1961. Go have a look around 1961, and see if you can find anything like this:
The Beatles got famous because they had a "new" sound, and it just so happened to be the sound the rock and roll world was looking for.
1961 Was the year Elvis did "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Roy Orbison did "Cryin'," Gary U.S. Bonds did "Quarter to Three," and Patsy Cline did "I Fall to Pieces." The only "rock and roll" songs on the top 100 were "Runaround Sue," (Dion,) "Runaway," (Del Shannon," and "Little Sister," (Elvis.) While all of those songs are good rock and roll, they feel a lot like '50's rock and roll, and not like something new.
"My Bonnie" was a collaboration between the Beatles and a guy they had been performing with in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. The recording was:
Tony Sheridan: vocals, lead guitar
John Lennon: backing vocals, rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar
Pete Best: drums
Harrison performed lead guitar on the recording, although Sheridan played the solo, which was later spliced in from a different take. Two edit pieces were also taped for the introduction, in English and German - the translation was by Bernd Bertie.
Following the recording, the group - minus Sheridan - recorded two songs of their own choosing: Ain't She Sweet and Cry For A Shadow.
Ain't she sweet has a great vocal by John Lennon, and a very definite sixties groove by the band.
Cry for a Shadow is the only credited Lennon/Harrison composition; a fairly cool instrumental, that again sounds little like the music of the time.
McCartney tells the story of what "My Bonnie" did for the then-struggling Beatles:
"A kid had gone into Brian's record store and asked for My Bonnie by The Beatles. Brian had said, 'No it's not, it's by Tony Sheridan,' and he ordered it. Then Brian heard that we were playing 200 yards away. So he came to the Cavern and the news got to us: 'Brian Epstein is in the audience - he might be a manager or a promoter. He is a grown-up, anyway.' It was Us and Grown-ups then." ~Paul McCartney.
John was 20 years old; Paul had just turned 19; and George was 18. Ringo was not in the band yet, and at the time, the Beatles had been playing out live music for four years; and for most of that year, and the previous, had been playing almost nightly, sometimes doing marathon gigs that went on for many hours.
Epstein packaged them, made the right connections, and got them on the radio, but if you look at their song output, it was more than Epstein that got them so big.
When "Please Please me" was released in March of 1963, it had Lennon/McCartney compositions "I Saw Her Standing There," "Please Please me," "Love me do," and their energetic cover version of "Twist and Shout." What else was going on in March of 1963 that had that sound?
By the end of that year, there would be all kinds of copycat bands, some forgettable; some genuinely good; some of which who had been the Beatles' contemporaries in the Mersey Beat scene; but none that would do what the Beatles did so easily: stayed slightly ahead of almost every single musical trend that would come for the rest of the decade.
So my Exhibit A for why the Beatles got so famous is "My Bonnie."
Feel free to expand.
The Beatles got famous because they had a "new" sound, and it just so happened to be the sound the rock and roll world was looking for.
1961 Was the year Elvis did "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Roy Orbison did "Cryin'," Gary U.S. Bonds did "Quarter to Three," and Patsy Cline did "I Fall to Pieces." The only "rock and roll" songs on the top 100 were "Runaround Sue," (Dion,) "Runaway," (Del Shannon," and "Little Sister," (Elvis.) While all of those songs are good rock and roll, they feel a lot like '50's rock and roll, and not like something new.
"My Bonnie" was a collaboration between the Beatles and a guy they had been performing with in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. The recording was:
Tony Sheridan: vocals, lead guitar
John Lennon: backing vocals, rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar
Pete Best: drums
Harrison performed lead guitar on the recording, although Sheridan played the solo, which was later spliced in from a different take. Two edit pieces were also taped for the introduction, in English and German - the translation was by Bernd Bertie.
Following the recording, the group - minus Sheridan - recorded two songs of their own choosing: Ain't She Sweet and Cry For A Shadow.
Ain't she sweet has a great vocal by John Lennon, and a very definite sixties groove by the band.
Cry for a Shadow is the only credited Lennon/Harrison composition; a fairly cool instrumental, that again sounds little like the music of the time.
McCartney tells the story of what "My Bonnie" did for the then-struggling Beatles:
"A kid had gone into Brian's record store and asked for My Bonnie by The Beatles. Brian had said, 'No it's not, it's by Tony Sheridan,' and he ordered it. Then Brian heard that we were playing 200 yards away. So he came to the Cavern and the news got to us: 'Brian Epstein is in the audience - he might be a manager or a promoter. He is a grown-up, anyway.' It was Us and Grown-ups then." ~Paul McCartney.
John was 20 years old; Paul had just turned 19; and George was 18. Ringo was not in the band yet, and at the time, the Beatles had been playing out live music for four years; and for most of that year, and the previous, had been playing almost nightly, sometimes doing marathon gigs that went on for many hours.
Epstein packaged them, made the right connections, and got them on the radio, but if you look at their song output, it was more than Epstein that got them so big.
When "Please Please me" was released in March of 1963, it had Lennon/McCartney compositions "I Saw Her Standing There," "Please Please me," "Love me do," and their energetic cover version of "Twist and Shout." What else was going on in March of 1963 that had that sound?
By the end of that year, there would be all kinds of copycat bands, some forgettable; some genuinely good; some of which who had been the Beatles' contemporaries in the Mersey Beat scene; but none that would do what the Beatles did so easily: stayed slightly ahead of almost every single musical trend that would come for the rest of the decade.
So my Exhibit A for why the Beatles got so famous is "My Bonnie."
Feel free to expand.
