n the mid 1950s, John Lennon got the Elvis bug and went out and bought a guitar. But it wasn't the first instrument he learned to play. His mother, Julia, had taught him to strum the banjo first. In fact, Lennon originally learned to play his guitar like a banjo, with the sixth string slack. The gifted instrumentalist also played the harmonica, the piano and flute
Wanted: One Bass Player. No Experience Required
Stu Sutcliffe was a key figure in the Beatles' early history, playing bass guitar and, many say, helping the group settle on a name. Not bad for a guy who wasn't even a musician. Sutcliffe was a promising painter who lived with John Lennon while both were students at the Liverpool College of Art. After Sutcliffe sold a painting for the princely sum of £65, Lennon persuaded him to buy a bass guitar and join his group, the Quarrymen, in 1959. According to some versions of Beatles lore, Sutcliffe helped shape rock n' roll history by suggesting the group change its name to play off Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. A welcome addition for his good looks and bohemian fashion sense, Sutcliffe's elementary musical abilities never matched that of his bandmates and he left the group in 1961 (George Harrison later said of his playing: "It was a bit ropey, but it didn't matter at that time because he looked so cool.") Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage the following year, just 21 years old.
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| Stu Sutcliffe |
The opening riff of the Beatles' 1964 single "I Feel Fine" is frequently cited as the first use of feedback on an album. "I defy anybody to find an earlier record," John Lennon challenged in a 1980 Playboy interview, "unless it is some old blues record from the '20s." As it turns out, Lennon's caveat was necessary; blues musicians such as Johnny "Guitar" Watson had been using intentional feedback for years, but "I Feel Fine" was the first time it appeared in a popular rock 'n' roll song. In a 1994 interview, Paul McCartney said the effect was discovered by accident; Lennon absentmindedly leaned his guitar against an amplifier and liked the sound so much he used it in the song. The riff paved the way for later artists such as Jimi Hendrix and the Who, who took that screeching and made it their own. The Beatles would later pave the way again, becoming one of the first popular acts to use backwards tape loops in their 1966 song, "Rain." Some of these backwards messages would be used by conspiracy theorists as "proof" that Paul McCartney was dead.
What's In a Sign?
Before Penny Lane was in Paul McCartney's ears and in his eyes, it was just another street in Liverpool. But since the 1967 release of the hit single, the byway in the Beatles' hometown has become a hotbed of crime — namely, the near-ceaseless heists of street signs bearing the title of the famous song. Fed up with the cost and hassle of continually having to replacing the road markers, town officials instead screwed placards onto the sidewalk. When those were ripped out of the pavement, the city resorted to simply painting the words "Penny Lane" on nearby buildings. Blame it on the rock 'n' roll.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band stands as one of the most seminal rock 'n' roll albums of all time and certainly has been analyzed and picked apart for every kernel of musical wisdom. But the record was more than just a collection of studio innovations and legendary tunes; it also marked the first time that a rock album included the complete lyrics on its cover design. The original 1967 LP has a back cover filled with every word from every song on the album. With a little help from the Beatles, singing along to this hit record was a piece of cake.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon just couldn't keep their songs to themselves. In addition to the Beatles' unmatched catalogue, the talented songwriting duo penned dozens of diddies for other artists — including Fame, co-written by Lennon and performed by David Bowie, the 1964 hit A World Without Love, written by McCartney and recorded by the English duo Peter and Gordon, and the chart-topping single Come and Get It, also written by McCartney and performed by Badfinger. Even the Rolling Stones borrowed from the Beatles. The band released their version of the McCartney/Lennon song I Wanna Be Your Man three weeks before Lennon and McCartney did.
Unfortunately for Timothy Leary, "Come Together" makes a much better rock tune than campaign anthem. John Lennon originally wrote the song in 1969 for the psychologist, LSD proponent and counterculture hero — who mounted a brief, longshot campaign for California governor against noted counter-counterculture hero Ronald Reagan. (Leary's campaign slogan: "Come together, join the party.") Leary didn't see much political value in the song, which was later given nonsense lyrics and recorded with what Paul McCartney called a "swampy bass-and-drums vibe." Ultimately it probably wouldn't have done much for Leary anyhow; his campaign folded after he was imprisoned for marijuana possession in 1970.
You may not recognize Mal Evans' name, but you've definitely heard his work. The Beatles' road manager frequently lent a hand on recordings — he sounded an alarm clock on "A Day in the Life," banged a hammer on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and struck a cow bell on "With A Little Help From My Friends" — and his diary, made public in 2005, provided deep insight into the famed musicians' daily routines. After the band broke up, Evans moved to Los Angeles and began working on a memoir about his time with the Beatles. On January 5, 1976 police officers responded to reports of a domestic dispute at his apartment. Evans, who reportedly was on drugs, threatened them with a gun and was shot and killed. His cremated remains were sent to his family in England, but they got lost in the mail.
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| Mal Evans |
Many of the Beatles' early U.S. album releases were missing songs that appeared on the original British versions. So in 1966, Capitol Records took all of the band's omitted songs and released them in the U.S. and Canada as one album called Yesterday and Today.
Around that same time, the Beatles had a photo shoot with photographer Robert Whitaker, who instructed them to pose with pieces of raw meat and dismembered baby dolls (supposedly to illustrate the absurdity of Beatlemania). Somehow, the band convinced the record company to use one of Whitaker's photos for the cover of Yesterday and Today. Capitol printed hundreds of thousands of copies of the album but then had second thoughts (not everyone enjoys raw meat and dismembered dolls, it seems). A new print run would cost too much money, so Capitol simply pasted a new, inoffensive image directly over it. A few copies of what became known as "The Butcher Album" slipped by, of course. Yesterday and Today originally sold for about $4. Today, a good quality copy of the album — with the original cover — can be worth as much as $12,000.
If you're a fan of the ballads Something, Wonderful Tonight or Layla, you can thank a woman named Pattie Boyd. The British model inspired husband George Harrison to pen his 1969 hit single Something before she caught the eye of another rock legend, Eric Clapton, who seduced her with Layla while she was still married to the Beatles guitarist. "My first thought was, 'Oh, God, everyone's going to know this is about me,'" Boyd recalled in her 2007 memoir Wonderful Today of having Clapton play for her what she called "the most powerful, moving song I had ever heard." The two men even once staged a guitar-playing duel to win her affection.
In the end, Clapton won — Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton two years later — but Clapton's victory was short-lived; he and Boyd divorced in 1988. "For years it tore at me," she later said of the song Wonderful Tonight, which Clapton wrote for her the year she left Harrison. "[It] was the most poignant reminder of all that was good in our relationship, and when things went wrong it was torture to hear it." For the rest of us, the song remains a classic.
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