When Sgt. Pepper met Aunt Ethel

I was struck by a Wall Street Journal story on May 19 taking note of the 40th anniversary, in June, of the release of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.

"When 'Sgt. Pepper' appeared, it was as if a massive block party had appeared outside your window," wrote Russ Smith in the Journal article.

It's interesting to think back on the freeze-frame moments of your childhood. Less than four years earlier, in 1963, I had returned to Mr. Fry's sixth-grade classroom after lunch. He was holding back tears, and he told us JFK was dead. The Beatles blossomed in a world every bit as weird as the one we find today. Today it's hard to imagine what an event an album release by a major artist represented -- let alone the Beatles at the height of their fame and artistic power.

I still have my "Sgt. Pepper" album -- in mono, not stereo, sound. And I clearly remember the first time I heard it, on the hi-fi in my Aunt Ethel's and Uncle Ed's living room in Bloomingdale, Ill. Forty years later, there are some albums I like more than "Sgt. Pepper," but it still stands out; still sounds fresh.

And slap me if I get too caught up in windy social significance -- I just love the music. For my money, no one has ever written a better bass line than the one Paul McCartney plays in "A Little Help from My Friends."