The Essential Beatles Book

By Paul Charles

On March 22nd 1963 the album Please Please Me by The Beatles was released and a worldwide, multi-cultured phenomenon exploded with Beatlemania. This landmark long-player was created by four street-wise lads from Liverpool; one classy producer and one publicity savvy manager. The album was only the first in a long line of record-breaking hits from this incredible collaboration, a collaboration responsible for completely re-writing the music-business rule book. The Beatles, George Martin and Brian Epstein were destined to become the most successful entity in the history of the entertainment business. During those ten years they broke every performance and sales record in the book. Most noticeably was in March 1964 when the top five singles in American where Billboard's top hundred sales chart were: No 1. Twist and ShoutThe Beatles No 2. Can't Buy Me LoveThe Beatles No 3. She Loves YouThe Beatles No 4. I Want To Hold Your HandThe Beatles No 5. Please Please MeThe Beatles In addition to those five singles (four of which were original Lennon & McCartney songs) they also had singles at Nos 16; 44; 49; 69; 78; 84 and 88. This is a never-bettered feat. No other artist has even come close. Now nearly 60 years later The Beatles still remain the most recognisable group on the planet. In this fact-packed book, musicologist Paul Charles examines only the years The Beatles were writing, recording, performing and making movies together. Using their singles, albums, live appearances and films, as signposts, he examines the songs, the records, their colleagues and stories behind the official releases and of their decade long career as a group. He also endeavours to explain the mystery and magic of the Beatles art and their unique artistic and commercial success. Originally from Ireland Paul Charles has been working in the music business since he was 15, as a manager, agent, promoter, publicist, journalist and lyricist. In The Essential Beatles Book he celebrates a truly unique career that produced certainly three, perhaps even four, of the best albums ever released.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Haven Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 31, 2021

Book preview

The Essential Beatles Book

Paul Charles

Published 2021

New Haven Publishing www.newhavenpublishingltd.com [e-mail]

All Rights Reserved

The rights of Paul Charles, as the author of this work, have been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

No part of this book may be re-printed or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now unknown or hereafter invented, including photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the Author and Publisher.

Also available as paperback ISBN: 978-1-912587-56-6

Cover design ©Pete Cunliffe

Copyright © 2021 Paul Charles

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9781949515237

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction*

Chapter 2: Come Together*

Chapter 3: The First Two Singles*

Chapter 4: The First Album*

Chapter 5: Beatlemania*

Chapter 6: They’re Going To Put Me In The Movies*

Chapter 7: The Studio Years*

Chapter 8: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band*

Chapter 9: The Beatles? *

Chapter 10: The Big Wheel Keeps On Turning*

Chapter 11: The Beatles Legacy*

About the Author

Chapter 1

*Introduction*

IT WAS (almost) FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY…

The thing about The Beatles is that here we are with this publication, celebrating not far short of the 60th anniversary of the release of their first album Please Please Me, which was released on Friday March 22nd, 1963, and globally it could be argued that they are now more popular than ever. A few Christmases ago, EMI put together all of the group’s number one singles on a compilation, came up with the innovative title of 1, and it became one of the fastest selling albums of all time, moving over 23.5 million records in a matter of a month. It has now sold in excess of a phenomenal 40 million copies making it the biggest selling record in the world since 2000!

In the UK and Ireland, The Beatles catalogue has sold a staggering12.2 million records since the year 2000. They are the fourth best- selling act in that period. Unlike the three acts above them, The Beatles have had no current work released in that period with their last work being recorded 43 years ago. In the same period they sold a phenomenal 30.3 million records in the USA!

In 2019 Abbey Road their 10th album was re-mastered and re- released. It returned to the No. 1 spot jn the charts. The vinyl version of the album alone sold an additional 250,000 making it the No 1 best-selling vinyl album that year. It is estimated that their total career global sales have just passed the 1 billion mark. That’s 1,000,000,000 copies of Beatles records out there in the world!

I’m not sure that there are too many people around who don’t know The Beatles’ story; about how George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney got together, met Brian Epstein and went on to fame and fortune. It’s been well documented in hundreds of books over the ensuing 50 years. So the intention here is not to dwell too much on that side of things; instead I would like to concentrate on the official recorded works of their short career. On top of which, I’d like to try and shed some light on the reasons for their incredible success.

Looking back, it’s very easy to say that The Beatles were a mega- group, the biggest and most popular group that the world has ever known. They broke numerous performance records and set standards, commercially and musically speaking, which I believe will never be bettered. But their success wasn’t an accident. The important thing in all of this wasn’t that they had so many hits because they were a big group; the reason they had so many hits was simply because they had great songs.

I find it incredible that you could go out on the street and walk up to the first stranger that you meet and mention a song title, any one of their 221 songs, and nine times out of ten the stranger would be able to make a passable stab at singing the melody. We’re not just talking about the twenty-two official singles here, or even their B- sides. Try it at your place of work or in the pub or at a dinner party. Even simpler than that, take a look at the list of their recorded titles at the back and see how many of them you can remember and/or sing.

Why don’t we take a chronological trip through the fantastic adventure of The Beatles and, by using their singles and albums as islands along the way and maybe with a few prompts here and there on the various songs, I might even be able to help you to remember some more of the tunes in question.

So, without further ado…

Chapter 2

*Come Together*

First there was John John Winston Lennon.

Born in Liverpool on October 9th 1940. John was an only child. He was brought up by his Aunt Mary ‘Mimi’ and Uncle George Smith because his dad was away at sea and his mother, Julia, was living with another man. His Uncle George died in 1955. John attended Quarry Bank Grammar School; he loved books, writing stories, and drawing. Julia apparently could play anything with strings and taught John banjo chords. She was knocked down by a motorcar just outside her house, and she tragically died just a few months before John’s eighteenth birthday in 1958.

Thanks to the skiffle craze sweeping the country in 1956 led in no small way by Lonnie Donegan and his number one single Rock Island Line John Lennon formed his own skiffle group. They were called The Quarrymen and the fellow band members were his mates from Quarry Bank School. The following year, on 6th July 1957, The Quarrymen were performing at Woolton Parish Church Fete, where a young man called Paul McCartney was in the audience. Following The Quarrymen’s second set John Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney by a mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan.

Paul James McCartney was born in Liverpool on June 18th, 1942 to Mary and James McCartney. He had a younger brother, Michael. His mother died of breast cancer in 1956. Paul, influenced by his father, who had once led a local jazz band, took up music and by the time he met John he was able to play a little. It was his ability to teach John some chords and the fact that he knew and could write down the lyrics to some of John’s favourite songs that encouraged John to invite Paul to join The Quarrymen. Paul McCartney attended Liverpool Institute and on his daily trip to this learning establishment, on the number 86 bus, he would frequently meet up with fellow pupil, and musician, George Harrison.

George Harrison was born on 25th February 1943, the fourth child of Louise and Harold Harrison. George had two brothers and one sister. By the time George met Paul, although a year younger, he was a veteran of two groups The Rebels and The Les Stewart Quartet. George first heard The Quarrymen in early 1958 and he joined their ever-changing line- up in August 1959.

In January 1960 The Quarrymen, consisting of John, Paul, and George with John’s friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, became the Beatals. Next they changed their name to the Silver Beetles, with drummer Tommy Moore, but by August of that year Tommy Moore was gone and they were off to play a residency in Hamburg as The Beatles with Pete Best as the drummer.

The Hamburg residency was a baptism of fire. There was music, alcohol, pills, and sex. They would play for several hours each night, and encouraged by the club owner continually shouting ‘Mach Schau’ at them, they gradually became a very tight musical and visually arresting unit. They had the ability to start a song together, keep in time for the duration, and then finish it together. No amount of rehearsal can teach you to be tight; it’s an intuitive thing that happens when musicians know each other very well. By the time they returned home they were, musically speaking, one of the best of the 300 or so groups playing around Liverpool at that time.

Stuart Sutcliffe fell in love with Astrid Kirchherr, a stylish Hamburg student and photographer, and, following The Beatles’ second visit to Germany, he remained in Hamburg to continue studying his first love, art. Stuart died tragically in Astrid’s arms from cerebral paralysis on 10th April 1962. He was John’s best friend and was the first Beatle, inspired and styled by Astrid, to have the Beatle haircut, wear the black leather suit and the velvet Cardin suits.

Astrid’s early Hamburg photo sessions with The Beatles clearly show the band evolving from a bunch of Liverpool scruffs into a band with an image. They looked like family; more brothers than fellow musicians. The Beatles couldn’t help but notice that they were starting to look as though they belonged and, more importantly, that they belonged together. The leather suits and the haircuts helped to cultivate this unifying look but there was more: the long hours together on stage each night; living in each other’s pockets; making sure they gave each other as good as they got in the ribbing stakes; their pain; their mutual love of American music; but probably above all of that, it was the confidence they were starting to feel and share that set them apart from other bands.

In May 1961, The Beatles visited the recording studios for the first time. They were booked as the backing band for Tony Sheridan and recorded My Bonnie, which was released as a single in June 1961 under the name Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. The brief change of name occurred because the producer of the sessions, Bert Kaempfert, decided that ‘The Beatles’ sounded like the German word for penis. During this first recording session The Beatles also recorded Cry For A Shadow, a George Harrison- composed instrumental, which earns the distinction of being the first Beatle original to appear on an album (Tony

Sheridan’s German release of My Bonnie in June 1962). Towards the end of the summer of 1961, back in Liverpool, a local businessman encouraged by people coming into the record department of his shop and requesting My Bonnie and the reports he was reading about The Beatles in the local music paper, Mersey Beat went to see them in the Cavern Club. This local businessman was none other than Brian Epstein, and he visited the Cavern at lunchtime on 9th Nov 1961. He loved the performance and visited the