Pop hall ‘preview room’ opens at Canonsburg McDonald’s
A Rolling Stones single from 1964 on display in the America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame “preview room” at the McDonald’s restaurant in Canonsburg
A Beatles single in its original picture sleeve and other memorabilia on display in the America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame “preview room” at the McDonald’s restaurant in Canonsburg
CANONSBURG – Anyone who has ever thumbed through a box of albums at a flea market is familiar with this scenario:
Amid all the Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller and Mac Davis discs, there’s a battered Beatles album from the 1960s. It looks like it’s been run over by a tank battalion, left out in a tornado and tossed around by a hyperactive chimpanzee. Yet it has a hefty price tag on it. Why? Because it has B-E-A-T-L-E-S on it, and is therefore automatically assumed to be collectible.
In reality, most Beatles albums sold in the millions 50 years ago, and well-played copies are not worth all that much.
However, at the Canonsburg McDonald’s restaurant, you can feast your eyes on a genuinely, honestly collectible Beatles album.
Under glass, there’s a copy of “The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons.” It was released by Chicago-based Vee Jay Records in the fall of 1964 just as the label’s rights to release Beatles material was expiring. Because it repackaged material from both acts that had already been available widely, it was mostly ignored by the public and quickly sank out of print. The sight of one is known to drive serious collectors into fits of envy.
The copy of “The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons” is at the Canonsburg McDonald’s as part of a new “preview room” for America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame. The brainchild of former Canonsburg borough manager Terry Hazlett, it is meant to honor hitmakers of the last 60 years or so, particularly those who have been overlooked by the rock and roll, jazz and country halls of fame. The pop hall is still without a permanent home, but the McDonald’s preview room is designed to offer a hint of what it could be like once it’s completed, according to Ron Galiano, the owner of the Canonsburg McDonald’s.
Unveiled Sunday afternoon, the preview room fits into the decor of the restaurant, with its memorabilia celebrating Perry Como and Bobby Vinton, two of Canonsburg’s musical favorite sons. Along with a few Beatles rarities, it boasts an album autographed by 1960s British Invasion veteran Billy J. Kramer, Elvis Presley discs and, perhaps most notably, an acoustic guitar signed by three surviving members of the Monkees when they were inducted into America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame at a fan convention in 2014.
The memorabilia was provided by Hazlett, other members of the pop hall’s board and the Johnny Mathis Fan Club. There are also examples of plaques that are given to artists upon their induction.
The preview room is meant to keep the pop hall in the public’s mind “so that when we need help with a building, they’ll know what we’re talking about,” said Patty Maurer, the secretary of the pop hall’s board.
America’s Pop Music Hall of Fame inducted its first group of artists in 2013. The most recent batch of inductees included the Dave Clark Five, the Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin and Rod Stewart.