Beatlemania: experienced in cascading waves, exploded across Britain throughout 1963
Please Please Me quickly topped the album charts after its March release
the album held the top slot into the fall
turned the Beatles into headliners on a Roy Orbison package tour
The Beatles zoomed from obscurity to ubiquitous cultural force within a matter of months! They routinely won over cynical reporters with their agile wit.
The Beatles' image (quite unusual for the time!)
in defiance of the military-issue crew cuts worn by all men and boys, they grew their hair long(er), with androgenous0looking bangs reaching the eyebrows [I know, it's kinda hard to think of those haircuts as "long," isn't it?!! (see photo of the quartet dressed in tailored suits)]
by 1962, Epstein dressed them in tailored suits aligned with mod style and had them do polite, from-the-waist bows after every song, which styled their swaggering musicianship in a crisp frame
By the first weeks of 1964, they were primed to make the strongest impression on America, the world's biggest pop market, which they both craved and feared.
At the time, Britain was recovering from a sex scandal (Sec. of State Profumo with a 19-year-old who was also having sex with a Soviet spy), Prime Minister MacMillan's resignation in October 1963, and the 1960 shooting down of a CIA spy flying in Soviet airspace. America was recovering from the shocking assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Many sociologists believe that these political hangovers left Britain and then America more open to Beatlemania's color, eccentricity, zeal, and promise.
Between 1946 & 1960, the birth rate escalated at an unprecedented pace, peaking from 1957 to 1961. From 1950 to 1970, America's population ballooned from 150 to 200 million in a single generation! (Baby Boomers) ... and women were acquiring significant independence:
advent of oral contraceptives in 1960 (birth control pills)
second wave of feminism (publication of Helen Burley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl [1962] and Betty Friedan's the Feminine Mystique [1963])
At the same time, young people in America were protesting war in ever-growing numbers throughout 1963, a year during which a new international test-ban treaty was signed and Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his rousing "I Have a Dream" speech to an August 1963 gathering of a quarter million at Washington D.C.'s Lincoln Memorial.
1963 British releases:
Single: "Please Please Me" / "Ask Me Why" (rel. Jan. 11)
LP: Please Please Me (rel Mar. 22)
Side 1: "I Saw Her Standing There" / "Misery" / "Anna (Go to Him)" / "Chains" / "Boys" / "Ask Me Why" / "Please Please Me"
Side 2: "Live Me Do" / "P.S. I Love You" / "Baby It's You" / "Do You Want to Know a Secret" / "A Taste of Honey" / "There's a Place" / "Twist and Shout"
Single: "From Me to You" / "Thank You Girl" (rel. Apr. 12)
Single: "She Loves You" / "I'll Get You" (rel. Aug. 23)
LP: With the Beatles (rel. Nov. 22)
Side 1: "It Won't Be Long" / "All I've Got to Do" / "All My Loving" / "Don't Bother Me" / "Little Child" / "Till There Was You" / "Please Mr. Postman"
Side 2: "Roll Over Beethoven" / "Hold Me Tight" / "You Really Got a Hold on Me" / "I Wanna Be Your Man" / "Devil in Her Heart" / "Not a Second Time" / "Money (That's What I Want)"
Single: "I Want to Hold Your Hand" / "This Boy" (rel. Nov. 29)
The Rise to National Prominence: "Please Please Me"
The Beatles (with Brian Epstein as manager) continued to book rapidly improving performance venues. A couple of changes exemplified the Beatles' increased professionalism:
the group mimed "Please Please Me" (their recent release) for a national television audience of loyal viewing teens
Ringo's bass drum head evolved from displaying his crudely applied name ("Ringo Starr") to the infamous drop-T design of the name of "The Beatles" that became iconic (see bass drum head in the photo with the drop-T design; do you see how the "T" extends below the rest of the text?).
Brian Matthews, host of BBC's Saturday Club radio program, introduced the band not only nationally but across four contents
The Beatles recorded five songs for the show on January 22, 1963.
Moving toward Beatlemania ...
March 6: BBC broadcasts captured girls screaming in anticipation of the Beatles' performance
April 18 (at their Royal Albert Hall performance): the bedlam carried right through the songs themselves
Excerpts from reviews of early Beatles performances by Andrew Loog Oldham (one of Brian Epstein's publicists):
"The Beatles were fast becoming a national treasure, each new single replacing the previous one as the national anthem."
"The kids broke all the backstage windows. It was pandemonium. Onstage, you could not hear the Beatles for the roar of the crowd."
"The audience that evening expressed something beyond repressed adolescent sexuality. The noise they made was the sound of the future."
Feb. 11: booked a full day at EMI's Studio No. 2 to record the Beatles first LP (long-playing album), released as Please Please Me after the hit single that topped some national charts by the first week of March
included 10 new recordings, each performed live in the studio with minimal overdubs; the album needed little post-production, though -- even here -- George Martin's skills made a difference. On Feb. 20th, he added keyboard parts to "Misery" and "Baby It's You," doubling and thereby beefing up Harrison's guitar parts in those songs.
April & May: purchased lots of new musical gear (including Paul's Vox bass amp in late March, George's Gretsch Country Gentleman in May, and Ringo's Ludwig drum set on May 12), necessitated by a full-time touring schedule playing houses as large as 10,000!Please Please Me memorializes the sound of the gear they'd had since 1960-61.
To get a sense of why John, Paul, & George regarded Ringo as the best drummer in Liverpool, compare his work in "Baby, It's You" with that on the Shirelles' model recording; Ringo improves the tempo to perfection, and his supple placement, always "in the pocket," brings every moment of the song to life.
"Baby, It's You"
The Shirelles
The Beatles
Please Please Me reached no. 1 (in the UK) in its fifth week on Melody Maker's album chart, where it stayed for an unprecedented 30-week run before being knocked off by the group's second album, With the Beatles (in November)!!!
Please Please Me gathered significant strength from a number 1 hit single (the title track) and exposure through radio, television, and national tour dates
between May 4, 1963 and February 6, 1965, the Beatles held the no. 1 album spot for 82 of 93 weeks!!
The remainder of 1963
March 1963: second theater tour with Tommy Roe and Chris Montez, who were quickly knocked out of top billing by the Beatles, who were now crowd favorites and overwhelming national stars
mid-May into mid-June 1963: a third national tour, in which they edged out megastar Roy Orbison for headliner status (because "From Me to You" topped the singles chart for seven weeks)
John Lennon: "You can't measure success, but, if you could, then the minute I knew we'd been successful was when Roy Orbison asked us if he could record two of our songs."
the BBC contracted the band for a new nationally networked radio series, Pop Go the Beatles, providing an audience of millions in My through September as the Beatles played their hits (plus dozens of the R&B covers frequently requested in their Hamburg and Liverpool club days) and cracked wise with other personalities. The Beatles had become their home country's darlings.
Having emulated so many early R&B and rock 'n' roll artists by performing cover versions of their music, as songwriters, Lennon & McCartney took the next logical step: writing their own Chuck Berry-style "standard," a cornerstone of the material that matched and extended Berry's delight with suggestive words. Other songs by the Beatles that might be considered Berry homages: 1968's "Back in the U.S.S.R." (angles of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A.," rebounds into Ray Charles' "Georgia on My Mind,"and boomerangs back to Berry's "Back in the U.S.A.") and 1969's "Come Together" (which spins its opening lines from Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" out into hippie esoterica.
"I Saw Her Standing There"
Wait a minute ... "1, 2, 3, ..." ... what did he say? ... "Four"? or "Fuck"?
As an act, the Beatles resemble the unknown actor who shows up late in the movie, steals the scene from the big-shot Hollywood star, and arrives home from the premiere to find the phone ringing off the hook.
"There's a Place"
The placement of this creatively gorgeous song is interesting ... as the penultimate (next-to-last) number on side 2 of their debut album, preceding -- or, as Everette & Riley state, "lighting the fuse for" -- the closing track: a cover of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout."
The track combines the best elements of their songwriting and arranging (so far):
the harmonica from "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do"
the alternation of harmony vocals and unison singing from "Misery" and "I Saw Her Standing There"
an ensemble kick that strides with a vast, irresistible confidence
The inimitable Beatles sound emerges: two individuals swerving, glancing, and soaring; two substantial egos and personalities sparring with each other in ecstatic struggle, before landing in unison on another perilous (minor) perch:
.
Growth as Musicians
During the early years of the Beatles, Britain developed a strong taste for Liverpool's beat music, the name by which members of the Liverpool music scene referred to this musical style.
popular beat groups: Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Remo Four, the Searchers, the Undertakers, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Fourmost, and Cilla Black
several of these beat bands recorded hits with Lennon-McCartney compositions, were topping the national charts, and were heard everywhere!
Kramer's recording of Lennon's "Bad to Me" reached no. 1 in August
Liverpool acts accounted for the no. 1 spot in 32 of the weekly 1963 NME charts
In April 1963, the Beatles heard the Rolling Stones play in London, and George Harrison recommended them to Dick Rowe of Decca Records
recall that Decca was the label that had declined the Beatles, so they did not want to make a similarly tragic error
Decca released the Stones' first single in June (a cover of Buddy Holly's hit "Not Fade Away") to modest success
the Stones' second record ("I Wanna Be Your Man") was a Lennon & McCartney composition
this circumstance has attained mythical status in the anals of rock history: apparently John & Paul finished composing the number right in front of the incredulous Stones, thereby inspiring Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to begin composing their own material!
after the success of the Beatles, in addition to Liverpool beat groups, R&B-influenced electric pop groups from all over England swarmed the charts; some of those bands included:
Manchester: the Hollies, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, & Herman's Hermits
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: the Animals
London (& suburbs): the Zombies, the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds, the Honeycombs, the Dave Clark Five, & Manfred Mann
Birmingham: the Spencer Davis Group
Andover: the Troggs
These bands would soon ride the Beatles' coattails to America in 1964-1966 as the "British Invasion."
"She Loves You"
The Beatles fourth single ("She Loves You") cemented their domination over all other British musical acts and was the all-time best-selling record in the United Kingdom until 1977 (when Paul McCartney's "Mull of Kintyre" became the first 45 rpm record to sell two million copies in Britain).
"She Loves You" occupied the no. 1 slot for four weeks beginning September. 14, and then -- after sitting at no. 2 or no. 3 for seven weeks -- returned to the top of the charts for November 30 and December 7, until "I Want to Hold Your Hand" toppled it and reigned as no. 1 for five weeks itself!
Can you hear the aab form of this verse?
Can you hear the aab form of this verse?
With the Beatles and "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
Where Please Please Me sounded raw, almost like a snapshot of their live stage set, With the Beatles pulled the Beatles' sound into a more professional class of recording.
the new album contained seven new Lennon-McCartney songs, a first composition by George Harrison, and covers of three songs
there are still strong hints of derivative songwriting evident in the original songs, but the Beatles are now drawing from themselves more than from their musical influences
studio technology advancements
used a newer four-track tape machine, allowing the engineers to capture a basic performance with drums and bass on one track, guitars on another, and vocals on a third, reserving the fourth track for overdubs of another guitar part, additional vocals, harmonica, hand percussion and handclaps, or keyboards often played by George Martin
as a result of this technological advance, the end product captured not so much a concert experience but an artwork embedded in the recording itself, rending a live performance of certain tracks a meager simulacrum if not beside the point
By 1966, ...
the Beatles would tour the world to support Revolver without performing any of its songs onstage
their career shifted from that of a top live act into a premier "studio" act, a brand new category of musician that sprang organically from the original material Lennon & McCartney wrote specifically for the studio
thanks largely to the Beatles, recorded music no longer had to present the sound of live performance; it could stray farther from reality altogether
"All I've Got to Do"
"Not a Second Time"
can you hear the SRDC form of the verse here?
"I Want to Hold Your Hand"
The arrival of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in America occurred about four months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; commentators of the era characterized one role of Beatlemania as rescuing America from its grief
Kennedy's death left a gaping hole in the cultural heart, not just that someone so young and powerful could be lost so instantly but that so many dreams and images of America's future, invested in his persona, might also be erased
the Beatles filled a hole nobody even knew was there ... the fact that young Brits had done it through a distinctly American musical style -- rock 'n' roll -- a nationalistic impulse as primal as baseball and hot dogs, only made the argument that much more decisive!
Can you hear the aa'b form of this verse?
Can you hear the aa'b form of this verse?
Can you hear the aa'b form of this verse?
The Beatles dominated the U.S. charts in the Spring of 1964, when the Top 5 spots on the April 4th Billboard charts included:
"Can't Buy Me Love"
"Twist and Shout"
"She Loves You"
"I Want to Hold Your Hand"
"Please Please Me"
The British Invasion had officially arrived on American shores!
In the "sidebar" about "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in Everette & Riley (2019, pp. 75), there is a very detailed description of how the tracks were "ping-ponged" on the four-track tape recorder for this recording, including the use of three tracks on a separate tape machine. This section of the text is worth a careful read if you would like to better understand how these advanced recording techniques (for the time, at least) were applied in the studio by the Beatles.
Beatlemania Officially Recognized
By the conclusion of 1963, the Beatles had established a schedule of releasing two LPs and several singles per year.
The Mersey Sound: a 30-minute documentary was released at the end of August ...
featuring Mersey Beat editor Bill Harry discussing the recent professionalization of Liverpool bands
Brian Epstein recounting his life with the Beatles
interviews with the four band members on their clothing and their fans throwing jelly babies at them on stage
several performances showing audiences howling for their heroes
October 13: the Beatles headlined a variety of acts for the country's most popular television program, Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The crowds outside the theater had grown so wild that the British press dubbed it "Beatlemania."
Beatlemania in full swing as the Beatles return to London Airport from America on February 22, 1964.
November 4, 1963: the Beatles played a command performance for the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret at the Prince of Wales Theatre, the highest honor bestowed on any entertainment act.
as typical of Beatles performances, the band members punctuated their performance with entertaining stage banter
the Beatles typically asked the audience to clap their hands and stomp their feet; for this performance (before royalty), Lennon decided to break the apprehension caused by the stark mix of royal formality and direct, unselfconscious expression, so he announced with a grin: "For our last number I'd like to ask your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewelry."
The Beatles moved from Liverpool into London.
members of the band found apartments in London
the move to London allowed Paul more time to spend with actress Jane Asher, his soon-to-be fiancée; Paul chose to live in the Asher's home rather than in an apartment
Paul gave Jane's brother (Peter) several of his own original compositions for his duo to perform
the duo was called Peter and Gordon, and they took Paul's "A World Without Love" to no. 1 in both the United Kingdom and the United States in April-June 1964
Jane's mother was a professional oboist (she had been George Martin's teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on that instrument!)
the cultural tone set in the Asher house had a profound influence on McCartney's sense of style
Interesting note: it was in this house (later, in January 1967) where McCartney heard David Mason play piccolo trumpet in a televised performance of Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto, and he knew right then he wanted Mason to play the instrument on "Penny Lane."
The Beatles' image (quite unusual for the time!)
In April 1963, the Beatles heard the Rolling Stones play in London, and George Harrison recommended them to Dick Rowe of Decca Records
Where Please Please Me sounded raw, almost like a snapshot of their live stage set, With the Beatles pulled the Beatles' sound into a more professional class of recording.
