← Something About the Beatles
Something About the Beatles
SATB Special: Ribbons of Rust Book Launch with John Leckie, Sibbie O'Sullivan and Richard Mills
01:03:58
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- [00:02]
Robert Rodriguez
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- [01:00]
Jerry Hammock
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- [01:04]
Robert Rodriguez
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- [01:06]
Jerry Hammock
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- [01:29]
Robert Rodriguez
Edu. Hello everyone. I'm Robert Rodriguez and this is my friend Jerry Hammock. Put Jerry away. Now. Together this year we produced a book called Ribbons of the Beatles Recording History in Context, Volume one of a projected series. Now, the first thing you might be wondering is what is a ribbon of rustic? I would say that any music, any sound that you enjoyed, produced from the 1940s through, say, the early 80s when things started to go digital, was captured on a ribbon of rust. Plastic ribbon infused with iron oxide, hence rivets of rust. So sometimes when you're creating a project, you're way too close to it to really sort of get a sense of what it is, if it's any good. If you hit all your goals, what is it exactly? So to that end, we convened a panel of esteemed folks that we know. Two academics, two Brits, two first gen fans, a successful music producer, record producer in England, a female, somebody who saw the Beatles on the Ed Solomon show in the room. All these people we thought, came into the Beatles at different points and got to know them through different points. A couple Beatle authors. So that makes for a big sounding panel, right? Actually, it's three people combined. Sibio Sullivan, author of My Private Lenin, Memoir of a fan who Never screamed, written extensively about the Beatles. Richard Mills, a Irishman living in England who's produced now a couple volumes and many writings on the Beatles, including the Beatles and Fandom and the newly published the Beatles and Black Music. And there is our friend John Leckie, a producer whose career started at EMI as the Beatles were winding down. He was a tape operator on the first four Beatles solo albums. Sentimental Journey from Ringo, McCartney from Paul, all Things Must Pass from George and Plastic Ono Band from John. He also went on to work with Wings before going on to work with Radiohead and Dukes of Stratosphere, xtc, Simple Minds, any number of great acts. So we decided to have a conversation with these people. We gave them the book to read and, and got their take on it, as well as a few lay fans, intelligent Beatle people that we knew that had read everything. Dan Eilenberg and Doug Thompson, man a Few Words. Troy Hubbard of the Garage Door Radio show and Mike Sekulich. And we sat them all down after had a chance to digest a book, to get their takes on what it is we did. And here's what they had to say, starting with Richard Mills.
- [04:43]
Jerry Hammock
I just want to congratulate you both on the book. It's absolutely fantastic. The detail is unbelievable and a picture paints a thousand words. And the pictures that you've gotten that from the old enemies, all the. The record covers of the vinyl are absolutely gorgeous, completely evocative of the period. Also very sort of elec in a way as well. You feel really bit nostalgic looking at all of this set, all this beautiful material. And also it's really good that you've got the QR codes that you can listen to the book. So I can be incredibly nerdy. And I read through the whole book yesterday and then I listened to all the music and very subtly you get drawn in and it's a really, really deep dive into the period. And I fancy myself as a bit of an expert on the Beatles. And there was things in that book I found out about Lord Woodbine that I didn't know. There's lots of really funny bits in it as well. Like Bernard Pie thinks that he did 21 Beatles songs as drummer. I love the description of the famous picture of the Beatles standing in Hamburg in their caps. You and Jerry said, oh, these were their pink caps. And if this ever goes in YouTube, I don't want to use the words the Beatles had to describe those hats because it's. It's a little bit rude, but that these pink caps, the level of detail is unbelievable. And also it'll be fascinating to hear what everybody else in this panel says because as almost everything in this book is predicated on one word, which is electricity. We've got references to all the Grundig recorders. We've got unbelievably tip of John Lennon singing with the quarrymen on 6 July 1957. How fortuitous was it that King Size Taylor got the Beatles last gig in the Star Club in Hamburg on four track? I love the. The way you describe the instruments, Ringo's premiere drum kit to his Ludwig drum kit, John's Rickenbacker, George's black gretch that he has in 1962. It turns up on the COVID of Cloud 9 in 1987. The myriad of connections and strands in the book is absolutely wonderful.
- [07:02]
Richard Mills
Thank you so much for that, Richard. Really appreciate that. Yeah, the idea that we had going in, you know, first of we didn't want to tell stories that had already been told before about the Beatles. There's so many stories that are told over and over and over again. So we wanted to try to look at the whole story in a different way and centered around, as the title refers to ribbons of rust centered around the recordings that they made because that's what the Beatles were always after. That was the most important thing to them was to make recordings. So the idea fundamentally within the project was to expose this through line of the influences that they have or had. So how they were influenced, excuse me, to the influence and the Beatles come to have. So we try to track that through the book Starting this early period, there's a lot more of the way the Beatles were influenced. All of the early artists that really lit them up and got them excited about making music. But as you get to the end of this particular part of the story, we also follow out how the Beatles influence of even these early recordings, Love be, do and whatnot, were picked up by modern artists and continue to this day to influence people.
- [08:19]
Jerry Hammock
Yeah, there's Smithereens, isn't it? Did Love Me do with Andy White on drums. Someone to love Somebody new. Someone to love. Someone like you Love, love me too.
- [08:40]
Robert Rodriguez
You know I love you I'll always be true.
- [08:46]
Jerry Hammock
So please love me too. Yeah. Absolutely crazy. And I love the Percy Phillips sessions, the detail of that as well.
- [09:01]
Robert Rodriguez
We've all through Anthology heard the recordings that were released, the first two sides that we go into detail discussing in the book. But that one after 9:09 recording from 1960 is very intriguing that nobody's heard. But it's just funny how that particular song bookends their career and it was only at the very End that. They finally nailed it. Yeah.
- [09:23]
Richard Mills
It took a few more passes than most of their tracks took.
- [09:26]
Jerry Hammock
Although Number nine.
- [10:11]
John Leckie
I can only second what you just said about the detail that you've gone into and all the little photographs and the little asides, even the adverts for Grundy tape recorders and those kind of things. And I mean, one of the things is people, probably the general public, don't understand how difficult it was to record something in those days. You know, to make a recording now, it's really easy, you know, but back in those days you'd have to know someone that had a tape recorder and, you know, it would be going at three and three quarters, so it wouldn't be mono, for instance, although everyone had mono at that time also. It was the way it was heard, but I was just fascinated. And also the way that you went back to the other records that were around at the time. You know, the early Tamla stuff, I can't remember the names Mr. Postman and you know, the songs that the Beatles covered, what was happening at the time and also what was happening in England. You mentioned Larry Barnes earlier and the whole Billy Fury and all those people in Liverpool there was, I think, Tommy Quickley and. And I was looking at the charts where you had When Please Please Me came up and you listed all the other records that were in the charts and of course I know everyone. I could sing you all those songs, those 20 songs. I couldn't now, I wouldn't know one record in the charts, but back in 1964 I could sing you every song on that chart and all sorts of American stuff, you know, Four Seasons and Johnny Tilson just died this week, didn't he? Johnny Tilson, Poetry in Motion. It was a big record and then it sounds mad, but it was a big record at that time for me.
- [12:01]
Jerry Hammock
You know.
- [12:05]
John Leckie
On 208 meters in the medium wave band. This is your station of the stars, Radio Luxembourg.
- [12:12]
Robert Rodriguez
The time is 9 o' clock and the next 15 minutes are brought to you by Typho.
- [12:18]
Richard Mills
The variety of the music that the Beatles were exposed to and influenced by in the late 50s and early 60s by today's kind of standard of, oh, I think of music as it's absorbed today in all these little micro verticals of genres, style or artists. Everyone can find their own one little thing. And to a extreme degree, like you can like rockabilly or you can not like rockabilly in general, but you love Psycho Billy, right?
- [12:52]
John Leckie
Yeah, the detail of it.
- [12:54]
Richard Mills
Yeah, the level of detail, the Granularity that is in contemporary consumption of music, that was just not there. There was a broader experience, fewer options to get access to it, and so a more communal experience. But it was a wide ranging musical experience in comparison to what we have in a contemporary way. Maybe, Robert, you can share about just access to the music that the Beatles had, what challenge that was.
- [13:22]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah. So it wasn't as though rock and roll was something coming out of the BBC at that time, as we know. It was something you had to be an aficionado to track down either by going to listening booths at record stores, which we talk about, or else Radio Luxembourg, which we write about a bit in the book. Coming from the continent, they had a particular advantage being in the north of England for that bandwidth to reach them at night. And it was not super solid, but it was something that if you were motivated enough to hear the stuff coming out of America more or less in real time, it was something you made the effort and all four Beatles have spoken to that. I was lucky enough to track down some air checks of period broadcasts from Radio Luxembourg 56 or so. And it was astonishing to me to hear that it wasn't what you would expect to be like the cream of the crop of artists operating at time. It was everything right now, Right now.
- [14:21]
Jerry Hammock
Alan Freed and his rock and roll band. Well, not now, But Saturday between 9:30 and 10:00 cl, Alan Freed brings you.
- [14:29]
Richard Mills
A full half hour of American rock.
- [14:30]
Jerry Hammock
And roll on his special program from New York City. So don't forget Saturday in the program jamboree. 9:30 is the time for Alan Freed in rock and roll from New York. Right now it's time for something that's, well, you can call it directly rock and roll. And yet this is the kind of music that provided the very backbone for this rock and roll idiom of today. The Zulu rhythm boys from Africa and Panicolo.
- [14:58]
Robert Rodriguez
If it was rock and roll, if it was coming out of New York, being broadcast on American airwaves, Alan Freed would be putting this stuff out there so it would be made available to Americans. So a lot of what gets talked about in Beatle history about the Cunard Yanks and these sailors in the port city of Liverpool bringing back the latest American records and how they had this advantage, that's been a bit overstated based on the research I've done and other people have done. First of all, the sailors tend to be older than the kids that reading up rock and roll and tend to be more jazz fans than rock and roll fans. But a lot of this rock and roll stuff that the Beatles became such connoisseurs of B sides and obscure R and B acts and stuff like that. There were outlets, in fact, in Britain for this licensing deals to where these records were getting issued. And if you were somebody that spent a lot of time hanging out at record stores and you could request it, you'd find it, you'd sit there in that booth and if you didn't buy it outright, you would play it over and over again, study it and pick it up and add it to your set. So there's records we talk about, like James Ray, if you gotta make a fool of somebody, a song that's not even known in the States really, but became a hot thing in Liverpool. And then years later, of course, George has Got My Mind set on you, which was like this happy fluke that gives him the last Ex Beatle number one hit in the States. So it's just kind of astonishing how this below the radar stuff was like their bread and butter. And you see plenty of evidence of that on display in the Get Back film where they can't remember words, the songs they wrote, but they can whip out songs they haven't heard in 10 years and just play the stuff verbatim. It's just amazing. But that's part of their DNA.
- [17:04]
Mike Sekulich
It's interesting, your book was so good and so thorough and surprisingly diverse and very modern. And, you know, I had to ask you, well, how do I get these QR codes? Because I'm a dinosaur.
- [17:21]
Robert Rodriguez
But did you work it out?
- [17:24]
Mike Sekulich
That's a private conversation, Robert. I grew up in Washington, dc. We're midway between New York and the south and AM radio, the variety of tv. And I think also because the interplay of black and white was a real gift to kids my age at that time, because the radios did play such a wide variety. You could have Little Richard on at 1 o' clock and you could have Perry Como on at 1:20 and then you could have Conway Twitty coming in and eventually somebody else would sing and my mother would tell me to turn it off. She wants to listen to opera. You know, it was a wonderful thing. And the way you described it, with the thoroughness and the titles of the record, it was just. I know those songs. I haven't forgotten those songs, you know, And I think that that variety is exactly. I think what Jerry said is that the vertical selection now that people have. And so if you are educating, especially younger readers or younger listeners because of this book, I think that the sort of mystification of how the Beatles became so good and how their songs could be so different becomes clearer because it's in their own audio DNA, it's in their body. And because they listen to so many. And that's not even the English folk songs, the pub songs. There's things that I didn't experience myself, but the harmonies of Irish singing and stuff, all of that comes together and it just makes their story so fantastic, but also so legible. And that was one of the gifts, I think, of your book, that it could appeal to fans my age who know the Beatles stories, but certainly not the way that any of you know it, because I just want to personalize it. You know, this was my group. I grew up with them. I saw them in Ed Sullivan Studio. There was like, they changed my life, you know, and he started doing the playlist and stuff. I don't want to say it was progressive nostalgia, but it was certainly my, you know, DNA nostalgia going back, because those were the songs that I heard. And not that, but because my father was a jazz musician, he wasn't a fan of rock and roll so much, but the intensity of the beat, the intensity of the kind of indecorousness of the blues and everything, that was again, part of my DNA too. So what the Beatles were doing made absolute sense to me. And then from that they did the incredible things that they did. And so I really think that that's going to be the G1 gift of this book. The playlists especially were very enlightening, because I don't carry those playlists around in my head, but I know those songs. And what's happening with the death you mentioned? Johnny Tillison. People are dying. What can I say? I don't know. How long am I going to live? I don't know. But these names that are on. Not the top level of. Of that kind of musical culture, but they're there. And it got me thinking about a lot of the other songs that maybe didn't make the list. And especially we had access to James Brown songs. We loved all James Brown, seventh grade man, you know, Night Train, Here we go. People threatening to sneak down and go to the Howard Theater. And some of them got in waiting at the door and stuff. And these are White K and Link. Ray was our guy, too. He was. That was really outre music. There was a dance that we all did in junior high school called Jack the Ripper, which I will not demonstrate. It was pretty intense for kids that probably didn't know really the significance of what they were doing. And I think that that probably explains a lot of the easy leaps into sort of the Beatles revolution of rock and roll just isn't dumb music. You know, the split between, oh, it's devil's music, it's this, it's that. No, the Beatles made rock and roll what we always knew it was going to be. And that's really intense, intelligent, solid, great, various subject matter, just all the kinds of things. And they did it. And I think that the fact that they did it is because of exactly what you guys have said is what they listened to, what they absorbed and what they knew that they could do and experimented with and ended up doing. I think it's a fantastic story. And I know as the book progressed, I knew what was going to happen. Obviously not the technical things, but those last pages, Robert, both of you, those last pages. Because that was it. John Lennon calls himself in the interviews. I'm a record man. That's what they always wanted was a record, you know? And Jerry, in terms of tape recorders, I loved the product placements in the book. There's all this material culture.
- [23:22]
Robert Rodriguez
Okay, come and get it.
- [23:23]
John Leckie
It's.
- [23:40]
Jerry Hammock
That's where we're going to.
- [23:42]
Robert Rodriguez
At the TV show, that's where we're going to go. Go put your books away, Come along.
- [23:49]
John Leckie
With me at the tv.
- [23:53]
Robert Rodriguez
That's where we're going at the TV show, that's where we're. You're going to go.
- [23:59]
John Leckie
So put your books away and come.
- [24:02]
Robert Rodriguez
Along with me.
- [24:14]
John Leckie
Saturday night. And baby, I rock it up. I'm going to rip it up I'm.
- [24:21]
Mike Sekulich
Going to shake it up I'm going.
- [24:23]
Jerry Hammock
To roll it up I'm going to.
- [24:25]
John Leckie
Rock it up at the ball tonight.
- [24:29]
Robert Rodriguez
I am Williana, social traveler.
- [24:32]
John Leckie
I am a Williana social traveler.
- [24:35]
Dan Eilenberg
I am a Williana social traveler.
- [24:37]
Jerry Hammock
I.
- [25:01]
Richard Mills
Love. Hello there.
- [25:02]
Robert Rodriguez
Jimmy. Anything? Welcome to the show. And did you see old Hot Lips.
- [25:06]
Jerry Hammock
Hall there exercising his consoles?
- [25:08]
Dan Eilenberg
Well, it's a pleasure to listen to all of you on this. I've heard you on the cast. I've read a lot of your books, as well as just some of your writings and stuff. But just an honor to have been invited to this. Was Richard the one that you guys. Robert, you and him were talking for 20 minutes and went, are we on? Was that that episode?
- [25:26]
Robert Rodriguez
Yep.
- [25:27]
Richard Mills
Oh, okay.
- [25:28]
Robert Rodriguez
That's great.
- [25:29]
Dan Eilenberg
That was one of the most endearing conversations I've ever, ever listened to. I just wanted to do a shout out for that little context. And I don't want to pick up the time, but I've known Robert for a long time. We didn't have anything in the 70s. We had, like, three books to read and the Holy Grail, so to speak. To me, anyway, was a Beatle illustrator record because it was about the records, it was about the music. And the fact that it went chronological is like, again, think about my life in the mid-70s. I'm on headphones, like, the big honking, realistic cost headphones, listening to this stuff. And there you go, like. And there's times when my head was, like, leaning to one side because of the bad mixes, but just trying to understand, like, how they created this. And Rob and I would always talk about, like, that's a great record. Like, Instant Karma is a great record. You hear the track and then you hear what made it a great record. And I guess what I'm kind of leaning to is that this book basically tells the story of what were the great records the Beatles liked, what inspired them, and things that they probably picked up intuitively. Like, there was challenges there electronically and just technology. But why they did the arrangements they did and why they approached them the way they did. And I just take a look at what I learned and received from a lot of the books I've read, and this is just taking it deeper and deeper. You always say, how much deeper can you go? It's like, you do it right, you can go deeper and you can make it engaging and interesting, and you can learn things you never heard. And the way you blended the stories with the diagrams of the mixing. I mean, I'm not kidding the Candy Store with this book. So thanks for inviting me to this.
- [27:11]
Robert Rodriguez
Thank you.
- [27:12]
Richard Mills
Thank you, Mike.
- [27:13]
Dan Eilenberg
Jerry, I have a question, and maybe to Robert, too, is both of you obviously have, like, a passion and a strength for coming at this from, like, sort of a different angle. Robert, I know, is, growing up, his dad was a very strong writer, right. And just understood history, right? And then, Jerry, I just think of how you made what may be perceived as a technical thing just very digestible. Like, I get it, but even I'm interested in, like, when I see the diagrams here of, like, the panning and all that stuff. How did you guys weave that together to make it sort of like as you're. You're kind of almost telling these concurrent stories, right? You're telling what's influencing them, and then you're saying it's good, and this is the output that came out of it. Like, how did you kind of balance that out or collaborate to make that work so well with a sledgehammer?
- [28:03]
Richard Mills
Yeah, in terms of the writing process, I mean we both have our area of strength. And so we were developing the narratives fairly independently. In my case, around the recording and recording activity. Robert around the. The more generalized history influences, that kind of thing that he's just got. Just for whatever reason, there's always at the tip of his tongue. And then just as part of the editing and book building process, we weaved the language of it together to make it all work consistently. So in case when you get to the recording information, I asked Robert to help me understand where influences, and this will be more important as the series goes forward, of where these influences of the Beatles are showing up that they had were showing up in the recording work. I'm glad that the way that it turned out that it reads as an integrated piece and not as distinctly two voices we wanted to. And the challenge of this is anything you find on tape of the Beatles we want to look at, we want to evaluate, we want to explore, we want to bring to the reader's attention. In some cases we don't have a whole lot of information. There's a lot of new digging that has to happen to find out what's going on. With that and with my previous series, it was 11 years of researching and writing to get that together. We're maybe figuring we've got what, seven or eight years in this probably coming up, something like that.
- [29:41]
Robert Rodriguez
Astonishing thing is, as we saw in the last week or so, recordings continue to surface. Last year there was the Stowe School and the EMI Live thing. They did a promotional thing Back to back April 4th and April 5th in 1963.
- [30:18]
John Leckie
This is our latest record. We got C then.
- [30:34]
Robert Rodriguez
If there's anything that you want, if.
- [30:37]
John Leckie
There'S anything I can do.
- [30:40]
Robert Rodriguez
Now we've got two new live gigs that surfaced. One was when they were supporting Roy Orbison. It's an audience tape, I think of their seven songs they did and a couple of Orbisons set. And then August 21st, I think in Bournemouth later that year when they're headlining and it's the day before they shoot the COVID of with the Beatles and they're just working non stop as they pretty much have been for years going into that. Funny that all the stuff that we are going to be teeing up for 1963, volume two, it's all surfacing. So I hope it continues to. But in volume one, the stuff that we've talked about that maybe hasn't gotten a lot of attention, maybe has just because I don't know how many fans really know that that the day John and Paul were formally introduced some guy recorded the Quarryman set that day.
- [32:25]
Jerry Hammock
Or.
- [32:26]
Robert Rodriguez
The first time John, Paul, George and Ringo recorded in Hamburg when they were still in separate groups can't hear it, but it happened we know about the Sheridan stuff with Burt Campurt but an overlooked thing the day after they recorded the Ringo take of Love Me do in London at Parlophone at EMI Studio they schlepped back to Liverpool to record at the Cavern Some other guy in Kansas City for Granada TV.
- [32:53]
John Leckie
Had a.
- [32:54]
Jerry Hammock
Couple of requests to do Two Goal.
- [32:55]
John Leckie
Kansas City so I'd like to do.
- [33:15]
Robert Rodriguez
That was formally recorded Acetates were made Brian shared them trying to draw interest and get them more on TV so that's cool stuff we mentioned somebody hotwiring their TV at great peril of electrocution to themselves to record this broadcast of the Beatles on TV in October of 62 and therein we get a live performance of Love Me do when the record is new and lo and behold Ringo is doing that rhythm shift in the instrumental break of Love may do that Pete Best got crucified for when Anthology 1 came out like what is he doing? Guess what, folks? That was their live arrangement Ringo's just following orders it adds little insights into their story stuff we didn't know before but going to the best evidence, which is the tape wow, that's something we didn't know about the Beatles so we're just trying to track that stuff as best we can and just fill in all these little gaps of knowledge at this distance that's what history is made up of these little things that fall between the cracks Jerry and I worked as diligently as we could to dig up as much stuff that we didn't necessarily know in advance existed but sometimes things fall your way like when Jerry had the exchange with the grandson of Percy Phillips in Liverpool and we were able to find out well, that rumored second visit where the track one after 909 in fact did happen the record apparently doesn't exist maybe it'll surface one day but our logbook for 1960 is no longer in our possession but we can document that it is to our knowledge that yes, they did come back they did have a second session here unfortunately the supporting evidence doesn't exist but trust us, we know it's something that's part of the family history so anytime you can get people that were there, witness something and bring their story, however small, to the table it always seems to add a little bit more knowledge that we didn't have before and that's a good thing. We're trying to collate the stuff that we're in that sweet spot, the Goldilocks point that Aaron Weber's talked about where we're far away from the history happening to be able to view it with a bit of critical distance but not so far that there are no longer any living witnesses around. And that's the kind of stuff that we to the best of our abilities are trying to track down and get their stories before they fade away. So it's a good place to be in beetle scholarship right now.
- [36:05]
Mike Sekulich
I was struck by the opening or close to opening photograph of the bombie and the bombing. I'd never seen that photograph before. I'd seen some others of post war Liverpool. I think it's a really good place to begin. That visual sense of this is the environment that the Beatles came out of, a fundamentally different environment. If you compare United States after the war, you know, we didn't get bombed and nothing, you know, we were just moving along, you know.
- [36:42]
Robert Rodriguez
Right. It's something you might read about in beetle biographies but until you get the visual picture tells a thousand words. And that's why we started the book in 1954 was because that's where these cross currents all come together. You've got the end of rationing in Britain which is a huge thing. Just as these kids born in wartime are turning 15, 14 years old, coming of age as adolescents and wanting to start establishing their own identity and pick their own films, their own music and all this apart from what has been handed down to them from their parents culture to that point. And then within a fortnight you've got Lonnie Donegan recording Rock island line from Elvis recording that's All Right Mama in son studio. So it's like all currents are going on at the same time. So in looking in photos of Liverpool 1954 I find this picture of kids playing in what's left of the damage inflicted on the port city of Liverpool during the war. And yes, as you point out, you contrast that with people playing with hula hoops in America and stuff. It's just amazing thing to see that sort of contrast of what was going on in different parts of the world. But there was this cultural revolution, if you will, brewing beneath the surface that as rock and roll explodes, blackboard jungle and rock around the clock and then Elvis and then Bill Haley, all these things going on all at once hitting the youth of England and youth of America just at the point where they're ripe for it. It's like it had to explode the way it did. As much as the older generation is.
- [38:18]
Mike Sekulich
Trying to tampa down, I can tell you, I don't know how old I was when I realized that Liverpool had been bombed. But I know it wasn't in my teenage years. And it was even later that I learned. I think it was when some connection with Joe Orton had written a play. Much longer after the beginning of the fascination with the Beatles did I learn that rationing had ended in the 50s, you know. And so I'm thinking just this sort of ignorance that American teenagers had, through no fault of their own, necessarily. But when you then find out about it and put it together with the phenomenon of these four guys getting together, living the way that they did, listening to the same music that American teenagers of a certain age listened to, but under very different circumstances, it just adds to the story so much. And I think that. That by beginning the book with such a photograph, it should stun people, I think, that don't know about how devastating the war was.
- [39:28]
John Leckie
Things like the bomb site picture. Well, I was born 1949, so I was 10 in 1959. But somehow I knew Elvis. I had an older sister who wasn't really into rock and roll, but I still had Little Richard. 78. Some Heartbreak Hotel on 78 and stuff. But those bomb sites, that Picture could have been in London, could have been around West London, where I was. I never went to East London because it was bombed. It always smelled. You could always still smell the smoke and everything. It was devastated in the 60s. I go out on my bike and you'd say, hey, let's go to Shoreditch. And, you know, it was still burning to some extent, you know. So the bomb site thing was very much. And there'd be bombed houses. It was great because when I was a kid at school, you'd take over a bombed house. It would be your little den. You'd light a fire, clubhouse, protect it. Yeah, it was a bombed house. It was probably falling down and really dangerous. But it was open. There was no. There was no security around it. You just walked in, lit your fire and claimed that house as yours on the streets of London. When. When I was 10, 11 or something.
- [40:45]
Richard Mills
And thinking also, as we point out, you know, rationing's going on for a decade after the close of the war. There's still rationing going on. There's still this deprivation that people are living under and operating under that. When you're an ocean away and haven't been impacted in that way don't personally connect with that. And another thing, the experience in North America of the Beatles compared to the experience in the UK and in Europe of the Beatles is a wholly different thing for a very long time. And Capitol Records Beatles releases are not the albums that the Beatles put out in the uk. I remember for myself personally, when I first heard the UK version of Rubber Soul, I thought Rubber Soul was a country album from the US version of it that I heard and I hear the UK version of. And it's a whole different thing thing. It's a whole different vibe when you put that collection together in the way that they intended to release it. So what we in America knew about the Beatles and the experience of the Beatles was very North American centric compared to what was going on in the uk.
- [41:58]
Dan Eilenberg
How do you think you'll tell that story on these upcoming books? Because that's going to be an interesting way to go.
- [42:05]
Richard Mills
We plan on raking Dave Dexter over the coals, but mercilessly.
- [42:15]
Jerry Hammock
Baby said she's mine, you know she tells me all the time, you know she said so I'm in love with her and I feel fine.
- [42:28]
Robert Rodriguez
Who is this intended for?
- [42:30]
Mike Sekulich
Yeah, the audience.
- [42:31]
Robert Rodriguez
I think that like so many things, the further you get from the history, it gets decontextualized. Beatles, we know from the latest CD compilations or a TV special like Beatles 64 or Get Back, things like that. It's all sort of fragmented in within its own little universe and not the universe that it was created in. So when Jerry had first come up with the idea, and I was a great admirer of his work in the Reference Recording Reference Manual series of like, geez, this is documenting and laying out the story of them in the studio better than anybody before. More up to date. So much data and the idea of building a history out outside the studio. What was going on in their heads when they walked into the studio and what world did they walk into when they stepped out of the studio, I jumped at it because it's like, that's the kind of book I want to read for sure. So I'm walking around with a lot of stuff kind of in my head anyway. But now it's down the rabbit hole to start doing the real research. And Richard, I'm sure that this may be part of your world. In fact, I know it is just from your writings. The Beatles and Phantom is that nothing captures it more than the period ephemera. When you start going through Melody Makers, the New Musical Express and Disc and Mirror Echo, all that Stuff. And that's why we put some of that stuff in the book, like the front covers and the pop charts and all that stuff. It's harder, especially if you're a younger fan, to put it all together. It's like, oh, this was in the charts when Love Me do came out. Or this was the world as skiffle and rock and roll is starting to become a thing. People are still into pop and jazz and Billy Eckstein is the. The COVID boy. This issue, things like that. Or when Elvis starts to become a thing and it's like he represents a threat because he's immediately associated in America with fights and gangs and Teds in England and all this stuff. You add that layer of culture to it, you get a deeper understanding of the headwind the Beatles were pushing against as they're making these records that we revere as great stuff today. You don't, when you hear a Beatles tune on Sirius xm, understand that world that was going around when this stuff was being created just to jump in real fast.
- [44:49]
John Leckie
I think that you put it in context and it wasn't.
- [44:52]
Robert Rodriguez
These records weren't created in a vacuum just to jump in there. And I think the book does a great job in that. Thank you. Thank you. That was a big part of the point. Yeah.
- [45:00]
Jerry Hammock
It's fascinating because to me it seems like the book 60 to 63 is almost like the long 1950s. Because when you look at the pictures and the charts and the bomb sites, it's a very, very different world. If you. If you put into sharp relief psychedelic Beatles in 66 and 67, the way they look, their attitudes, how they've changed. And you compare that to the Beatles that we get, knowing their backgrounds, their music, what Liverpool was like, what they were listening to, all of that. They seem very, very different people pre fame as well. I mean, I think I remember Robert and Jerry, the bit in the book when you have a picture of Studio 2 and you say how imposing it must have been for those sort of four slightly bohemian lost kids from Liverpool wandering into this studio. And the adults are living upstairs and there's orchestra in the next studio. They're coming from the British provinces to. To London. You actually. You do capture almost what it must have felt like psychologically for them. And I think it wasn't at seven hours in the A car. The trip from Liverpool to London was so much longer. It was long in terms of miles and it was long culturally as well. That all comes out really explicitly in the book. I mean, I think it was Dominic Sandberg, that said that there was the long 1960s, that 1972 is a bit more like the 60s. As we associate all those cliches with, you know, soft drugs, cannabis, long hair, we really get a sense of the context of the 50s colliding into the early 60s. When we look at the pictures, we look at the technology, we look at the tape recorders, we look at the posters, we look at the clothes, we listen to the music. Slim Whitman, Lonnie Donegan, who was it? Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. The whole tradition. EBay. Yes. Eddie Calvert. The whole tradition that they come out with. You get this. You really get this kaleidoscopic history of what produced the Beatles. And it just informs you get a real sense of their personalities and who they were because of all that ephemera that you talk about, very little things. I remember reading that the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in the 1960s, Labor Prime Minister, a Labour prime minister, he always would say in the press that he loved eating steak and kidney pie. And he really loved the northern working class soap opera called Coronation street, set in Manchester, because he was trying to really get working class credentials. The same with the Beatles. You look at the instruments they bought from Hessey's, you look at what they're eating, what they're singing, what they're listening to. And honestly, Robert, the context is incredible. Robert and Jerry, the way that they're just plugged into something bigger than themselves. That's exactly what it is. They're plugged into something bigger.
- [48:09]
Richard Mills
They carry it with them, too. The. I always. I use the term in the fullness of time. We have a different understanding of Beatles in the fullness of time than the contemporary Beatles, than what they were going through. And we tend to think about this creative era that they inhabit, the seven years kind of in public that they inhabit as being a period way more extended than it was. So all of these early influences, as with everybody, are carried with them through their career and they tap into it in different ways at different points within their career. You've got very early on, they're doing Till There Was you. They're doing show tunes and things.
- [48:50]
Robert Rodriguez
September, Rain, September.
- [48:52]
Richard Mills
Yeah. It was part of their vocabulary and they carried all of those influences forward, that broad range of music that they were hearing early on. And as all of us, there are formative years musically for everybody, and you just can't help it. It's so deeply ingrained to you that that needle always falls back into that groove. And the Beatles use those influences throughout their entire recording Career. It never really was that far from them.
- [49:23]
John Leckie
You make me think of Traveling Wilbury's and Royal. The way George in the Wilbury's got Royalson. And they never gave up on Roy Orbson.
- [49:36]
Robert Rodriguez
When you look at the history as of the Beatles coming to the States, doing the Solomon show at 64 before that year is over, I think one of the first one out of the box from that genre was Ella Fitzgerald doing Can't buy me Love. And within a year of that you had Duke Ellington doing I want to hold your hand. He was doing the soundtrack to Mary Poppins. So definitely some people of seemingly a different world were not so snobby enough to not recognize a good song when they heard it and what they can do with it. It speaks well to them. It's a cross current. It's a synergy between the two of them. The Beatles weren't going to be. We're just going to play rock and roll, man. No, if there's a good tune that they could listen to and think, well, we could do something with this. Jerry had brought up till there was you that was from the music man, a song seemingly outside their boundaries and make it a winning part of their set. It's the second song they do before they're playing on American tv. Winning over those non rock and rollers in the office. It's a very canny move, but I think it was also genuine and not calculated.
- [51:09]
John Leckie
Do you think Brian Epson had anything to do? Do you think Brian had anything to do with that? Do you think Brian said, hey, play that tune?
- [51:17]
Robert Rodriguez
I wonder about that because often when you talk about the DECA audition and the songs they did that we would consider novelty tunes. Now that he had sort of dictated, well, you're going to do this because we need to showcase your versatility for this record. So. And people like, oh, that's why they lost because they're doing Sheik of Araby and these terrible novelty. Yeah. But in fact, those were a big part of their live appeal. And I think I have the quote in the book from somebody who was a Cavern attendee that she looked at the Beatles as a musical comedy act. It's not something you think about, but that was very much part of their live presentation. So if that's wowing them in the clubs and.
- [51:57]
John Leckie
And the name as well.
- [52:00]
Robert Rodriguez
Right, right, right. The name itself is a joke. It's all part of the package. So it kind of made sense at the time.
- [52:06]
Richard Mills
Something else I think that's lost probably in modern times is this idea of artists as entertainers, as more broadly based entertainers. And the Beatles were definitely a part of that tradition where the trajectory included all kinds of entertainment. It started, it might start with music, but Elvis ends up on films, Beatles end up making movies. Right? You're on variety shows. The variety show trend continued into the 70s. I don't know if younger people wouldn't recall this, but if you had a hit record in the US you might get a TV show out of it. There was the Captain. Tenille had a TV show, Tony Orlando and Don had a TV show, he shared a TV show. It was just the trajectory and the idea that you weren't just a musical artist, you were an entertainer. And so the Beatles were witness to that tradition and part of that entertainment tradition in their career. They did early on they did like the pantomime stuff for British tv. Just, you know, silly, silly stuff. Had nothing to do with their music but had everything to do with them as personalities and entertainment personalities. So the broader musical vocabulary played right into that.
- [53:26]
Robert Rodriguez
And out of necessity in Hamburg you got their command to mock Sha. We've got that great picture in the book from the top 10 club where it looks like something riotous is going on. You have to hand it to them. They adapted to situations and if this is what we need to do to survive here, this is what we're going to do. And it didn't apparently take much persuasion to John and Paul to start putting on an act, putting on some kind of show.
- [53:51]
Richard Mills
Well, clearly Paul likes to be on stage to this day.
- [53:59]
Jerry Hammock
That showbiz context comes across so strongly and it's a massive strength about the Beatles. So they're not just categorized as a rock band, they were really pop kids and they really came from that showbiz tradition. I mean, something that sticks in my mind is that in 1963 they appeared in so many light entertainment shows like Mike and Bernie Winters and Blackpool Night, Odds and the Morcom and Wise Show. The Morcom and Wise show. They actually come on at the end and they're wearing stripy boating blazers, boater hats. They sing Moonlight Bay with Eric and Ernie. With Eric Morcom and Ernie Wise. That clip of them singing with Morcom and Wise really encapsulates the fact that they've come out with this pre rock and roll tradition. And also the playlist in your book brings that across so strongly as well. Just really how open minded they were. Which the only closed minded bit that I can see in the Beatles is that John Lennon is always saying that he hits Jazz. But I don't know how much that was just for effect or how dogmatic that was or if it was because the Cavern had jazz bands and blocked rock and roll. But honestly, John Lennon has got is wide. They've all got very, very Catholic musical tastes.
- [55:18]
Robert Rodriguez
Yeah, exactly right. Again, it's sort of stating the obvious that it's a huge part of their sustainability. We talk about the sets they had to play in Hamburg, six to seven hours, whatever it was on given nights. And rock and roll songs are two minutes at best and they're on amphetamines. So you gotta stretch that stuff out. Every ounce of creativity they could.
- [55:45]
Richard Mills
They probably thought they were playing a temp.
- [55:51]
Robert Rodriguez
So it makes sense that they're going to draw upon absolutely everything they've got in them. And it so happens to our benefit that they are great lovers of every kind of music. And like you say, John City hated jazz. There's a great quote from him in the Hunter Davies book. I think some people clarified it to mean he hated jazz fans. But in any event, musically isn't Ask Me why kind of a jazz song.
- [56:14]
Jerry Hammock
Yeah, of course you bring out in the book that is Rickenbacker guitar and he spotted with a jazz guy playing that and he absolutely just couldn't wait. He got his hands on this jazz guitar. Yeah.
- [56:28]
Robert Rodriguez
I want to give full credit to you as being a key contributor to this book. If you like this book, a big part of that is because of Dan who was our soundboard and helped enormously in the production of this book. So thank you so much. Dan, man, that's so kind of you. Really kind and totally unnecessaries of pleasure and I just read the book. That's all I did a couple times. I enjoyed it. John Leckie especially. It's so great and an honor to see you on.
- [57:01]
Dan Eilenberg
On my laptop screen here.
- [57:04]
Robert Rodriguez
Hey, Robert, I do have one quick question.
- [57:05]
John Leckie
This is for John. You know, I think the. The conscription real fast that they did away with in the uk.
- [57:11]
Robert Rodriguez
I don't know how old you were, John, but were you.
- [57:13]
Richard Mills
Would you have been eligible?
- [57:14]
John Leckie
I think that's big. A big factor in the band, the conscription not being there. This is very true.
- [57:21]
Robert Rodriguez
Threat. Yeah, yeah. Did. I mean, were you old enough to.
- [57:25]
John Leckie
Have to sign up?
- [57:27]
Robert Rodriguez
Okay, okay. I didn't know there but I just.
- [57:28]
John Leckie
No, I wasn't old enough.
- [57:32]
Robert Rodriguez
What are you taking?
- [57:33]
John Leckie
But that wasn't a big thing. The other, the other thing I did. You know, this is a crazy one. The talent spot. It was great to the Talent spot, which was the BBC thing and in the diary there I noticed that the Beatles played it twice. I had tickets for that and my mate Bob went and it was really foggy because it was one of the worst winters in London at the time. You know, it was like dense fog. And my mum said, you're not going out tonight, John. You know, you're not going to go. Go down there. So I never went. And then my mate had tickets. Hey, the Beatles are playing again. And I still never went. So I never saw the Beatles But I did have tickets to the talent spot and I wish I'd kept that ticket because it was a ticket there. And other little things I really liked was little thing about Ringo saw Sister Rosetta tharp at the CA.
- [58:45]
Robert Rodriguez
Again.
- [59:07]
John Leckie
That's amazing to have that little bit in 1958 or something. How did you get that information?
- [59:14]
Robert Rodriguez
Apparently it's out there because Sister Rosetta.
- [59:17]
John Leckie
Tharp is Chuck Berry, you know, I think she plays Is Chuck buried. What was the other thing? Oh yeah, Ken Dodd. You mentioned Ken Dodd. And of course the Beatles were on the Ken Dodd Show. He came from Naughty Ash, Liverpool, close by to where they lived. And he also recorded at that. That studio Phillips, where they did recording. I noticed that the, you know, you put a little thing about the guy. The guy really liked Ken Dodd's voice, which was, you know, special voice and he wasn't a comedian when he was singing. I used to tape up on Ken Dodd sessions at Abbey Road and they would usually 10 to 1 in the morning you'll do the orchestra and everything. In the afternoon Ken would sing, you know, four songs and in the evening they go out to dinner and in the evening they'd mix it and the following. And Ken would always come around with a five pound note. He'd tip everyone one. Ken Dodd always give you a five pound. I was only getting like 12 pound a week at Abbey Road he was giving me half my week's wages, which is big thing and he was great. Thank you Lucky stars. Yeah, I had a grundy tape recorder TK19 what's in the picture?
- [61:08]
Richard Mills
Okay.
- [61:09]
John Leckie
Because I never had a record player and I used to. I bought a deck which I wired up to the tape recorder because, you know, I couldn't afford these things. But my big thing was recording. Thank you luck Stars. Ready, steady, go with the mic against the speaker. Yeah, TV set, you know. Yeah, don't speak because I'm recording. And again I wish because that Beatles. Thank you lucky Stars. I don't know if it was a mime or if it was live. But that's not available, is it? That's lost.
- [61:37]
Robert Rodriguez
Oh, it depends on which one it is.
- [61:40]
John Leckie
I see. The very first one which would have been.
- [61:42]
Robert Rodriguez
Oh, probably not.
- [61:43]
John Leckie
No, the. The.
- [61:45]
Robert Rodriguez
Unless there's other people that did what you did in those shapes of surface. Yeah, I'll look for it. Had you heard the unbury speed It's Johnny's birthday before?
- [61:54]
John Leckie
Oh, yeah, you sent me that. No. How did you get that? Where did that come from?
- [61:58]
Robert Rodriguez
Somebody took the time in trouble. You're on it?
- [62:02]
John Leckie
Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. I'm singing there. That's nice. Me and Eddie Klein singing on Johnny's birthday.
- [62:10]
Robert Rodriguez
John, are you gonna write a story? Are you gonna write your book?
- [62:13]
John Leckie
I need to. Yes, please.
- [62:15]
Jerry Hammock
Absolutely.
- [62:16]
Robert Rodriguez
Yes, please. We're here for you, brother.
- [62:19]
John Leckie
Ok, I'll send it to you. You can read it, you know, approve it for me. A fact check.
- [62:26]
Jerry Hammock
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [62:40]
Robert Rodriguez
Just take another right away.
- [62:44]
Jerry Hammock
Keep that one.
- [62:45]
John Leckie
Market fab.
- [62:50]
Robert Rodriguez
Something about the Beatles created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, executive producer Rick Way. Title song performed by the Corgis. Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.
- [63:20]
Jerry Hammock
It's Johnny's birthday It's Johnny's birthday and we would like to reach him all the very best that will be okay. It's Johnny's birthday It's Johnny's birthday and we would like to reach him on my very best and it's so nice that you.