One year with The Beatles (part 1)

It would be easy to get rid of the Beatles’ first album, Please, Please Me with a couple of short lines, thinking about what to write of masterpieces like Revolver or Abbey Road, but that would be a colossal mistake. In this first, fresh, honest work there’s the whole amazing future story of the band.

Pop was changing, and “Love Me Do” is an evident example, with its bluesy veins hidden in the folds of an apparently simple song.
The opening “One, Two, Three, Four!” called by Paul on “I Saw Her Standing There” says more than it seems (Paul’s voice is take 9, but the song is take 1), and the song itself is new life for rock’n’roll.
The choice to play almost unknown songs of the R’n’B american repertoire is a clear indication of a research work that lasted years.
Some of John’s background vocals have a connotation that he’ll keep during the years, we’ll see lately a small example.
George’ skinny and essential playing shows up in the opening track, the guitar solo on “I Saw Her Standing There”, even if built on simple elements, is all but banal.
George Martin’s role is immediately fundamental, “Please, Please Me” was a slow, Roy Orbison’s-like ballad, but the producer doesn’t like it slow and makes them speed it up to what we know today.
The Beatles were 20 years old guys talking to girls, they knew it well and used the trick to speak to them in a direct way, this went on for many hits. (love ME, please ME, p.s. I love YOU, I saw HER).
Recording “Twist And Shout” as the last number wasn’t a casualty, the guys knew that John would kill his voice with that song and they had to finish in one day, they already knew the job.
Martin wanted the first single to be “How Do You Do It”, but they didn’t like it, and it never went on LP. They were not struck in awe by the older producer, since the beginning. And when they got confident with the studios and the engineers, at Abbey Road happened any kind of thing.

It comes out that, reading between the lines, helped by the half century that separates us from that debut, who starts well is halfway. First things first.

Everything starts that fateful October 5^th, 1962, with the first single that sees the light and the band’s will to play a piece that suits them better than “How Do You Do It” that Martin would like; The Beatles said they had a reputation in Liverpool and had no intention to spoil it.

This is why the choice fell on one of their songs, one with a vaguely blues feel that made it sound unique. We cannot say if it’s country, pop, folk or who knows what, we know for sure it was a peculiar tune, with a key hard to identify, as soon as we think we’re in C major the D major comes to tell us we’re in G. Maybe not, doesn’t matter.

Fact remains that the song is simply arranged: bass, drums, acoustic guitar, with some hands clapping and John’s harp to complete all. And the refrain is sang by Paul because John had to play, or he would sing it.

Simple is the b-side, too: “P.S. I Love You” is a well written, unpretentious song, but Paul’s wriggle at 1.28 of the song anticipating “Remember that I’ll always” with a “You know I want you to” almost shouted, says a lot more than it appears, if we know a little of the black and R’n’R music that inspired them. You don’t do that if you’re a crooner.

From now on and for a long year, beginning to write about the Fab Four, we’d like to make a due clarification because we know that Beatles’ followers are of many different kinds and careful about what’s written: on this pages you won’t find detailed note-for-note transcriptions or a meticulous analysis of what happened; there’s dozens of great music books for that or the amazing “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years” by Mark Lewisohn, a real treasure for all of us. Our contribution is based on our feelings and the analysis of small elements, or instead of 12 episodes we needed 1200.

Laster exclusive

We must notice how the first LP is a record that reflects those years group, four musicians trained to play even eight hours a night on stages like the “Star Club” in Hamburg: their show had to entertain drunk sailors rather demanding for what concerned having fun, and the band learnt the lesson quite well, if it’s true (and it’s true) that they recorded ten songs in a single day! They weren’t unwary provincial kids, and they already wrote their own music, which was pretty unusual at the time.

It’s not easy to spend too many words on George Harrison’s guitar work on this record, as his playing is mostly small embellishments and short riffs to fill in the songs, and a couple of lead parts like on “I Saw Her Standing There”: the solo is mostly based on the blues pentatonic scale and shows that Harrison was already trying to “build” something while playing, not just repeating licks by other players; if we consider he had to turn 20 and it was the beginning of the ‘60s, his personality came out already well defined. This is something he always did, his playing was always part of the song.

On the 12 takes of the song there’s always a different guitar solo, so it was improvised. Not to say about his technique: watching the video footage of live performances of “Please, Please Me”, where he plays John’s harp part with the guitar, we can clearly see him playing octaves using a hybrid technique, the pick plays the lower note, while the middle or ring finger play the high one.

His Gretsch Duo Jet, eventually changed with a Country Gentleman or a 6119 Tennessean, showed a precise timbre research: the typical “twang” of these guitars is unique and became a trademark of The Beatles’ sound.

As the unmistakable John’s Rickenbacker 325 Capri that he played for years, from Hamburg to the Ed Sullivan show, on the first records and concerts at least until 1964. On the first album his work is pretty much rhythmic, while fundamental, and analyzing his playing is really interesting.

And what about Paul’s lefty Hofner 500/1, irreplaceable in any fan’s respectable arsenal?

The Beatles are tied to their first instruments probably more than any other band ever, we must remember we’re talking about guitars!

It’s important to linger on the variety of music styles covered by the first original tunes: each song is different and we find elements that’ll mark music history. “I Saw Her Standing There” shows up like one of the first rock’n’roll-based songs, not just the usual 3-chords-blues but a real structure; Paul McCartney was a master at this, like “Back In The USSR” showed years later.

(read the rest on Fingerpicking.net)

"Winston’s Thoughts"

The early Beatles belong to an era in which the “guitar hero” wasn’t a role like it will be in the next future, with players like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.

But they are a band with the guitar, with two guitars!

Even better, they were a band with three guitars and a drummer. Paul was forced to switch to bass guitar when Stuart Sutcliffe, young painter and John’s friend, left the band to be an artist.

Harrison was the best guitar player in the band and he would have never changed instrument, Lennon was the leader and also had a brand new guitar, the Rickenbacker 325 "Capri". Paul was the only one who had a broken guitar with only three strings, that's why he had to play John's old Hofner Club 40, or a piano, when he found one on stage.

McCartney was a good guitar player, perhaps the most blues oriented of the three. But the strong and powerful sound of the band stemmed from the experienced rhythm section and from the endless live performances in Hamburg's clubs.

Pete Best was a good drummer and his replacement with the equally valid Ringo was because of his character and his look, not because the way he played drums.

Ringo was a companion, a long time friend of the other three boys. Pete was introverted, shy and quiet and did not attend John, George and Paul out of stage. In addition he was also very charming and would have "obscured" the band's front men.

Paul, finally on bass, immediately brought his experience as a guitar player on the new instrument: his way of playing the bass was innovative, he alternated melodic passages to rhythmic bass notes, but in the meantime he kept the throbbing and powerful sound typical of beat music.

But the most interesting work of this first period was done by Lennon's rhythm guitar, we’ll focus on this. John learnt to play on a banjo and then he found those chords on guitar. Rarely he used the "barré" and used his thumb to play the bass strings, also helped by the Rickenbacker’ short scale.

The uniqueness of his sound was due, however, by the way he played with the right hand. His strumming was heavy, hard, often syncopated. Rarely he picked all the six strings, but he focused on the central ones, alternating the bass strum.

Laster exclusive

The two videos analyze Lennon's strumming on two songs from the first album Please Please Me: “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Boys”.

I chose the first song because the versions available on the web (even on books) are always wrong. All the tablatures indicate a C (C7) chord instead an A minor. We know that by listening as by watching videos.
Very interesting is the alternation of notes on the bass strings and the chods.

Note that E7 is played at the Vth fret in order to be ready to make an A without moving the hand (Lennonian laziness?). In the middle eight there's a Chuck Berry style rythm guitar, another hallmark of early Beatles.

“Boys” is a cover, an original R & B song rearranged by The Beatles in rock'n'roll style. Again, on the verse, Lennon’ strumming is taken by Chuck Berry. On the chorus he doubles the bass line.