Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Beginning of The Beatles Sound: Exploring the Early Influences [Episode 264]

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The Beginning of The Beatles Sound: Exploring the Early Influences [Episode 264] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're totally boomed rock and roll.
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  Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you. You're reading little Hans this.
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  Speaker 2: It's time to rock and roll.
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  Speaker 1: Roll up, I totally booked.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about
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  Speaker 3: to read and rock. Americ Senich with us this episode
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  Speaker 3: are best selling and award winning authors Robert Rodriguez and
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  Speaker 3: Jerry Hammock. The book is called Ribbons of Russ The
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  Speaker 3: Beatles Recording History and Context, Volume one July nineteen fifty
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  Speaker 3: fourth through January nineteen sixty three. Robert and Jerry explore
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  Speaker 3: how the Beatles developed their sound in Liverpool and Hamburg,
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  Speaker 3: drawing an American rock and roll in deeper cultural traditions,
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  Speaker 3: ultimately securing a recording contract with em I. Spending July
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  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four to January nineteen sixty three, the book
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  Speaker 3: details the post war British music scene and the influences
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  Speaker 3: that shaped the Beatles, bringing readers into the studio with
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  Speaker 3: them from early Liverpool recordings to Hamburg essions. Let's talk
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  Speaker 3: to the guys right now about Ribbons of Rust. Thank
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  Speaker 3: you Robert and Jerry for being here.
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  Speaker 4: Great to be here.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Jerry. It's good to see you. Again Robert,
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  Speaker 3: it's great to meet you.
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  Speaker 2: Jerry.
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  Speaker 3: We had you on before, so it's good to have
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  Speaker 3: you back. Ribbons of Rust what a great title. Explain
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  Speaker 3: where that comes from.
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  Speaker 2: It's just referring to audio tape. Basically, it's rusty oxide
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  Speaker 2: stuck to plastic. You know, that's how sound gets to
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  Speaker 2: us in the Beatles era. We thought it was a
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  Speaker 2: poetic way to refer to the medium. And because the
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  Speaker 2: books are involved with their recording history and pretty much
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  Speaker 2: everything that they put to tape that we're able to
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  Speaker 2: hear as fans, Robert and I ultimately are looking to
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  Speaker 2: explore in this series. So we thought it was a
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  Speaker 2: good good foundation and for as people, you know, come
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  Speaker 2: to understand that, if they didn't already, then it helps
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  Speaker 2: them get where these books are coming from, where we're
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  Speaker 2: approaching the history from. It's about the music, It's about
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  Speaker 2: the recordings.
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  Speaker 1: I love it.
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  Speaker 3: The promo for the book reads, quote, the story of
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  Speaker 3: the Beatles has been covered thousands of times in books, memoirs, discographies,
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  Speaker 3: and academic tones, and yet many of these works focus
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  Speaker 3: on their history with little regard to how they experienced
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  Speaker 3: their own times. So tell us what fans can expect
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  Speaker 3: when they look through this book, which also features a
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  Speaker 3: QR code so people can watch and listen along to
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  Speaker 3: the book. So tell us what's inside of this book.
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  Speaker 4: If we did our job right, it would place the
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  Speaker 4: readers into the world of nineteen fifties, early sixties Britain
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  Speaker 4: and Germany from this distance. You look at any Beatle book,
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  Speaker 4: any Beatle history book, all largely in black and white.
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  Speaker 4: And that's also the way a lot of the stuff
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  Speaker 4: is depicted in films, and that was not the world
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  Speaker 4: the Beatles lived. They lived in full color like we
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  Speaker 4: all do. This stuff was you have this tange of
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  Speaker 4: nostalgia to it. Oh how primitive that was, Elvis and
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  Speaker 4: rock and roll, Little Richard. This was exciting new music.
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  Speaker 4: There was no end in sight. Nobody knew how it's
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  Speaker 4: all going to pan out. This was just a new,
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  Speaker 4: exciting thing of the moment, and we're trying to bring
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  Speaker 4: that to the reader. And to that end, it's loaded
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  Speaker 4: with color if you get the standard edition. There's also
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  Speaker 4: a monochrome version, the mono edition for people that the
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  Speaker 4: color access to printing was not available. The use of
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  Speaker 4: the QR codes, which link you directly to either British
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  Speaker 4: Pathday newsreels, which sadly are black and white mostly, but
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  Speaker 4: we've got some color footage also in the book of
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  Speaker 4: the Reaper Bomb since strip red Light District of Hamburg
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  Speaker 4: as the Beatles would have seen it in nineteen sixty.
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  Speaker 4: Throughout the ephemera of the publications, the record sleeves, the
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  Speaker 4: gig posters, all that sort of stuff, we wanted to
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  Speaker 4: place the reader as much as possible into the world
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  Speaker 4: as the Beatles experienced. It's and the music links as well.
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  Speaker 2: There's qure codes throughout the book, and basically, as you
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  Speaker 2: were reading about a particular song that the Beatles were
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  Speaker 2: listening to, it gives the reader the opportunity to listen
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  Speaker 2: to that song themselves, to experience what the Beatles were experiencing.
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  Speaker 2: When we talked about some of the of the TV
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  Speaker 2: that they were that they were seeing around Rock and
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  Speaker 2: Roll six y five Special as an example, there's an
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  Speaker 2: episode of sixty five Special that is that we link
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  Speaker 2: you to so you can again get a get a
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  Speaker 2: feel for what the Beatles were taking in. Because the
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  Speaker 2: book is really to illustrate the Beatles as a part
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  Speaker 2: of their time, not outside of their time, but a
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  Speaker 2: part of their time, influenced by their time, and then
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  Speaker 2: as you move forward you start to see those influences
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  Speaker 2: playing out. As the Beatles are developing their repertoire, as
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  Speaker 2: they're choosing songs that they're playing live, you know where
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  Speaker 2: they're where all this is coming from. So the qrs
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  Speaker 2: allow the reader to get that experience too, of hearing them.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm pretty sure for a lot of readers it
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  Speaker 2: will be the first time. Even though they may have
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  Speaker 2: read about some of these songs that the Beatles liked
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  Speaker 2: and loved and artists that the Beatles liked and loved,
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  Speaker 2: they've never experienced them. They've never heard them. So this
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  Speaker 2: will be their chance to experience the music that the
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  Speaker 2: Beatles were experiencing as they were developing their taste. They
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  Speaker 2: were as they were reflecting on, Hey buddy, Holly can
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  Speaker 2: do that. I could do that. So that's the idea
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  Speaker 2: behind it again, is truly to immerse the reader in
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  Speaker 2: that world and help them, through both the words and
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  Speaker 2: the sounds and images, get a full feel for what
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  Speaker 2: was going on with the Beatles they were as they
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  Speaker 2: were developing their first recordings.
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  Speaker 4: Elder certain thanks that have been in circulation for a
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  Speaker 4: while that might not have been really understood absent the
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  Speaker 4: context that we're presenting here. And an example, Anthology one
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  Speaker 4: has got excerpts from what we call the Fourth land
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  Speaker 4: Road recordings at Paul's house as the teenage mason Quoruman
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  Speaker 4: have a borrowed reel to reel and they're recording themselves
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  Speaker 4: doing instrumentals, doing some covered doing some original material in
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  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty. It's one thing to hear that when you're
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  Speaker 4: listening to Anthnology one, but with the description of okay,
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  Speaker 4: we believe based on the architecture of the house, they
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  Speaker 4: were on the upstairs landing with the microphone in the
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  Speaker 4: bathroom getting some bathroom echo and this is what the
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  Speaker 4: recording we're describing to Easter Week in nineteen sixty, this
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  Speaker 4: is what it sounded like. So you're getting a fuller
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  Speaker 4: picture and then rather than just reading about it, you
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  Speaker 4: get to hear it as well.
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  Speaker 3: And the equipment that's used as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about yeah, which is you know, kind
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  Speaker 2: of my value Wick is serting that kind of kind
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  Speaker 2: of thing out. But yeah, as Roberie was saying, with
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  Speaker 2: the Fourth one Road with the Percy Phillips sessions. We
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  Speaker 2: were able to interact with the Phillips family and get
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  Speaker 2: some details and some information that hadn't come out before.
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  Speaker 2: But we also really described that environment again, so the
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  Speaker 2: readers can can walk into that studio with the Beatles
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  Speaker 2: to do their thing and really get a lay of
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  Speaker 2: the land as they're going in there to put, you know,
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  Speaker 2: to record. That'll be the day and record in spite
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  Speaker 2: of all the danger. So again our goal was to
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  Speaker 2: really I'll use the word immersive a lot here, but
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  Speaker 2: that was the goal. We wanted you to live in
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  Speaker 2: that world for the time that you're within our book.
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  Speaker 3: Understanding their origins and the influences is really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Elvis, I always do.
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  Speaker 3: Elvis was a big influence, but also skiffle music was
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  Speaker 3: that was something that was important.
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  Speaker 1: Early on.
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  Speaker 3: John had a skiffle band and that's when Paul met him.
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  Speaker 3: For those who may not be familiar, what is skiffle music?
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  Speaker 3: And talk about the king of skiffle Lonnie Donegan, because
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  Speaker 3: he played a big role.
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  Speaker 4: He was a member of a There was what was
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  Speaker 4: called trad jazz, which to Americans is dixie land. If
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  Speaker 4: you could picture dixie Land music, that's what a trad
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  Speaker 4: jazz band was in England and that was something that
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  Speaker 4: was experiencing a hate it in the nineteen fifties. So
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  Speaker 4: in Chris Barber's band, it was his guitar player Lonnie Donogan,
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  Speaker 4: and they went into the Decade studio one day in
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  Speaker 4: London to basically document an example of their live set,
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  Speaker 4: so the Jazz Dinner as they would have done, and
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  Speaker 4: they gave the floor over Toilanie to cut some of
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  Speaker 4: in their liveset. They would had a little skiffle interlude
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  Speaker 4: as they called it, and that was where he would
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  Speaker 4: sing what was to American sort of routsy music, blues,
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  Speaker 4: lead belly, it could be country music, stuff like that.
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  Speaker 4: That was incorporated into this record called New Orleans Joys.
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  Speaker 4: It took a while for that recording that was made,
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  Speaker 4: like right on the heels of Elbos going at the
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  Speaker 4: Sun and Memphis recording That's all right, mama, He's happened
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  Speaker 4: almost right on top of each other. But when it
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  Speaker 4: came out, it kicked off what was noticed the skiffle
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  Speaker 4: craze in England among young people because the musicself was
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  Speaker 4: so simple and it tended to be sing along stuff.
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  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of what you think of as
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  Speaker 4: like folk music as it was happening in the fifties
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  Speaker 4: and early sixties in America, and it was a group activity.
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  Speaker 4: You didn't have to have any profound musical ability. These
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  Speaker 4: were three or four chord songs, but there was also
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  Speaker 4: percussion on a washboard, you could put symbols on your
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  Speaker 4: fingers that scrape along a rhythm, a washtub bass, all
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  Speaker 4: these very primitive sort of found object instruments. And that's
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  Speaker 4: in fact, what the term skip originally was applied to
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  Speaker 4: was not the songs per se. It was the method
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  Speaker 4: of reproduction on sort of ad hoc instrumentation. So skiffle
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  Speaker 4: became this thing. It was like a playground phenomenon, if
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  Speaker 4: you would. Everybody who had friends around them thought, is
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  Speaker 4: the great social activity, have fun with your friends, make
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  Speaker 4: some music. And for some artists, I don't think I
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  Speaker 4: talk about this in the book, but Van Morrison was
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  Speaker 4: one that when he heard Lonnie donnage and singing these
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  Speaker 4: American blues tunes, he thought, that's the first time I've
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  Speaker 4: heard of writ a white man singing a song from
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  Speaker 4: a black man convincingly. Maybe there was a path forward
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  Speaker 4: down that path, but at any event, it gave these
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  Speaker 4: kids a leg up to make music. The fat eventually
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  Speaker 4: died out and as rock and roll kind of came
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  Speaker 4: in on its heels, and those who were serious about
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  Speaker 4: making music tended to steer toward rock and roll, which
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  Speaker 4: was very much a looked down upon thing in England
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  Speaker 4: because it was associated with gang violence. It was you
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  Speaker 4: were a hood if you wanted to get his rock
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  Speaker 4: and roll, But the Beatles were enchanted with it. The
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: arrival of Elvis as something like from another planet, that
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  Speaker 4: was what they wanted to pursue, while recognizing they couldn't
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  Speaker 4: be Alvis, but they liked that style of music, and
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  Speaker 4: so the sort of group ethos is what took shape
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  Speaker 4: around them, taking their cues mostly from the Crickets and
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: Buddy hollyt.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah and John and Paul med July sixth, nineteen fifty seven.
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  Speaker 3: Paul was fifteen John sixteen John performing with the quarry
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  Speaker 3: Men Skifful group. This is at a church festival and
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  Speaker 3: there are not only photos of that day, but somebody
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  Speaker 3: managed to capture John's performance on tape. This is amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Who recorded it, what equipment was used and where do
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  Speaker 3: these recordings end up?
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  Speaker 4: The guy's name was Bob Maulino or something like that.
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  Speaker 4: He was a guy that had acquired a tape recorder
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  Speaker 4: reel to reel, which you know, schlepping that thing down
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  Speaker 4: to the garden fete on that day is akin to
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  Speaker 4: like taking a cinder block with you. Was not the
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  Speaker 4: most portable thing. It's not like a cassette or a walkman.
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  Speaker 4: And so he was a serious guy dedicated to I
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  Speaker 4: want to capture the sounds of this day, and sure
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  Speaker 4: enough he did not just the Quariuman's second set that day,
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  Speaker 4: but other sounds of the of the fair that day.
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  Speaker 4: So he recorded the second set of the Quarium in
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  Speaker 4: which came after John and Paul were introduced. Initially they
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: played their opening set outside and then for the evening
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: set they were moved into the actual church hall and
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: that's where that was recorded. So its existence was obviously. Bob,
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  Speaker 4: being a British kid, knew the Beatles when they came
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: along their ascent, and at that time he offered it
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  Speaker 4: to the Beatles. Hey, I've got this tape of the
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  Speaker 4: Quorum and they are you interested? I guess he had
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: a connection to Ringo. Didn't get a response to that. Well,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: if the guy's on tape aren't interested, maybe nobody is,
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  Speaker 4: and then he thereafter recorded a thunderstorm over most of
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: that tape, saving the first two songs that he got.
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  Speaker 4: So it's tragic for us. But in any event, just
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: before the anthology series was produced in the nineties, I
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: guess he decided to put up that tape and that
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: tape recorder for auction, and everybody's thinking, oh, it's going
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: to go for six figures. Actually only EMI. They were
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: the ones that won, and they bid around I think
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: the equipment of seventy five grand and got it. Decided
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  Speaker 4: it was unusable for the anthology project because it's just
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  Speaker 4: way too rough a recording. But when you hear it,
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  Speaker 4: you hear the samples from it that were issued publicly,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: unmistakable voice of young John Lennon belting out Baby Let's
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: Playhouse Elvis and putting on the style Lonnie Dadagan skiffle song.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: So there's the twin influences captured that day from the
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Quarryman set Apple. EMI has held on to it ever since.
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  Speaker 4: It is only the two songs. When I talked to
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Peter Jackson, he said it would be lovely if he
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: can get his hands on it, and sort of demix
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: it the way they did it now and then and
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: maybe make something listenable out of it. But so far
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: as we know that, it's not happened yet.
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  Speaker 2: It's one of those threads of Beatle history of how
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  Speaker 2: could it be that, you know, it just so happens
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  Speaker 2: that on the day they met, You know that John
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Paul met, there's a guy with a real, real machine
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  Speaker 2: who's recording the action, is recording the quarrymen. You know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: how can that? You know, how could that possibly be?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: But there's those little events all sprinkled all throughout the
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: out the Beatles history of things that we, as you know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: as fans decades later, have access to that you you
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: won't find in any other band's history because they just
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: it disappeared. It wasn't you know, it wasn't valuable. A
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: lot of the early Beatles' session tapes were thrown away
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: in a purge of tape at EMI, I think in
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six, So even then, you know, a lot
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: of this stuff wasn't precious. The fact that some of
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: it survived, That the Star Club stuff survived, that the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Garden tape survive is just miraculous to a degree.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like turn a classic movies and taking those
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: old films and cleaning them up and preserving them, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: you wish maybe someday, Yeah, they we could get those recordings.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Just don't colorize them.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Don't colorize them.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Please. Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna need some flyers and set of thirty waight
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: ball bearings. Black friend gets here before him back.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: You can tell them to start without me.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: Hell you need ball bearings. Oh, come on, guys, it's
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: so simple. Maybe you need a refresher course.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's all ball bearings nowadays.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: The addition of George Harrison to the quarry Men, you
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: say the band's musicality took a major advance forward.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Talk about that, Well, he.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Was somebody that everything we know about George Harrison as
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: a person, it was like fully formed by the age
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: of fourteen fifteen in terms of being able to buckle
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: down and work and just grind out the mastery of
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: anything he set his mind to. And of course the
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: parlor tricks he mastered that got him into the core
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: was learning how to play raunchy by Bill Justice and
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: was something believed to be beyond the ability of most people,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: certainly in a skiffle band, and he nailed it with
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: something they would try out to impress people with. It
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: got him into the band over John's graenue subjections to
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: a guy who hadn't had his growth for it yet,
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: looked younger than his fifteen years, and he had this
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: undeniable talent that to that point in The Quarryman, John
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: was surrounding himself with people that the musical talent didn't
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: really matter as long as you're willing to be subserbit
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: into his commentaring personality. But here was a kid who
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: had undeniable chops and the interest and passion for rock
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: and roll and knew his place, and so he was
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: able to win his place into The Quarreyman. It's evident
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: in that first Percy Phillips recording. I'm sure Jerry could
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: speak to this that anything he applied himself to he
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: made better, and that would be the pattern throughout the
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: entire of the Beald's career for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, George was the type of guitar player that wasn't
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: necessarily spontaneous, but once he he set himself to learn
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: something musically, he would just work it, and work it
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: and work it until it was his, until muscle muscle
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: memory more or less took over. I believe a great
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: deal of the Beatles' famous work ethic around rehearsal and
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: repetitive rehearsal that we see exposed toward the end of
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: their career with the Nagara Reels and the Let It
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Be Sessions is a George influence rather than a John
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Paul influence. And I say that simply because Lennon inherently impatient.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: McCartney gifted to a degree that he could do it
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  Speaker 2: off the cuff. But George, he wasn't that kind of guy.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: You know. He wasn't lazy, and he wasn't spontaneous. But
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: he worked it out and worked it out, and worked
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: it through and worked it through and got the result.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And I believe he brought that ethic to the Beatles
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: of we get it there by playing it and playing
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: it and playing it and playing it and playing it.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And you see that again, we get to see that
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: within the Naga Reels on the Let It Be Sessions,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: where over the days of work at and Apple Studios
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: that they are getting every time you hear the songs,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: they're a little bit closer, a little bit closer, a
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: little bit closer, a little bit closer, until they have it,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: and when they have it, they track it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I always had this idea that George, towards the end
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: of the Beatles started to develop the skills, the songwriting skills,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: along with everything else, and then he got to that
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: point where he's like, I'm ready to I could do
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: this on my own, but just from what you're saying
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: and from reading the book, he had an influence all
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: the way back to the beginning, which I think is interesting.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: In this early day, it was John and Paul writing
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: the songs, and they were in the driver's sept for
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: most of the Beatles' career, and George didn't aspire to
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: be a songwriter per se. But that doesn't mean he's
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: not a composer, because what he would do was write
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: for solos and in fact, on that first person Phillips
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: recording the original art to in spite of all the danger,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: he gets the co credit because he wrote the solo
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: that he plays. And that's the way Paul thought, that's
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: how crediting is meant to be is if you compose
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: a bit of melody that enhances the song, then you
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: deserve a co write credit, but that practice spelled by
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: the wayside once he figured out, Oh you mean you
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: don't get a credit for that. Okay, it's just your job. Nonetheless,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: it's it was George's role in the Beatles. We find
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: out more and more through the years of riffs that
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: he wrote on Lennon McCartney songs or just key instrumental
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: parts that make those songs booky and memorable. He just
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: saw as his job and he contributed and it enhanced
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: the material.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Man for publishing reasons though, that's a big deal. Either
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: you're named or you're not.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Uh huh, yeah. Publishing is where the money.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Is, so he'll tell you yeah, which.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Was good for him to Eventually, when George got a
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: couple of B sides, you know, Lady Madonna or Belli,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Johnnyoko gets these these singles that he's going to make
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: as much royalty as the A side, I.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Was gonna say, that's Paul Ball Michael Jackson.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Who took took all the.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Ownership of the Beatles publishing.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: The well, yeah, yeah, I I don't have a lot
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: of compassion there when I when I see, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: a scene in the in the Peter Jackson get back
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: where Paul's hanging out with Dick James. I believe Dick James. Yeah, yeah,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: and he's going over the catalogs that he just bought,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: you know, all.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: These nineteen twelve songs that they're making fun of the
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: titles of.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well but they were money making catalogs of
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: other artists material. So it's just, you know, that's the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: way publishing works.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: That's how publishing works. I don't know what Dick James
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: thought he was buying in nineteen sixty nine that would
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: be of infinite value going forward. There's probably a reason
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: he got it relatively cheap. I don't think there was
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: much call for World War One songs back at that time,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: but maybe I'm mistaken.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Take us back to that very first recording session by
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: the quarry Man. Where did it take place, who made
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: up the lineup? And then the precise date that's kind
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: of up for debate.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: The session was July twelfth at Percy Phillips studio, and
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: his studio was in a room within his business, which
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: was an electronics repair business. Just to kind of a
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: ramshackle set up. He had a little mixer, he had
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: a small tape deck and he had a disc cutting system,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: an MSS discutting system. Everyone recorded in the room around
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a couple of just a couple of microphones was all.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: They had a couple of dynamic microphones in the old tradition.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You know, when it's your turn to play or to
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: be highlighted, you step up to the microphone and you
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: step away when you're done. You know, that's the that's
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the way you balance volume in those situations. And the
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: full original quarryband lineup, wasn't it Robert that was that
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: was there? Yeah?
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well it was there the lineup as it existed
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: when George joined. So you had Colin Hanton on drums,
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: Ken Brown on piano, and then John Paul and George
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Noflow I'm sorry not Ken Brown on piano.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Dufflow piano. Even at that point it was it was
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: John Paul and George's band. Because they get they get through,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: that'll be the day. And then when they go on
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: to in spite of all the danger, there's no place
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: for the other two musicians in that. They hadn't been involved,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: they hadn't been included. So if there was a message
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: of you're sort of in the band, you get it
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: there when we've got our one chance now that we're
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: going to record together, and we're only gonna partially record together.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: You know, you guys, we don't need you for this one.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Surplus to requirements.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, surplus requirements and in spite of all the danger
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: credited to Paul and George. But it's not known exactly
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: when John and Paul commenced collaborating. Did they quickly developed
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: that chemistry, did it take time?
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: It seems like they did pretty early on after they met,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: and once they sussed out that each of them was
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: writing original material. Of the things that impressed Paul the
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: first day he saw John performing was while he he
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: certainly was playing peculiar fingering of chords using banjo chords
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: on guitar where he didn't know lyrics, he apparently was
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: making them up on the spot, and they were witty,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: and that was something that really Paul was wild by.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: He's like, wow, he's making up things that scan well,
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: that's cool. And Paul had himself written a few compositions
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: by a time. He's got even one that lived on
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: for decades after pre rock and roll, called Suicide that
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: he put a little bit of it on his debut
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: album solo and tried to get Prank Sinatra recorded. But
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: in any event, it became the kind of thing where
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: I think the real dynamic between them was once they
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: figured out each other had some kind of gift that
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: the other really admired, and that they both were on
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: the same page in terms of taste, in terms of
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: being these connoisseurs of rock and roll, that out of convenience,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: if nothing else, they could help each other. Where one
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: of them might have started this and then got stuck
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: and the other would hear and go, oh, you should
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: go here now, and then circle back to this. So
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: it became this sort of partnership out of editing each
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: other's material, which would carry on all through the whole
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: of the Beatles' career, as well as consciously sitting down, Okay,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: we're going to write a song together. And it was
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: a point of great pride for them that they filled
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: notebooks with this stuff, so much so that the very
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: first press the Beatles got any kind of national publication
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: come the release of Love Me Do That that story
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: of the one hundred original tunes was mentioned in that article,
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: although betal historians had first of all questioned it was
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: ever one hundred tunes, and second they don't I aren't
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: known to exist because at some point during a house cleaning,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: Jane Asher is blamed for having thrown the notebook out.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: But certainly they had at least dozens of original collaborations
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: that they seem to have very little effort recalling. Come
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: to January nineteen sixty nine get Back sessions, when they're
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: throwing this stuff into the air, and they tunes they
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: haven't thought about in years, they're able to play pretty well.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Jude Kessler was talking to recently John Lennon, historian, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: she is talking about John and Paul were writing together
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: up until and through Rubber Soul, and then after that
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: it was more of a competitive thing.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Is that I think it was always competitive, but they
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: never stopped collaborating. And again we know this because of
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: so much of the Get Back project is documented, and
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: you've got conversations on the nagrotapes, as Jerry alluded to,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: and just as a sort of sidebar in a discussion
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Paul is having outside of John's earshot because he hadn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: shown up with the studio yet. We're talking nineteen sixty eight,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: the year they went to Rishikesh the year that they
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: wrote this bounty of material that ended up being spread
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: across the Double White album. But he's talking about working
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: on I Will with John in a regular writing session
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: and that he felt a little cloud by Joko's presence,
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: that suddenly it's going to deviate off the songwriter path
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: to trying to be abstract and artistic and write about
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: white walls or something. But Yoko's in the group, so
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: we know it existed at least as late as that.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: We also know prior to the Get Back sessions starting up,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: that John and he had taken two separate songs and
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: fused them together, creating I got a feeling. So they
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: absolutely did work and edit each other's stuff. You know
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: the famous Hey Jude's story about you're going to keep
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: that line the movement you need is on your shoulder.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: That's all directly taking John's input on a song that
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: he largely wrote himself.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: When you have a couple of songwriters in a band,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: they can't help but feed off of each other. There's
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: just no way around it, and there's no way around
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: the inherent competition that comes from that. So suddenly that
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: they inspire you to get to work and get another
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: song out. But you're hearing something and you're like, oh,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that's cool, I could do and fill in the blank.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: And so that aspect of them inspiring each other to
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: do the work that needed to be done over the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: long run, that was there the entire career. The fact
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: that they had worked together so effectively and had built
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: a trust that if I'm missing something, I can put
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: it in front of the other and we'll get it
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: sorted out. Well, we'll figure it out. That became just
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: second nature. And the intercession that John, Paul and George
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: all had with each other of let's do this, it'll
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: make the song better, or you should go there, or
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: we should repeat that. All of those structured things beyond
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: the core songwriting, that collaboration was there at the start,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and it was there at the end and never changed.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: There's an example that in Get the Get Back film,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: where it's sort of tossed out there, not seemingly for
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: any serious consideration, but the song that the world would
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: know a couple of years later is give me some truth.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: It is evident that John and Paul have already worked
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: on this song together, and in fact, there's a hint
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: that Paul in fact submitted a substantial part of the
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: at least then you've got George bringing I me mine
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: it's a waltz, but got this flamenco part in there.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: They eventually drop while Paul sort of steers them into
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: what becomes the song's eventual bridge.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Ah, I mean me my part.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: So it was still they had their moments of being egalitarian,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: where whoever's got the best idea in the room would
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: get incorporated into the finished product.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Rock and roll took a little while to pick up
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: steam in the UK, but in nineteen fifty six, Alan
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Friede radio show Jamboree, along with the TV show Cool
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: for Cats with Kent Walton, got a foothold on the UK.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: How influential were those shows to the development of the
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: beatles rock and roll sound, I.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Would say less so the TV, although it was another
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: outlet for them getting access to rock and roll. As
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: we try to point out in the book, it's hard
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: to a reader of the twenty first century to imagine
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: a world where basically consumers could access rock and roll
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: through a keyhole. It was not this tune on any
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: rate D station and get it what you want and
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: you couldn't just download it. It was not that accessible.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: BBC was the corporate airways ruling Britain. They certainly weren't
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: going to be showcasing rock and roll for the foreseeable future.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: And Radio Luxembourg was something coming off the continent that
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: they had access to. They had this programming, certainly on
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Saturday nights where Jam Beree and Alan Freed was being broadcast.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: They had Country and Western and other stuff throughout the week.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: So they had that sort of access to stuff being
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: broadcast straight out of America. And I've heard air checks
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: of this stuff of that period. It's kind of amazing
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: because you think, well, the cream of rock and roll
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: at the time, elbos Chuck Berry, Little Richard, you expect
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: to be hearing that, but instead you're hearing basically anything
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: within the genre of actually we've never even heard of
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: that didn't have a prayer of being played on radio.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: That's the stuff that they're getting access to as well.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: So they're getting exposed to the overall sound and all
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: kinds of American music and clearly they were enthralled with it. Then,
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: as we talk about in the book as well, you
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: could walk into a record store in England, and there's
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: a lot that's been written about the Cunard Yanks and
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: the port city of Liverpool having access to all this
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: American rock and roll that might not have been available
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: in London. It's a bit overstated because there was a
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: lot of American rock and roll that did find British outlets,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: So there were British pressings of this stuff. But they
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: could go to a record store anytime they want and
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: listen in a listening booth to the latest releases coming through,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: and you know, without purchasing, they got to get familiar,
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe played a few times, write the words down,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: the core changes. So that was another way they had
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: access to American rock and roll.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Book down rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: During our brief intermssion, let's take a flying trip from
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Lambda fantasy to everyday life.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Interesting to read about that period with Stuart Sarcliffe and
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: the band because it offers a glimpse into the rock
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: and roll canon that they were presenting. Elvis, Little Richard,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Buddy Holly, you mentioned them, Everly Brothers, Jeene vincent A,
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: and there's an amazing photo of the Beatles lineup of
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: John Paul George with Pete Bess and Stuart Suckliffe in
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: the band. This is at the Hamburg Funfair November of
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty. This is the period where we see the
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: band hone their performance skills. Between nineteen sixty and nineteen
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: sixty two. You write quote Hamburg proved to be there
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: making as a stage act that stirred a synergy with
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: their audience, without which they might never have found the
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: resources to slog onward in the face of such adverse challenges.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Talk about the importance of that period, Well.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It was so important, and what came out in their
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: work in Hamburg was the fact that they were willing
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: to suffer. They were willing to suffer and do the
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: work required to get the attention that they desired. You know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: they were a pretty ragamuffin band when they when they
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: first got to Hamburg, to the degree that other bands
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: there were like, don't send the beatles, you know, don't
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: send the beatles. They're going to ruin it for us.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: We got a group, we got a good scene going here.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: The other a bum group. And it may very well
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: be true when they hit the ground, but there's a
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: crucible you go through when you have when you have
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: to do the work, when you have to show up
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: and do the work, and night after night, the Beatles
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: had to figure out how to take what started as
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: a limited repertoire and make it last for the sessions
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: they were playing. That was the start of it. As
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: they gained confidence in both performance in musicianship, then they
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: started expanding the repertoire to stuff that they like. And
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: of course, as with all musicians, the more practiced you get,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: the easier it is and the quicker you can bring
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: on new material that Paul and John in particular were
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: kind of built for the stage. They loved the spotlight
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: that they you know, they loved attention. That was another
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: factor for them that allowed them to differentiate themselves from
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: other acts. So there they are doing I think they
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: did what was Robert through or four hours a night?
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Was that it up up to six depending on the
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: night of the week. I think it was longer on
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: the weekends. But they had like fifteen minute hourly breaks.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: But when you figure that, a rock and roll song
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: of the day is maybe two minutes long, and they're
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: on speed, so they're gonna, you know, Ramon's Temple go
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: through that maybe a minute and a half. They got
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: an awful lot of time to fill out. So that
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: was when they did take to stretching out. You know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: you hear the stories of what I'd say stretched out
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: to half hour in length. They're thrown in pop standards,
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: show tunes, all kinds of stuff, every song that they
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: have popped into their head that they could master and
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: sucks out. They're doing all this stuff because they've got
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: to fill that time and put on a show. It's
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: really about putting on a show. And the astonishing thing
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: when we talked about the one hundred originals, whatever the
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: number actually was, there was no call for original tunes
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: in Hamburg to fill up with big sets, so they
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: had to get awfully creative on their feet in front
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: of tough, gangster and drunken sailor audiences to keep them entertained.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: That might not have been their primary goal. Their primary
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: goal I think was as writers, they wanted to make records,
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: and they have a hit record. But this was the
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: path that ultimately took them to a point where they
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: became an act that was sensitive to what their audiences
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: wanted to hear. And yet they could take this mountain
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: that they'd built upon of material and in their eyes,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: better it and take it somewhere further records they loved,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: and I think that is a big, huge key to
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: the Beagle success is that they were so astonishingly receptive
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: to all kinds of music and knew how to purpose
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: it to their own ends.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: It was a very direct thing when in that stage
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: environment where you'd get feedback immediately. You know, if the
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: audience is dancing and laughing and clapping and enjoying it,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: we probably want to keep that song in the set.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: If they are quiet or throwing things at us, probably
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: don't need to pursue mastering that particular track. As Robert
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: pointed out, there's a balance there of you know, if
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: you think of from the band's point of view, stuff
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: that we want to play and stuff that the audience
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: wants to hear, and throughout their career, the Beatles, and
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: starting with Hamburg, the Beatles seem to have an understanding
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: of that balance where they're having a good time, but
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: this is stuff that engages the audience as well. Throughout
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: their entire canon, there are very few missed opportunities or
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: songs that you're like, well, mister Moonlight, maybe what do
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: they ever see in that But mister Moonlight, within its
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Hamburg implementations, it's pretty rock and track.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And people talked about the deck of audition tape, as
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: we talk about in the book, that why are they
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: doing all these novelty numbers chiicavera Bee and pretty cool
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: cats things like that. Well, there was a reason, the
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: reason they went over well with their audiences so much so,
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: I think I've got a quote in the book where
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: somebody who is a regular attendee at the Caverne shows
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: didn't think of them as a rock and rollof but
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: she thought of them as a musical comedy act. And wow,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: that was that was their appeal. They put on a
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: show and they delivered the musical goods.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Booked on rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this, always
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: emotion in the future.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Robert Rodriguez and Jerry Hammick are authors of the new
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: book titled Ribbons of Russ The Beatles Recording History in Context,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Volume one, July nineteen fifty four through January nineteen sixty three.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you about some of the things
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: that maybe have come to light over the years, like
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: pieces of the Beatles puzzle that have come to light
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: some of the things that stand out, some of the
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: things that have been lost. Like you mentioned an acetate
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: that documented the first time John, Paul, George and Ringo
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: recorded together that once existed it no longer exists.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Is that the acoustic session summertime?
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And again this work wasn't special to anybody in
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: particular at the time, and who would have known, Who
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: would have thought? This is just another And if you've
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: ever worked around recording studios, and I worked on traditional
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: recording studios, you'd get, you know, volumes of tapes that
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: are there you're storing for the band because they don't
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: have anything to play it on and it doesn't go anywhere,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: and you know, after after a time, you'd call those
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: guys and, hey, your tapes are here, you know, do
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: you want them to know? You never get an answer
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: you've been them, or it just gets lost in handoff
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: between hey, I want to hear that, I want to
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: hear that. I want to hear that. Who's got it?
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know. So it could be this acoustic decisions
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: out there somewhere and it may pop up again, but
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: again it's not It's not an unusual thing when you
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: if you consider for a moment that at this period
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: and for a while, the Beatles aren't special. You know,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: the Beatles aren't special. Robert talks about really nicely about
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: how there was an actually Robert maybe share the story
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: of the other band that recorded, rehearsed and tried to
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: get a deal with Decca on that in that time.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, you know, with the Troubles. Yeah, I think logistically
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: worked in their favor is why they got signed rather
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: than the Beatles that day, just because they were local
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: boys from London, rather than people had to schlep in
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: from Liverpool three or four hours away. And even beyond that,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: this is the thing that it's one thing to leave
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: the sole copy of Summertime in the back of a
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: cab because you're drunk that night, as El Williams apparently did,
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: or the Percy Phillips recording One After nine oh nine
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: somehow slipping through the cracks because nobody can remember the
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: last person who was listening to it, but after they
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: were clearly a worldwide phenomenon, something that people are going
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: to be listening to forever. You've got United artists disposing
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: of the outtakes of a hard day's night, help in
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: nineteen seventy you've got the BBC wiping TV performances of
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: the Beatles because tape is expensive, and who's going to
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: care about the Beatles in nineteen sixty nine, that kind
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: of story over and over again. So we're incredibly lucky
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: to have what we do have, but we could have
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: had so much more. And who knew in twenty first
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: century would be analyzing to a degree of minutia every
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: move the Beatles made and everything they ever committed to
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: film or videotape or exact audiotape.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. The just reading a book on the
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Zombies and I'm going to be doing the interview this
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: weekend with the author and John blank on the guy's name,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: But it was the guy who said no to the
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Beatles signed the Zombies like right away because he learned
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: from his mistake. And what's his name again, Dick Rowe, right,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Dick Rowe? Yeah, yeah, And the zombie said we were
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: doing a gig and he just walked after the show,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: walked up to us and didn't even say I'm interested.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: It's just like, when can you when can you sign
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: the deal? Let's go, because.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: He he just it could be the next Beatles.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Right, you know, He's like, I don't want to make
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: that mistake again. Yeah. Yeah. One of the many interesting
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: images in the book is a handwritten set list from
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: a January seventeenth, nineteen sixty three concert in Birkenhead at
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: the Majestic Ballroom. And you say this depicts the Beatles
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: transition to recording artists. Where did you find this set list?
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: I got it up in front of me here.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: It's something that's been circulating in fandom in recent years,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: and I think it might have even gone up for auction.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: I know that recently on eBay there was somebody's notebook
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: that was a cavern attendee where they wrote down every
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: single song that the Beatles ever played there. Like, so
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: this was not one evening set. It was like a
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: notebook that they diligently tracked every cover they ever heard
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: the Beatles play. This could have been lunchtime sessions, they
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: could have been evening sessions. So it seems strange at
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: this distance that somebody was enough of a fan of
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: the Beatles before the Beatles Writt Big, as we would
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: know later took off, that they thought it was worth
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: writing down and preserving this history and maybe it was
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: just for their own secons. Oh, the Beatles are the
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: ones that do best on Moucho. Okay, cool, It's just
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: astonishing though. Let's take it sixty years for the stuff
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: to emerge, just as what was it a year ago
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: j area that there was like back to back two
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: live recordings of the Beatles from nineteen sixty three that
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: nobody really knew about. Surface One was then performing at
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: that boys' school in Stow. The other was them like
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: I think the next day doing a session at EMI
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: Manchester Square, just running through. I think there was they
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: were gearing up to promote for media or something, but
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: they played live at EMI a handful of songs and
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: somebody taped it. It sounds great, so it is astonishing.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: And then there's the story, as we mentioned the book
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: of people hot wiring their TV to record in the
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: autumn of nineteen sixty two Beatle performances on the tube.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: You know, you can't just know, whip out your VHS
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: tape and get this stuff. Somebody had presence of mind
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: enough because there were fans enough of the Beatles they
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: wanted to document this, and certainly the networks weren't going
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: to do it, but it was a good piece of
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: the that we write about in the book, because poor
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: Pete Best has been pillar read ever since the release
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: of Anthology. For his performance of Love Me Do, we're
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: midway through the instrumental break, he decides to greatly shift
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: the rhythm and they're like, what happened? Did you have
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: a stroke at that moment? Why are you suddenly changing
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: the sung? And then this performance from the autumn of
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty two on TV with Ringo doing exactly the
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: same thing that Pete did that apparently this was their
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: live arrangement of Love May Do for whatever reason, it's
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: not the record version, which was already out and tracked
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: in the studio. So it's interesting little things like this
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: to add further pieces to the puzzle. So we can
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: now acquit Pete Best of not showing terrible judgment. It
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: was just their arrangement.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because the thing is there still there could be
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: someone out there right now who's the son or daughter
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: or grandson or granddaughter or whatever family member who just says,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: do you know, I was cleaning out the attic one
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: day and I saw this tape, and that's still possible.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Rights the excitement I guess as a Beatles fan that
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: there's still could be more out there that we're not
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: aware of.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: And that's how the fourth one tapes surfaced was literally
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: somebody in an attic, I think they found their grandfather's
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: tape recorder and lo and beholder's reels of tape of
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: the nascent Quarium and rehearsing from that machine in the
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: early nineteen sixties. So that surfaced in the nineties. It's
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: just amazing. We know what some things that are lost,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: and there's things that we never ever thought we'd experienced
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: suddenly turn up one day.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: At this point too, we're still waiting to get more information,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: but there are the original is it six September em
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I tapes? That the tape, Yeah, that supposedly Emeric got
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: his hands on. So the very first time the Beatles
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: are in the studio and they're doing Best in Me
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Moucho and they're doing with Pete Best, Yeah, with Pete Best.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: And supposedly, yes, supposedly that tape is out there and
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: the Americ Estate has it.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: You know, do they a lot of questions on that one?
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we all we all love to hear it. We
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: love you know, the contents of the tape are somewhat
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: known with studio logs, but not completely. And I'm sure
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: you know there's you know, for those of us that
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: care about that minutia, there's going there would be revelations
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: in getting our ears on that.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: I'm sure there's a plenty of people. There's the Beatles
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: fan community that would love to see it.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: They tend to acquire stuff, and then it disappears into
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: the black hole of Apple's vault. That you know, we
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: knew about the Qureyman tape the day John and Paul
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: met em I had it. Yet it's not an anthology.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: There are other things. There is a cavern live set
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: of the Beatles in the summer of sixty two prior
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: to Ringo joining that we know exists from like July
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: sixty two, the last days of Peaked Best. It got
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: bought out an auction. Have we heard it, No, we
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: have not. And now we've got the tools to make
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: it better and sonically improved and listenable if somebody cares
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: to do that. So they had this great revulsion and
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: disdain towards the Star Club tapes. At least it got
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: out for a while, but then they went to court
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: George testified against it being an invalid deal, and they've
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: acquired that and it's not saying legitimate issue. Now the
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: word is Peter Jackson bought them and is doing his
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: thing on it. But Apple has no interest in putting
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: it out. So they seem to have a mindset of
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: if it's not listenable and accessible and pleasant, rather than no,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: it's historic and it shines light on history that we've
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: only read about to this point. Why can't you make
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: it available? You know, there are plenty of people in
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: the world that would make it worth your while.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: It's interesting to the degree that the Beatles are not archivists,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: you know, and the Beatles organization, the Apple organization are
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: not truly archivists. They're always when they give us anything,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: they give us about eighty percent of it, and then
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: they are very careful to polish that up as as
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: nice and pretty and inoffensively as possible. It's almost like
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: there's still trying to please, you know, please mister Epstein,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: and please mister Martin, and please mister whoever you know,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: the powers that be. You know, we don't want to
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: upset them, you know, those those gentlemen are writing our checks.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: It's almost as if that's you know, that's the mindset
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: within Apple. And it's difficult to justify when you know,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: the Beatles have been around for sixty plus years and
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: they have entered this period historically where everything around their
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: history has meaning to a pretty sizable, you know, commercial
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: audience still, and yet they choose not to address that
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: audience or give that audience a little more of what
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: they would enjoy and give us all a more balanced
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: understanding of the band. They're still protecting their image.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: It's like finding a piece of a letter from Abe
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Lincoln and well, you can't read the whole thing, so
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: why bother letting anybody see.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: The questionable language?
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Right? So, but the Beatles are so far beyond just
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: a popular band that they're part of the history of
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: this not that culture, culture the worldwide.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a sad world where Rhino treats the Monkey's
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: legacy better than EMI treats the Beatles in terms of
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: serving the fans.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and again it requires that you allow a
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: historic mindset to it. And I and I think you know, unfortunately,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: as long as we've got Ringo and Paul around, that's
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: not going to happen. They're not going to get that opportunity.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Those that are controlling, you know, the Lenon and Harrison
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: states again, rather than give us a deep dive into
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: what happened, what they did, what was there, what it means,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: they are looking at repurposing the work to make something new,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: you know, out of something old, rather than let something
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: old be what it is and allow us to get
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: a full experience of that. I find it kind of
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: a drag that efforts being you know, spent on what
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: was the imagined the imagined project. Yeah, the ultimate mix,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: you know that that's where the energy's going rather now
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: and then Yeah, mixed field, very mixed feelings on all
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: of that. I you know, as a historian, I guess
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I want to I want the real stuff. I want
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: the real stuff. I want it real, I want it raw,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: I want it. I want the best version of that
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: that they can give me. You know, I want Peter
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Jackson to go and clean up the Star Club tapes.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Let me hear what was there. Don't take it out
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: of mono, but let me hear what was there. Don't
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: rebalance it, don't remix it. Let me hear what was there.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: As best that I could hear it, that's all I want,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and across their catalog, the Beatles catalog, that's all I want.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: I've never been a huge fan of the Jiles Martin remixes,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: the remasters I enjoyed. The two thousand and nine remasters
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed because again that gave me clarity around what
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: was already there. It just brought it, just cleaned it
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: up for my ears. But when you're working with a
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: master tape, you're not making different decisions about relative levels
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: or effects or things that are used. That's what I
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: would hope eventually we get out of the Beatles camp
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: is an appreciation of the value of things, just the
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: way that they did that work, and not trying to
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: make the next product that they're going to sell ex
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: units of out of it.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Book rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Your honor like to ask for a recess.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Talk about the early influences in the book you write
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: quote abundant proof exists demonstrating that the Beatles paid scrupulous
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: attention to the work of their peers and the up
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: and comers from the start of their career until the end.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Let's go to the.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Early song and albums by the Beatles. I'm curious, sister,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: do you hear any influences in those like say, sixty
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: three through sixty five before we get to Rubbersoul. Who
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: do you hear in the music? Is it Roy Orbison,
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Everly Brothers, A little mix of everything?
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, definitely a lot of R and B X for
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: sure motown s. This is the curious fact to it.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: I didn't put in the book because I'd read it elsewhere.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: I figured maybe the fans know this by now, but
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: I'll say it here. Is that you want to know
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: when the first time a motown song got played on
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: BBC radio. It was when the Beatles did a cover
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: of Please Mister Postman in early sixty two. Miracles hadn't
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: even got played on BBC radio. Yes, so that was
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: an act that they paid so much attention to. We
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: do talk in the book about Ask Me Why, being
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: very likely influenced by the Miracles single What's So Good
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: About Goodbye? Not one of their great hits, as we know,
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: played on Olies radio now, but something in nineteen sixty
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: two they would have been well aware of. So you've
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: got acts like that. You've got certainly by the time
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: of the Help album in nineteen sixty five Arguablie, even
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: before that with I'm a Loser in sixty four Beals
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: for Sale. Clearly there's Bob Dylan creeping into their sound.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: There are pictures of them holding up a copy of
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: Free Wheeling, taken on their first US visit when they
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: were gifted boxing records from Columbia Beach Boys. They hopped
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: to being influenced by certainly by the time of Pet
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: Sounds and Revolver and Pepper, that was something that was
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: creeping into their work, even the Birds. I talked about
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: this in the Revolver book that they evolved super fast
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: from a bunch of folkies that went electric when they
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: saw George Harrison playing a ricord Backer twelve string in
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: a hard day's night. Suddenly there are the kings of
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: folk rock, sort of electrifying folk sound. Even before Dylan
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: plays Newport, but early sixty six they put out this
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: single that's channeling David Crosby's interest in Robbie Shankar as
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: well as John Coltrane Eight Miles Hot. This modal passage
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: that is the instrumental break of that song, and the
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: Beatles are also set to walk into studio record revolver
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: when that single breaks in Britain and gets played, and
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Adam was a song crafted for AM radio airplay, and
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: it's bringing these these experimental elements. In sixty five, before
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: the Beatles even did Norwegian would, the Eastern sound was
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: creeping into pop music. See My Friends by the Kinks
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: was a sort of droning Eastern sounding record, and earlier
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: that year the Yardbirds had attempted to record an actual
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: sitar on the first take a Heart Full of Soul.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: It didn't work out, but the tape exists, so we
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: know that they actually did this before they got Jeff
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: Beck to sort of stimulate one on is les Paul.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: So the Beatles are paying attention to the music going
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: all around them and vice versa. It will be an
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: interesting thing where we reached the point in our series
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: where we're able to mark definitively where the Beatles went
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: from being the influence to the influencers.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Which is when when these I would say, do we
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: have to wait for people to get that yeah?
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: I think yeah went out of there.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: This is where I always jump in and say, by
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: our book exactly with the early rock and roll, I
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: mean you hear, please please be here with the Beatles album,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: and they were still doing some some covers. They weren't
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: fully trusted with writing a whole album. A Hard Day's Night,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: in fact, is the first Beatle album that is all
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Beatles compositions up to there. You know, they share songwriting
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: credits with other acts on the Please Please Me album
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: with Beatles album in particular.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: So this we're noting that they were not shy about
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: covering girl groups. They did that a lot over the
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: first two albums. You know most of them. We know
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: the Cherelle's I think most people do today, But what
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: about the Cookies, what about the Donas? You know, these
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: are relatively obscure groups that were saved by the Beatles
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: covering their songs. That's the only reason we know about
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: them today.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: I haven't asked about George Martin yet, and he's important.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: What were his musical influences and how did they incorporate
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: into the Beatles sound.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: It was a classically tree musician. As he came up
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: and got his opportunities for production. We know of him
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: primarily an association with the Peter Sellers and the Goons.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: That's where we first really become aware of him is
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: in that work. He was a traditional guy with an
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: ear for rock and roll, and he had a job
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: at Parlophone which was to build the rock and roll catalog.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Em I own capital, and through Capital, they had access
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: to the American rock and roll acts. But they wanted
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: as they were moving away from Capital, they wanted their
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: own home grown music that they could market more easily
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: to a British audience, and so he was charged with
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: developing that repertoire. So, you know, there's a type of
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: musician that and I think George Martin was this kind
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: of musician and producer that looks at music as only
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: two categories, and it's either good or it's bad. And
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: he looked at artists that way. They either had something
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: to give or they didn't. And in relation to his label,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: they either filled a need for his label or they didn't.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: If they did, they got it, they got a shot.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: His classical background, obviously, you know, we know through time
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: with the Beatles allowed them a sophistication in their arrangements,
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: in particular their vocal work that wouldn't I don't think
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: would have been there. Martin helped them understand aspects of harmony,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: how to sing harmony that unless you're unless you're trained,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: they don't immediately come to mind. You have modes of
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: harmony where let's say, in a three part harmony, two
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: parts are holding fast and one part's moving. You know,
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: there's one part that's that's taking the lead of the harmony.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: It's a very kind of classical concept of voicing that
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Martin brought to their work. And if he hadn't been there,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's happening. I don't think it's happening
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: under Ron Richards.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Oh no, no, it's certainly not happening at Decca. The
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: thing is the precedent for rock and roll in Britain
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: to the extent that existed at that time, was the
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: sole sort of Elvis archetype, Your Billy Fury, your Cliff Richard,
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: and so very early on when the Beatles come into
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: his boarding, he's trying to figure out, well, who's the
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: guy that's going to be the John Lennon and the Beatles,
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Paul McCarty and the Beatles. And this is something he
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: really struggled with because that was the precedent. He was
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: trying to figure out, who is it going to be?
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: What am I going to build this act around. And
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: then he came to the epiphany that you know what,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: they're fine as they are. They've got this egalitarian thing down.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: They all, you know, three front line, big singers, big
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: harmony singers, and you know the handoff from one lead
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: singer to another lead singer in the band. They've already
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: got something good here. I'm gonna nurture that. So he
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: was playing the long game, and it's something you couldn't
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: have scripted better that a guy that flexible and receptive
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: to anything that was tossed at him he could figure
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: out a way to make it better. As Jerry says,
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: good music versus bad music. Now you mentioned the comedy stuff,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: which certainly would have aligned greatly with both their fandom
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: and the fact that they were so innately funny themselves.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: That became a thing that they bonded over. It certainly
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: wasn't the music upon first meeting. But there was a
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: side project George Martin did just prior to the nineteen
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: sixty two signing of the Beatles. He put out a
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: couple a two sided single of electronic experiments credited to
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: Ray Cathode, and it's him just doing this little self
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: indulgency thing, and it's like, geez, if you ever wanted
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: to Frankenstein together. The perfect composer for the Beatles, knowing
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: how their career play out. A touch of classical, a
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: touch of comedy, a touch of rock and roll, a
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: touch of experimentation. He's your guy and that's just how
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: it worked out.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Booked on rock podcasts, We'll be back after this. You
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: mentioned them getting signed. I still it's hard to believe.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: The song Loved Me Due is one of my favorite
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: early Beatles songs, and that song came and went without
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: a bite from Capitol Record even Please Please Me. It
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: was a huge hit in the UK, but it shared
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: the same fate in the States. But a Chicago based
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: R and B imprint that had come into being at
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: the dawn of rock and roll that was willing to
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: give the Beatles a shot. How do they land that deal?
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: VJ the J Yeah Yeah.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: They started out as a gospel and R and B
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: label in Chicago, and as the early sixties started they
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: wanted a branch more into pop and they managed to
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: get a deal with The Four Seasons, which were of
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: course huge hit makers sixty two to sixty priests before
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: so they were interested. In that year of sixty two,
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: there was a rare brit act crossing over to America
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: having a hit. Frank Ifield, this australiancome brit guy who
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: was known for yodeling, who was going back to the
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: World War Two era to do the song called I
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: Remember You had a harmonica on it, and it was
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: something that became a bigger hit in Britain. It somehow
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: crossed over became a hit in the States. Following in
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: the way, probably not coinciday, Bruce Chanel's Hey Baby, another
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: song with a great, big harmonica look on it, and
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: now Here's Love Me Dude. Following this path by two
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: other songs big Transatlantic hits in nineteen sixty two, Harmonica
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: Layden songs Hey Baby and I Remember You. The very
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: quality that made it engaging to George Martin and the
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: folks that emi thinking this could be a hit was
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: the very thing that turned off Dave Dexter at Capitol.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: He was like, Nah, it's not gonna happen again. That harmonica.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: Forget it, that's old hat. No, We're done with that.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: It was the Capital equivalent of guitar groups are on
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: the way out. And so that's that's how Capitol's mindset
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: was formed pretty early on. But as far as VJ goes,
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: they wanted Frank Ifield and to sweeten the deal, Emi said, Hey,
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: if you want Frank, we'll toss in the Beatles too,
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: and that's how it was a little late for Love
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: Me Do. But they got DIBs on Please Please Me
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: and It's subsequently from Me to You. But when both
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: of those didn't really get the traction in the States,
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: that's how they passed on She Loves You, which is,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: you know, the biggest selling record in Britain to both
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: can Tire in seventy eighty, so they missed a boat
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: on that, but to Clark's label in Philadelphia, Swan picked
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: it up to no great avail until sixty four.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: So this is just the first volume. What can we
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: look forward to in future volumes and how many volumes
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: will there be?
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: We're looking at up to seven in total, and the
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: idea is we are kind of year by year going
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: through their work because they had their contractual agreements meant
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: that they were doing a couple albums and a couple
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: of singles every year. So starting with Please Please Meet Here,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: we'll do a full dive next into sixty three, and
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: that's the idea. Year by year we're going to follow
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: this model of exposing the influences behind the Beatles that
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: were going on up to the point where again the
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Beatles become the influencers. But the Beatles were always part
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: of a scene, they were always part of an industry.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: They were always one choice among many choices for fans,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: and they knew it. They were not, as we see
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: them in the fullness of time, heads and Tails, beyond
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: any other pop band in the world. They were just
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: another pop band. I always bring up when talking about this,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: the fact that I believe nineteen sixty eight in the US,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Three Dog Night out sold the Beatles. I think in
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: sixty six the Monkeys out sold the Beatles. Yeah, sixty seven, yeah, yeah,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: So for us, again, in the fullness of time, there's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: no comparison in these acts. But within their own time,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: the Beatles are competing with these acts. They're influenced by
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: these acts. They're part of a commercial music industry where
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: they want to sell records and they're fans of music.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: And to their great benefit, the Beatles always, you know,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: to copy line, you know, They always took a song
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: and made it better, to take something that they were
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: influenced by, and they would make it better to the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: degree that until you know, in some cases it's going
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: to be until Robert and I tell you where these
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: influences were, you might not even know those songs existed.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: You might not even know where those connections came from.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: So the point of what we're doing is to try
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: to help fans make those connections and broaden their appreciation
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: of the world of the Beatles, the world that they
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: lived in and operated in. We're going to follow out
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: to the contemporary releases. We will be examining the Threadles
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: sessions Free as a Bird, and we'll be looking at
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: the jibs Martin remixes. We're attempting to again anything that
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: made it to tape that we're able to hear and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: understand and know about historically. We're going to try to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: bring it to light for people that may not be
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: as deeply into it as we are, but we do
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: think it will it'll add to the scholarship. Like Robert
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: and I are not interested at all in telling stories
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: that have already been told. We're not interested in writing
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: a book that's already been written a dozen times. So
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: this was a gap we felt that these books really
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: really filled. Was no one's talking about the Beatles in
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: full context of both the social history that they occupied
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: or the entertainment industry that they were a part of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: in that era and influenced by. And we're, you know,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: we're trying to expose those influences and how those influences
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: impacted the decisions that then ended up on tape that
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: we hear and we're like, oh, that's so inventive. Who
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: would have thought of that? Well, it's the shoulders of
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: giants sort of thing. You know. We all artists stand
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: on the shoulders of an artist that came before them
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: or that works with them, that they admire. The Dylan
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: example that Robert brought up. These things find their way
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: into your art, there's no way, no way around it.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: And the Beatles were not The Beatles were not unique.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: They were musicians who loved music.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think he did an amazing job. And
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: I think not only Beatles fans are going to love
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: this book and all the volumes that will be coming,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: but fans of music, fans of rock and roll history.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: This is really.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Important that this is all documented, So congratulations on volume
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: one and looking forward to the rest of Ribbons of
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: Russ is out right now The Beatles Recording History in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: Context Volume one July nineteen fifty four through January nineteen
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: sixty three. So you can find.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Where our books are sold.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Also, if you have a local bookstore, look for it there.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: If it's not there, tell them to get a copy.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: You can always find your nearest bookstore at booked on
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: rock dot com. Where can people find you online? Is
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: there a website for this book? This series is?
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Ribbons off rust dot net is where we will
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: You can sign up there for a newsletter. Will be
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: putting out stuff just talking about developments and appearances on
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: shows like yourselves, and the progress of the next volume
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: and anything else that we find of interest to share.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, and what can people reach out to? Do you guys,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: have any social media sites you want to get out there?
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: People can reach you.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: I'm on Facebook and all the predictable social media platforms.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: And yes, I answer my emails if you ever write
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: me an email with a question, the tendency to write
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: you back.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: Tendencies, Robert, do you have any Yeah, I've got the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: podcast something about the Beatles some people might have heard of.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: And there is a Facebook page, a Twitter or x
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: if you must, a Blue Sky as well as Instagram.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: And the newsletter is what I would mostly encourage people
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: to get onto. It's a SATB two zero one zero
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: at Gmail that I post weekly stuff about what's going
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: on with the book, what's going on with the show,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: and anything else going on in Beatle World in the
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: news just to you know, put it all in one
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: place and keep people apprised of what's going on.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: I'm a subscriber, right, that's one.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to subscribe. I'm going there right now. Well,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: I'll put all the links on the show notes so
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: people can reach out to you guys and chat with
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: in and just stay up to date on this because
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: many volumes yet to come. Robert Riguez and Jerry Hammock,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: thank you guys.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you. M m hmmm mm hmmmm. That's it. It's
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: in the books.