[applause] rob leonard: hello again. tony traguardo:hello again, mark. mitch axelrod: wehad the pleasure of speaking with markthis morning for our show. and again, we want tostart at the beginning. why did you feel itnecessary to write another book about the beatlesand the history of the beatles? so many have been written.
mark lewisohn: well,there are so many books. i don't know howmany people here have beatle books on theirshelves, but i have about 500 at home. and myself i've done ahalf a dozen in the past. but they were allreference books. most of the beatles books area niche area of the subject. and they look at it. and they go quite deep on it.
but they're quitespecialists in that way. in terms of biography,there are still very few. and i didn't feel that anysingle biography had ever really covered thebeatles in the way that i wanted to readabout it and in the way that i think their storydemands and deserves. so i just decidedthat i would do it. but i would do itwith a difference in that i would write aboutit in deeply in three volumes.
because if you tryand cram this story, in all its manyramifications, into one book, then you are goingto have to leave out a lot of materialthat's absolutely necessary to the understanding. so the idea came up forthis three-volume series. and i was able to geta publisher the uk and here in the us. thank you to my team whoare here today, brilliantly.
and they've been really patientbecause it took a while. but the idea is that thisstory, in my opinion, has never really beentold properly before. and the idea is to press therefresh button on something that we think weknow, and to actually look at it again fromthe top to the bottom, from the side to the side, everywhich way, and do it properly. mitch axelrod: nowwe are at google. so obviously we want to talka little bit about research
because a long time ago,when people did their books, it was libraries and phonedisks and no internet. you've had the good fortuneof having the internet. but you've also done theold-fashioned way as well. why don't you talk a littlebit about the research you did. mark lewisohn: well, ifigure that if you only research your book on theinternet, then by definition you're not going to beable to get anything that is special and unique to youbecause it will be something
that has been found before,has been typed by someone, and is up there becausesomeone's put it up there. so obviously, the internetis a phenomenal resource. and we will use it. and it was a great help to meon this project in every way. but at the sametime, you can't be doing old-fashioneddetective work and getting out thereand burning shoe leather. and i burned shoe leatherand car tires and whatever.
i needed to go whereverthe information was. and this story is nowquite an old story. i mean the book beginsin the 19th century. but even when thebook really begins to accelerate after they'reborn-- the beatles are all war babies, which is quiteimportant to the story-- when you're lookingat 1940s and '50s and '60s resourcematerials, a lot of that is still not availableon the internet.
you have to go to the libraries. you have to gointo the archives. and you have to doproper research. so it's a combination. i always say with this book,i go where the information is. if it's easily available,i'll grab it easily. if it's difficult to obtain,i'll go that extra mile. mitch axelrod: so wherewas the information? mark lewisohn:the information is
in personal and private hands. it's in publicarchives and libraries. it's in corporate archives. it's in old newspapersand magazines and books and radio andtelevision and film. it's wherever you need to goand whatever you need to do. so a lot of time in theliverpool record office, which is looking at birthrecords and school records in liverpool, england.
a lot of the time inthe archives of the bbc or the archives of theirrecord company, emi. none of that stuff'sbeen digitized so you have to go to it. and in particular,archives of people who had anassociation with them, like lawyers who might have keptlegal files or broadcasters who kept files, allthat kind of stuff. tony traguardo:now mark, there's
been so much writtenabout the music. you've started way backwith literally the birth of each of the individualmembers of the group. but when it comes togoing back to liverpool, you're relying onpeople's memories. you're relying on acombination of information that's been availableand, as you say, newly discovered information. you found some conflict, ofcourse, amongst all of this.
so how did you work through allof the many, many conflicting stories about the beatles? mark lewisohn: well,the beatles is often the biggest thingthat ever happened to someone in their life. if they had an associationwith the beatles, you can imagine it issomething that they talk about forevermore-- mostpeople, not all. and inevitably alongthe way, their stories
begin to gather layersthat weren't actually necessarily therein the first place. so one of the things thati can bring to the project like this is i have a wealthof background knowledge. i've been doing this now for30-odd years professionally. so you have to know when peopleare talking bull, basically. and i have a verystrong sense of that. no matter how exciting thestory, if someone's telling me something that i know willlook good on the page,
but i don't quite believeit, i won't use it because accuracy is absolutelyeverything to a book like this. there's no point in doing thisagain unless it's accurate. mitch axelrod: whatabout the george harrison quote that is in the book? mark lewisohn: there's a quotein the book where george says, in their bid totell what they know, some people tell morethan what they know. and that is the same thing.
stories becomeembroidered with time. in an interview even where i'mreally comfortable with what someone's tellingme as the truth, there'll still besomething that i won't use. and there are some peoplei won't go to at all because i know whatthey're going to say. and i know it's unusable. tony traguardo: the script. they have a script.
mark lewisohn:yeah, it's a script. and some people actuallyhave made a living out of putting themselvesmore centrally into a picture they werenever in in the first place. rob leonard: mark, you've beendoing research on the beatles for, like you said,over 30 years. when you were doinginterviews along the way, were you thinking aboutthis book at this point? because you obviously have agreat archive of interviews
with the beatles themselves. mark lewisohn: no,i didn't know i was going to be doing this untilpretty much when i started it. so all the times in the pasti've had access to people, i could have asked themcertain things and didn't. but you know, i didn'thave that foresight. but this is very mucha book of information. and with beatle collectors,i am a beatle fan, but at the same time, i'man independent professional
historian. so i have theenthusiasm of a fan to carry me through along project like this, but i'm not interested inpolishing their reputation in any way. so this is not a book saying,hey, weren't the beatles great? this is an independent history. and it doesn't pull any punches. but it's essentiallya book of information.
and beatle fans collectdifferent things. and i, more than anythingelse, collect information. and i've had incredibleaccess to archives through working for thebeatles for so long. i've been in manygood situations where i've hadaccess to archives. and i always takethe moment if i can, if there's an opportunity. so i have filing cabinetsfull of history, basically,
and that's all going togo into these three books. tony traguardo: butwe could add, though, that while the bookis information, there's quite a bit of humor. and that is really wonderful. there's a greathumorous aspect partly because, as we've talked about,the beatles themselves were-- mark lewisohn: well,yeah, absolutely. i mean, they're justsuch funny guys.
and their storyalways makes me laugh. i still laugh hysterically atmost aspects of the beatles. and it's really importantthat a book like this should have humor in it. and i'm glad thatyou noticed that. rob leonard: howimportant is the fact that they're from liverpool andnot london or someplace else? mark lewisohn: it's crucial. it's crucial.
we live in a world now whererock music is everywhere. you can't avoid it. even when you want to avoidit, you can't avoid it. and this is acontextual history. so i'm writing aboutthe 1950s and '60s when rock music was themusic of delinquents. and it was greatly frownedupon in mainstream society. adults did not get it. it was not their music.
they thought it wasassociated with hoodlums. and therefore they shunned it. and what was the question? rob leonard: howimportant was the fact that the beatleswere from liverpool? mark lewisohn: yeah, so welive in a world now full of rock music. and rock bands are everywhere. in those days, in thelate '50s, early '60s,
there was no real rock bandscene anywhere in america. there had beensome rock and roll and corporate america was tryingto suppress it, to kill it off, with the payola scandal andall of that of the late 1950s. and it really survivedprimarily in england where everybody in england,all the kids in england growing up who lovedamerican music, they didn't wantanything from england. it had to be american.
and in england there wasreally only one place where there was a scene, wherethere were bands forming, mates playing guitars, swappingchords, swapping songs, getting up on stage and singing. it wasn't london. it was liverpool. it was the onlyplace in the world, in other words, thathad a rock band scene. and the beatles,initially, they weren't
in the first wave of that. they were not there atits formative period. they joined itafter two or three years it had beenup and running. and when they got back fromgermany the first time, which is another story,they took it over. and they were the kingsvery, very quickly. and they were differentfrom everybody else because they were original.
the beatles alwaysbroke all the rules. they were always original. they were never tiedby any convention. they thought differently. they look different. they acted different. and they were the kings. rob leonard: and they alsoplayed different songs from the other bandsbecause they would often
look at a b-side,let's say, which is something you don'tthink about because you'd want to play the a-sidebecause everyone knew it. mark lewisohn: yeah,i mean, the beatles didn't have iplayers--sorry-- didn't have ipads or ipodsor anything like that. they were in recordshop listening booths, browseries they were called. and they would allsqueeze themselves in
and they would ask theassistant behind the counter to play this one, thisone, this one, this one. and whatever they pickedthat was from america. they only wanted toplay american music. and they would be crowdedinto these browseries. and one of themvery quickly would say something wascrap, usually john. and they would take it off, andthey would put on the next one. and someone, paul, wouldsay, i'll do this one.
or john would say,i'll do this one. or george would say,i'll do this one. and that's how theygot a repertoire. but they looked for the unusual. so they went to the b-sides. and they went for thereally obscure tracks that no one elsewas even playing. and they popularized a lotof american music that way that wasn't even popular here.
mitch axelrod:and actually, they made african american musicaccessible here to white people in america, which was avery big thing for them. they were very proud ofit because they were not into the segregation. correct? mark lewisohn: thebeatles was first album is principally a new york sound. it's the music of 1650 broadwayproperly known as the brill
building, but actuallythat was across the street. it's the music of jerrygoffin and carole king and songwriters like that,burt bacharach and hal david. and that was the first album. the second album wasreally a detroit sound. they were looking for the motownsound, the tamla motown sound. and then theyexploded in america and were able to get backto you the music that was yours in thefirst place, but often
hadn't been heard before. tony traguardo: andthey actually brought that music out ofjust the club scene by being the first to performa tamla motown track on the bbc radio. mark lewisohn: yeah,that was interesting. the beatles firstappeared on the radio in england in a sessionbefore they actually had a recording contract.
and one of the songs theyplayed in their first forecast was "please, mr. postman"by the marvelettes on tamla. and i thought, i wonder how manytimes that record or anything else from tamla had beenplayed on british radio before? so again, this isnothing digitized here. i spent days goingthrough microfilm records, wearing out my eyes, turningfilm round and round and round on all the bbc programoutput records. so every record played in everyradio show would be logged.
and i went through the logs. and it turned outmy hunch was right. they were the firstto play a tamla sound from detroit on bbc radio. and then in theirnext broadcast, they played a song"ask me why" that was based on a tamla record,or inspired by a tamla record. so that was also a first. they, i'm sure, didn'tknow any of this.
they were just doing it. it's down to the historianto come along and put it into context. but they were doing it. they were the first. mitch axelrod: let's go backin the past just a little bit. we've gone to the music. and we'll get back tothat because we really need to find out how thebeatles did get their music.
you had mentionedit a little bit. but let's go backto the childhood. because again, you say thebook is a social history with the beatles atthe center of it. so let's talk about each beatle,briefly, about their childhood and musically whatthey had and such. mark lewisohn: ok,so starting with? mitch axelrod: thatboy, john lennon. mark lewisohn: ok.
john, paul, and george,all the products of catholicprotestant marriages, which is an unusualmix in liverpool which had a particularlystrong religious divide. you would normally stickto your own religion. most unusual thatthree of the beatles actually have that mixedbackground, which, i think, it is part of their makeup. i'm not quite sure what it says,but it's part of who they are.
john lennon was bornin 1940 when liverpool was being bombed by the germans. liverpool was very, verybadly bombed by the nazis in the second world war. he wasn't born in an air raid. but all the same,there were bombs falling very close bywithin a day or two of where he was born. and he was born to a fatherwho was a merchant seamen who
was actually plying theatlantic route with the u-boats lurking in the deep,so a very risky job. that was alf lennon. and his mother julia,john's mother julia lenin, was a very liberalwoman in her time. they had married, butthey didn't really ever have much of a relationship. there were no photographs ofjohn lennon's parents together, not from their weddingday or any of the years
they were together. in fact, they weren'ttogether very much. but julia was unusual in thatshe was very attractive to men. and the fact thatshe was married didn't stop her fromcourting other men. and she had four childrento three different men in nine years, which soundsmore like today's behavior if anything, than1940s behavior. it obviously marked her outas very unusual in her time.
but they neverreally got the hang of bringing uptheir son together. and john was kind of passedfrom one to the other. when alf was back,john would see his dad. otherwise he was withhis mom, but the mom was mostly going out at night. so he was really raised by hisauntie, his aunt and uncle, his aunt mimi andhis uncle george. and they gave him thestability that he needed.
and in 1946, he became theguardian of his aunt mimi and uncle george permanently. mitch axelrod: and theyalso provided a, i think, harmonica to him? mark lewisohn: yeah john'smother was very musical. she played ukulele. and john's fatherplayed harmonica. but i don't think johnnecessarily knew that. but he was very good musically.
he had a natural musical talent. but he also had a greatfacility for words. he was writing reallyinventive comic poetry and doing lots of drawingfrom infancy onwards. mitch axelrod: that wasan influence of mimi because she hadbeen an avid reader and brought that toinfluence him in that way. mark lewisohn: john lennon wasan avid reader his entire life. he would read a book ortwo a week and a newspaper
or two every day,cover to cover. and he did that untilthe day he was shot. so he was always reading. mitch axelrod: and whatabout paula mccartney? mark lewisohn: paulon his mother's side, there's not so much music there. she was a midwife. but on paul's father's side,there was a lot of music. his dad actually had a band.
and much as the beatles wereplaying the liverpool halls and club circuit inthe 1960s, so his dad had been doing that 40 yearsearlier with jim mac's band. jim mccartney hadjim mac's band. he was the leader. and he played piano andtrumpet and wrote a tune. so paul mccartneywas not the first in his family to write a song. his dad wrote one before him.
and actually his dadhad been a musician as well, playing northernengland brass band music, which i don't think isso well known here but very nice kindof brass music. tony traguardo: nowritchie, i mean, we know we know him as ringo,but throughout the book, for the most part, he's ringowhen we talk about him onstage, but he's ritchie. mark lewisohn: yeah, there'sno hindsight in this book.
so i can't call him ringountil he becomes ringo. he's about 20 years old by then. and similarly, i don't usethe word beatles anywhere until they actuallycome up with the name. because until that point,they're not beatles. tony traguardo: they're not. mark lewisohn: so he'sritchie, ritchie starkey. tony traguardo: right. oh, go ahead.
mark lewisohn: there's a littlebit of music in his background, but not too much. but mostly it wasfamily parties. liverpool is avery musical city. it's another reason why theyhad a rock band scene there. and that's because liverpoolis a very musical place. it's the irish, the stronglyirish heritage there. people, you go topubs, you sing. at a family party, everyoneis expected in turn
to have a turn. so it would come toyour turn, and you would have to get up andread a piece of poetry or sing or whatever. and they all had these musicalevents in their background. but ritchie, the biggestthing about his childhood is that he wasseriously ill twice. on the first occasion,he was seven years old. he very nearly died.
three times his mother wastold he wouldn't last night. and poor woman, ritchiewas her only child. and she would have to gohome on the bus from hospital thinking she'dnever see him again. but he was alwaysa tough little kid. not necessarily physically,but emotionally, mentally, he is still a verytough guy, ringo. mitch axelrod: and didn'the also at these parties, after he was sicklyand came home,
he used to sing"nobody's child"? mark lewisohn: yeah,ritchie liked country music from america. and whereas thereis a bit of a myth that the beatles always gottheir music from the sailors who sailed between new yorkand liverpool, in reality, they actually got their recordsfrom shops, as i was saying. but he, ritchie, did have abit of a supply line there. and he was into realamerican country music,
which all started when he sawa gene autry film at the cinema when he was 9 or 10. and living wherehe did-- liverpool was a very poor city-- butthe area where ritchie lived was about thepoorest of them all. and they had nothing. and they had no prospects. and they had no heating. and they had no hot water.
all these guys hadoutside toilets. nobody had a toilet insidethe house let alone a bath. i mean, these things werecompletely unheard of. you would always have to gointo a public bath to wash. so this was a verydifferent way of growing up. and he saw geneautry on the screen singing "south of the border." and he wanted desperatelyto go to america and tried to emigrateto houston, texas
when he was about19, 20 years old. tony traguardo: wow. rob leonard: we didn'ttalk about george, yet. but when we talk about george,then i have another question. george doesn't really havemuch music in his background. his dad did get a guitar. his dad was a sailor, as well. and he first came tonew york in about 1927. so both john's father and paul'sfather had been to new york
and, obviously, would talk aboutamerica to a degree at home. and george's father bought aguitar actually in new york. but the times got tough inthe 1930s in the depression, and sold it. but what they hadwas american records. he brought back roy rogersrecords, "singing br brakeman" and all that kind of stuff--jimmie rodgers, not roy rogers. i'm sorry. that is the cowboy, isn't he?
i don't think he made a record. mitch axelrod: no. rob leonard: royrogers probably did. mark lewisohn: oh, well, maybe. tony traguardo: "happy trails." rob leonard: "happy trails." mark lewisohn: oh, right. ok. so there was music around.
and also there was theinfluence of some english music like george formby. i don't know if anybody here hasheard of george formby, music hall star in englandwho wrote and sang kind of very saucy songs, risquedouble entendre songs. so they all had music to somedegree or other, paul the most. rob leonard: i want totalk about brian epstein. here's a guy, he ran a recordshop in his parents' store. and all of a sudden hebecomes their manager.
and he really setsa revolution off by the way he presented thebeatles and other bands, too. it wasn't just the beatles, too. how important is brianepstein going to the cavern in november of 1961? mark lewisohn: it's vital. because the beatles,as i said, they were the hottestact in liverpool. but that was all.
there was no way out. how do you get out of liverpool? how'd you get down to londonand get a recording contract and become famous? none of them had anyidea how to do it. none of the peoplein london were looking up north becauselondon is always very insular and people just think thatif it's not happening there, it's not happening anywhere.
so the music scene as we knowit-- the books i'm writing have to tell the story ofhow the music business, which was this quaint old thing thatbegan in tin pan alley in new york in the 1910s, how thatbecame the record business, and how that crossedthe atlantic. and ultimately,through the beatles, it became themusic industry with these vast multimillion--billion-- dollar companies, like google even, thatcontrol all these rights
and find ways of bringingthe music to the marketplace. this was just avery little thing when the beatles were tryingto get a recording contract. and it was thebeatles who actually made that revolution happen. so i must show in thesebooks how the beatles changed the music business, how theychanged the entertainment business. rob leonard: but brianwas very sure about that.
right away, he knewsomething was going on. mark lewisohn: just as therewas no group like the beatles-- and believe me, whenthe beatles first tried to get arecording contract, one of the reasonsthey struggled is because no one like thathad ever existed before. it sounds so simple. i got drums, bass guitar,lead guitar, rhythm guitar. one, two, or threeguys-- or even all four--
who sing, in harmony, andwrite their own songs. god, it's everywhere now. it was nowhere then. and it was so nowhere thatno one could recognize that they werenew and different. and similarly, brianepstein as manager was so different to any managerwho had ever been before. so brian revolutionizedrock management. and the beatlesrevolutionized rock music.
and he was a young guywho was unfulfilled. he was strugglingto find his way in life in that he wasvery good as a businessman. he was good enough to beconsidered store management material at the age of 21. but he was never satisfiedwith doing any one thing. so he would start somethingwith immense enthusiasm and after a year he wouldget bored and go and do something else.
he really wanted to be an actor. he really wanted tobe a dress designer. he really wanted todirect plays on the stage. but he couldn't. every time he tried one of thosethings, it never really worked. and he ended up dissatisfiedback in liverpool until he saw the beatles. and he was able to bring to themall his ideas for presentation and all hisorganization in terms
of management administration. he was a brilliantadministrator. one of the joys forme on this project-- and we talked about howto get information-- is i was able to findbrian einstein's management files for the beatles. and that's allcompletely unseen stuff. and i have a very, verystrong collection of this. it runs all the way through tohis death in '67 and, in fact,
beyond. and all that stuffis completely new. but what it tellsme is that this guy was a brilliant organizer. and the beatles were alwaysthe best at what they did, but they had no idea howto organize themselves. they needed someoneto come in and shape the direction for them, toactually show them the way to go, and to open up the doors.
and he did it. tony traguardo: nowthe beatles that we know that brian epsteintook to the topper-most or the popper-most were john,paul, george, and ringo. but initially, whenbrian went down those steps of the cavern inliverpool and saw the band, there was another drummer there. i know it's hard toput into a nutshell, but sort of thestory of pete best.
mark lewisohn: well,yeah, the beatles always had a problem withgetting a drummer. in fact, there was a period in1960 when paul was a drummer. so they were a four-piecewith paul on drums. but that was always reallyfrustrating for paul because he wantedto be out front. so by a miracle ofcoincidences, they end up getting offered thistrip to hamburg in germany. and they must goas a five-piece.
and it's quite clear thatthey need to get one more guy. and he's going to have tobe a drummer because that was what they always lacked. and they knew there wasthis kid in liverpool with a drum kit and noparticular day-to-day job. so they grabbed him. and his name was pete best. and pete best was their drummeruntil pretty much the eve of their breakthrough in the uk.
and then he was firedand then, poor guy, had to watch while thebeatles became the biggest thing that entertainmenthad ever known. i mean, they were hoping tohave a hit record or two. but they actually kindof changed the world. tony traguardo: did alittle bit better than that. mark lewisohn: yeah,and we're still talking about them50 years later. and he's just been havingto watch it for 50 years.
so that was allquite unfortunate. tony traguardo: butyou do in the book, though, you doexplain the story. mark lewisohn: well, yeah. tony traguardo: how itall happened and you'll-- mitch axelrod: the myth. tony traguardo: you'llsee the myth of-- mark lewisohn: well, thebeatles' story is one that attracts a lot of myths.
it's inevitablebecause everyone thinks they know something of it. and things get magnified. and things get toldout of proportion. one of the things is, whydid they fire pete best? and for some reason,it's been a mystery for 50 years as to whythey should fire this guy. mitch axelrod: even mean to him. mark lewisohn: so he says.
so he says. but actually, it's quiteclear when you read the book. and it isn't me saying it. it's all the people i talkto because i have interviewed hundreds of people who werewitnesses to all these events. and it's absolutely clearthat he was never really one of them. and if you're in a band andthe chemistry isn't right, then you know it, right?
i mean, you're in a band. you know these things. you've got to havethe chemistry right. and especially if the frontline is so full of personality and so full ofexuberance and character. and the guy on the drumsis making no eye contact. he's a very shyindividual, pete. he just looks down, doesn'tmake any eye contact, doesn't smile, doesn'tspeak to anyone.
and after the gig, he justgoes home and the other three hang out together, well,there's a divide there. and every time theyplayed with ringo, who was part ofthe same scene-- he was in anotherband-- it felt great. they just immediatelyfelt this is the guy. mitch axelrod: and paul,you said paul played drums for a while, butpaul was actually the best guitaristin the beatles,
wasn't he, for a while? mark lewisohn: paulwas pretty good musically atanything he picks up. i mean, he's justone of those guys who can pick up anyinstrument and that's it. he's away. and that can make lifedifficult in a band when ultimately in thebeatles, he's saying to ringo, no, no, no, i coulddo-- let me show you.
because obviously,you've got to be aware of the chemistryof the personalities. mitch axelrod: but he endedup playing bass guitar. mark lewisohn: by default. mitch axelrod: who wasplaying bass in hamburg? mark lewisohn: well,they had another guy called stuart sutcliffe. the beatles were originallya five-piece, not a four. and stuart was brilliant,a brilliant artist--
not so much a brilliant bassplayer, but a brilliant artist. and he gave the beatlesan image and a look that was very importantto their development. and he alsoattracted in germany, in hamburg, three bright youngthings who were primarily attracted to stuart first--astrid, klaus, and jurgen, who had a greatinfluence on the beatles. and that's aninteresting story, too, because they were all warbabies as well, astrid, klaus,
and jurgen. and they were so disgustedwith their country's behavior that they grew up afterthe war absolutely appalled to be german because ofwhat their country had done. and so they shunnedeverything german and embraced everything french. so the beatles went tohamburg as young english guys with irish backgroundsinging black american music and got to hamburg to meetthree people who were totally
influenced by paris. and the beatles became thismelange of all of that. and when they reallybroke america, they had a continental look, notan english look and certainly not an american look. they were kind of french. rob leonard: you just talkabout myths from the beatles. your book separated some of themyths from showing the truth. what myths bother youabout the beatles?
mark lewisohn: so many. i have real difficulty readingmost books on the beatles, especially those thathave got an agenda. the writers often havean agenda on something. and they bring thatagenda onto the page. and they're forcingtheir opinions on you. for me, it's just aboutbeing the narrator. and i just try and weave otherstories together in this book. myths that bother me?
just too many aspects of theirstory are-- they're too pat. these are very interesting,challenging, spiky, difficult, funny, talented,amusing, original people. and i just think that you can'teasily put a thought on them because they were muchmore diverse than that. so i look in this book at thebeatles from the outside in and the inside out. and i want to see theirchemistry with one another and how theyfunctioned as a unit.
i mean, how didthese four guys stay so sane throughsuch insane times once they became soglobally popular? so i look at all that. but there are so manyelements of the story that are too easy, like when theygo to india, for example, and they're with the maharishi,which is often just kind of thrown away as this kind ofsilly period in their career when they just went off toindia and tried to levitate
or whatever. but in reality,they're just guys. they're humanbeings who are going through an extraordinary time. and they're having to deal withwhat fame is bringing them, fame on an unimagined scale. no one had ever beenas big as the beatles. they are the ever presentloyalty of all celebrity. to this day, you go in aroom full of celebrities,
paul mccartney walks in, theywill all turn to look at him. he's the tops. and they all were. the same as trueof john and george. and it's still true of ringo. so they had to deal with this. so at the ages of25, 26, 27, 28, they decided to go and findout what life was about, to take that journey.
but being the beatles, it becamea very, very public thing. it should have beena private thing. but it became very public. and everyone took themickey out of them for it. and they became kindof the laughing stock. but they needed tofind out who they were to discover themselves. and when they cameback, they were different from before they went.
so what happened there in indiais worthy of a proper look. it's not just to be tossedaway as something silly. it's like, this is important. if those guys thought it wasimportant, it's important. and at the same time, being thebeatles, wherever they went, everyone followed. this whole business of peoplebeing interested in meditation, people being interestedin spiritualism and easternphilosophy and so on,
that existed for centuriesbefore the beatles, but they are the greatpopularizers of it. because they did it, it became apossibility for everybody else. mitch axelrod: nowto be fair, 1968 is going to be in volume three? mark lewisohn: yeah. mitch axelrod: ok,so we've got to wait. rob leonard: that'sa while away. mitch axelrod: this only goesup to the new year's eve of '62,
right? mark lewisohn: this goes upto the very brink of 1963 when the beatles have gota record out in england. they're already being exposedto the american market. they've alreadybeen turned down by, at the end of this book, threeamerican record companies. because america was nomore prepared to accept what the beatles were thanthe english market was, they had to force their way in.
but once people heardthem, that was enough because the music did the rest. mitch axelrod: now let'stalk about their idols. because we talked aboutthe music a little bit. who were the beatles idolizingfor american musicians? mark lewisohn: elvis,elvis, elvis, elvis, elvis. mitch axelrod: was it elvis? mark lewisohn: absolutely. it was elvis.
mitch axelrod: i thought so. mark lewisohn:yeah, elvis costello was really big in those days. yeah, elvis and alsovery much buddy holly and the crickets, and very mucheddie cochran, and very much jerry lee lewis, andvery much carl perkins. little richard, ofcourse, little richard. it didn't matter tothem what skin color the person hadbecause it was music.
and john lennon had thisextraordinary experience when he was 15? yes, it was april, 1956. he had just heard elvis. and elvis was thegreatest thing he had ever heard in his entire life. and john lennon wouldalways love elvis until the day he died. and then some kids inhis class at school
had been on a schooltrip to the netherlands and been in a record store thereand bought a little richard 78. now little richard wasnot available in the uk at this point, not untilabout eight months later. and this guy called michael hillhad the record with "long tall sally" on one side and "slippin'and slidin'" on the other, a 78, and said to john duringthe course of a school morning, i've got a record athome by a guy who's probably better than elvis.
and john who had only heardof elvis for about a month, said, not possible. would've told him itin two short words, no doubt, what hethought of that idea. but at lunch time, theyall bunked out of school, went and got a bag of chips--french fries-- back to this guy michael's house,pull on the record, and john lennon heard "longtall sally" for the first time and was completely stupefied.
and torn, because heloved elvis and yet he loved this guy as well. and then someone said tohim that little richard was a negro, as the word wasthen-- black, african american. and it was like, oh, my god. they make this music, too? i love it. and they becametotally passionate about black american musicfrom that moment onwards.
mitch axelrod: andto this day, if you ask little richard, he says heinfluenced paul mccartney all the time, doesn't he? he'll tell you firsthand, i did. mark lewisohn: he does. and they eventually got toplay with little richard. and for them, meetinglittle richard was like anybodyelse meeting them. it was like themand their heroes.
mitch axelrod: whatwere the first songs that john and paul wrote? mark lewisohn: well, first ofall, they wrote separately. and this is one of so manyamazing things in this book. there were hardly any boysin the south end of liverpool where they were growing up. liverpool was a big city. so it has a northend and a south end. it doesn't have a west endbecause that's the river.
but it as an east. and they lived in thesouth end of the city. and john lennon started writingsongs in 1957 at the age of 16. his first song wascalled "calypso rock." because as i said,america believed that rock and roll wasthis five-minute thing. and we in england, who swallowedeverything that you thought, thought it would lastfive minutes as well. so it was going tolast five minutes.
and it was preservedonly by the kids. because the companies werealready trying to say, well, here's the next fad. and the next fad wasgoing to be calypso music. so if you read "billboard" or"cashbox" or "variety" of 1957, you'll read, calypsois the coming thing. rock and roll is dead. and that filteredacross to england. so john lennon thought, a-ha,if i'm going to write a song,
i'll try and straddlethe two things. so he wrote a songcalled "calypso rock." and then he wrote a songcalled, "hello, little girl." and paul, at thesame time, and this is where it getsinteresting, he was writing a song called "i lost mylittle girl" at the same time. so before they met, oraround the time they met, they were bothindividually writing songs. so what are the chancesof two guys-- two kids--
writing songs? paul was only 14. what are the chances of them a,writing songs, and then finding each other, and then thinking,let's write together? so unusual were thebeatles in those days that when brianepstein were trying to get them a recordingcontract in london, not only werepeople telling them you'll never make it fromliverpool and go home
and all that kindof stuff, everyone said to him you've got tochange the name because the word beatles will never catch on. mitch axelrod: never. mark lewisohn: never catch on. so as weird as that sounds, thatis the thinking back in 1962. and the beatles werealways about, stuff you. we're going to do it our way. and if you don't like it,well, we'll just keep it
and you'll pay for it later. and when they firstwent to london, there's a sectionin the book when they go to london for the firsttime to promote themselves and they go aroundmeeting journalists, people were openlyhostile to them. your name is horrible,and you'll never make it, and all that. and they, being the beatles,they thought, right.
we'll show you. and they never forgot. i mean, very tough-mindedguys, the beatles. very tough. mitch axelrod: but theyhad a little bit of trouble with the name in germany,too, didn't they? mark lewisohn: there'sa leading question. mitch axelrod: i had to ask it. mark lewisohn: ingermany, the word beatles
will be pronounced as "peedles." mitch axelrod: not to endon a naughty note, but-- mark lewisohn: and"peedles" actually means the male appendage ingerman in some kind of slightly schoolboyish talk. actually, i quite like thefact that in america you always say beatles with-- mitch axelrod: like a d. mark lewisohn: like a d. andwe say beatles with the t.
but we say elvis wrong. presley. because we saypresley as if it's got what i would call azed and you call a zee. and you say presley. so we name your greateststar incorrectly. we pronounce it wrong. and you pronounce ourgreatest star incorrectly. mitch axelrod: actually, wedon't even say the last name.
we just call him elvis. mark lewisohn: the king. mitch axelrod: what'smadonna's last name? mark lewisohn: i can't think. mitch axelrod: just kidding. mark lewisohn: cuchione? mitch axelrod: oh, wow. rob leonard: ciccone. mitch axelrod: someonegoogle it right now.
mitch axelrod: there's so muchto talk about in this book. i mean, it's 1,000 pages. it really is. it does go up to '62. you really need tobuy it and read it. it's the most incredibledetail you will ever read on the beatles. it really does putinto context who they were, why theybecame who they did,
and, as you say, why theygelled as ultimately john, paul, george, and ringo. it was john, paul,george, and pete, or drummer, or undesirablemember, as you'll read in here. and then it became ringo. mark lewisohn: and thatorder is important. psychologically,the constitution of the beatles as a band isjohn, paul, george, and ringo because john startedit and led them
and he was always the leader. and he brought in paul. and paul brought in george. and george brought in ringo. so that doesn't just fallnicely of the tongue, it's absolutely essential tounderstanding the relationships within the group. tony traguardo: and just to add,one of the fascinating things about the book is that it'swritten in a narrative form.
and you see sort of howdifferent people could have-- you know, there weresome near misses of people who weave in andout of the beatles' lives at different times. so many instancesof things could have been radicallydifferent if one domino had been slightly out of place. and while other books,you'd see a little of that, because you haveit so beautifully laid out,
you really do see the,if you want to say, fate or just the circumstancesthat put it all together. brilliantly done. mark lewisohn: thank you. rob leonard: i alsothink you, just a little review ofthe book, you look at the bigger circle aswell as the inner circle. i think the peoplelike brian epstein, you don't start where hefirst meets the beatles.
it's before that. george martin and otherpeople who managed them or-- tony traguardo: in the sphere. rob leonard: in quotes. mark lewisohn: tome, it's always wrong when you get a bookwhere, for example, ringo joins the beatles in '62. so most of thebooks on the beatles will have theirstory to that point
and then bring him in anddo a little quick back story and that's it. but actually all these peopleare growing up in the same city at the same time. they're all living there. they're all on parallel tracksthat sometimes cross over before they really have met. this is not a bookabout legends. this is a book aboutfour people who
thought differently andacted differently, and were original and daring andprepared to break all the rules. so it's really important toactually put them properly all in the same spaceat the same time because they're all going to seethe same films at the same time in the cinema, theelvis films or whatever. and they're all listeningto the same records. and they are crossingover one another even before they know it.
so it makes it much moreof a cogent and real story if you've actually gotthem in the same place rob leonard: and alsothe fact that they also met the right people whobelieved in them-- brian epstein, george martin. if they were signed to decca-- mark lewisohn: theywere lucky to get brian epstein as their manager. they were extraordinarilylucky to get
george martin as their producer. and he, in turn,was extraordinarily lucky to get them. because as i showin the book, he didn't actuallywant to sign them. he actually had his armtwisted to sign them. but as soon as he met them--because he signed them before he met them--as soon as he met them, he knew that they were original.
and he worked-- george martin'scareer fell into two paths, really, which was if heever followed a formula and did whatever theformulaic thing to do was with unoriginal talent, therecords were really quite poor. and i have acollection of them now, george martin's poor records. there's a box full of them. but if he ever worked withoriginal minds, people who were really creativein their own right,
he would bring all hiscreativity to the palette as well. and the results were fantastic. so meeting thebeatles, for george, was just the most perfect thingbecause their thing was always, what do you meanwe can't do that? it's just like,what do you mean no? well, if you say no, we'llsay yes, as the song goes. i mean, that actually is paulmccartney's mantra to this day.
you say yes, i'll say no. or you say no, i'll say yes. and the beatles alwaysoperated that way. as soon as they gotto abbey road studios, and they met a sheet of paperfull of rules like that, they went, well, we'regoing to do that, and we're going to do that,and we're going to do that. and they just broke them all. and because theybroke them all, they
made "sergeant pepper" and"revolver" and "abbey road" and "the white album"and all these things that were just culturallypushing the envelope so far. mitch axelrod: well,i want to open it up to questions from the audience. but i will say as far asthe narrative in the book, you do get a sensewhen you read this that you are in their story. and that's, i think, oneof the biggest compliments
i can pay you. because i feltlike i was actually walking down the streetwith john, with george, with ringo, and paul. and you really werethere with them. and that has not happened beforein any other book i've read. so i mean, kudos. mitch axelrod: it is a reallyfascinating book, really is. tony traguardo: to bringin the ruddles humor,
you brought in thesights, the sounds, the smells of the actual. and you'll read aboutthat in the book. there's actually acomment about the smells. mitch axelrod: so dowe have any questions from the audience for mark? sure. audience: thanks for being here. and thanks forwriting this book.
as one of the only people in theroom who probably saw "the ed sullivan show" the firsttime it was shown-- and my father said that can'tbe their real hair-- it became sort of a genetic piece ofmy fabric, of growing up, my culture and my background. and i wonder if thesame sort of feeling happens with any otherartists later on. is there another generationthat has another artist that becomes so geneticin their core being?
or is this a once in alifetime, once in a generation, once in a millennium thing? mark lewisohn: well, i'll throwthis one open to the panel here. but from my own pointof view, i mean, the obvious answer is thatevery generation has its heroes. and every generation hasits key musical influences. i always think thatit is the music you hear when you're,say, 14 to 19 or 20
that has the greatestimpact on you in terms of shaping your opinion. but on the other hand,subsequent generations wouldn't have had anythingas profound as the beatles or as artistically deep andsatisfying as the beatles. molds can reallyonly be broken once. i mean, there are somany molds to be broken, but the beatles just--they changed so many things that after that,everyone was, in a way,
always treading intheir footsteps. but of course, if askedan 18-year-old today, though he might knowof the beatles, which is an amazing thingin itself, that wouldn't necessarily behis or her game changer. that's what i feel. what do you think? mitch axelrod: well,you know, to me, dexys midnight runnerswith "come on eileen."
there's no one likedexys midnight runners. no, to me, i mean, you're askingthe wrong person because to me, i'm up here becauseof the beatles. well, i'm up herebecause of my parents. but i'm up here, really,because the beatles were a big influence on my life. i don't think there'sanybody-- you have always said, there were circumstances thatmade the beatles who they were. and i don't thinkthose can happen again.
i just don't. mark lewisohn: they wereborn at the right time. and they entered our livesat the right time as well. rob leonard: i thinksome bands have had a place in rock history. mark lewisohn: oh, absolutely. rob leonard: but ithink culturally, in the bigger picture,the beatles knocked down so many doors and stuff.
mark lewisohn: ithink, i mean, there was always thisthing about who's going to be the next bandto be as big as the beatles. and after about 30years, eventually people stopped asking becauseit just isn't possible. times have moved on. mitch axelrod: i think,actually, the curse-- rob leonard: but there'sno ed sullivan show either. tony traguardo: well, iwas just going to say,
i think part of it hasto do with the idea that "the ed sullivanshow" was such a huge simultaneous exposure. i think that there havebeen acts since then. you read about eltonjohn's performance at the troubadour thatbroke him wide open. u2 had some stunningperformances. but these were oftenlive performances that were reviewed.
springsteen being calledthe future of rock and roll. we saw it inindividual performances that would get reviewed. but to have had it given toall of us on the sullivan show, here it is. rob leonard: andhow many bands got started the next day becauseof "the ed sullivan show"? tony traguardo: becauseof "the ed sullivan show." mitch axelrod: well, it's funnybecause i feel bad for elvis
because elvis probablythought the same thing. well, no one's goingto be bigger than me. and then, a few yearslater, it's the beatles. and, like, oh, damn. rob leonard: i do have aquestion for you, mark. and it concernsthe sullivan show. here in america, it's a moment. in great britain,"the ed sullivan show" wasn't broadcast there.
how was that lookedat from great britain? mark lewisohn: i used to readabout "the ed sullivan show" for years as a beatles fan. and also i was always interestedin broadcasting, as well. but i didn't actually seeit until the video age when you could actuallyget to see tapes of things. for us, that was not the show. for us, we had our own landmarkmoments, a couple of big tv shows the beatles did.
but more than anything else,whereas the beatles, well, they were number one at a timeof the sullivan show here. but that was where the nationsaw them for the first time. in england, it happeneda few months earlier. and it mostly happenedthrough the records and radio. and then people sawthem on television and thought they were great. we didn't have thatone single defining moment like you've had here.
mitch axelrod: we have our nextquestion from mark lapidos. we should just telleverybody that mark lapidos is the founder of what wasknown as beatlefest in 1974 and since changed to thefest for beatles fans. and mark lewisohn isgoing to be a guest, if you want to tell peopleabout that after your question. mark lapidos: sure. first of all, thereare other people here who were there for"the ed sullivan show."
and it's a little knownfact that to this day it's the largest audience in thehistory of american television by population size. so the population was like 160. so it's like, i think,42%, something like that. and superbowl never getsmore than 33%, i don't think. so that ed sullivan show,as george said, of course, many times, even thecriminals, they don't watch us. but anyway, i have a question.
i have no idea if you'rewriting about this because this book onlygoes up to the end of '62 and i'm only upto page 50 or 60. it's going to take me maybe10 years to get through it. but i'm loving it so far. i don't know how much you delveinto the music part of it. but i guess for book three, ihave a bit of beatles trivia i'd like to ask you about. i asked george martin,and he answered it.
but i want to know ifyou know about this, what your answer would be. "penny lane." i met with himabout 20 years ago. i said, can i ask youone trivia question? he said, sure. i said, what happened atthe end of "penny lane"? why is it only on thepromotional single in the us? so do you have an answer, mark?
mark lewisohn: why-- tony traguardo: youshould let people what-- mitch axelrod: you meanthe trumpet ending. mark lapidos: the trumpets,the trumpet ending, it's only on thepromotional single. it never made it on theamerican single or album. mark lewisohn:did he tell you it was because paul wanted tochange it at the last minute? mark lapidos: no.
mark lewisohn: whatdid he tell you? mark lapidos: i'll give youan answer in a minute, but-- tony traguardo: well, nowwe know what the answer is. we already know the answer. mark lapidos: this isexactly what he said. he said, we werejust making music. we just sent it over. he didn't even know it. he was like, all right.
we'll send it over. oh, it's not finished? doesn't matter, just do it. never gave it a thought. it surprised the hell out of me. mark lewisohn: they wereturning out product. i mean, that is yetanother amazing thing about the beatles is that allthe recorded material that we know and love all came outin the space of about 7
and 1/2 years. i mean, 13 albumsin 7 and 1/2 years, if you're looking atthe uk products, which is the way they shaped it. and all those singles andother tracks, as well. i mean, 200-oddtracks in seven years. an act these dayswould probably do one or two albums in that time? and they completely wipedclean and drew again
the face of popularmusic in that period. one of the thingsi do in this book is actually namenumber all the years. so 1958 is really the year whenthe beatles are first-- they're not the beatles yet,but in fact, they went around as atrio at one point-- john, paul, and george--called j page 3. tony traguardo: thatwas a new discovery. that was something thathad never surfaced before.
where did you find-- mark lewisohn: tracked downthis guy who was actually their manager for a whileand had a recording of them that he wiped, unfortunately. but they were j page 3. j for john, p-a forpaul, and g-e for george, and 3 because they werea trio, three guitarists. and that is year one. 1958, when they started goingaround together, is year one.
so 1964, when theyplayed the sullivan show, that's year seven. there's a tendencyin america to think they kind of arrived whenthey played the sullivan show, but that was year seven. and when they brokeup, it was year 13. now they don't get a recordingcontract until year five, but that doesn't meanthey're not together. they're still very much workingand finding out who they are,
and young lads havingfun and all that, and having adventures. actually, they weretogether 13 years, much more than people realize. mitch axelrod: andwe did want to say that mark will be at thefest for beatles fans on this sunday,february 9, correct? mark lewisohn: the anniversaryof the sullivan show. mitch axelrod: absolutely.
mark lewisohn: i shallbeing doing my ed sullivan impressions. mitch axelrod: oh, good. i'll be doing my topogigio impression. i'm short enough so. do we have any otherquestions for mark? tony traguardo: we'rebeing told to wrap it up. mitch axelrod: we'rebeing told to wrap it up. one more question?
anybody? al? audience: actually,i did have one-- mitch axelrod: can yougo to the mic, please? audience: ok. mitch axelrod: sorry. and then i believe markwill be doing signing. we don't? i'm sorry, al, you--
tony traguardo: can youask it in private, al? mitch axelrod: yeah,ask it in private, al. sorry. we'll ask it after. audience: ok, real quick. mitch axelrod: oh, i'm sorry. audience: mark, youtalked about the hostility that the london musicestablishment had toward liverpool, orindifference, maybe.
and yet there was in thatfirst batch of teen idols, there was oneliverpudlian, billy fury. but he didn't apparentlybecome sort of an icon for the other buddingmusicians in liverpool. is there a particularreason for that? mark lewisohn: yeah, billyfury was the first liverpool rock-and-roll starbefore the beatles. his real name wasronald wycherly. and he actually was in thesame class at school as ringo.
but so embarrassing wasthe liverpool accent, or perceived to be inthose days in the uk-- and that's anotherthing the beatles did. in my country, inengland, they completely changed the class system. well, not changed it,but challenged it. and opened it up to people. because they had northernworking class accents. and that had always beenembarrassing before.
billy fury neversaid a word publicly because of his liverpool accent. his manager said tohim, don't speak. and when he sang, he sangin an american voice. so no one really knewhe was from liverpool. it wasn't important. but when the beatles brokethrough, it's like, yeah, we're from liverpool. we're from the north.
you got a problem with that? and that was a realchallenge to people, which is why they receivedhostility to begin with. but eventually,within about a year, everyone was putting on anorthern accent to be cool. that's just a small measureof the impact that they had. mitch axelrod: well, thebook is called "the beatles all these years,tune in, volume one." there will be three ofthese by crown archetype.
thank you very much. we appreciate mark being here. we appreciate googlehaving us here. mitch axelrod: thank you.