{"id":3926,"date":"2014-11-13T14:55:17","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T19:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?p=3926"},"modified":"2014-11-13T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T19:56:00","slug":"billy-j-kramer-will-always-sound-like-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/billy-j-kramer-will-always-sound-like-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy J. Kramer will always sound like summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

To me, Billy J. Kramer will always sound like summer.
\n 
\nI first heard \u201cBad to Me\u201d as we trekked back from City Pool to Bringhurst Park where Camp Denim Deb<\/strong> for Preteens<\/strong> was in full swing. It was deep summer in Alexandria, Louisiana \u2013 June bug and Popsicle days. And I was almost 11, or \u201cone teen,\u201d as I insisted on calling it. And it was in that \u201calmost-one-teen summer\u201d that I began noticing boys and dreaming of falling in love.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe birds in the sky would be sad and lonely<\/em><\/p>\n

If they knew that I\u2019d lost my one and only\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

They\u2019d be sad! Don\u2019t be bad to me!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nThe words poured from our camp counselor, Joanne Wooten\u2019s, transistor radio.\u00a0 Walking single file through sun and shadow \u2013 our flip flops wet-smacking the sidewalk \u2013 my friends and I sang along\u2026allowing ourselves to fall for the tune and the words and the way they made us feel, even though the hit wasn\u2019t (or so we thought) by The Beatles.
\n 
\nThe Beatles! They were my world. Well, John Lennon was my world. And had I known that he\u2019d composed \u201cBad to Me\u201d during his May 1963 trip with Brian Epstein to the Costa Brava and the Costa Del Sol, I would have flipped over it. Head over heels!<\/em> But instead, I fell for the song gradually, mesmerized by the image of \u201csoftly sighing\u201d leaves and the gentle sound of Billy J. Kramer\u2019s voice.
\n 
\nSlender, brunette Joanne Wooton wore aqua contact lenses and tailored Capri pants. And as a teenager (almost an adult!), she was beyond cool. So when she informed us all that Billy J. Kramer was from Liverpool, too, and that he was blond, broad-shouldered, and handsome, we swooned. The Denim Debs had never seen Billy\u2019s face, but listening to him plead, \u201cDon\u2019t be bad to me,\u201d we were hooked.
\n 
\nIt wasn\u2019t until forty years later that I actually met Billy, face-to-face, at the Las Vegas Fest for Beatles Fans. Gathering all of my courage, I strolled over to him and said, \u201cBilly, I want you to know that \u2018I Go To Pieces\u2019 meant the world to me growing up. In fact, I loved it so much that I sang it as a lullabye to my son each evening when he was a baby.\u201d
\n 
\nBilly, who could have easily retorted, \u201cUhhhh, that\u2019s not my song, you twit!\u201d smiled a kind smile and tenderly replied, \u201cAh, that\u2019s so nice. I\u2019ll be sure to tell Peter Asher next time I see him.\u201d
\n 
\nIt took me ten minutes to figure out that I had named the wrong song. And ten months to get up the courage to speak to Billy again!
\n 
\nBut since then, we\u2019ve become good friends \u2013 me and this tall, sandy-blond NEMS star who wooed me away from John, if only for one small segment of summer. He and his wife have become one of the couples I most look forward to seeing each time we Fest for Beatles Fans<\/strong>-ers convene in New York or Chicago.
\n 
\nBut this past Fest, as I sat in the Saturday night concert audience with my grown son, Cliff, and heard Billy J. sing the song I had REALLY crooned to my baby as a lullabye, \u201cBad To Me,\u201d I was overcome with emotion.
\n 
\nSuddenly, it wasn\u2019t 2014. It was 1964. And I was flip-flopping back to Bringhurst Park to braid a keychain made from rubber strands of brightly-coloured, waxy ribbon. I was singing along with the other Denim Debs and talking about the futility of attempting a cartwheel on the thick, grey tumbling mat that always smelled of feet.
\n 
\nIt wasn\u2019t October in Los Angeles as Billy sang. It was long ago\u2026June bug hot and Popsicle cold. When Billy J. offered up \u201cBad to Me,\u201d it was blue skies and birds on the wing.
\n 
\nFor me, Billy J. Kramer will always sound like summer. His is the sound of days free from care. A lost innocence.
\n 
\nJude Southerland Kessler is the Author of The John Lennon Series<\/strong><\/em>
\n 
\nhttp:\/\/www.johnlennonseries.com
\n 
\nFollow Jude on Twitter @JudeKessler
\n 
\nFollow Jude on Facebook here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To me, Billy J. Kramer will always sound like summer.   I first heard \u201cBad to Me\u201d as we trekked back from City Pool to Bringhurst Park where Camp Denim Deb for Preteens was in full swing. It was deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[29,85,84,117,30],"class_list":["post-3926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-boomer-beatles-blog","tag-beatlefest","tag-billy-j-kramer","tag-jude-kessler","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-fest-for-beatles-fans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3929,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions\/3929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}