ROCK DIARY

How unspeakably fantastic it was to see the TAMI show, again, the other evening, for the first time since its original release in 1965!

How hopeless it is to attempt to communicate my joy in watching the early Supremes, Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Chuck Berry, the Barbarians, the Stones, Billy J. Kramer and Heavy Friends, the incredible Lesley Gore and various other splendors doing in the heads of an audience of short-haired, cardigan-sweatered and knee-length skirted Santa Monica teens (among them your beloved columnist), Gerry wearing his guitar under his chin and singing out of the side of his mouth in the then-popular Liverpool manner, Billy J. doing the flitty little dance-steps in his patent-leather winklepickers while the Dakotas swung their axes skyward to dramatize especially heavy chord changes, James Brown being escorted off-stage four times, only to stagger back to scream a few more refrains of “Please Please Please” from his knees,