The Beatles.
Yes. The Beatles.
You had a long
association with all of them.
Paul still sends me Christmas cards, and Ringo once sent me
a clock radio he claimed was faulty, although I assume that’s due to his notoriously
cavalier approach to addressing mail and was probably an error of some kind.
You were there at the
start.
Before the start. I was the studio cleaner at Decca during their notorious failed audition.
Did Dick Rowe really
say “Guitar groups are on the way out?”
No, he did not. I did. Someone was searching for the band in order to return a
drumstick Pete Best had left behind and said “Where are the Beatles?” and I
replied: “That guitar group? They’re on the way out,” which was true because they
were leaving the building at the time.
And you were there
for the EMI audition?
I was. Not my finest moment. I’d been polishing some
brasswork and dropped the bottle. Some of the fluid splashed on to George
Martin’s tie, to my eternal shame. So he had to change it. I don’t think the
new one suited his shirt, to be frank, which was readily apparent to all1.
Were you present for
the recording of Please Please Me, their
first album?
I was. They were considerably more deferential in the studio
back then. Much more self-conscious. It clearly wasn’t their natural habitat so
to speak. But then by the time they came to record With The Beatles a few months later they were decidedly more self-assured,
and who could blame them? They walked into Abbey Road to record their second
album while the first one was still at the top of the charts. Please Please Me was at number one for
thirty weeks and With The Beatles was
the only thing that could knock it off. I know people talk about today’s
musicians achieving this or accomplishing that but show me an artist who tops the
album charts for half a year with one album and then replaces it with another? If With The Beatles had lasted at
number one for another 7 days they would have been at the top for 52 weeks. An
entire year dominating the charts.
This is very
interesting. You’re not usually this knowledgeable or passionate about music.
Well, it’s… there was something about them. They weren’t just
a group of musicians. There was something special when they got together. I
have to confess there are musicians that I have worked with on multiple
occasions who I honestly couldn’t recall in any tangible capacity a week after
we last parted ways. But from the first moment the complete Beatles, with Ringo
in Best’s old chair, played in front of me I was acutely aware that they were
something special.
1. And was famously remarked upon by George Harrison.
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