Latest / GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast / The Story of The Beatles: The band that shaped everything to come

Transcript

The Story of The Beatles: The band that shaped everything to come · GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast

• GARAGE TO STADIUMS The Story of The Beatles with special guest Bob Spitz, author of best-seller The Beatles: The Biography Wed, Mar 12, 2025 9:44AM � 1:19:04 SUMMARY KEYWORDS The Beatles, British skiffle, Hamburg, Brian Epstein, Ed Sullivan Show, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, White Album, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Beatlemania. SPEAKERS Speaker 2, Bob Spitz, Dave Anthony, Speaker 3, Speaker 1 Dave Anthony 00:01 Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Today's episode is the story of The Beatles. The Beatles were formed in 1957 as a band in northern England. In the Liverpool they were named the Quarrymen after the high school that John Lennon attended, Quarry Bank High School from a little band that played a type of music called British skiffle, based on early US, bluegrass, country and folk music, complete with banjos, washboards as instruments. The Beatles worked hard in small clubs to ultimately release albums and tours that revolutionized rock music and modern culture with their longer hair, original songwriting skills and intriguing personalities, and if you thought the Beatles had a squeaky clean image, you may be shocked by what you're about to hear from our guest, as you will hear the Beatles may very well have created the template for future rock stars off Stage, indulgences, band members, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr have gone on to become household names. And the Beatles have sold over 500 million albums, an astonishing figure given that they only put out albums for seven short years between 1963 and 1970 almost every performer that followed pointed to the Beatles as an inspiration and included a diverse set of performers like James Taylor, David Bowie the Eagles kiss. Bruce Springsteen Tom Petty on through Oasis and Nirvana. Here to discuss the Beatles is Bob Spitz, author of the massive bestseller, The Beatles, The biography. Bob also appeared on one of our most popular episodes, the story of Led Zeppelin. And was the author of Led Zeppelin the biography. In addition to writing about Bob Dylan, Bob Spitz was previously a rock insider as a manager of both Bruce Springsteen and Elton. John, he's currently working on his next project, a Rolling Stones biography. Okay, Bob, welcome back to garage, to stadiums. Bob Spitz 02:29 Always a pleasure to be here. Dave, always Dave Anthony 02:35 how many copies did like this book must have sold? Well, it's awesome. The Bob Spitz 02:38 Beatles, it's sold. It sold over a million copies. Wow. Yeah, congrats. Facts, it still sells. I mean, you know, it's the gift that keeps on giving, good for Dave Anthony 02:51 you. Because, you know, in your at the end of the book, where you write about the other books, they're, they're underwhelming, any of them, Bob Spitz 02:59 oh, to say the least, yeah. Dave Anthony 03:02 Which is why your stands out. Who did you talk to, directly for the book, for The Beatles, I've talked like, in terms of the Beatles. Did you talk to? Talk to Paul Bob Spitz 03:12 and I talked to George before he died. Spent quite a bit of time with both of them and and Paul gave me access to everybody. I mean, it's, I was the first person in 40 years they had, they had a a kind of a silence on their friends and colleagues and families. If you talk to the press, you were out. And so nobody talked to the press, and I would call these people and relatives of Paul who would never talk, and said, Paul told me to talk to him. They'd go, Wait a second, they'd come back, and they'd go, you're right. I've got stories to tell you. I can't I've been waiting 40 years to tell these stories. Yeah, it was great. It was fun. You know what I've been doing for the last four years. Dave, what have you been doing? I'm been the Rolling Stones biographer. Dave Anthony 04:05 Oh yeah, that's right. You told us that during the lens effelent show. I can't Bob Spitz 04:09 really it's done. I turned it in two weeks ago. So Dave Anthony 04:13 did you talk to Mick and Keith? Or were you allowed access? Oh yeah, Bob Spitz 04:17 yeah, I've known Keith for 40 years. He we were neighbors in New York for a long time. Dave Anthony 04:22 How nice? Yeah, that's amazing. What the two sort of the pantheon of the 60s, the stones and The Beatles, my goodness. Bob Spitz 04:33 And Dylan, I did. I was Dylan's first biographer. Wow. Dave Anthony 04:37 We're going to talk about one of the most seminal rock acts in the history of music. And to do so, I want to go way back to the Liverpool days where these boys grew up, and I want you to tell us a little about them as adolescents and how they all came together. Bob Spitz 04:56 Well, you know the Beatles were. Really an eclectic bunch. They, as you mentioned, they came out of Liverpool, and aside from John, these were not even middle class guys. They were all working class, blue collar people like George, hardly ever showed up in school, never played hooky all the time, went to the movies instead of going to school. Ringo never spent a day in school. Ringo. Ringo was a sickly boy. Had polio as a young kid, and was in a hospital for for most of his childhood. And I mean, look at Ringo today. You know, he's 85 years old, and he looks better than you and May. And, of course, you know John and Paul. Paul was a smart guy, but really never pushed himself in school. And and John was, you know, John was a messed up young kid. So they were, they were all wayward in Liverpool. They really had no no sense of a future, no sense of a career. They didn't know what they were going to do. And music saved their lives. It really did, and it brought them together, and in such a unique way and in such a unique environment, that everything that we got later on came from that dissociation. They Dave Anthony 06:35 also had some tragedy in their families, didn't they? A couple of them, a few of them, actually, yeah. Bob Spitz 06:41 Well, look, I mean, Paul's mother died very young. And there's an instance in the book that I think when I turned in the manuscript of the Beatles, my publisher pulled me aside and said Paul's mother's death was one of the most touching things in the book, I had come across an aunt of his who lived in Wells had never spoken to the press, and she went with Mary McCarthy the last day that she spent at home. She she took her to the hospital. And of course, they were so poor that these two women went to the hospital on a bus, but she said, right before they were supposed to get on the bus, Mary turned back and ran to the house and said, and I told Paul this, and he put his head in his hands and cried. Mary went back to the house and laid out the boy's clothes for school the next day, knowing she would never come back. So there, I mean, there was that kind of tragedy in Paul's house. John. John's childhood was just a complete mess. His mother and father divorced very early. His father went out to sea. He was an entertainer on cruise ships. Never saw his son, his mother. His mother was a good time gal. She went with some of the military guys who had a base outside of Liverpool and really didn't have much to do with the upbringing of her son, John was shunted off to his aunt's house, his aunt, famous aunt Mimi's house, to bring him up with a stern hand. And so when John was about 11 years old, both his mother and father came back into his life, but his mother, just as he was getting to know her again, just as she put a guitar in his hands and taught him how to use it, his mother was run over by a teacher and killed instantly. And so yeah, they had, they had really hard lives. You know, George grew up poor Ringo grew up poor. Paul and John had these tragedies, and so it was a hard scrabble in life for these Liverpool guys. Dave Anthony 09:16 How did Paul and John meet? Was they were, Paul was in high school and John was, I guess they were both. What was the back story there? They Bob Spitz 09:24 were 15 and 16 years old respectively. When they met, there was a church festival that was a key thing in Liverpool. Every year, everybody came to it. It was called the church fit, F, E, T, E, and John and his, his skiffle band was slated to play for it, and they weren't very good at all, but, you know, they were part of the young kids who gathered to to participate in this. Festival. And while John was performing on stage with these guys, he noticed a young guy in the crowd staring up at them. And this young guy, of course, was Paul McCartney, who came wearing a speckled sport coat, so we stood out like a like a sore thumb. And afterwards, backstage, Paul came back to talk to the band, and he grabbed the guitar out of John's hand and played an Eddie Cochran song that just knocked John for a loop. This guy knew how to play the guitar in ways he had never heard before. And Paul was, you know, he was so outgoing, he just put his head back and sang and performed backstage for these young kids. He was younger than all of them. But Paul, being Paul, as we now all know, had had an immense sense of self, and John knew from the start well. He didn't quite know how to deal with Paul. He knew that somehow he had to attach himself to this guy and and Pete Shotton, who was John's best friend, recalled them walking home afterwards with John wringing his hands, saying, I got to get this guy into my band. But I knew if I get this guy into my band, it won't be my band anymore. And and you know, he was really torn by this. He didn't want to be upstaged by this guy, but his curiosity was was too strong. He made friends with Paul, and as they say, That Was History, uh Dave Anthony 11:41 huh. After they, you know, they start playing, I guess they're playing, sort of the 50s classics by the Buddy Holly. 11:51 You don't know what you've been a missing Dave Anthony 11:55 various little Richards. The skiffle scene is still happening, because Paul joins in 1958 I believe, Bob Spitz 12:02 I think they were calling themselves Johnny and the moon dogs for a while, Paul and John and they were with Stu Sutcliffe, who was John's art school buddy, who tried to play the bass. And they were playing little gigs around, around Liverpool. But they were also known, if you can believe your ears, as the worst band in Liverpool. Even once they started calling themselves The Beatles, nobody wanted anything to do with this group, The Beatles. They were terrible. I mean, they just they didn't have a drummer, they couldn't get it together. Dave Anthony 12:43 And ultimately, they go over to Hamburg for the first time, and you paint a picture of a city in Germany, it just shocked me what went on in Hamburg. Bob Spitz 12:51 So they got this offer to go to Hamburg, to play in Hamburg. The scene in Hamburg was incredible. It was filled with American sailors and sailors from all over the world, and they were in a place called The Reaper bond, which the Reaper barn was like 42nd street before Rudy Giuliani cleaned it up. I mean, it was, it was as seedy as you could get. There was just dive bars everywhere, girly shows, drugs everywhere, and it was run by a group of thugs, but these thugs also hired English rock and roll bands to come play and entertain, and so the Beatles were given their chance to go to Hamburg to do this, they needed a drummer, they enlisted Pete, Pete Best, who hadn't really played with them before, and really they didn't love because he had a heavy foot, a bass foot, and but they made do, and they had Stu playing bass. And Stu was terrible. He couldn't play bass to save his life. But they went to Hamburg, and they got themselves settled into playing gigs in Hamburg, and they became the Beatles there. This is where they became the Beatles. There was a German promoter who was not at all satisfied with their with their playing, and he kept sitting out front saying to them, ma show. Ma show, which was, you know, make a show do something. So the Beatles realized they had to turn on the gas, and they did. They learned how to perform in Hamburg, and it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy because there were bar fights while they played. The soldiers were were rough, the girls were rough. They had to play over all of this chaos, and they had to. Play seven hours a night. They only got the, you know, a brief 15 minute break every couple hours. So they needed all this material. They needed to learn how to make a show. And the book, my biography of The Beatles, opens up the night they come back from Hamburg to Liverpool. We are at a gig, a big concert that they've been signed on to play. There were signs all over the Beatles direct from Hamburg. And so all the kids thought they were a German group. They had no idea who this was, uh huh. And it's like, it was an amazing scene. There were all these young girls and party dresses and boys in their best suits in this voluminous ballroom, and the Beatles came on in black leather, black leather jackets, black leather pants, and played a rock and roll, a style of rock and roll that these kids had never heard they had never seen anything like it. They had never heard anything like it. And that night was the night that the Beatles really came into their own. They became Liverpool's band, and they took off from there. It was a it was an amazing ride being in Hamburg and coming back to the city and reclaiming it as as their own Dave Anthony 16:23 Bob. Let's talk about another person from Liverpool, Brian Epstein, the man who would go on to manage Beatles to their worldwide fame, but who, when he first heard of The Beatles, knew nothing about rock and roll. It would blew me away that he, you know, knew nothing about that style of music. Came from this rich family. He was kind of the son who couldn't really find his place in that family. Bob Spitz 16:47 Brian's family ran a huge department store called NEMS northeast music store, and Brian handled the record department. He was a an opera and a classical music aficionado. He knew nothing about rock and roll. Knew nothing about what was going on in Liverpool in the same but kids started coming into the record department asking for for records, and not just records. They said, Do you have anything by this group, The Beatles? And of course, there was nothing. So Brian decided to go to the cavern to check out these guys himself. Brian's little secret was that he was a gay man in a country where being gay was outlawed, and he immediately fell in love with the Beatles, especially John. He fell in love with the look, the whole sense of it. And he realized that something important was happening here, and so he made an overture. He asked them if they had a manager. The Beatles a manager. I mean, they never heard of anything so professional. He put a little money into them. He'd buy them suits. They were, as the Beatles would say, they were gobsmacked. They had no idea how to deal with this, but they knew it was great and important to their future, and they knew that the Epstein's ran Liverpool, and this was, this was the guy, so they signed a contract with them, and Brian, knowing nothing about rock and roll, became the manager of what would become the biggest rock and roll band in history. Dave Anthony 18:27 Ultimately, Ed runs the record store and through that back channel, you know, hears of The Beatles, attends them their lunch concerts that they do at the Cavern Club, and the pace of which these guys play at both Hamburg and Cavern Club. They're playing seven days a week, and sometimes and like, multiple times a day. Bob Spitz 18:49 Absolutely, they would do two shows at lunch, and those lunch shows would be packed because all the young girls who worked in the shops around Liverpool would take their lunch break. They'd come to the Cavern Club for their lunch break and dance. So they do two shows at them, and they do three shows, maybe a night, and maybe two shows at the cavern. Then they'd hop on a city bus, they go through the tunnel, and they play at one of the ballrooms in the city. I mean, they work their butts off. I understood, I understood that when I talked to Paul about it, because I had done the same thing with Bruce Springsteen in the early days. So I we played three, sometimes four shows a night. Yeah, that's what that's what you do. That's what you did to Dave Anthony 19:35 build the audience the right the one of the things that surprised me as well, there was many things in this amazing book. Was Brian Epstein's influence on the image of the Beatles, because he felt that they were scruffy, that they were not clothed properly. They were talking on stage, they were drinking. Tell us a little bit about that, because we all believe the Beatles had the pre. Scene image, but not before Brian arrived. No, Bob Spitz 20:04 when they when they played the cavern, they smoked on stage. They you know, they drink whiskey. They'd get plastered. They talk to the girls. They do shout outs. They would drag a girl up on stage and dance with her. They had no discipline whatsoever. They just ran the place the way they wanted to run it. And Brian, you know, he was a proper gentleman. He was aghast, so he laid down some laws. If you're going to work with me, if I'm going to work with you, you're not going to smoke on stage anymore. Well, I mean, the Beatles not to smoke on stage. That was a hard thing for them. You couldn't crack jokes. You had to play songs. You couldn't just chat among you. The Beatles would chat among themselves for like five minutes, and then maybe they'd play something. So he kind of, as Brian would say, smarten them up, and he even went so far as to put them in suits. Can you imagine? I mean, they were in suits, and he changed their image. Was very important to Brian, because Brian knew that if he was going to take this band out of Liverpool to London, where he knew it had to go, then they had to look like somebody who could play on. It was Saturday night at the Palladium, which is tantamount to our Ed Sullivan Show. That was Brian's goal. He wanted them to be in show business. That's that's the way he saw things. And so it was tough for for the Beatles to go that route, but they knew that Brian had their best interest at heart, and he swore to get them a record deal. The first album was called Meet the Beatles. Has Dave Anthony 21:58 a few hits on it. I saw her standing there. Bob Spitz 22:15 Yeah, but what we do is their first single, Love Me, and Ringo didn't play on it Well, I mean, we could go back even a little more. They went there with Pete Best. They knew that Pete Best was not going to be their drummer. They wanted to go after the best drummer in Liverpool, and they knew who that was. It was Richie Starkey, Ringo Starr, and they stole him from another band that was playing around Liverpool, but when he showed up at George Martin's studio, George Martin felt Ringo didn't have the right beat, and so he hired a studio drummer to fill in for Ringo. George said he always regretted doing that later on, because Ringo, as we know it, turned out to be a magnificent drummer. But, you know, they wanted to do anything they could to please this guy. They wanted to get a record out. Dave Anthony 23:19 And of course, in Britain, they become the thing, touring around Britain and working hard, like you said, playing tons of venues, and oh yeah, something happens which is very interesting. In October 63 Ed Sullivan happens to be in London, and he catches wind of this band, or at least sees them returning from a gig in Sweden, and says, My goodness, what's this all about? And through connections, back through to Brian Epstein, he says, I'm going to offer these guys reappearances on my Ed Sullivan Show, which for the audience who's a little bit younger. This show ran from 1948 to 1971 every Sunday Night in America and basically had magicians, musicians, comedians. I mean, it was a variety show. Tell us a little bit about the tectonic shift that occurred on February 9, 1964 when the Beatles appeared on that show? Well, Bob Spitz 24:21 it completely changed culture in the United States. I mean, it was an overnight thing, and I can give you a personal story about it. I watched that show as a 13 year old boy. The next day, I went out to my school bus stop, and all the all the kids that were standing there, all the boys suddenly had beetle haircuts, except one. There was one nasty little boy who said the Beatles will be gone in they're nothing. The Beatles couldn't compare to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. They're imposters. They'll be finished. And that little boy was me. So. I, I really, I saw that show. I couldn't figure out what I was watching. I thought they were complete trash. Yeah, so, because I was a folk singer, I played the real music, the important music. But anyway, that that night in 60 in February, 63 changed everything that we know about America since it it gave all of us a sense of being teenagers. Suddenly felt like they they had, they were invested in something more than just being their parents little kids, right? We have this music. We had a way to look with the long hair we we could had a way of dressing. And we have the language that The Beatles were giving us through their music. It. It was a phenomenal change of culture. And it happened right then. And it Dave Anthony 25:59 just so happened. I mean, they land, of course, and they do a reporters meeting, you know, the press conferences. And they're funny, they're they've got personalities. And while people probably went there, ambivalent towards them, came away, kind of charmed by them, did they not? Bob Spitz 26:13 Well, the press couldn't believe what they were saying. I mean, the Beatles were so smooth. Their comebacks were so witty. They had amazing stage presence. They handled the New York Press. And handling the New York Press, let me assure you, is no easy thing. Me being one of them at one time, they were, they were they were sharp, and they knew how to play to the audience, and they immediately won over all the New York media. Everybody wanted a piece of them. They were on the radio. They were on TV. They made themselves accessible. They leaned out of their hotel windows and waved to the crowds. I mean, they really played the whole part. They were media they were media stars as well as musical stars. And there was just something inside of them that knew how to do this. Nobody knows where that comes from. It was an innate thing, and they all had Speaker 1 27:18 it. Are you a fan of Bob Dylan, The Who Jim Morrison or Bob Marley check out garage to stadiums on Spotify Apple podcasts and more. Dave Anthony 27:27 The next album comes out in April 64 called The Beatles. Second album, and it contains she loves you. Roll Over Beethoven and money. Then in 64 June, A Hard Day's Night comes out and has obviously Hard Day's Night. And I've been working can't buy me love. It also is followed Bob by a pretty seminal movie our day is night. That must have solidified the sort of image and the cultural shift Bob Spitz 28:21 it did. It kind of showed the rest of the world who these Beatles were. Gave them a very good sense of their attitudes and the way they their wit and their charm, their immense charm. Everybody wanted to be the Beatles at that point. Everybody wanted to be a part of these young guys. They were tough, but they weren't too tough. They were witty, but they weren't too witty. You know, they had it all talk about because Dave Anthony 28:50 you were, you were a part of the you were part of that era. Talk about what, how insular American music was like. I don't think people realize what changed the Beatles brought. We've all heard about the British invasion and Beatle mania, but you have to understand how insular American music was. Bob Spitz 29:07 Well, there were no British acts. But also, don't forget, nobody was writing their own songs. I mean, Elvis never wrote his own song, yeah. Good point. Great point. No band did. And so, you know, here, all of a sudden, this band not just writes their own songs, but they're not simpering little pop songs. They have some tooth to them. And you could really, you could really get into it. The one thing the Beatles didn't have, and this is really important, and you can't dance to the Beatles songs. So when, when all of us went to to our friend's house or to sock ops or anything, nobody took Beatles records with them, because you couldn't dance to them. And if you think about it, you can. But anyway, their music was different. Their music was there. Music was personal, and and, and it really spoke to the kids. It wasn't written by 50 year old guys in the Brill Building in New York. It was written by kids their own age, four kids their own age. And it was impossible. It was impossible to ignore it. It really was. Dave Anthony 30:21 While they wrote their own songs, there's a meeting with a pretty seminal figure, someone, have you written about Bob Dylan? And that even changes the songwriting once they've met him. Is that fair to say? Oh, Bob Spitz 30:34 absolutely, they were huge doing fans. They they got that first that they got highway 61 and they played it over and over and over. I mean, they studied it, look, Paul and John, especially, more than the others. They really loved music, and they loved the mechanics of music, and they studied everything. I mean, they really, they cribbed from everybody. They cribbed from Buddy Holly, from Eddie Cochran, from Jerry Lee Lewis, and from Bob Dylan. And they homogenized it, and then they made it their own, and they gave us something entirely new from it. And so, yeah, Dylan was a huge influence on them completely. And I might say, vice versa. Dave Anthony 31:26 Interesting. And what way did this affect Dylan? He grabbed Bob Spitz 31:30 an electric guitar, my friend. He realized that rock and roll was where everything was at Dave Anthony 31:38 right. And, yeah, Dylan goes electric. Huge. Movement itself absolutely Bob Spitz 31:43 and so, you know, one hand watched the other, and all these guys. I mean, you know, now I've been writing about the Rolling Stones for the last five years. They were all interconnected. Yeah, they all they all studied each other. They were friends with each other, and they respected each other. Yeah, Dave Anthony 32:03 yeah. Mick has talked at length about, if there was no Beatles, there might not be the stones at such a level, because the level of competition, friendly competition, up the ante, kept the stones pretty on the edge, Bob Spitz 32:15 absolutely and like the Beatles, the stones also was into Dylan. And really, you know, admired everything he did. So everybody was taking from each other and, you know, molding it into something entirely new. Dave Anthony 32:35 The The other thing that Bob does Dylan for, for the Beatles is introduced them to marijuana, and that listening to Dylan's tunes, being introduced to pot kind of leads to what a more introspective with Rubber Soul and revolver the next albums that come, is it fair to say? Well, Bob Spitz 32:56 you said it completely. I mean, pot took them somewhere else. It wasn't just the fact that they were evolving as young men, but you know, they were opening their minds in many different ways. Dave Anthony 33:14 Rubber Soul released in December 1965 contains Norwegian Wood. Should girl, Michelle, Michelle. And in my life, Speaker 2 33:40 my and revolver, Dave Anthony 33:46 an album released in August 1966 contains got to get you into my life. Speaker 3 33:52 Did I tell you? I need you every single way of my life got to get I got to get you into my life. Dave Anthony 34:04 Eleanor Rigby. Eleanor Speaker 3 34:06 Rigby picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been. Dave Anthony 34:13 Lives in a dream and tomorrow never knows. Turn off your mind, 34:20 relax and float downstream. Downstream. I Bob Spitz 34:25 don't think we would have gotten Rubber Soul, or even, you know, something as simple as Norwegian would without, without Dylan's influence and the influence of of of, you know, cultural drugs, Dave Anthony 34:43 this debauchery on the tours, like, I gotta tell you, I'm in shock at what I read. I know, and you know what goes on on rock tours, but my goodness, you just didn't picture the Beatles as part of the what what sounded like early Led Zeppelin. When I was reading it. Bob Spitz 35:01 Well, yeah, the big difference between the Beatles and the lead and Led Zeppelin was at least the girls at the Beatles went with were age appropriate. But aside from that look, you know, young girls have been throwing themselves at singers and musicians since cavemen, you know, were started to sing it's We saw it with Frank Sinatra. We saw it with Johnny Ray. We saw it again with Elvis Presley, but we saw it to a much greater degree with The Beatles. And one of the reasons that is is I think the Beatles opened young girls fantasies, just as you know, they introduced a lot of us to soft core drugs. The whole idea of sex arose out of their music. I mean, their music was sexy, and it got everybody going. And so the whole relaxation of the sexual code in the early to mid 1960s came about through the folk singers, through the Beatles. And with The Beatles, it just it took off in spades. And the guys, look, the guys weren't angels. You know, they had in Hamburg, they had really gotten a taste of of down and dirty, down and dirty relationships with with the women there, because a lot of them were prostitutes from the street who went with the Beatles and introduced them to a lot of new tricks. But by the time they got to the states, you know, it was like, it was like a feeding frenzy for them. And they were hot blooded young guys. You know, we always think of the Beatles as somehow, like middle aged, or 30 even 35 year old guys. But they were kids. They were they were still, you know, 20 years old, thrown into this all, thrown into this whole maelstrom of of what was coming around them and and the girls were took a center stage with The Beatles. Yeah, without a doubt, Dave Anthony 37:19 the frenzy also continued at concerts through to 1966 their last concert was San Francisco Candlestick Park. They became sick of the what screaming girls. People wouldn't listen to the music. They could barely hear themselves play. And that was a major decision point in the Beatles career. To decide, You know what? Enough with this. We're just going to focus on studio albums. And Bob Spitz 37:44 yeah, it was really George who George pulled the plug on it. He wanted nothing more to do with it. He had, he had had his fill of it, but they were all a little washed out, about as you said, nobody could hear what they were playing. Their shows would last 20 minutes. They do eight, eight to 15 songs in 20 minutes. I mean, their songs were like a minute and a half each, and they'd speed through them. The girls would yell, they'd get off. They couldn't even hear each other. There was no interaction on stage between the guys. And in fact, Paul told me a lot of the times he never even bothered singing. You know, why sing? He just mouthed the words yeah and Dave Anthony 38:31 yeah. You mentioned in your book how Lennon and Harrison would sometimes not even play the chords. They'd just go, whatever. Bob Spitz 38:37 That's right, yeah. And so they got nothing out of it. These were guys who they loved to play. When they played in Liverpool, when they played in Hamburg, it gave them so much joy. It took them out of that poor boy background that they had, and just gave them a couple hours of complete ecstasy. And so music meant a lot to them and for them not to be heard, not to be listened to, it just it didn't pay off. And also, let's not forget that, as you mentioned, their last show in 66 in Candlestick Park. By that time, they were making music that they couldn't duplicate on stage, yeah. And that was a big drawback as well. That's a Dave Anthony 39:25 theme too, that runs through Bob's book is The there's almost a drug era that The Beatles pass through in Hamburg. It's speed amphetamines to sort of keep up the pace with. With Dylan, it's the pot. And then we move kind of to the next few albums where, you know, the mid 60s starts to to introduce the acid. The underlying thing that starts to happen is, of course, like you said, they go into the studio, and the experimentation continues, fueled by kind of the acid world of the mid 60s. And that leads to some significant experimentation. Well, Bob Spitz 40:03 we can even begin with revolver, which I think is the most important album that The Beatles had made. Revolver changes the music. Revolver is definitely as it influenced and it changes the music from Rock and Roll to rock, and that's a completely different element. The songs were no longer two and a half minutes long. They were about subjects that had never been broached before. If you listen to revolver, how does it start? It starts with George coughing and singing a tax man. Yeah. 40:39 The tax man. Bob Spitz 40:47 I mean, whoever wrote a rock and roll song about a tax man before the Beatles were doing something completely different, and, you know, tomorrow never knows, completely influenced by LSD for John and so revolver really set the pace. Revolver took them somewhere else. And I just wanted to comment Dave, because we had talked about them not performing anymore after 66 I think this is the biggest mistake the Beatles made, had they figured out a way to perform? It was at a time when college audiences were starting to listen to the performers. They were actually sitting down at concerts. The music had become more sophisticated, so there wasn't all this screaming and adulation, that's a great point, and throwing yourself on stage. And because the Beatles took them out of that, they took themselves out of that performance element. And only were really performers in the studio. They no longer enjoyed, had that enjoyment of performing. They they stopped developing in that area. And I think what it did was it split them apart. For a couple years, they were making albums in the studio, and important albums we're going to get to Sergeant Pepper, but a claustrophobia set in, and all they had were the four walls of the studio. They didn't have the excitement of performing that again. And for a musician not to perform, that's a tough thing. That's a really hard, hard thing to give up. And I think that really is what eventually rent the Beatles asunder. Dave Anthony 42:35 That's very interesting. Speaker 1 42:37 Want more garage to stadiums. Visit us on Instagram, YouTube, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Dave Anthony 42:44 Let's talk about Sergeant Pepper. And then we're going to get to the personalities of the performers. Because I want to kind of set out the fact that you know this, we're starting to get to the precipice here, and the decline is about to set in with respect to the personalities conflicting, if you will. Did you want to speak about that sort of, you know, Sergeant Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, kind of era, like, what it meant from for the music? Well, Bob Spitz 43:09 well, sure. I mean, look, Sergeant Pepper is generally considered to be the most important rock and roll album ever made. Dave Anthony 43:18 What was it about that album that sort of just impacted everybody. Bob Spitz 43:22 Well, Sergeant peppers is a novelty. Nobody had ever done this before. You know it was Paul came up with this concept. We're going to be a different band, and we're going to put on a show on the record. We won't be the Beatles, we'll be Sergeant Pepper's only Hearts Club Band, and we'll play a concert, and we'll record that concert. And so really, it's nothing more than a novelty. Of course, it became, it's generally regarded as the most important rock and roll album ever. It is certainly not one of my favorites. Yeah, there's so much musical stuff on it that you know hearkens back to the boys parents, who were especially Paul's dad, who was a music hall musician, but But Sergeant peppers caught the attention of the world in a way that No other album had, and it became a huge phenomenon, at one point, the best selling album of all time. And so, you know, it also incorporated a lot of different elements of music, and it had a fascination for people, yeah, and they were playing with us, you know, I mean, they played with, they played with all of our interests, and they did it beautifully. Of course, Day in the Life is a is an astounding piece of work, 4000 holes in 44:59 black, but like a shear. Yeah, but Bob Spitz 45:02 they were that was maybe the precipice, but they were starting on their decline. And of course, and yet, they hit some, some brilliant highs along the road toward the end. Magical Mystery Tour was not one of them. It. It was another gimmick, Another novelty. It didn't didn't really work. Dave Anthony 45:26 Interestingly, George Harrison started experimenting with meditation, and in 1967 he Paul and John attended a lecture in London by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the creator of Transcendental Meditation. That experience sparked a deeper interest in meditation for all the Beatles, leading them to travel to India in early 1968 from February 68 to April, they immersed themselves in daily meditation at the maharishi's ashram. But their time in India wasn't just about inner peace, it was also incredibly productive. Each member of the band wrote a ton of songs, even Ringo, who had never been much of a songwriter, for George. This period was especially transformative. After years of playing second fiddle to Paul and John, he was finally finding his voice as a songwriter and Bob, after the lukewarm reception of Magical Mystery Tour, that massive batch of songs written in India became the foundation for their next album, the 1968 double LP that fans now know as the White Album. Its iconic cover just a plain white jacket with the words The Beatles embossed on it. But Bob Spitz 46:38 then, you know, just when we thought the Beatles were fading, they put out a double White Album. And man alive, if you thought the Beatles were losing it, all you have to do was listen to that album. Dave Anthony 46:51 Yeah, like in the midst of some chaos that was starting in May 68 to begin recording, as you said, The White Album, and it's a vast variety of songs, and each of them is starting to write on their own. At this point, George is starting to enter the picture with his more confident writer. And George Martin talks about the producer how he had to run around the various rooms to kind of keep everybody who was doing their own thing on the rails. That's exactly right. There were so many songs produced by the band that the result was a double album, as Bob said back in the USSR, was written by Paul as a nod to the Chuck Berry and Beach Boys sound that influenced the Beatles. A USSR Blackbird written by Paul about the civil rights struggle of the 1960s 47:48 take these broken wings and learn to Dave Anthony 47:54 fly, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which George wrote. Bob Spitz 48:13 It also marks the time that Paul and John stop writing what they called Eye to eye, they used to sit across from each other on the floor, cross legged with their guitars and note paper and right looking into each other's eyes that kind of fed off each other the and they had done that since they were young kids, And they had done it right up through maybe revolver around that time. But after that, they stop writing together. And as you said, each of the guys are writing on their own. And of course, that takes them further apart from each other, and you begin to see the dissolution of the Beatles, and it's happening in that respect. Also, their business interests are splintering. They open Apple Records. They try to launch an apple studio, they try to launch a clothing store. That's a complete failure. They have a record company. And you know, things are, things are getting away from them. They're getting further and further away from what they do best, which is making making music together. Dave Anthony 49:36 The Beatles even launched an electronics company hoping to invent new technology and almost operate like a venture capital firm. They put out the word that if anyone had a great idea, they should come to Apple's new building in London for potential investment. And people did hundreds of them, but many were swindlers. The Beatles wrote checks for all kinds of ideas, but in the end, none of them really amounted to much. And it's probably it's interesting you say that because. It may be connected to that other great point you made, which is, when you're not on the road, you got extra time. Here they are fiddling with all these business interests, the amount of money they lost and the chaos that was in those businesses. I couldn't believe it. Another key point of Bob's book is how he explores how that took them off track all those business interests and lost them a ton of money, Bob Spitz 50:23 lost them an amazing amount of money. And there was another loss in here as well that we're overlooking, and that's the loss of Brian Epstein. Brian dies during this period, that's right. And as John says when he hears about Brian's death, he looks at Paul and says, now we're fucked. And he meant it. He knew that the one thing, the one person that kept them together, that bound them, that kept them on the straight and narrow, was Brian Epstein. And without Brian, they were all on their own, and and that was tough for the Beatles. You know, Paul had his interest, John had his interests. They were not compat that compatible anymore in that regard. And so you can hear it in the music. If you listen to the White Album, great music on it, but you can tell that's a Paul song, ah, that's a John song. Ah, that's a George song. There's a disparity there and and it was not heading them in the right direction. In Dave Anthony 51:33 addition to releasing historic album after historic album, The Beatles also would regularly release singles between albums such as 1968 iconic Hey Jude And the B side to Hey Jude, was revolution written by John Lennon. We all want to change the world. Thing I wanted to get to here is, let's talk about the personalities of the guys. What are they really like the four of them. And I think from there we're going to start to see some of the seeds that start to lead to the to the breakup, like, Can we start with one of them and then go through all four? Maybe start with sure John. Bob Spitz 52:35 Sure absolutely. So we'll start with John. John, at this point is is really messed up. You know, John has had a tough life. First, his mother dies, and then, just when he's 20 years old, he is forced into marriage by getting his girlfriend, Cynthia, pregnant, a woman that he didn't really love. It was a loveless marriage. Was kind of saddled with a son at a very early age when he was on the road and And so John was really a bitter, bitter guy. John drank to excess. He was really veering towards alcoholism. His experimentation with drugs was much greater than any of the other guys in the band and and of course, he chose Yoko Ono as his as his mate, which was perhaps the best choice for him, but not the best choice for the rest of the band. Paul, on the other hand, became entirely overbearing. And if you ask George what broke up the Beatles, everybody thinks it was Yoko. George would look you right in the eye and go. Paul McCartney, I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him anymore. Paul, kind of took over the recording sessions. You played what Paul wanted you to play. You played how Paul wanted you to play it. He was a perfectionist, but it rubbed the other guys the wrong way, because they had all come into their own as well, and so that was tough for them. Paul was an overbearing guy, but his talent as a musician and as a producer was unmistakable. He had an ear that nobody else in that band had, and let's face it, he's the man who invented the Rock and Roll bass. Every bass player I've ever met, and I've met zillions of them. I was one owes everything to Paul McCartney. We all say it. Let's talk about George a little George was always the third wheel. You know, when Paul and John went on dates. When they were much younger, George would chase behind them six feet. I mean, he was like the kid you didn't want around, and they would look at him and go, get out of here, right? You know? And but of course, we all know that George came into his own with me, with music, not just as a great guitar player, but somebody who developed his own writing style, and yet, Paul and John locked him out as a writer any chance they got. They belittled George's music. They would throw him a bone, maybe allow him one song on an album. And so he became resentful. He became resentful Ringo. Ringo went along with everybody. Ringo. Ringo was a good time guy. He nothing bothered him. He didn't get involved in the internecine fights between the guys. He had no ego where that was concerned. He loved playing the drums, and he knew he had fallen into the greatest gig in the world. And so that's really how the four guys found themselves, as they were growing up and growing apart, right? And by the by the time they make the White Album, they are going their own ways. And there is, there is no, no road back at Dave Anthony 56:23 1.1 of the insights I gained from your book, and I've always wondered why they put up with Yoko Ono being in every meeting, every recording, everything was the five of them now, with Yoko John's Parker in life, Parker and music partner in business, just unbelievable that they couldn't stand up to John. But you painted the picture to say John was so off the rails with heroin usage and so volatile that they sort of didn't want to push him, and so they didn't really know how to confront him about the Yoko thing. It that was an insight for me. And Bob Spitz 56:59 they were also afraid of Yoko. I mean, you know, Yoko was a very self possessed person. She was no kid. She'd been around. She knew how to deal with these guys, and she knew how to deal with, I mean, you know, she knew how to deal with somebody like Paul McCartney, and that wasn't easy, I think, deep down. And Paul has told me this deep down, they knew that yokel was the person responsible for saving John's life. John was an unhappy guy. He was doing drugs to excess, drinking to excess. He was going down the tubes fast, in an era when a lot of our stock stars were going down the tubes, fast, Jim Mars in Jimi, Hendrix, Janis, Joplin, John could have easily gone that route. And I think that Yoko, Yoko pulled him together as much as we all resented Yoko and her interference in the band. I think without Yoko Ono, John. John was a goner and Paul, who was so tapped into John, look, no matter what we think, that they were coming apart at the seams. These guys absolutely loved and respected each other. I see the same thing in Mick and Keith, no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get deep down, the love was so intense that they stuck up for each other. They you know? I mean, look, even when the Beatles were falling apart, if one of them went on vacation, they all went on vacation together. When they when they went on the road as a band, they didn't have individual suites. They booked one suite with a few bedrooms and they doubled up. These guys lived on top of each other. The Bond was so strong that even the money and the women that later interfered and came in between them couldn't reduce the love and respect that they had for each other. Dave Anthony 59:20 Your point about John Lennon is, is another insight in the book, how off the rails he was with the drugs, and I've all and it almost was like he was, he was bitter at how they'd been steered into this good boy image, and how Paul sort of reinforced it, because Paul was so smooth with the press and and and John was almost disappointed that they were painted as the good boys, when really he wanted a more down and dirty kind of approach. Is that fair to say? Oh, Bob Spitz 59:47 absolutely. John would have been better suited in the Rolling Stones. I always thought Brian Jones would have been better suited in the Beatles. They could have done a swap. Up, and everybody would have been happy, but we wouldn't have had the music that we had. Yeah, John resented being put in a suit. He resented following the rules. He liked flying in the face of what the norm was. You know, he liked to shake things up, and, and, and Paul was a good boy. You know, Paul? Paul had always been a good student and always cared about what his parents thought about how he he should act. Yeah, there were different kinds of people. And the incredible thing is that by the time they're 27 years old. They are. They are growing up and growing apart. They they have had this wonderful adult, young adulthood together, but now they're young men. And these young men looked at each other and they went, I don't want that, you know? I don't want to be the rough, acid, drunken guy. I don't want to be the good boy. You know they they were. They had become different people in their late 20s and and they were headed for the divorce mill. It's as simple as that. Did you Dave Anthony 1:01:15 get a sense for how they wrote? I know they wrote together in the early days, but did you get a sense for the type of songs John might write versus Paul, or was there no discernible difference? Bob Spitz 1:01:25 I don't think there was much of a discernible difference. What I found that was really unique was even when they were suing each other, even when they weren't speaking to each other, Paul could get a knock on the door around six o'clock at night and John would be there saying, Listen, I've got this lyric. I can't finish the last line here. What's going on with it, you know? And and Paul took Hey Jude over to John's house to play it for him, because he didn't think the lyrics were any good, and he needed John's input. So, you know, they were still contributing to each other. They still cared enough. And if you saw those videos that showed them that we've seen the last year with them on TV, in in the session, in the final session, you got a sense, yeah, you got a sense of how, how on the same wavelength they still were when it came to music, yeah, when I watched that, I watched John and Paul's eyes, they never took their eyes off of each other. They when, when one of them said something, the other completely intuited it. They they understood it and and that, in a nutshell, is the uniqueness of the Beatles. Yeah, Dave Anthony 1:02:45 the opposites attract and complement each other, and they can also lead to the downfall. Absolutely, Bob Spitz 1:02:50 right? Absolutely Dave Anthony 1:02:52 in 1969 the disagreements were coming to a full head during the recording of the Abbey Road album, Yoko Ono became a constant and distracting presence in recording sessions and even band meetings, as John refused to be alone without her. And the controlling, some say, nitpicking nature of Paul McCartney that Bob spoke about also took its toll on the business front. The band had disagreements over who should represent them now that Brian Epstein, their manager was deceased for almost two years, and that led to acrimonious infighting, particularly between Paul McCartney and the other three members. Despite the tension, the Beatles still produced incredible songs on the Abbey Road album, with two all time classics by George Harrison, something 1:03:42 she moves, attracts me like No other lover. Dave Anthony 1:03:53 And here comes the sun. It's all and come together a song written by John Lennon, and with that, the recording of Abbey Road in the summer of 69 marked the beginning of the end. The album was wrapped up in August, and John Lennon had made up his mind in September, and privately told the band he was leaving, but with Abbey Road set for release Just weeks later, the group kept quiet, unsure if Lennon's decision was final. Fast forward six months on April 10, 1970 Paul McCartney officially announced that he was done with the Beatles Lennon frustrated, felt like he'd already made that call months before. And then there was the album. Let it be, although recorded before Abbey Road, it would not see the light of day until 1970 giving fans one last batch of. Beetle hits before the curtain finally closed with songs like let it be the long and winding road and Speaker 3 1:05:22 winding Road. And get back. Bob Spitz 1:05:41 What we got was a gift from the gods, and we didn't have it long, 10 years, but we got an enormous output of music, 232 songs that will live with us forever. And you got to take what they give you. You know, that's the long and short of it. Dave Anthony 1:06:01 What surprised you about the Beatles in your sort of work and research, was there anything that stood out that you sort of went, wow? Bob Spitz 1:06:10 What stood out for me, most of all, as I was working on it was I realized that I was writing my own life story, everything I was everything I become was because of the Beatles they gave me a sense of who I was, where I was headed, a sense that I didn't have to be a doctor and in college, that I could come out of college and maybe pursue my love of music. I could dress the way I wanted, I could live the way I wanted, I could speak in the language that my contemporaries spoke, which is the language the Beatles put in our mouths. That's what surprised me more than anything. I I just thought I'm writing my own life story here. And I'm not sure if you're aware of this, because the Beatles book that you have that I wrote is 960 pages, but the manuscript was 2800 pages and so and so. There were 1700 pages of fabulous stories. Wow. That Dave Anthony 1:07:13 got cut. That got cut out of it. We need Part Two then. And no, it's never going to happen. I honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I was blown away by all the reveals that you gave us on the band. And I wanted to ask you one question. I mean, their place in music history? Obviously, they're at the top of that pantheon. They've influenced everybody. I mean, who haven't they? Bruce Springsteen talks about seeing them on TV. Virtually everybody. The stones credit them as part of their you know, ascension is there? Exactly, Bob Spitz 1:07:50 right? Yeah, no. Listen, Frank Sinatra did Beatles music, you know, before he died. Look, they've, they've, they changed the way. They changed the culture. I mean, it's as simple as that. And they gave us a song book that will live long past our time, and it really set the pace for everything else that came out of the 60s. We owe the Beatles. We owe the Beatles all of that. What Dave Anthony 1:08:21 we know? How we ask you to pick three songs? Is that even possible in this or should we pick three albums? What do you think? Oh, Bob Spitz 1:08:29 yeah, let me pick three albums. Let me do that. Well, okay, for me, albums number one, revolver and Rubber Soul and, of course, The White Album, I love the early hits. I mean, they were great. Who doesn't love? Love me do. And I saw her standing there. But as a musician, I can tell you that Rubber Soul revolver and the White Album never fail to astound me when I listen to them, and I make sure that I listen to them often. Every time I feel a little jaded about music, I put those on and I put the headphones on, and I am transported somewhere else. I can't even listen to the songs. I start to listen to the components of the songs, and those components blow me away, because as a musician, I know what it took to create those and to I can duplicate those easily, but I could never have created them on my own. And those three albums, you know, revolver, as I said, I I think changed everything. They changed rock and roll into rock. Rubber Soul is, I think the Beatles at their Pinnacle and and the White album is The White Album. There's just so much on there that it. In so many different forms that it takes me away. It really does it. It blows my mind. Dave Anthony 1:10:07 Bob's book, The Beatles, The biography, has sold over a million copies. It still sells well today. And if you want a book that takes you back inside the bedroom of two boys as teenagers who met and changed the course of music history, and want to hear about a band, but from sides that I never knew. I mean, I thought I knew the Beatles and Bob's book reveals so many things about them that you'll be shocked, surprised, elated, and ultimately entertained. And Bob, we want to thank you for writing this gift for us, but also for being here today. Dave, Bob Spitz 1:10:46 it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me Dave Anthony 1:10:52 some closing notes on the Beatles. We talked about the Beatles meditation retreat in India and the multitude of songs it inspired prudence Farrow actress Mia Farrow's sister was the inspiration for Dear Prudence, after she isolated herself in deep meditation in a room for days on end at the maharishi's ashram in India, assigned to look after her, John Lennon and George Harrison tried to coax her at a seclusion Lennon wrote the song as a gentle plea, urging her to open up her eyes come out to play and rejoin the world. Yesterday almost had a different song title before Paul McCartney settled on yesterday. He used the placeholder lyrics, scrambled eggs. Oh my baby, how I love your legs. Yesterday is the most covered song of all time, having been recorded over 3000 times, including by notable artists such as Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley. The 10th of april 1964 The Beatles incredibly, held the top five positions on the Billboard. Hot 100 with Can't Buy Me Love twist and shout. She loves you. I want to hold your hand and in number five, please, please me. And incredibly, they had a total of 12 songs on the charts that week. Where did the Beatles come up with their mop top haircuts? Well, they used to wear their hair in the Teddy boy or greaser style, which was basically greasing your hair back. But while in Germany, in 1961 they began hanging around photographer Astrid Kircher, a well known German photographer. She was dating the Beatles Stu Sutcliffe, who ultimately left the band. So in 1961 she gave Stu the haircut based on how artsy German and French students were wearing their hair at the time. Soon, George Harrison followed suit, and the mop top, as it was labeled three years later by the press, when the Beatles arrived in New York, was born. We outlined the Beatles wild days in Hamburg, especially wild for a 17 year old George Harrison in 1960 while the Beatles were playing in Hamburg, George was actually deported because he was only 17 and too young to be working in clubs. And speaking of Germany, the Beatles even recorded some songs in German. They re recorded, she loves you and I want to hold your hand in German to appeal to their loyal fans there. The Beatles were the first to intentionally use feedback on a record, and it came about accidentally the song I feel fine from 1964 features one of the earliest examples of deliberate guitar feedback in a recording. John accidentally leaned his guitar against an amp, creating the loud feedback. The band liked the sound so much and decided to use feedback in the final take, I bet Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend were probably listening carefully. Hey Jude was originally entitled Hey Jules. Paul McCartney wrote Hey Jude for John Lennon's son, Julian, to comfort him during his parents divorce. The original lyrics were Hey, Jules, but Paul changed it because he thought Jude sounded better, as we discussed with guest Bob Spitz. The Beatles launched Apple Corp in 1968 as a multimedia company, not just a record label. Legal battles with Apple Inc, started by Steve Jobs over the name led to increasing massive settlements from $80,000 from jobs Apple Computer startup in 1978 to Apple paying the Beatles 26 point 5 million in 1991 to a whopping 500 million settlement that Apple paid the Beatles in 2007 Apple Corp still operates Under Paul Ringo and the Lennon and Harrison estates. George Harrison was a huge Monty Python fan. He helped finance Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979 because the original backers pulled out, he even mortgaged his house to do it, calling it the most expensive movie ticket ever. The movie cost 4 million to make and had box office. Proceeds of over 20 million producing a nice return for investor George how many people have met their spouses at a concert? Probably not the way you're about to hear at their famous 1965 Shea Stadium concert in New York. Future Beatles wives Linda Eastman, who married Paul McCartney, and Barbara Bach, who married Ringo Starr were both in attendance as teenagers, but did not yet know their future husbands. As mentioned, the Beatles went through several names in their early days, such as the Quarrymen and Johnny and the moon dogs. John Lennon came up with the name The Beatles due to his admiration for Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly's band, the crickets. They changed the B, E, E, T in the word Beatles to B, E, A, T, to reflect a musical beat. George Harrison died of cancer in Los Angeles in 2001 a George Harrison Memorial tree was planted in LA's iconic Griffith Park in 2002 the tree met an ironic end in 2014 when it was killed by an infestation of wait for it Beatles an irony that would not have been lost on the quick witted, reluctant star. The cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts called band is one of the most iconic covers of all time, designed by Peter Blake and Jan Hayworth. The iconic cover features a collage of life size cutouts of famous figures chosen by a list submitted by each member of the band, among them Bob Dylan, Marlon, Brando, Mae West, Laurel and Hardy, Oscar, Wilde Karl, Marx, Sigmund, Freud, Albert Einstein, and even former Beatle Stu Sutcliffe, who had died years earlier, some of John Lennon's suggestions, like Hitler and Jesus, were ultimately left out. Jesus was also the subject of controversy for The Beatles. In a 1966 magazine interview, John Lennon expressed irony that Beatle mania was demonstrating that among youth, the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, quote, unquote, in retaliation, many US radio stations, particularly in the south, banned the playing of all Beatles records and even organized burning parties. Lennon was incredulous at the backlash, and in Bob's book, he tearfully apologizes in private to the Beatles and manager Brian Epstein for the unintentional consequences his comments caused the Jesus comment was also cited by Mark David Chapman, a 25 year old security guard and Beatles fan, as one of the reasons he shot and killed at Lennon. Chapman was deeply influenced by the Holden Caulfield character in The Catcher in the Rye who routinely called out other characters he perceived as, quote, phony. Enraged by Lennon's past remarks on religion and perceived hypocrisy of living a lavish lifestyle, he emulated Caulfield by perceiving Lennon as a phony, and targeted him in 1980 just outside of his New York City home after shooting Lennon, Chapman remained on the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye. Thanks for making garage sustainers one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram X, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews, visit us at garage to stadiums for more bonus content on all the bands featured, and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify special, thanks to our guest, Bob Spitz, author of The Beatles the biography, thanks to our producers, Amina Fauci and Connor Sanson, our program director Scott Campbell, Creative Director Chad Raymond and video director Nigel Campbell, you've been listening to garage to stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another garage to stadium story, 1:18:59 another blast furnace, labs, production.