Beatles Running Blog....

I'll start with the Hamburg tour, or I guess it was really a stay. Early Beatles in Hamburg were playing 8-hour shows, living behind a porn theater and drinking heavily and doing uppers. During their stay they met artists that helped them find their style, which would later become a trademark, the mop-top hair and the nice clean-cut suits, and took them away from the james Dean-looking leather jackets and slicked back hair. That look was getting tired anyway, and I don't think the Beatles were ever going to fool anyone trying to look like rebels. Their rebelliousness would come in the late 60's with their music.
The covers..."I Got A Woman" by Ray Charles, "Too Much Monkey Business" by Chuck Berry, "Long Tally Sally" by Little Richard, as you'll notice most of these covers are by American artists and they pull from the same pool of artists that we always talk about as the major influences of rock. I think all those recordings we just listened to were pulled from the Live BBC Sessions, not the Hamburg performances. The Live BBC Sessions is a great album to get if you like early Beatles and are interested in hearing most of their covers. There are some originals but for the most part, they really get heavy into the influences and the sound quality is pretty good. I recommend it to you Beatles geeks out there.

Brian Epstein was the Beatles new manager and he got them a record deal and also fired drummer Pete Best. Shortly after they hired Ringo Starr and the Beatles would be "The Beatles" for the rest of time. At this time they also met George Martin, who would be their longtime producer and collaborator, and at times a father figure to the band. They respected George and knew how much he meant to their careers. They even took the time to not do drugs in the studio when George was around, like so many other artists did. Instead, they went on the roof to smoke. That may not seem like a big deal but if you read about other artists they typically treated their producers like shit and acted like junkie-prima donnas.

The Beatles were accused of writing too many silly love songs early in their career, but let's always keep in mind that singles were written in that style at the time. The precedent for lofty topics and heavy writing had not been set in pop music at the time, that was still left for the folk arena. The breakthrough of "Pet Sounds" and Dylan going electric probably opened the door and allowed the Beatles to explore that space, and only once that door was open did they record their most memorable and artistically ambitious music.

"Please Please Me" was the Beatles first hit record, according to Dr. McKeen it's about oral sex, I've never heard that story but you can be the judge. Listening to it now the lyrics seem to speak for themselves.

The Early hits-"She Loves You"- Ringo's furious hi-hat drumming would be a staple of the early Beatles records and though most people don't give Ringo much credit as a drummer, I think that is one of his most recognizable traits. "I Want To Hold Your Hand."-is memorable for the almost out of key harmonies at the end of each verse. "All My Loving"-was the first song they ever played on American soil. I have a framed picture of that exact performance on my wall.

After they performed on the Ed Sullivan Show they did a small tour in different cities in the US like Miami and Washington D.C. and then they went back to London and recorded "A Hard Day's Night" and "Beatles For Sale."

1965-"the highwater mark" in rock n' roll, the British Invasion had started in 1964, James Brown one of my top-five favorite artists of all time broke through to the pop charts. Some of the artists on the charts were, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Same Cooke, James Brown, The Temps, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Stevie Wonder. The Beach Boys, so you can imagine what kind of year it was for music. These are the giants, doing their thing.

I like it when Dr. McKeen does his Bob Dylan voice, although he doesn't draw out the syllables long enough. So pretty much Bobby D calls them out for not taking their music serious enough. So Bob instills this sense of opportunity in these fun-loving guys, and then the world changed, Rubber Soul came out.

Norwegian Wood featured the sitar for the first time in the Beatles career, and gave the record an interesting and exotic sound especially for pop music. This song helped to cement the idea that the Beatles could be experimental as well as practical. "You Won't See Me" is an example on how they expanded their pop sensibilities, using familiar harmonies and sung melody lines but adding 3 seperate structures to the song. "Nowhere Man" features their best harmonies ever and when you listen to it it just seems effortless. Those harmonies are pretty mind-blowing. The entire album can be set apart from their earlier material because every song was distinct lyrically and musically. Although "Girl" and "My Michelle" have similar sounds. "I'm Looking Through You" was one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar, and that organ part is very "Booker T. & The MG's-esque."

Anyone ever heard the Ozzy Osbourne cover of "In My Life"? It's pretty miserable. In part I think no one should cover Beatles songs. I've covered a few in the past and I vowed never to do it again. Elliott Smith might be able to get away with it, or maybe Jeff Buckely. But there are certain artists you just don't touch, and mine are primarily the Bealtes and Otis Redding.

"I'm Only Sleeping" is the best song from the 1965-1966 Beatles era. Period. Stop your inner dialogue. It just is.

Hey! While I am thinking about it, if you are a huge Beatles geek like me, you should go to amazon.com and check out Beatles lullabies. They have CDs you can buy for your babies and they are lullaby instrumentals of classic albums and songs. Even if you aren't a baby or don't have a baby they still sound cool. The album is "Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of The Beatles." Also, don't ask me how I found this.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is probably the Beatles' only one-chord song. From what I recall John Lennon said he just plays a C chord throughout the entire song.

Break...time for a cigarette.