Beatles FAQ

  Despite their local success in Liverpool and Hamburg — and Brian Epstein’s best efforts — The Beatles struggled to get their first recording contract.

  Country soul pioneer “If the Beatles wanted a sound, it was R&B. That’s what we used to listen to and what we wanted to be like. Black, that was basically it. Arthur Alexander.”  Paul McCartney, quoted in  Lewisohn,   Mark (2013).  The Beatles: All These Years Arthur Alexander was a relatively obscure singer songwriter from Alabama and an exact contemporary of The Beatles. They covered his song Anna (Go to Him) and his most successful single, You Better Move On was also an early hit for the Rolling Stones.  Yet despite being the only songwriter to be covered on studio recordings by The Beatles, The Stones and Bob Dylan, Alexander failed to follow-up early success. By the end of the 1960s he had effectively left the music industry and was driving a bus Full story (5 minute free read)

The George Martin who the Beatles first met in 1962 presented as Professor Higgins to their Eliza Doolittle. With his smart suit, upper class (southern) accent and courtly manners he appeared to be what Brian Epstein described as “a stern but fair-minded schoolmaster”.  Martin's initial hesitation was due to their personal presentation as much as their musical shortcomings he wasn’t sure about .... shaggy hair, Liverpool accents .... their beat-up gear .... {their}studio professionalism ... source According to Womack, this may have been rooted in his own ‘hidden’ background. For while The Beatles cheerfully conceded what Mark Lewisohn describes as 'their unvarnished working class roots', Martin carefully concealed his.  According to Kenneth Womack's biography,  Maximum Volume  (2017), the suave, sharply dressed producer came from  ' a family that had no electricity or running water and had one gas jet.' George Martin - the early years (3 minute free read) T

Despite their local success in Liverpool and Hamburg — and Brian Epstein’s best efforts — The Beatles struggled to get their first recording deal. Columbia, HMV, Pye, Philips, and Oriole all turned them down. Dick Rowe at Decca signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes in preference, famously added insult to injury ‘Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein’. After the failure of the Decca audition, Brian Epstein was running out of options. Early in 1962 he managed to get a meeting with George Martin, the manager of Parlaphone Records, an eclectic label owned by EMI. Martin was more charmed by the Beatles manager than their music. “I wasn’t too impressed with the tape Brian Epstein had played me,” Martin  told Desert Island Discs in 1996 . “There was something there but I couldn’t find out whether it was worthwhile or not.” Read full story here   5 minute free read

'Love Me Do' is Paul's song. He wrote it when he was a teenager. Let me think. I might have helped on the middle eight, but I couldn't swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way before we were songwriters"  John Lennon in David Sheff's : All We Are Saying). [8]   For their first single, George Martin wanted The Beatles to record a promising song by Mitch Murray, a young British songwriter.   I was convinced that How Do You Do It was a hit song. Not a great piece of songwriting, not the most marvellous song I had ever heard in my life, but I thought it had that essential ingredient which would appeal to a lot of people.   The boys stubbornly refused, 'We couldn't sing that in Liverpool,' they told him. 'We want to record one of our own songs.' Reluctantly, Martin allowed them to record LOVE ME DO - the song he considered the best of a bad bunch.   Read full story (free) on Medium (3 minutes)

  Mount Pleasant Registry Office, Liverpool. August 23rd 1962

'We were cowards when we sacked him'  John Lennon

George Martin wanted The Beatles first single to be  How Do You Do It, a Tin Pan Alley song which he felt had commercial potential.