Bravin / Wild The Beatles 1962-1966

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-375-1
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

Other than 'I Me Mine' and some minor overdubs, The Beatles' entire EMI/Apple catalogue was recorded in fewer than seven years: from 4 September 1962 through to 20 August 1969. Twelve albums, twenty-two singles, two standalone EPs, 213 songs. That in itself is remarkable enough.
But the quality of the music, the rapid development of musical complexity and the innovations in studio production lifted The Beatles above every other band. The Fab Four were not always fab. But that some writers take the time and expend energy to point this out and purposefully diss perfect songs such as 'Yesterday' merely serves to remind us that, most of the time, The Beatles were unarguably brilliant.
Authors Andrew Wild and Alberto Bravin have listened to, digested and discussed the entire Beatles back catalogue to remind them why they love their music. How do they affect us today? Answer: they were bloody good. They still are.
This first volume covers the period 1962 to 1966- from 'Love Me Do' to 'Tomorrow Never Knows', and the early albums - that were different in the UK and the USA - to Rubber Soul and Revolver, marking four years of outstanding, groundbreaking music.

Andrew Wild is a British writer, collector and long-time Beatles fan who recalls hearing the 'Red' and 'Blue' albums in the mid-1970s and has been in love with their music ever since. He has copies of every known Beatles outtake and live concert recording. His thorough and exhaustive study of every song performed or recorded by the band Four Sides Of The Circle was republished in 2024. He has written numerous music-related books, including several in the On Track series, about artists as diverse as The Allman Brothers Band, Phil Collins and Dire Straits. He lives in Rainow, Cheshire, UK.

Alberto Bravin is a musician, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He is the lead singer of the progressive rock band Big Big Train. Alberto was previously a member of the highly-regarded Italian progressive rock band PFM - Premiata Forneria Marconi from 2015 to 2022 and for many years he also played with his The Beatles tribute band Marshmallow Pies. He lives with his family in Trieste in the north-east of Italy. This is his first book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bravin, Alberto

Wild, Andrew

Leseproben

Introduction

The Beatles’ story has been told many times. Even now, it still seems utterly unbelievable.

It begins in 1956. The impact of Elvis Presley’s on global pop music cannot be underestimated. It was like Presley, just turning 21 when his first RCA single was released and irreparably charismatic, had somehow been beamed down from space.

‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was released as the year began, on 27 January. Four months later it had crossed the Atlantic, appearing on the UK charts at number 15 on 17 May 1956. As that song began its climb up the ‘hit parade’, five places below was another called ‘Rock Island Line’ by Scottish-born singer Lonnie Donegan. Donegan can lay claim to inventing ‘skiffle’, a low- budget spin-off from the British post-war jazz scene. Skiffle allowed almost beginners to sing American folk and blues songs with cheap instruments and three chords.

‘Rock Island Line’ took over eighteen months to gain traction: it was recorded in July 1954 and burned slowly. In the meantime, rock ‘n’ roll – amplified, up-tempo blues music – began to take hold. Pioneers such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Carl Perkins had their first hits in 1955 with ‘Maybelline’, ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. Elvis Presley, who took white country and western and added a black attitude and beat, signed for RCA in 1955, and recorded his first single for them early the following year.

‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is dark, echoing, sexy and utterly original. It stayed on the UK charts until the week before the sixteenth birthday of one John Lennon of Liverpool. Lennon had a problematic childhood but was a bright kid, attending grammar school and excelling at art and causing trouble.

Lennon borrowed a guitar, learned a few chords from his vivacious mother Julia and formed a skiffle group with some school pals which he named The Quarrymen after their school, Quarry Bank. They picked up local gigs whenever they could.

At one of these, during a church fete in Woolton on 6 July 1957, Lennon was introduced by a mutual friend to another aspiring musician: the just- turned-fifteen James Paul McCartney. As Paul told Record Collector in 1995, ‘I remember John singing a song called ‘Come Go With Me.’ He’d heard it on the radio. He didn’t really know the verses, but he knew the chorus. The rest he just made up himself. I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good.’

Lennon’s and McCartney’s paths had crossed previously. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn suggests that they met, and spoke, outside the shop where Paul did his paper round. This is at 85 Woolton Road, five minutes bike ride from Paul’s home. This cannot be proven for certain, but perhaps explains how Paul was able to summon up the courage to play guitar and sing in front of the older boy at the Woolton Fete. Paul: ‘My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear. I can still see John now – checked shirt and slightly curly hair. I remember thinking, ‘I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him.’’

It’s difficult to think of a less likely location for a world-changing event than a suburban church hall, but that’s where Paul McCartney auditioned for The Quarrymen that afternoon. Lennon was impressed by Paul’s ability to play the tricky ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ by Eddie Cochran and his uncanny knack for singing like one of their shared idols, Little Richard.

John and his best mate Pete Shotton talked about whether to ask Paul to join The Quarry Men. A couple of weeks later Shotton saw Paul riding his bike in Woolton and asked him to join. Their partnership would last just over twelve years, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney together changed the face of popular music.

Paul’s first gig with The Quarrymen was on 18 October 1957 at the New Clubmoor Hall in the Norris Green area of Liverpool. Recalling later, Paul said:

When I got up on stage at the very first gig, I totally blew it. I had never experienced these things called nerves before … I was playing ‘Guitar Boogie’ and I knew it fine off-stage… but on stage, my fingers all went very stiff and then found themselves underneath the strings instead of on top of them. So I vowed that night that it was the end of my career as the lead guitar player. I just thought I’ll lean back. So me and John kind of both did that around that same time; both became rhythm guitarists.

Their lead guitarist wasn’t too far away, though. George Harrison attended the same school as Paul McCartney, Liverpool Institute High School. George was in the year below Paul (he was nine months younger – he always was 9 months younger than Paul) and they would often share the same bus ride to and from school, talking music and playing guitars. In February 1958, Paul invited George, then aged fifteen, to watch The Quarrymen. George auditioned, and impressed John with his playing, but the band’s leader thought that Harrison was too young. After a month’s persistence, and during a second meeting arranged by Paul, George legendarily played ‘Raunchy’ on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus. The Quarrymen enlisted George Harrison as lead guitarist. A few months later, on 14 July, they recorded two songs at a small studio in Liverpool. ‘That’ll Be The Day’ has the unmistakable twang of John Lennon’s lead vocals. Remarkably, ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’ was a McCartney original (co-credited to Harrison because he wrote the guitar solo). Even at this early stage, The Quarrymen were keen to write and record their own material.

By January 1959, Lennon’s Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began his studies at the Liverpool College Of Art, conveniently located adjacent to the Liverpool Institute High School. It is during this period that John, Paul and George became firm friends. They would play together on their lunch breaks and at each other’s family homes. Gigs were few.

John Lennon’s closest friend at art school was a talented artist called Stuart Sutcliffe. One of his works, Summer Painting, was exhibited at the second Biennial John Moores Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool between November 1959 and January 1960. John Moores was a local businessman and philanthropist and bought Sutcliffe’s painting for £65 (the equivalent of £1,800 in 2025).

‘So what do you do with £65?’ McCartney mused in The Beatles Anthology. ‘We all reminded him over a coffee: ‘Funny you should have got that amount, Stuart – it is very near the cost of a Hofner bass.’ He said, ‘No, I can’t just spend all that.’ It was a fortune in those days, like an inheritance. He said he had to buy canvases or paint. We said, ‘Stu, see reason, love. A Hofner, a big ace group ... fame!’ He gave in and bought this big Hofner bass that dwarfed him. The trouble was he couldn’t play well. This was a bit of a drawback, but it looked good, so it wasn’t too much of a problem.’

Sutcliffe, despite his limitations as a bass player, would have a huge influence on the way that the band presented themselves. The first was to provide a new name. The trio of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison had been styling themselves at various times as Johnny And The Moondogs, The Rainbows, Japage 3 and even their old Quarrymen moniker.

Stuart Sutcliffe suggested changing the band’s name to Beatals, as a tribute to Buddy Holly And The Crickets. The name would vary throughout the first half of 1960. By the summer, they had settled on The Beatles.

One of the characters in their orbit was a Scouse chancer called Allan Williams, owner of the band’s preferred hangout, The Jacaranda, close to the Institute and Art College. Williams had fingers in many pies. As well as acting as The Beatles’ booking agent, he also had an acquaintanceship with the promoter Larry Parnes. Parnes had a ‘stable’ of interchangeable solo singers with unlikely stage names and needed a backing band for a seven-date Scottish tour by one of his lesser talents, Johnny Gentle. The Beatles were second, or perhaps third, choice, but they were available should they recruit a drummer. Local musician Tommy Moore, ten years older than the others, undertook the tour but left, bruised and bitter, on their return.

Williams – through a bizarre set of co-incidences – booked The Beatles for a long residency at the Indra Club in Hamburg. This required the rapid recruitment of a permanent drummer. Enter Pete Best, the son of the irrepressible Mona Best, owner of the Casbah Coffee Club, located in the cellar of the family home.

With Best on board, The-name-now-set-in-stone-Beatles and their retinue drove to Hamburg. From 17 August to 21 November, they would perform four hours each night, seven days a week.

‘We had to play for hours and hours on end,’ Lennon said. ‘Every song lasted twenty minutes and had twenty solos in it. That’s what improved the playing. There was nobody to copy from. We played what we liked best and the Germans liked it as long as it was loud.’

Here, they met Astrid Kirchherr, Klaus Voormann and Jürgen Vollmer – three young Germans who would have a profound influence on the band’s early look. Kirchherr would take the first semi-professional photos of...