HERE COMES THE SUN(SHINE STATE)

Author Bob Kealing

BY KYLE EAGLE

on the Beatles’ watershed 1964 tour of Florida

It often seems like the legacy of the Beatles will loom large over popular culture until the end of time. New information, content and unearthed rarities somehow still make their way into the market, many decades after the erstwhile Mop-Tops called it a day in 1969. Beatlemania is a voracious master, after all. Now a worthy — and localized — addition to the Fab Four canon is the new book Good Day Sunshine State (University Press of Florida, March 2023) by author and Florida cultural archeologist Bob Kealing.

Kealing, an Emmy-winning broadcast journalist (NBC/ WESH) has made a career of uncovering the fascinating stories of people and things rooted in Florida. His books piece together a colorful tapestry of our local cultural heritage, much of it still resonating in the present day — be it the female empowerment story of Tupperware or the genesis of country rock via the Gram Parsons mythos.

Good Day Sunshine State is no different. Kealing dug deep into the lore around the Beatles’ 194 tour stops in a preDisney Florida (a period that is far too often “passed over in history,” in Kealing’s mind), with new interviews and copious research painting a vivid picture of the Beatles’ time in the state at the fever pitch of Beatlemania.

The book begins in Miami Beach and ends in Jacksonville as part of the Beatles’ North American tour in 1964, soon after their historic Ed Sullivan debut. The takeaway is of a band making the publicity rounds as the times were changing at a rapid pace, socially and musically.

At the height of Camelot, JFK had been in Florida a week prior to his assassination and that weighed heavily on people. That was really fresh on people’s minds and there still was this national and local malaise with a sense of collective shock that such a vital president could be cut down in such a horrible way.

That was certainly the feeling I got when I talked to the entire Life magazine team that did that iconic Beatles cover with them in the swimming pool during their stay in Biscayne Bay. The reporter, Gail Cameron, was with Jackie and the JFK camp from the beginning, at the center of it, and she was there when the Beatles arrived in early February of 1964. And she said that it was finally a time the nation could smile again, that we could feel joy and laughter. So the Beatles’ timing couldn’t have been better, because heaven knows the nation needed it badly.

How did the process for this book begin?

My friendship with Hard Rock archivist and musician bon vivant Jeff Nolan, plus my own fanship of the band. He was kind enough to give me access, and it was just stunning, like this four-page handwritten letter from Paul McCartney to this guy who’d been their bodyguard while they were in Miami. In it you can see the extent of the warmth and the friendship that they developed. When I started to piece together the extent of their time here in Florida I found out that the Beatles spent more time here in the Sunshine State than anywhere else in North America during that watershed year.

Much like Elvis did during his early touring years … another recurring theme. Did you go into these archives with that knowledge beforehand?

Any book I write relies heavily on serendipity. You have to see where the information takes you. The fact was that they spent a lot of time in Miami Beach, Key West and Jacksonville and the info was there to discover.

Such as?

They met Cassius Clay [Muhammad Ali] the week prior to his ascendancy to the world championship. This was such a watershed time, as I mentioned, not only in Florida but all over America. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Tinker Field to deliver a speech in which he talked about segregation being on its deathbed, saying, “A civil rights act can’t make a man love me, but it might keep him from lynching me.” And the Beatles really picked up on that very quickly and put into their tour rider that they weren’t going to play to segregated audiences. That simple. In that sense, they were ahead of their time.

Do you think that might have come from being postwar youths in Britain and also being of the generation that really took Black music to heart?

I think that hits the nail right on the head. In fact, they toured and [took] pictures with Little Richard, and it’s during this time where they met Billy Preston, who later played a significant role on Let It Be. They toured with African American R&B artists like the Exciters. I got to interview one of the members, Lillian Walker, and she talked about how the Beatles loved to have a good time and cut up, but when they believed in something and took a stand they meant it and weren’t going to back down.

You have to think that was a pretty gutsy thing to do for them, because they were just hitting the crest of their popularity, and it was a risky stand at that time to say they weren’t going to play to segregated audiences.

Did they write any well-known songs while they toured here?

“You Can’t Do That,” for sure. Two others are likely — “If I Fell” and “When I Get Home.” music@orlandoweekly.com

They met a lot of people along the way, and you gathered 30 firsthand interview accounts for this book. Any standout stories?

My favorite was from this sailor, John Trusty, who partied with the Beatles at the Key Wester Motel and club. He described beautifully how he first heard the Beatles as he was driving from Chicago, bound for Key West, where he was being stationed. Driving along this deserted highway, snow all over the place, when all of the sudden this Beatles song comes blasting over the airwaves and how joyous it was. And again, this is just after JFK, and he describes his extreme reaction to hearing the Beatles for the first time.

His story is great and, yes, his reaction is fantastic. Cinematically so!

He factors in at the very beginning of the book and it really sets the tone for what the Beatles did for folks like him, America’s youth.

Local Releases

“Matt Kamm does house music” are not words I thought I would ever be stringing together. But as one of the most established weirdos in the Orlando music scene, he’s never adhered to any expectations but his own.

So, yes, Kamm has taken his Tele & the Ghost of Our Lord vehicle down the electronic music rabbit hole — into dance music territory, even — on his latest EP, Crown of Horns. But settle down, bros. Don’t come looking for sick bass drops or the wub-wubs here. Rather than the visceral kick of modern EDM, Kamm is, unsurprisingly, more interested in electronic music’s cerebral side, leaning into its deep ambient and psychedelic roots.

In fact, opening track “Dryner 3” is probably the only one of the six-song collection that’s club-friendly with its classic acid-house throb. Tracks like the looping cascade of “Creantine,” the subsonic murmur of “Felming Zipper” and the intergalactic transmission of “Anthropomene” are all beatless headphone odysseys more suited for astral projection than the dance floor. “Gosjtardiddy” is a heady swirl in line with electronic outsiders like Silver Apples. The overall frequency is more outer space than Electric Daisy Carnival.

Further distinguishing this record is a pulse that’s more organic than most modern electronic music, with all analog synths and a live musician’s touch. Besides some vocals — vocoded and otherwise — that add humanity to the proceedings, two of the instrumental tracks were recorded entirely live.

Crown of Horns now streams everywhere.

Concert Picks This Week

Guster, Nicole Atkins: Boston’s Guster have been a reliable alt-rock force for over 20 years, but East Coast opener Nicole Atkins deserves special spotlight all her own. With a crooner sound that’s a retro-tastic pastiche of soul, pop and countrypolitan of the 1950s and 1960s, she’s one of the brightest modern torchbearers of Roy Orbison’s flame. Live, expect her songs to cast the room in golden vintage rays like a glamorously moody dream. (7 p.m. Thursday, March 23, Plaza Live, $33.50)

Daddy’s Beemer, Better Than This, The Synthetics: South Carolina band Daddy’s Beemer are one of the most immediately likable under-the-radar bands to come to town in a while. Their winsome, pop-smart indie rock bursts with sparkling melody and gusts like a bracing breeze. And they do all the jangle and chime so well that it feels like they could go from obscurity to being the next guitar-pop saviors at any minute. Rounding out the bill will be Miami garage-pop band Better Than This and Orlando post-punk group the Synthetics.

(8 p.m. Friday, March 24, Will’s Pub, $12-$15)

BY BAO LE-HUU

The Dancing Bones, Saucers Over Washington, Lady Heroine, LeLe & the Bloodspitters: This bill is a nicely diverse sampler of current local talent. Ever since changing their name to Saucers Over Washington, the band formerly known as the Grizzly Atoms have been funneling their high-spirited indie rock through the wind tunnel of shoegaze to good results. New but credentialed Orlando band LeLe & the Bloodspitters are making punk weird again. I don’t know if alt-rockers Lady Heroine are making a Serge Gainsbourg reference with their name but I’m going to assume they are because that’s the world I want to live in. Finally, the Dancing Bones will bring the noise and grunge. (7 p.m. Friday, March 24, Stardust Video & Coffee, $5 suggested donation)

Temptress, Destroyer of Light. Loose Touch, Bunaand: Between Texas doom-metal bands Temptress and Destroyer of Light, this show is already guaranteed to be heaviness galore. But equally notable are the openers, who are probably two of the most exciting new Orlando bands bubbling up from the underground right now.

Loose Touch, though new, are a band of elite local veterans. While their collective résumés range wide and include excellent names like Summerbirds in the Cellar, Acoqui and Ad Nauseum, among many others, this new hard-rocking act so far is looking like a juggernaut of riffs, scuzz and fuzz.

Bunaand are a very heavy dose of sludge doom laced with psych metal that impressed when I saw them last summer opening for Crowbar. (8 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, Will’s Pub, $13) baolehuu@orlandoweekly.com

THURSDAY, MARCH 23

Landfill Harmonic

“The world sends us garbage. We send back music,” says Favio Chavez, music director of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, in Landfill Harmonic. Cateura is an enormous landfill dump sited in the capital of Paraguay, Asuncíon, and the orchestra consists of the slum-dwellers who live and work there. They play instruments made entirely out of garbage: a cello built from an oil canister, a drum with a head made from a cast-off X-ray. The Global Peace Film Festival is sponsoring this screening of the 2015 documentary at the Plaza Live, home of the Orlando Philharmonic — whose instruments are made of ebony and rosewood, not tin cans and spatulas, but whose love of their craft is no greater than the young members of the Recycled Orchestra. This documentary pulls out all the stops to tug viewers’ heartstrings; if there’s any failing, it’s that it glosses over the political and socioeconomic structures at play in South America and the motivations of the adults in charge of the group in order to bask in the “transformative power of music and the resilience of the human spirit” vibes. But said vibes are undeniable, and we could all use a little loverade these days. 6 p.m., Plaza Live, 425 N. Bumby Ave., free but RSVP required, eventbrite.com . — Jessica Bryce Young

National Miss Comedy Queen Pageant

It speaks volumes about the determination, bravery and commitment — and pretty please do take note of those qualities, right-wing assholes — of drag performers that we’ve got a national competition of drag comedians coming to Central Florida to do the damn thing on stage during a distinctly unfunny time in the Sunshine State. For a 17th (!) year, participants will square off in categories including comedic talent, outrageous evening gown and 60-second spokeswoman. At the end of it all, current Queen MrMs Adrien will hand her crown to this year’s winner. Laughter is a powerful