Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Back to the Future!

Gotta get back in time...

This iconic movie had its theatrical release on July 3, 1985.

Back to the Future is an American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. Set in 1985, it follows Marty McFly (Fox), a teenager accidentally sent back to 1955 in a time-traveling DeLorean automobile built by his eccentric scientist friend Emmett "Doc" Brown (Lloyd), where he inadvertently prevents his future parents from falling in love – threatening his own existence – and is forced to reconcile them and somehow get back to the future.

Back to the Future was a critical and commercial success, earning $381.1 million to become the highest-grossing film of 1985 worldwide. Critics praised the story, humor, and the cast, particularly Fox, Lloyd, Thompson, and Glover. It received multiple award nominations and won an Academy Award, three Saturn Awards, and a Hugo Award. The movie has since grown in esteem and is now considered by critics and audiences to be one of the greatest science fiction films and among the best films ever made. In 2007, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Saw this at the tent and had to have it…

The movie’s theme song, "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News, was also a success and became the band's first number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The song appears multiple times throughout the movie, including when Marty and his band play a Hard Rock version of the song for a “Battle of the Bands” audition, at which a judge played by Huey Lewis himself tells Marty's group that they are "just too darn loud.”

“Back In Time” to 1955 and the birth of Rock n’ Roll…

1955 is considered a pivotal year in music history, as the youth of America began tuning in to R&B radio stations and purchasing R&B records all across our nation. It is when icons like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard became part of our collective consciousness. My late father told me his stories about hearing these famous songs for the first time as a young boy here in the Heartland. Ultimately, 1955 was when Rock n’ Roll was born. On July 9, "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets became the first Rock n’ Roll song to top the Pop charts in America. The song would also go to No. 1 in the UK.

The Heart of Rock n’ Roll… R&B arguably had the strongest influence on the new genre. A 1985 article in The Wall Street Journal, titled, "Rock! It's Still Rhythm and Blues" reported that the "two terms were used interchangeably" until about 1957. The other sources quoted in the article said that Rock n’ Roll combined R&B with Pop and Country music. However, the late Fats Domino was not convinced that there was any new genre. In 1957, he said, "What they call rock 'n' roll now is rhythm and blues. I've been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans". According to Rolling Stone, "this is a valid statement ... all Fifties rockers, black and white, country born and city bred, were fundamentally influenced by R&B, the black popular music of the late Forties and early Fifties".

Source: Wikipedia.org

As a Rock guitarist, I can trace my musical lineage back to the "Father of Rock and Roll", the late Chuck Berry. Without him, many of us never would have grabbed a six string, plugged it into a stack, and taken the stage…