Tune In (The Beatles: All These Years, #1)

by Mark Lewisohn

Every once in a while, life conjures up a genuine ultimate.

214 tracks recorded in seven crowded years in a kaleidoscope of styles.

how the Beatles repeatedly married cutting-edge originality with immense mainstream popularity, when for almost anyone else these are mutually exclusive, and how (and why) they ditched their winning ideas every time the world raced to copy them;

how they did everything with down-to-earth humor, honesty, optimism, style, charisma, irreverence, intelligence and a particularly spiky disdain for falseness; how they were articulate, bold, curious, direct, instinctive, challenging, blunt, sharp, polite, rude, prickers of pomposity, rule-breakers never cowed by convention;

how they created a profound and sustained connection to their public, and how they resisted branding, commercial sponsorship and corporate affiliation and hype: the Beatles were free of artifice and weren’t the product of market research or focus groups or TV talent shows, they were ...

the Beatles were sharper-smarter-faster-funnier than their many rivals—and where they also polished, well before they had hits, that tightly engaged relationship with their public.

Buddy Holly was the springboard to John and Paul’s songwriting. As John later said, “Practically every Buddy

Holly song was three chords, so why not write your own?”

really, and—so as to not get into the ego thing—we were very pure with it.”13

“possessions don’t bring happiness but they make misery a lot easier,” which was one comfort, but mostly John wanted money to avoid having to work.

of May 1941, when Germany attempted to obliterate Liverpool, to wipe it off the map as a prelude to a land invasion. In that one week, 3,966 people were killed and 3,812 seriously injured; 10,000 homes were destroyed and 184,000 damaged—as

One street-corner chip shop (“chippie”) simply put up a sign—“Owing to Hitler, our portions are littler”—and kept the home fryers burning.

could have been because of Julia’s past predicament that Mimi supported the Salvation Army’s residence for the children of broken homes. Strawberry Field—Strawberry Fields most called it—was

He knew the place well. To John, Pete, Nige and Ivan, Strawberry Fields meant the private grounds, not the big house. It was one of their prime hangouts: they’d scamper over the wall in Vale Road and disappear into the trees, with infinite opportunities for trouble,

Jim played the piano, which showed Paul that a pianist would always get invited to parties, be the center of the action and never have to buy a drink; glasses were lined up for him on the lid.

John had the “gob iron” and led them through rousing sing-alongs of recent American-made British hits such as “Cool Water” by Frankie Laine and at least three of Johnnie Ray’s: “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” “The Little White Cloud That Cried,” and “Somebody Stole My Gal.”

“Sh-Boom” by the Crew-Cuts, and when Tennessee Ernie Ford had a British number 1 with “Give Me Your Word,” he liked him too; he also enjoyed “Caribbean” by Mitchell Torok, a US country number 1 in 1953 that came to his attention by means unknown.

Nobody looked anything like him, dressed anything like him, sounded anything like him, or had a name anything like his. He was Elvis Presley.

infectious that the meaning of “rock” wasn’t considered—was Haley suggesting partying for a whole twelve hours or bedroom activity? For the moment, few heard it. It was only a B-side, captured in two takes inside the last thirty minutes of a three-hour session. The record was issued in America in May and barely registered.

Rock, announced Whitcomb, was “as old fashioned as aspidistras” while “skiffle-music is the coming craze.”

blue Super Rhythm-Style label. So it was that George Martin became the first record producer to sign a skiffle group, and in so doing the first to sign a group whose name was drugs-related, “viper” being 1930s slang for a cannabis smoker—a detail of which the Parlophone manager was blissfully unaware.

John would point out years later, “They ask, ‘What do you want to be?’ Nobody ever said that I already was, and we already are.”

Artsy-fartsy people were despised—they still are—in society. I used to say to my auntie, “You like to read about artists and you worship them in museums, but you don’t want ’em living around the house.”2

There was also a singer called Larry Williams, whose record “Short Fat Fannie” was clearly in the Little Richard vein and, judging by the wording on the London record label, came from the same source, Specialty Records of Hollywood.

Levon Helm played this song on Conan which the Hawks used to play.. see youtube

art school offered freedoms unknown to any maverick schoolboy. Students not only dressed how they pleased, they could also smoke in class, come and go from the premises, and drink in the pub at lunchtimes, often with the tutors.

Paul McCartney first played on stage with John Lennon and the Quarry Men the night of Friday, October 18, 1957,

Big in America, the Crickets were so much bigger in Britain.

The only group of note was the Coasters, and not many knew them yet; besides which, they were just vocalists with session musicians. The Crickets were another kind of group: vocals, electric guitar, bass, drums. When thousands of skifflers heard “That’ll Be the Day,” those eternally uplifting two minutes, they were converted.

Good music was good music no matter what, and to them it was all rock: origin, skin color, rhythm and tempo were irrelevant.

George also had a deep interest in the Nashville guitarist Chet Atkins, whose LPs he got as a regular supply (by 1963, he had eleven in his collection).

During his get-togethers with Paul they learned a piece called “Bourrée” from the 1957 Chet Atkins LP Hi-Fi in Focus. Actually a Bach composition for the lute, Atkins did it as a guitar two-hander, melody and bass simultaneous.

was the 1939 dance-band and film number “Scatterbrain,” and John was fascinated by the rhythmic flow of such lines as “When you smile it’s so delightful / When you talk it’s so insane / Still it’s charming chatter, scatterbrain.”

When (not if) John aimed volleys of verbal missiles in his direction, George could fire back his own, and John saw and welcomed that this kid, though so much younger and smaller, was no pushover.

Pretty much everyone in Liverpool and elsewhere bought goods by hire-purchase: a certain sum of money paid “down” (right away) and the balance over a period of time—people called it “buying on the never-never,” “on the knocker” or “on the drip.”

44 In the eyes of British kids, the States was a milk and honey land of skyscrapers, cowboys, Cadillacs, Elvis, hamburgers, fabulous clothes, Hollywood, Little Richard, funny place names, Coca-Cola, Buddy Holly, wide prairies, Chuck Berry, DC comics and the very best sounds.

This was O-Level year for them both and neither gave a fig about it.

‘To know-know-know is to love-love-love’ was the first three-part we ever did. We learned that in my house in Liverpool. We just loved singing three-part.”

“I’ll Follow the Sun.” Paul came up with this rhythmic ballad alone, words and music, on his Zenith guitar.

“Love Me Do,” “I Call Your Name” and the tune of what would become “When I’m Sixty-Four”—several

It’s interesting that though George enjoyed playing with the Les Stewart Quartet, and though the other members liked him, he never made the connection with them that he had with John and Paul; he stayed closer to the group that wasn’t playing than the one that was.

He became the intellectual young man on the 86, thoughtfully puffing a pipe on the top deck while reading Under Milk Wood or Waiting for Godot, their titles visible. “I did most of my reading in [that] little period of my life … I thought it was a bit swotty, a good image … I felt like I was at university.” Paul

Gerry Marsden’s Pacemakers would be playing.

also learned how to drink fourteen pints of beer and three rum and blackcurrants and eat two Wimpys [burgers] all in one session.”34

He put on the whammy bar [the tremolo arm, to change the pitch and add a vibrato effect] and when someone asked what it was for, George—for some strange reason—said, “It’s a wigwam to wind up the sun.”

While he had “wheels” there were certain things he didn’t have, like motor insurance, road tax or a license to drive, but none of this stopped him. Illegal, yes; unusual, no. Richy knew several who did it.

He’s a pianist, and after a great deal of persuasion—during which he held up our producer at the point of a gun—he’s going to play a composition of his own, which he calls Prelude. His name is Sub Lieutenant George Martin. [applause].

George was an “A&R manager” (short for “artists & repertoire”), a “recording manager,” an “artiste manager”

Some clever minds were already pushing the possibilities: in America, husband-and-wife musical duo Les Paul and Mary Ford were releasing what would come to be called multitrack recordings, Paul playing up to eight different parts on electric guitar, overdubbing layer on layer, and Ford singing several parts with herself.

A further piece of Preuss advice would also echo in his protégé’s mind: “With artists, if you ever get any thanks, it’s a bonus.”

When The Goon Show took off on radio, its voice artists came to the attention of record labels, and for three of them (Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine and Spike Milligan) that label was Parlophone, an ever-welcoming shelter for unconventional minds.

George mastered the record producer’s greatest challenge: how to bring the best out of artists. He became naturally good at tact, diplomacy and artful flattery, at letting singers and musicians think the great ideas he’d just planted in their heads were theirs.