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

by Mark Lewisohn

two recording managers, including George Martin, who replied, “A beat group presents far more of a problem than does a solo artist. Many approach me; but I’m not interested unless I hear a distinct sound—one you can recognize right away. I hardly ever get it. Even when I do, there’s the snag of finding the right material. For a group, that’s most difficult.”

He also gave them alarm clocks, writing on each gift tag—the back of his business card—“My little bit to get you all on in time.” The presents were both practical and symbolic: these were traveling alarm clocks. They’d be going places in 1962.

The Beatles’ “rehearsal” before their Decca recording test was three Cavern dates in four nights, capping a year when they’d played 349 times.

His drumming on “Money” is good, but the rest of the time it’s weak and rudimentary: there’s no cohesion with Paul’s bass, and never any attack—at no time does Pete’s drumming bind the group or drive them on.

The drummer should be the rock, and if the rock isn’t good then you start thinking, ‘No.’ If Decca was going to sign the Beatles, we wouldn’t have used Pete Best on the records.”10

sing his two lines “Hey man, save one chick for me!,” the first done in an Indian accent, the second in cod-German. It’s hokey, but the Beatles could make hokey attractive.

The risk was one-way. John, Paul and George had a record of being hard with managers, but Brian—who’d never committed himself to anything for five years—went into the contract demonstrating his belief, investing his money and risking his family’s good name

They had a Liverpool man with Mayfair manners to give them the best of reputations in the business, and they had someone who would manage their lives and provide direction yet consult them over all the important decisions and not smother them, so they remained free to be themselves. They’d found a partner—or, as master of brevity John Lennon put it, “one of us.”19

Brian obtained and submitted an application for the Beatles to have an audition for BBC radio. As a commitment to public service broadcasting, the BBC gave free auditions to every applying actor or entertainer, and everyone but rank amateurs had the right to be seen, at the expense of studio time and producers’ nerves.

Still, the everyday business of management was the stage. No “pop stars” could live off broadcasting fees and only the very biggest of chart stars could live off record royalties, so minuscule were the percentages. No one even tried.

the artists were lucky to be chosen, to appear in summer seasons in seaside resorts. Brian’s pledge to earn the Beatles more money from broader horizons was his greatest challenge.

McFall knew times were changing when Brian invited him to lunch at his club, the Rembrandt, merely to show goodwill; no one else had ever done such a thing.22

Despite the loss of old opportunities, Brian had the Beatles equaling and then exceeding their previous earnings within about three weeks.

25 a week when we were first with Brian Epstein, when we played the clubs. But £25 a week each was quite good. My dad earned £10 a week, so I was earning two-and-a-half times more than my father.”23

It was the Faschers who had to cope with pressure situations created by John Lennon, whether it was Fredi calming customers who didn’t appreciate being called fucking Nazis or Horst having

Not at all. I think it offended his moral standards. L. G. virtually ordered George to record the Beatles.”21

As much as they could, John and Paul decided to take matters into their own hands. “Please rehearse new material,” Brian’s telegram said. They chose to interpret this as “please write new material” and, in this instant, the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership was effectively reborn.

They eased themselves back into business by revisiting an oldie. John and Paul felt “Love Me Do” was the best of their early songs, though it wasn’t one they’d chosen to revive before now.

Originally written in the higher key of A, “Love Me Do” was retooled in G, which instantly made it bluesy—even

there was clear method in their thinking when it came to the mouth organ: “It was just after ‘Hey! Baby’ came out—[and] we were hoping to be the first British group to use harmonica on record.”39 The instrument radically altered “Love Me Do” ’s sound.

“PS I Love You.”

also lured Little Richard out of an Alabama church for both a British autumn tour and a short season at the Star-Club, and he sent Gene Vincent to Hamburg.

And here at the Star-Club, the Beatles hung out with Vincent in ways they wouldn’t forget.

For some reason, he zeroed in on Paul and kept offering to knock him out cold by touching two pressure points on the back of his neck, a trick he said he’d

The arrangement remained confidential until the daughter went public with it in 1981, seeking much greater reward. She demanded Paul McCartney take blood tests—he did, and was found not to be the father.

144 hours over forty-eight nights is about right, it made the Hamburg running total something like 1,062 hours in thirty-four weeks, or just under four and a half hours every night for almost eight months.

Third time, this time, they returned to organization, order and promise.

These contained the latest Mersey Beat (reporting news of their EMI contract) and two typed sheets listing line-by-line their bookings for the next forty days and nights. Weekly bulletins would follow with fuller details and instructions, this was only an overview: thirty-one engagements (the odd gaps would be plugged by eight more) plus a secondary list of four notable dates on the horizon.

enough to catch an inquisitive provincial’s eye: bespoke shoe shops, restaurants, pubs, clubs

Kensington, Chelsea, Soho, Tottenham Court Road and especially around Tin Pan Alley: “Whenever we came to London we went to Charing Cross Road for the guitar shops. It was like going to Santa’s grotto.”

London had nothing like the Cavern and no live scene like Liverpool.

Long John Baldry. Two weeks later, Disc reported that a 19-year-old London School of Economics student, Mick Jagger, had joined them to sing and play harmonica.6

One new one (as yet unnamed) had been started by Brian Jones, who was rehearsing with Mick Jagger and his mate Keith Richards.

he was taken aback by Pete’s drumming, where an unnecessarily relentless tom-tom pounding was interspersed by weak snare-drum fills and shuffles rather than the required attack.

When he finished, George said, ‘Look, I’ve laid into you for quite a time, you haven’t responded. Is there anything you don’t like?’ They all looked at each other for a long while, shuffling their feet, then George Harrison took a long look at George and said, ‘Yeah. I don’t like your tie.’ ”

“I did think they had enormous talent, but it wasn’t their music, it was their charisma, the fact that when I was with them they gave me a sense of well-being, of being happy. The music was almost incidental. I thought, ‘If they have this effect on me, they are going to have that effect on their audiences.’ ”19

And as George Martin would add, “It was love at first sight. John, George and Paul—I thought they were super. They had great personalities, and they charmed themselves to me a great deal.

No one had. The record business had no template for the Beatles.

George Martin’s decision to accept them this way, as a leaderless unit, was, correspondingly, a first too—and precisely what they’d hoped for and Brian had been trying to help them find.

“I was looking for a hit song and didn’t think we had it in Love Me Do. I didn’t think the Beatles had any song of any worth—they gave me no evidence that they could write hit material.”27

“Please Please Me” was John’s baby, conceived inside the forty-eight hours they’d been home from London.

Musically, the primary influence on “Please Please Me” was Roy Orbison. John said he’d heard him “doing

Only The Lonely or something”—but

This was a Liverpool-Lennon love song: beyond the politeness of the first word, he’s urging his girl to please him like he pleases her.*

PAUL: I wasn’t jealous of him because he was handsome. He just couldn’t play! We wanted

PAUL: What’s the truth about why Pete Best was sacked? Because George Martin wouldn’t have him, is one good reason. And Ringo was better, was the other prime reason.3

That first time in the Cavern, people were shouting “Pete forever, Ringo never” and

while Ringo himself would sensationalize by claiming there were “riots in the streets” over his appointment, this storm passed quickly: broad consensus confirms it was all over between one and two weeks later.

Looks pass between them, they’re confident with who they are, where they are and what they are, and they’re ready to fly.

John thought it could be the end of the line for him and the Beatles if people found out—it was what everyone kept telling him, so he believed it—and Ringo was among those he kept in the dark.