The Boomer Experience : Back in the Day

  Sunday’s on the phone to Monday, but last Tuesday feels like years ago.  Thanksgiving weekend was an epic journey for Beatles fans, thanks to  Get Back .  Peter Jackson ’s docuseries finally arrived on Disney+, dropping surprise after surprise on our heads. So much to process. So much to argue about. Any random 10-minute stretch of this movie is crammed with too many quotable quotes and musical details to catch the first few times.  Rest assured this isn’t just a one-time bombshell event.  Get Back  is an instant classic that fans will keep watching and re-watching for years to come. To keep reading this article, click here.

  My favorite memory of Lee Elder is the time Hank Aaron loaned him a Jaguar XJ6 from his Atlanta car dealership to celebrate the 30 th anniversary of his historic appearance in the 1975 Masters. Elder drove through the streets of Augusta, Georgia, with “LEE ELDER-MASTERS 1975” painted on the driver- and passenger-side doors.  “It was like a ticker-tape parade every day driving around down here,” Elder told me for a  Sports Illustrated  story in 2005. “People honked their horns and tried to stop me for autographs.” He was disappointed that the tournament had not acknowledged his anniversary with a spot in the Par 3 Contest or a place as an honorary starter. Eight years earlier, Elder had been thrust back into the spotlight at the Masters when a 21-year-old Tiger Woods rocked the world by winning the 1997 tournament by 12 shots. Elder loved the attention that he received from Woods, who recognized him as a pioneer who had eased the way for him to pursue his dream of winning a green jack

  The   Monkees   closed out their   farewell tour   last night (Nov. 14) with a performance at the Greek theater in Los Angeles. The group -- which consisted of original members  Micky Dolenz  and  Michael Nesmith , supported by a backing band -- opened with their 1969 single “Good Clean Fun,” before rolling through such recognizable tracks as “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Mary, Mary” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” To keep reading this article, click here.

  Sylvester Stallone  was not born to be a star — which made him the perfect choice to play the titular  Rocky  Balboa in his breakthrough 1976 film,  Rocky . Prior to making his Oscar-winning blockbuster, Stallone spent years roughing it as a no-name actor in New York, appearing in a handful of low-profile films throughout the early '70s (including the 1970 softcore pornographic film  The Party at Kitty and Stud's , which he later called "horrendous"). He first earned critical acclaim by starring alongside Perry King and Henry Winkler in 1974's  The Lords of Flatbush , a low-budget drama following four teenage, leather jacket-wearing miscreants around the streets of Brooklyn. To keep reading this article, click here.

  Ever since the dawn of man, humans have been looking for ways to make themselves feel better. Going beyond food, shelter and clothing…humans enjoy feeling good. Music, perhaps beating on a log with a stick, has long been one of the methods of soothing the savage beast. Another soothing method, of course, has been drugs in their many forms. Hundreds of songs about alcohol and marijuana, “hootch” and “grass,” respectively, have been written. The song “Feelin’ Good,” recorded by Ry Cooder, has the lyric “Feelin’ good, feelin’ good…all the money in the world spent on feeling good.” That about sums it up, no? To keep reading this article, click here.

  Robert Cray was stunned when he first heard “ Stand and Deliver .” Eric Clapton, his onetime musical hero, who became a mentor and friend, had released his first protest song in 56 years of recording. Only it wasn’t about George Floyd or global warming. Clapton’s midtempo shuffle, a collaboration with Van Morrison released in December, went full anti-lockdown, taking aim at the government for trying to control a global pandemic by temporarily shuttering restaurants, gyms and concert halls. What grabbed Cray’s attention was the second verse. Do you wanna be a free man Or do you wanna be a slave? Do you wanna be a free man Or do you wanna be a slave? Do you wanna wear these chains Until you’re lying in the grave? Cray — one of the great blues guitarists of his generation, a five-time Grammy winner and Black man born in segregated Georgia — emailed Clapton immediately. Was the 76-year-old guitar great comfortable singing Morrison’s words, which compared the lockdown to slavery? To keep