“Enough, already, about the Beatles!!”
Those are the words I imagine many younger people scream, at least mentally, a few times a year.
It seems that almost daily there’s a new book (“John Lennon, the Potty Training Years”), a new anniversary (“50 years since ‘Hey Jude, Live’!”), a new discovery (“Ringo’s Hospital Bed Drumsticks”), new photos (The Beatles walking down the street, waiting in line (1962)”), a new compilation of music (“The Beatles: Near Misses of the 60s, Part 1”) or a new Paul McCartney CD (“Duets with Myself”).
Us baby boomers cannot get enough of those legends of our youth and, as nostalgia steadily takes over more and more of what’s left in these aging brains, it will only get worse.
In my three years of blogging, I’ve already weighed in once on this phenomenon. For part two of my February 2013 posts on individual taste, “Passion and Community,” I wrote how my own deep interest in the Beatles, while falling far short of the obsession felt by thousands, had resulted in multiple purchases of books and the complete collection of the group’s re-mastered recordings on CD.
Those releases, and their subsequent history-making availability on iTunes, should have been the end of Beatle things for all involved.
Not even close, even for me.
First, I couldn’t resist a half-price offer on The Criterion Collection’s release of a beautiful digital restoration Blu-Ray of the Beatles’ first move, “A Hard Day’s Night,” with lots of extras in a dual-format edition. Great to see, great to have for viewing whenever I want.
Then there came a gift from my wife last Christmas of a coffee table book with details on every song every recorded by the group. It was my third — yes third —such book, going back a few decades. I plan to consult them as I go through my aforementioned CD compilation.
Any month now. Patience.
Well, that should do it, I concluded.
Geezer alert: Wrong again.
A month or so ago, I heard an interview on my primary book-tip program, NPR’s “Fresh Air,” with Beatles historian Kevin Howlett. The occasion was the release of “On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2.” That’s a very rare collection of recordings by the Beatles on BBC radio programs of the early 60s.
Somehow, with incredible self-control, I had resisted the 1994 release of volume 1 of those BBC tunes (five million sold worldwide), its re-release in 2013 and the later publication of an accompanying book by Howlett, “The Beatles: The BBC Archives.”
But the snippets of the Volume 2 songs on “Fresh Air” piqued my little Beatle-crazed brain and, as soon as I got some nice discount coupons from Barnes & Noble, I was off.
Within a few minutes one recent Saturday, I had: ordered Howlett’s book (at half price) and bought both volume 1 (What a surprise! It’s still available!) and volume 2 of the BBC archives.
I know. It’s a sickness.
But please allow me to explain just how incredible these two discs and book are.
We are dealing here with raw, unpretentious early performances of great pop music by four young men who would go on to become international legends. So, to begin with, there’s that historical element.
The recordings were left to the BBC archives, destined to be lost or forgotten, until Howlett began his project. In other words, the music and interviews were done for the music and immediate entertainment value alone — for experience and fun and maybe (for the radio station) historical purposes, as opposed to sharing on “social media” or legacy-building or commercial branding or any other of the values current artists attach to musical performances. It was all pretty innocent.
And this innocence makes the quality of the musical performances even more astonishing.
This was one tight little band with four very talented singers and musicians in their early 20s who had honed their skills with hundreds of live performances in the previous years.
Then came the BBC shows, just as the group was beginning to gain widespread public notice. As the CD cover describes:
"Between March 1962 and June 1965, no less t than 275 unique musical performances by the Beatles were broadcast by the BBC in the UK. The group played 88 different songs on national radio — some were recorded many times, 37 were performed just once.”
The first double-CD collection presents alternative versions of songs that eventually became part of their recorded music plus 30 others being released for the first time. Volume 2 adds 10 more songs never recorded by the group — “Two of those are released for the first time ever” — among “37 previously unreleased performances and 23 newly available speech tracks.”
As of this writing, I’ve only listened to volume 1 but I’m already prepared to gush about the experience.
First impressions:
** It took some genius of engineering to make such quality compact-disc recordings out of the old reel-to-reel tapes that contained the original shows. They sound like studio recordings. I fully expected scratchy, tinny, inconsistent audio sounds.
** In contrast to many barbed comments and satire over the years, Ringo Starr is one great drummer. He plays lots of intricate riffs while keeping a steady, mistake-proof beat that augments the music and allows the songs to flourish.
** All four band members had excellent rock n roll voices (yes, again, including Ringo) and natural musical abilities. These are vocal and instrumental performances without studio enhancement — using bare-bones hookups at a radio station (with photos to prove it!) — and they sound amazingly like those later recorded in a studio.
The CDs demonstrate conclusively why the Beatles rose above the dozens of bands on the music scene of the late 50s and early 60s. They had paid some serious dues and become, with the invaluable guidance and promotional efforts of Brian Epstein, showmen capable of sustaining the interest of a wide cross-section of the youth market.
It’s also plain to see why they had staying power. A less practiced, less adaptable, less talented group would have faded soon after the initial hysteria of screaming females got a few years past puberty.
But this Liverpool foursome, just like crooner Frank Sinatra before them, had a level of talent that withstood the test of time and flourished for decades.
Still, Howlett’s book tells how, from the start, there was nothing preordained about the Beatles’ success. With the newness of rock n roll and the ever-changing tastes of pop music fans, the band’s prospects looked to be short term.
They were asked constantly on the radio programs about what they planned to do once their popularity faded. (Ringo famously always said he wanted to be a hairdresser.)
Listening to the BBC performances, I would conclude that the group’s musical versatility — rock, blues, country, standards, rockabilly — played the most important role in their longevity.
Yes, good looks and good timing created their roaring popularity, along with their easily accessible music, as spoofed by the Rutles in the mockumentary “All You Need is Cash” and on “Saturday Night Live.” But the group’s wide-ranging musical background, being able to draw upon many different sources for their songwriting and recordings, was the key to their sustained creativity.
In conclusion, if there remains doubt regarding whether the Beatles are worthy of the accolades given them, these BBC archives should dispel them.
It’s always struck me as odd that The Rolling Stones were given more credibility than the Beatles as true rockers — as a group more worthy of serious attention among real rock fans.
The Stones’ harder-edged music, together with their street-tough stage and public personas, gained them instant rock n roll legitimacy. Meanwhile, the Beatles’ lighter fare was seen as more commercial and lacking in the grittiness that many rock fans deem necessary for qualification as rock n roll.
But the truth is that the rock n roll brand is wide enough for a lot of different sounds, from very hard (punk, acid, heavy metal) to very soft (the bulk of what used to be known as Top 40 radio).
The Stones also went commercial for much of the 60s but their music still exists within pretty narrow perimeters. The Beatles, though, often explored the harder edges of rock while keeping their basic, accessible musicality intact. On the BBC recordings, John Lennon and Paul McCartney both let loose their hard-rock chops.
Further, as individuals, the Beatles came from hardscrabble backgrounds more befitting the image of tough, hard-rockers while the Stones had the artsy pedigrees more befitting the softer musician types.
As noted, the Beatles sounded so good at the BBC because all but Ringo had spent years together, pleasing audiences in Hamburg, Germany, and Liverpool. For his part, Ringo was an established, experienced drummer, playing for years with another group.
They were able to set themselves apart from a pop music scene that largely relied on studio musicians to produce great recordings, ala The Wrecking Crew on the U.S. West Coast and The Funk Brothers at Detroit’s Motown.
In the recently released documentary on The Wrecking Crew, we see that even the Beach Boys — arguably the Beatles’ biggest rivals for pop music popularity in the 60s — relied on studio musicians for their recordings. The Beach Boys may have played their own instruments in concert, but they were only background contributors on many of their great-sounding records.
When the Beatles’ concert days were over, they turned into studio sound experts themselves for their later albums (most notably, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band”) before returning to their simpler, tight-band roots in their final years (“Let It Be,” “Abbey Road,” the white album.).
Along the way, they kept creating music, even in their solo careers, which were good enough to earn them selection to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as individuals atop their admittance as a group (Ringo being the last inducted this year).
With all that recognition, the absolute last thing that group needs is a blog post by me, singing their praises.
But maybe, just maybe, these words can help some Beatle-stuff-exhausted younger soul appreciate why we boomers just can never get enough of the Fab Foursome.
Those are the words I imagine many younger people scream, at least mentally, a few times a year.
It seems that almost daily there’s a new book (“John Lennon, the Potty Training Years”), a new anniversary (“50 years since ‘Hey Jude, Live’!”), a new discovery (“Ringo’s Hospital Bed Drumsticks”), new photos (The Beatles walking down the street, waiting in line (1962)”), a new compilation of music (“The Beatles: Near Misses of the 60s, Part 1”) or a new Paul McCartney CD (“Duets with Myself”).
Us baby boomers cannot get enough of those legends of our youth and, as nostalgia steadily takes over more and more of what’s left in these aging brains, it will only get worse.
In my three years of blogging, I’ve already weighed in once on this phenomenon. For part two of my February 2013 posts on individual taste, “Passion and Community,” I wrote how my own deep interest in the Beatles, while falling far short of the obsession felt by thousands, had resulted in multiple purchases of books and the complete collection of the group’s re-mastered recordings on CD.
Those releases, and their subsequent history-making availability on iTunes, should have been the end of Beatle things for all involved.
Not even close, even for me.
First, I couldn’t resist a half-price offer on The Criterion Collection’s release of a beautiful digital restoration Blu-Ray of the Beatles’ first move, “A Hard Day’s Night,” with lots of extras in a dual-format edition. Great to see, great to have for viewing whenever I want.
Then there came a gift from my wife last Christmas of a coffee table book with details on every song every recorded by the group. It was my third — yes third —such book, going back a few decades. I plan to consult them as I go through my aforementioned CD compilation.
Any month now. Patience.
Well, that should do it, I concluded.
Geezer alert: Wrong again.
A month or so ago, I heard an interview on my primary book-tip program, NPR’s “Fresh Air,” with Beatles historian Kevin Howlett. The occasion was the release of “On Air — Live at the BBC Volume 2.” That’s a very rare collection of recordings by the Beatles on BBC radio programs of the early 60s.
Somehow, with incredible self-control, I had resisted the 1994 release of volume 1 of those BBC tunes (five million sold worldwide), its re-release in 2013 and the later publication of an accompanying book by Howlett, “The Beatles: The BBC Archives.”
But the snippets of the Volume 2 songs on “Fresh Air” piqued my little Beatle-crazed brain and, as soon as I got some nice discount coupons from Barnes & Noble, I was off.
Within a few minutes one recent Saturday, I had: ordered Howlett’s book (at half price) and bought both volume 1 (What a surprise! It’s still available!) and volume 2 of the BBC archives.
I know. It’s a sickness.
But please allow me to explain just how incredible these two discs and book are.
We are dealing here with raw, unpretentious early performances of great pop music by four young men who would go on to become international legends. So, to begin with, there’s that historical element.
The recordings were left to the BBC archives, destined to be lost or forgotten, until Howlett began his project. In other words, the music and interviews were done for the music and immediate entertainment value alone — for experience and fun and maybe (for the radio station) historical purposes, as opposed to sharing on “social media” or legacy-building or commercial branding or any other of the values current artists attach to musical performances. It was all pretty innocent.
And this innocence makes the quality of the musical performances even more astonishing.
This was one tight little band with four very talented singers and musicians in their early 20s who had honed their skills with hundreds of live performances in the previous years.
Then came the BBC shows, just as the group was beginning to gain widespread public notice. As the CD cover describes:
"Between March 1962 and June 1965, no less t than 275 unique musical performances by the Beatles were broadcast by the BBC in the UK. The group played 88 different songs on national radio — some were recorded many times, 37 were performed just once.”
The first double-CD collection presents alternative versions of songs that eventually became part of their recorded music plus 30 others being released for the first time. Volume 2 adds 10 more songs never recorded by the group — “Two of those are released for the first time ever” — among “37 previously unreleased performances and 23 newly available speech tracks.”
As of this writing, I’ve only listened to volume 1 but I’m already prepared to gush about the experience.
First impressions:
** It took some genius of engineering to make such quality compact-disc recordings out of the old reel-to-reel tapes that contained the original shows. They sound like studio recordings. I fully expected scratchy, tinny, inconsistent audio sounds.
** In contrast to many barbed comments and satire over the years, Ringo Starr is one great drummer. He plays lots of intricate riffs while keeping a steady, mistake-proof beat that augments the music and allows the songs to flourish.
** All four band members had excellent rock n roll voices (yes, again, including Ringo) and natural musical abilities. These are vocal and instrumental performances without studio enhancement — using bare-bones hookups at a radio station (with photos to prove it!) — and they sound amazingly like those later recorded in a studio.
The CDs demonstrate conclusively why the Beatles rose above the dozens of bands on the music scene of the late 50s and early 60s. They had paid some serious dues and become, with the invaluable guidance and promotional efforts of Brian Epstein, showmen capable of sustaining the interest of a wide cross-section of the youth market.
It’s also plain to see why they had staying power. A less practiced, less adaptable, less talented group would have faded soon after the initial hysteria of screaming females got a few years past puberty.
But this Liverpool foursome, just like crooner Frank Sinatra before them, had a level of talent that withstood the test of time and flourished for decades.
Still, Howlett’s book tells how, from the start, there was nothing preordained about the Beatles’ success. With the newness of rock n roll and the ever-changing tastes of pop music fans, the band’s prospects looked to be short term.
They were asked constantly on the radio programs about what they planned to do once their popularity faded. (Ringo famously always said he wanted to be a hairdresser.)
Listening to the BBC performances, I would conclude that the group’s musical versatility — rock, blues, country, standards, rockabilly — played the most important role in their longevity.
Yes, good looks and good timing created their roaring popularity, along with their easily accessible music, as spoofed by the Rutles in the mockumentary “All You Need is Cash” and on “Saturday Night Live.” But the group’s wide-ranging musical background, being able to draw upon many different sources for their songwriting and recordings, was the key to their sustained creativity.
In conclusion, if there remains doubt regarding whether the Beatles are worthy of the accolades given them, these BBC archives should dispel them.
It’s always struck me as odd that The Rolling Stones were given more credibility than the Beatles as true rockers — as a group more worthy of serious attention among real rock fans.
The Stones’ harder-edged music, together with their street-tough stage and public personas, gained them instant rock n roll legitimacy. Meanwhile, the Beatles’ lighter fare was seen as more commercial and lacking in the grittiness that many rock fans deem necessary for qualification as rock n roll.
But the truth is that the rock n roll brand is wide enough for a lot of different sounds, from very hard (punk, acid, heavy metal) to very soft (the bulk of what used to be known as Top 40 radio).
The Stones also went commercial for much of the 60s but their music still exists within pretty narrow perimeters. The Beatles, though, often explored the harder edges of rock while keeping their basic, accessible musicality intact. On the BBC recordings, John Lennon and Paul McCartney both let loose their hard-rock chops.
Further, as individuals, the Beatles came from hardscrabble backgrounds more befitting the image of tough, hard-rockers while the Stones had the artsy pedigrees more befitting the softer musician types.
As noted, the Beatles sounded so good at the BBC because all but Ringo had spent years together, pleasing audiences in Hamburg, Germany, and Liverpool. For his part, Ringo was an established, experienced drummer, playing for years with another group.
They were able to set themselves apart from a pop music scene that largely relied on studio musicians to produce great recordings, ala The Wrecking Crew on the U.S. West Coast and The Funk Brothers at Detroit’s Motown.
In the recently released documentary on The Wrecking Crew, we see that even the Beach Boys — arguably the Beatles’ biggest rivals for pop music popularity in the 60s — relied on studio musicians for their recordings. The Beach Boys may have played their own instruments in concert, but they were only background contributors on many of their great-sounding records.
When the Beatles’ concert days were over, they turned into studio sound experts themselves for their later albums (most notably, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band”) before returning to their simpler, tight-band roots in their final years (“Let It Be,” “Abbey Road,” the white album.).
Along the way, they kept creating music, even in their solo careers, which were good enough to earn them selection to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as individuals atop their admittance as a group (Ringo being the last inducted this year).
With all that recognition, the absolute last thing that group needs is a blog post by me, singing their praises.
But maybe, just maybe, these words can help some Beatle-stuff-exhausted younger soul appreciate why we boomers just can never get enough of the Fab Foursome.