supremes: (bottom right) Everyone else was just vying to be No. 2.

2. The Ronettes: The sultry sound of lead singer Ronnie Spector and those crazy beehive hair-dos were always a winning combination.

3. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas: These girls got lost in the Motown dust of the Supremes. They had enjoyed a short stint as the unof-ficial top girl group before Diana Ross’s influence brushed them aside.

4. The Shirelles: The haunting “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” is their signature piece.

5. The Marvellettes: Probably the best of the second-tier groups, with hits like “Please Mr. Postman” and “When the Hunter Gets Captured by the Game.”

6. The Shangi-Las: It’s hard to

believe it was more than 45 years ago they gave us “Leader of the Pack.”

7. The Toys: An R&B group whose big hit was “A Lover’s Concerto,” an adaptation of a classical minuet by Bach.

8. The Chiffons: They were an opening act for the Beatles’ 1964 U.S. tour.

9. The Angels: They ruled the early 1960s for a brief period with hits like “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

10. The Dixie Cups: “Chapel of Love” was the biggest of their five hits.

TOP GIRL GROUPS OF THE 1960s

If you’re a baby boomer, you’ve experienced a lot of pop culture. Here are some of the hits: