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[APPLAUSE]
ROB LEONARD: Hello again.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Hello again, Mark.
MITCH AXELROD: We had the pleasure
of speaking with Mark this morning for our show.
And again, we want to start at the beginning.
Why did you feel it necessary to write
another book about the Beatles and the history of the Beatles?
So many have been written.
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, there are so many books.
I don't know how many people here
have Beatle books on their shelves, but I have about 500
at home.
And myself I've done a half a dozen in the past.
But they were all reference books.
Most of the Beatles books are a niche area of the subject.
And they look at it.
And they go quite deep on it.
But they're quite specialists in that way.
In terms of biography, there are still very few.
And I didn't feel that any single biography had ever
really covered the Beatles in the way
that I wanted to read about it and in the way
that I think their story demands and deserves.
So I just decided that I would do it.
But I would do it with a difference
in that I would write about it in deeply in three volumes.
Because if you try and cram this story,
in all its many ramifications, into one book,
then you are going to have to leave out
a lot of material that's absolutely
necessary to the understanding.
So the idea came up for this three-volume series.
And I was able to get a publisher the UK
and here in the US.
Thank you to my team who are here today, brilliantly.
And they've been really patient because it took a while.
But the idea is that this story, in my opinion,
has never really been told properly before.
And the idea is to press the refresh button on something
that we think we know, and to actually
look at it again from the top to the bottom,
from the side to the side, every which way, and do it properly.
MITCH AXELROD: Now we are at Google.
So obviously we want to talk a little bit about research
because a long time ago, when people did their books,
it was libraries and phone disks and no internet.
You've had the good fortune of having the internet.
But you've also done the old-fashioned way as well.
Why don't you talk a little bit about the research you did.
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, I figure that if you only
research your book on the internet, then by definition
you're not going to be able to get anything that
is special and unique to you because it will be something
that has been found before, has been typed by someone,
and is up there because someone's put it up there.
So obviously, the internet is a phenomenal resource.
And we will use it.
And it was a great help to me on this project in every way.
But at the same time, you can't be
doing old-fashioned detective work
and getting out there and burning shoe leather.
And I burned shoe leather and car tires and whatever.
I needed to go wherever the information was.
And this story is now quite an old story.
I mean the book begins in the 19th century.
But even when the book really begins
to accelerate after they're born-- the Beatles are all war
babies, which is quite important to the story--
when you're looking at 1940s and '50s
and '60s resource materials, a lot of that
is still not available on the internet.
You have to go to the libraries.
You have to go into the archives.
And you have to do proper 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 where was the information?
MARK LEWISOHN: The information is
in personal and private hands.
It's in public archives and libraries.
It's in corporate archives.
It's in old newspapers and magazines and books
and radio and television and film.
It's wherever you need to go and whatever you need to do.
So a lot of time in the Liverpool record office, which
is looking at birth records and school
records in Liverpool, England.
A lot of the time in the archives of the BBC
or the archives of their record company, EMI.
None of that stuff's been digitized
so you have to go to it.
And in particular, archives of people
who had an association with them,
like lawyers who might have kept legal files or broadcasters who
kept files, all that kind of stuff.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Now Mark, there's
been so much written about the music.
You've started way back with literally the birth
of each of the individual members of the group.
But when it comes to going back to Liverpool,
you're relying on people's memories.
You're relying on a combination of information
that's been available and, as you say,
newly discovered information.
You found some conflict, of course, amongst all of this.
So how did you work through all of the many, many conflicting
stories about the Beatles?
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, the Beatles is often
the biggest thing that ever happened
to someone in their life.
If they had an association with the Beatles,
you can imagine it is something that they talk about
forevermore-- most people, not all.
And inevitably along the way, their stories
begin to gather layers that weren't actually
necessarily there in the first place.
So one of the things that I can bring to the project
like this is I have a wealth of background knowledge.
I've been doing this now for 30-odd years professionally.
So you have to know when people are talking bull, basically.
And I have a very strong sense of that.
No matter how exciting the story, if someone's telling me
something that I know will look good on the page,
but I don't quite believe it, I won't use it
because accuracy is absolutely everything to a book like this.
There's no point in doing this again unless it's accurate.
MITCH AXELROD: What about the George Harrison
quote that is in the book?
MARK LEWISOHN: There's a quote in the book where George says,
in their bid to tell what they know,
some people tell more than what they know.
And that is the same thing.
Stories become embroidered with time.
In an interview even where I'm really comfortable with what
someone's telling me as the truth,
there'll still be something that I won't use.
And there are some people I won't go to at all
because I know what they'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 actually have made a living out
of putting themselves more centrally
into a picture they were never in in the first place.
ROB LEONARD: Mark, you've been doing research on the Beatles
for, like you said, over 30 years.
When you were doing interviews along the way,
were you thinking about this book at this point?
Because you obviously have a great archive of interviews
with the Beatles themselves.
MARK LEWISOHN: No, I didn't know I
was going to be doing this until pretty much when I started it.
So all the times in the past I've had access to people,
I could have asked them certain things and didn't.
But you know, I didn't have that foresight.
But this is very much a book of information.
And with Beatle collectors, I am a Beatle fan,
but at the same time, I'm an independent professional
historian.
So I have the enthusiasm of a fan
to carry me through a long project like this,
but I'm not interested in polishing 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 essentially a book of information.
And Beatle fans collect different things.
And I, more than anything else, collect information.
And I've had incredible access to archives
through working for the Beatles for so long.
I've been in many good situations
where I've had access to archives.
And I always take the moment if I can,
if there's an opportunity.
So I have filing cabinets full of history, basically,
and that's all going to go into these three books.
TONY TRAGUARDO: But we could add, though,
that while the book is information,
there's quite a bit of humor.
And that is really wonderful.
There's a great humorous aspect partly
because, as we've talked about, the Beatles themselves were--
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, they're just such funny guys.
And their story always makes me laugh.
I still laugh hysterically at most aspects of the Beatles.
And it's really important that a book like this
should have humor in it.
And I'm glad that you noticed that.
ROB LEONARD: How important is the fact
that they're from Liverpool and not London or someplace else?
MARK LEWISOHN: It's crucial.
It's crucial.
We live in a world now where rock music is everywhere.
You can't avoid it.
Even when you want to avoid it, you can't avoid it.
And this is a contextual history.
So I'm writing about the 1950s and '60s
when rock music was the music of delinquents.
And it was greatly frowned upon in mainstream society.
Adults did not get it.
It was not their music.
They thought it was associated with hoodlums.
And therefore they shunned it.
And what was the question?
ROB LEONARD: How important was the fact
that the Beatles were from Liverpool?
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, so we live in a world now full
of rock music.
And rock bands are everywhere.
In those days, in the late '50s, early '60s,
there was no real rock band scene anywhere in America.
There had been some rock and roll
and corporate America was trying to suppress it, to kill it off,
with the payola scandal and all of that of the late 1950s.
And it really survived primarily in England
where everybody in England, all the kids in England
growing up who loved American music,
they didn't want anything from England.
It had to be American.
And in England there was really only one place
where there was a scene, where there were bands forming, mates
playing guitars, swapping chords, swapping songs, getting
up on stage and singing.
It wasn't London.
It was Liverpool.
It was the only place in the world,
in other words, that had a rock band scene.
And the Beatles, initially, they weren't
in the first wave of that.
They were not there at its formative period.
They joined it after two or three
years it had been up and running.
And when they got back from Germany the first time,
which is another story, they took it over.
And they were the kings very, very quickly.
And they were different from everybody else
because they were original.
The Beatles always broke all the rules.
They were always original.
They were never tied by any convention.
They thought differently.
They look different.
They acted different.
And they were the kings.
ROB LEONARD: And they also played different songs
from the other bands because they would often
look at a B-side, let's say, which
is something you don't think about because you'd
want to play the A-side because everyone knew it.
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, I mean, the Beatles
didn't have iPlayers-- sorry-- didn't
have iPads or iPods or anything like that.
They were in record shop listening booths,
browseries they were called.
And they would all squeeze themselves in
and they would ask the assistant behind the counter
to play this one, this one, this one, this one.
And whatever they picked that was from America.
They only wanted to play American music.
And they would be crowded into these browseries.
And one of them very quickly would
say something was crap, usually John.
And they would take it off, and they would put on the next one.
And someone, Paul, would say, 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 they got a repertoire.
But they looked for the unusual.
So they went to the B-sides.
And they went for the really obscure tracks
that no one else was even playing.
And they popularized a lot of American music that way
that wasn't even popular here.
MITCH AXELROD: And actually, they
made African American music accessible here to white people
in America, which was a very big thing for them.
They were very proud of it because they were not
into the segregation.
Correct?
MARK LEWISOHN: The Beatles was first album
is principally a New York sound.
It's the music of 1650 Broadway properly known as the Brill
Building, but actually that was across the street.
It's the music of Jerry Goffin and Carole King
and songwriters like that, Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
And that was the first album.
The second album was really a Detroit sound.
They were looking for the Motown sound, the Tamla Motown sound.
And then they exploded in America
and were able to get back to you the music that
was yours in the first place, but often
hadn't been heard before.
TONY TRAGUARDO: And they actually brought
that music out of just the club scene
by being the first to perform a Tamla Motown track on the BBC
radio.
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, that was interesting.
The Beatles first appeared on the radio
in England in a session before they actually
had a recording contract.
And one of the songs they played in their first forecast
was "Please, Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes on Tamla.
And I thought, I wonder how many times that record or anything
else from Tamla had been played on British radio before?
So again, this is nothing digitized here.
I spent days going through microfilm records,
wearing out my eyes, turning film round and round and round
on all the BBC program output records.
So every record played in every radio show would be logged.
And I went through the logs.
And it turned out my hunch was right.
They were the first to play a Tamla
sound from Detroit on BBC Radio.
And then in their next 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't know any of this.
They were just doing it.
It's down to the historian to come along and put it
into context.
But they were doing it.
They were the first.
MITCH AXELROD: Let's go back in the past just a little bit.
We've gone to the music.
And we'll get back to that because we really
need to find out how the Beatles did get their music.
You had mentioned it a little bit.
But let's go back to the childhood.
Because again, you say the book is a social history
with the Beatles at the center of it.
So let's talk about each Beatle, briefly, about their childhood
and musically what they had and such.
MARK LEWISOHN: OK, so starting with?
MITCH AXELROD: That boy, John Lennon.
MARK LEWISOHN: OK.
John, Paul, and George, all the products
of Catholic Protestant marriages,
which is an unusual mix in Liverpool which
had a particularly strong religious divide.
You would normally stick to your own religion.
Most unusual that three of the Beatles
actually have that mixed background, 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 born in 1940 when Liverpool
was being bombed by the Germans.
Liverpool was very, very badly 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 by within a day or two
of where he was born.
And he was born to a father who was a merchant *** who
was actually plying the Atlantic 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 liberal woman in her time.
They had married, but they didn't really ever
have much of a relationship.
There were no photographs of John Lennon's parents together,
not from their wedding day or any of the years
they were together.
In fact, they weren't together very much.
But Julia was unusual in that she was very attractive to men.
And the fact that she was married
didn't stop her from courting other men.
And she had four children to three different men
in nine years, which sounds more like today's behavior
if anything, than 1940s behavior.
It obviously marked her out as very unusual in her time.
But they never really got the hang
of bringing up their son together.
And John was kind of passed from one to the other.
When Alf was back, John would see his dad.
Otherwise he was with his mom, but the mom
was mostly going out at night.
So he was really raised by his auntie, his aunt and uncle,
his aunt Mimi and his uncle George.
And they gave him the stability that he needed.
And in 1946, he became the guardian of his Aunt Mimi
and Uncle George permanently.
MITCH AXELROD: And they also provided a, I think,
harmonica to him?
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah John's mother was very musical.
She played ukulele.
And John's father played harmonica.
But I don't think John necessarily knew that.
But he was very good musically.
He had a natural musical talent.
But he also had a great facility for words.
He was writing really inventive comic poetry
and doing lots of drawing from infancy onwards.
MITCH AXELROD: That was an influence of Mimi
because she had been an avid reader
and brought that to influence him in that way.
MARK LEWISOHN: John Lennon was an avid reader his entire life.
He would read a book or two a week and a newspaper
or two every day, cover to cover.
And he did that until the day he was shot.
So he was always reading.
MITCH AXELROD: And what about Paula McCartney?
MARK LEWISOHN: Paul on 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 were playing the Liverpool halls
and club circuit in the 1960s, so his Dad
had been doing that 40 years earlier with Jim Mac's Band.
Jim McCartney had Jim Mac's Band.
He was the leader.
And he played piano and trumpet and wrote a tune.
So Paul McCartney was not the first
in his family to write a song.
His dad wrote one before him.
And actually his dad had been a musician
as well, playing northern England brass band music, which
I don't think is so well known here
but very nice kind of brass music.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Now Ritchie, I mean,
we know we know him as Ringo, but throughout the book,
for the most part, he's Ringo when we talk about him onstage,
but he's Ritchie.
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, there's no hindsight in this book.
So I can't call him Ringo until he becomes Ringo.
He's about 20 years old by then.
And similarly, I don't use the word Beatles anywhere
until they actually come up with the name.
Because until that point, they're not Beatles.
TONY TRAGUARDO: They're not.
MARK LEWISOHN: So he's Ritchie, Ritchie Starkey.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Right.
Oh, go ahead.
MARK LEWISOHN: There's a little bit of music in his background,
but not too much.
But mostly it was family parties.
Liverpool is a very musical city.
It's another reason why they had a rock band scene there.
And that's because Liverpool is a very musical place.
It's the Irish, the strongly Irish heritage there.
People, you go to pubs, you sing.
At a family party, everyone is expected in turn
to have a turn.
So it would come to your turn, and you
would have to get up and read a piece of poetry
or sing or whatever.
And they all had these musical events in their background.
But Ritchie, the biggest thing about his childhood
is that he was seriously ill twice.
On the first occasion, he was seven years old.
He very nearly died.
Three times his mother was told he wouldn't last night.
And poor woman, Ritchie was her only child.
And she would have to go home on the bus from hospital
thinking she'd never see him again.
But he was always a tough little kid.
Not necessarily physically, but emotionally, mentally, he
is still a very tough guy, Ringo.
MITCH AXELROD: And didn't he also at these parties,
after he was sickly and came home,
he used to sing "Nobody's Child"?
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, Ritchie liked country music
from America.
And whereas there is a bit of a myth
that the Beatles always got their music from the sailors
who sailed between New York and Liverpool, in reality, they
actually got their records from shops, as I was saying.
But he, Ritchie, did have a bit of a supply line there.
And he was into real American country music,
which all started when he saw a Gene Autry film at the cinema
when he was 9 or 10.
And living where he did-- Liverpool
was a very poor city-- but the area where Ritchie lived
was about the poorest 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 had outside toilets.
Nobody had a toilet inside the house let alone a bath.
I mean, these things were completely unheard of.
You would always have to go into a public bath to wash.
So this was a very different way of growing up.
And he saw Gene Autry on the screen
singing "South of the Border."
And he wanted desperately to go to America
and tried to emigrate to Houston, Texas
when he was about 19, 20 years old.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Wow.
ROB LEONARD: We didn't talk about George, yet.
But when we talk about George, then I have another question.
MARK LEWISOHN: OK.
George doesn't really have much music in his background.
His dad did get a guitar.
His dad was a sailor, as well.
And he first came to New York in about 1927.
So both John's father and Paul's father had been to New York
and, obviously, would talk about America to a degree at home.
And George's father bought a guitar actually in New York.
But the times got tough in the 1930s in the Depression,
and sold it.
But what they had was American records.
He brought back Roy Rogers records, "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: Roy Rogers 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 the influence of some English music
like George Formby.
I don't know if anybody here has heard of George Formby, music
hall star in England who wrote and sang kind
of very saucy songs, risque double entendre songs.
So they all had music to some degree or other, Paul the most.
ROB LEONARD: I want to talk about Brian Epstein.
Here's a guy, he ran a record shop in his parents' store.
And all of a sudden he becomes their manager.
And he really sets a revolution off
by the way he presented the Beatles and other bands, too.
It wasn't just the Beatles, too.
How important is Brian Epstein going to the Cavern
in November of 1961?
MARK LEWISOHN: It's vital.
Because the Beatles, as I said, they
were the hottest act in Liverpool.
But that was all.
There was no way out.
How do you get out of Liverpool?
How'd you get down to London and get a recording contract
and become famous?
None of them had any idea how to do it.
None of the people in London were
looking up north because London is always very insular
and people just think that if it's not happening there,
it's not happening anywhere.
So the music scene as we know it-- the books I'm writing
have to tell the story of how the music business, which
was this quaint old thing that began in Tin Pan Alley in New
York in the 1910s, how that became the record business,
and how that crossed the Atlantic.
And ultimately, through the Beatles,
it became the music industry with
these vast multimillion-- billion-- dollar companies,
like Google even, that control all these rights
and find ways of bringing the music to the marketplace.
This was just a very little thing
when the Beatles were trying to get a recording contract.
And it was the Beatles who actually
made that revolution happen.
So I must show in these books how the Beatles changed
the music business, how they changed the entertainment
business.
ROB LEONARD: But Brian was very sure about that.
Right away, he knew something was going on.
MARK LEWISOHN: Just as there was no group like the Beatles--
and believe me, when the Beatles first
tried to get a recording contract,
one of the reasons they struggled
is because no one like that had ever existed before.
It sounds so simple.
I got drums, bass guitar, lead guitar, rhythm guitar.
One, two, or three guys-- or even all four--
who sing, in harmony, and write their own songs.
God, it's everywhere now.
It was nowhere then.
And it was so nowhere that no one could recognize
that they were new and different.
And similarly, Brian Epstein as manager
was so different to any manager who had ever been before.
So Brian revolutionized rock management.
And the Beatles revolutionized rock music.
And he was a young guy who was unfulfilled.
He was struggling to find his way
in life in that he was very good as a businessman.
He was good enough to be considered store management
material at the age of 21.
But he was never satisfied with doing any one thing.
So he would start something with immense enthusiasm
and after a year he would get bored and go and do
something else.
He really wanted to be an actor.
He really wanted to be a dress designer.
He really wanted to direct plays on the stage.
But he couldn't.
Every time he tried one of those things, it never really worked.
And he ended up dissatisfied back in Liverpool
until he saw the Beatles.
And he was able to bring to them all his ideas for presentation
and all his organization in terms
of management administration.
He was a brilliant administrator.
One of the joys for me on this project--
and we talked about how to get information--
is I was able to find Brian Einstein's management
files for the Beatles.
And that's all completely unseen stuff.
And I have a very, very strong collection of this.
It runs all the way through to his death in '67 and, in fact,
beyond.
And all that stuff is completely new.
But what it tells me is that this guy
was a brilliant organizer.
And the Beatles were always the best at what they did,
but they had no idea how to organize themselves.
They needed someone to come in and shape
the direction for them, to actually show them the way
to go, and to open up the doors.
And he did it.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Now the Beatles that we
know that Brian Epstein took to the topper-most
or the popper-most were John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
But initially, when Brian went down
those steps of the Cavern in Liverpool and saw the band,
there was another drummer there.
I know it's hard to put into a nutshell,
but sort of the story of Pete Best.
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, yeah, the Beatles always
had a problem with getting a drummer.
In fact, there was a period in 1960 when Paul was a drummer.
So they were a four-piece with Paul on drums.
But that was always really frustrating for Paul
because he wanted to be out front.
So by a miracle of coincidences, they
end up getting offered this trip to Hamburg in Germany.
And they must go as a five-piece.
And it's quite clear that they need to get one more guy.
And he's going to have to be a drummer because that
was what they always lacked.
And they knew there was this kid in Liverpool
with a drum kit and no particular day-to-day job.
So they grabbed him.
And his name was Pete Best.
And Pete Best was their drummer until pretty much the eve
of their breakthrough in the UK.
And then he was fired and then, poor guy,
had to watch while the Beatles became the biggest
thing that entertainment had ever known.
I mean, they were hoping to have a hit record or two.
But they actually kind of changed the world.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Did a little bit better than that.
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, and we're still
talking about them 50 years later.
And he's just been having to watch it for 50 years.
So that was all quite unfortunate.
TONY TRAGUARDO: But you do in the book,
though, you do explain the story.
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, yeah.
TONY TRAGUARDO: How it all happened and you'll--
MITCH AXELROD: The myth.
TONY TRAGUARDO: You'll see the myth of--
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, the Beatles' story is one that
attracts a lot of myths.
It's inevitable because everyone thinks
they know something of it.
And things get magnified.
And things get told out of proportion.
One of the things is, why did they fire Pete Best?
And for some reason, it's been a mystery
for 50 years as to why they should fire this guy.
MITCH AXELROD: Even mean to him.
MARK LEWISOHN: So he says.
So he says.
But actually, it's quite clear when you read the book.
And it isn't me saying it.
It's all the people I talk to because I have interviewed
hundreds of people who were witnesses to all these events.
And it's absolutely clear that he was never really
one of them.
And if you're in a band and the chemistry isn't right,
then you know it, right?
I mean, you're in a band.
You know these things.
You've got to have the chemistry right.
And especially if the front line is so full of personality
and so full of exuberance and character.
And the guy on the drums is making no eye contact.
He's a very shy individual, Pete.
He just looks down, doesn't make any eye contact,
doesn't smile, doesn't speak to anyone.
And after the gig, he just goes home and the other three
hang out together, well, there's a divide there.
And every time they played with Ringo,
who was part of the same scene-- he
was in another band-- it felt great.
They just immediately felt this is the guy.
MITCH AXELROD: And Paul, you said Paul played drums
for a while, but Paul was actually
the best guitarist in the Beatles,
wasn't he, for a while?
MARK LEWISOHN: Paul was pretty good
musically at anything he picks up.
I mean, he's just one of those guys who
can pick up any instrument and that's it.
He's away.
And that can make life difficult in a band
when ultimately in the Beatles, he's saying to Ringo,
no, no, no, I could do-- let me show you.
Because obviously, you've got to be
aware of the chemistry of the personalities.
MITCH AXELROD: But he ended up playing bass guitar.
MARK LEWISOHN: By default.
MITCH AXELROD: Who was playing bass in Hamburg?
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, they had another guy
called Stuart Sutcliffe.
The Beatles were originally a five-piece, not a four.
And Stuart was brilliant, a brilliant artist--
not so much a brilliant bass player, but a brilliant artist.
And he gave the Beatles an image and a look
that was very important to their development.
And he also attracted in Germany,
in Hamburg, three bright young things who were primarily
attracted to Stuart first-- Astrid, Klaus, and Jurgen,
who had a great influence on the Beatles.
And that's an interesting story, too,
because they were all war babies as well, Astrid, Klaus,
and Jurgen.
And they were so disgusted with their country's behavior
that they grew up after the war absolutely appalled
to be German because of what their country had done.
And so they shunned everything German
and embraced everything French.
So the Beatles went to Hamburg as young English guys
with Irish background singing black American music
and got to Hamburg to meet three people who were totally
influenced by Paris.
And the Beatles became this melange of all of that.
And when they really broke America,
they had a continental look, not an English look and certainly
not an American look.
They were kind of French.
ROB LEONARD: You just talk about myths from the Beatles.
Your book separated some of the myths from showing the truth.
What myths bother you about the Beatles?
MARK LEWISOHN: So many.
I have real difficulty reading most books on the Beatles,
especially those that have got an agenda.
The writers often have an agenda on something.
And they bring that agenda onto the page.
And they're forcing their opinions on you.
For me, it's just about being the narrator.
And I just try and weave other stories together in this book.
Myths that bother me?
Just too many aspects of their story are-- they're too pat.
These are very interesting, challenging, spiky, difficult,
funny, talented, amusing, original people.
And I just think that you can't easily put a thought on them
because they were much more diverse than that.
So I look in this book at the Beatles from the outside in
and the inside out.
And I want to see their chemistry with one another
and how they functioned as a unit.
I mean, how did these four guys stay
so sane through such insane times
once they became so globally popular?
So I look at all that.
But there are so many elements of the story that
are too easy, like when they go to India, for example,
and they're with the Maharishi, which is often just kind
of thrown away as this kind of silly period in their career
when they just went off to India and tried to levitate
or whatever.
But in reality, they're just guys.
They're human beings who are going
through an extraordinary time.
And they're having to deal with what fame is bringing them,
fame on an unimagined scale.
No one had ever been as big as the Beatles.
They are the ever present loyalty of all celebrity.
To this day, you go in a room full of celebrities,
Paul McCartney walks in, they will all turn to look at him.
He's the tops.
And they all were.
The same as true of John and George.
And it's still true of Ringo.
So they had to deal with this.
So at the ages of 25, 26, 27, 28,
they decided to go and find out what life was about,
to take that journey.
But being the Beatles, it became a very, very public thing.
It should have been a private thing.
But it became very public.
And everyone took the mickey out of them for it.
And they became kind of the laughing stock.
But they needed to find out who they
were to discover themselves.
And when they came back, they were
different from before they went.
So what happened there in India is worthy of a proper look.
It's not just to be tossed away as something silly.
It's like, this is important.
If those guys thought it was important, it's important.
And at the same time, being the Beatles, wherever they went,
everyone followed.
This whole business of people being interested in meditation,
people being interested in spiritualism
and Eastern philosophy and so on,
that existed for centuries before the Beatles,
but they are the great popularizers of it.
Because they did it, it became a possibility for everybody else.
MITCH AXELROD: Now to 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's a while away.
MITCH AXELROD: This only goes up to the New Year's Eve of '62,
right?
MARK LEWISOHN: This goes up to the very brink of 1963
when the Beatles have got a record out in England.
They're already being exposed to the American market.
They've already been turned down by,
at the end of this book, three American record companies.
Because America was no more prepared to accept
what the Beatles were than the English market was,
they had to force their way in.
But once people heard them, that was enough
because the music did the rest.
MITCH AXELROD: Now let's talk about their idols.
Because we talked about the music a little bit.
Who were the Beatles idolizing for 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 also very much Buddy Holly
and the Crickets, and very much Eddie Cochran, and very much
Jerry Lee Lewis, and very much Carl Perkins.
Little Richard, of course, Little Richard.
It didn't matter to them what skin color
the person had because it was music.
And John Lennon had this extraordinary experience
when he was 15?
Yes, it was April, 1956.
He had just heard Elvis.
And Elvis was the greatest thing he had ever
heard in his entire life.
And John Lennon would always love Elvis
until the day he died.
And then some kids in his class at school
had been on a school trip to the Netherlands
and been in a record store there and bought a Little Richard 78.
Now Little Richard was not available in the UK
at this point, not until about eight months later.
And this guy called Michael Hill had the record with "Long Tall
Sally" on one side and "Slippin' and Slidin'" on the other,
a 78, and said to John during the course of a school morning,
I've got a record at home by a guy who's
probably better than Elvis.
And John who had only heard of Elvis for about a month,
said, not possible.
Would've told him it in two short words,
no doubt, what he thought of that idea.
But at lunch time, they all 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 "Long Tall Sally" for the first time
and was completely stupefied.
And torn, because he loved Elvis and yet he
loved this guy as well.
And then someone said to him that Little Richard
was a ***, as the word was then-- black, African American.
And it was like, oh, my God.
They make this music, too?
I love it.
And they became totally passionate
about black American music from that moment onwards.
MITCH AXELROD: And to this day, if you
ask Little Richard, he says he influenced Paul McCartney all
the time, doesn't he?
He'll tell you firsthand, I did.
MARK LEWISOHN: He does.
And they eventually got to play with Little Richard.
And for them, meeting Little Richard
was like anybody else meeting them.
It was like them and their heroes.
MITCH AXELROD: What were the first songs
that John and Paul wrote?
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, first of all, they wrote separately.
And this is one of so many amazing things in this book.
There were hardly any boys in the south end of Liverpool
where they were growing up.
Liverpool was a big city.
So it has a north end and a south end.
It doesn't have a west end because that's the river.
But it as an east.
And they lived in the south end of the city.
And John Lennon started writing songs in 1957 at the age of 16.
His first song was called "Calypso Rock."
Because as I said, America believed
that rock and roll was this five-minute thing.
And we in England, who swallowed everything that you thought,
thought it would last five minutes as well.
So it was going to last five minutes.
And it was preserved only by the kids.
Because the companies were already trying to say,
well, here's the next fad.
And the next fad was going to be calypso music.
So if you read "Billboard" or "Cashbox" or "Variety" of 1957,
you'll read, calypso is the coming thing.
Rock and roll is dead.
And that filtered across to England.
So John Lennon thought, a-ha, if I'm going to write a song,
I'll try and straddle the two things.
So he wrote a song called "Calypso Rock."
And then he wrote a song called, "Hello, Little Girl."
And Paul, at the same time, and this
is where it gets interesting, he was
writing a song called "I Lost My Little Girl" at the same time.
So before they met, or around the time they met,
they were both individually writing songs.
So what are the chances of 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 the Beatles in those days
that when Brian Epstein were trying
to get them a recording contract in London,
not only were people telling them
you'll never make it from Liverpool and go home
and all that kind of stuff, everyone
said to him you've got to change the name because the word
Beatles will never catch on.
MITCH AXELROD: Never.
MARK LEWISOHN: Never catch on.
So as weird as that sounds, that is the thinking back in 1962.
And the Beatles were always 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 first went to London,
there's a section in the book when
they go to London for the first time to promote themselves
and they go around meeting journalists,
people were openly hostile 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-minded guys, the Beatles.
Very tough.
MITCH AXELROD: But they had a little bit of trouble
with the name in Germany, too, didn't they?
MARK LEWISOHN: There's a leading question.
MITCH AXELROD: I had to ask it.
MARK LEWISOHN: In Germany, the word Beatles
will be pronounced as "peedles."
MITCH AXELROD: Not to end on a naughty note, but--
MARK LEWISOHN: And "peedles" actually means
the male appendage in German in some kind
of slightly schoolboyish talk.
Actually, I quite like the fact that in America you
always say Beatles with--
MITCH AXELROD: Like a D.
MARK LEWISOHN: Like a D. And we say Beatles with the T.
But we say Elvis wrong.
Presley.
Because we say Presley as if it's got
what I would call a zed and you call a zee.
And you say Presley.
So we name your greatest star incorrectly.
We pronounce it wrong.
And you pronounce our greatest star incorrectly.
MITCH AXELROD: Actually, we don't even say the last name.
We just call him Elvis.
MARK LEWISOHN: The King.
MITCH AXELROD: What's Madonna'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: Someone Google it right now.
ROB LEONARD: Ciccone.
MITCH AXELROD: There's so much to talk about in this book.
I mean, it's 1,000 pages.
It really is.
It does go up to '62.
You really need to buy it and read it.
It's the most incredible detail you will ever
read on the Beatles.
It really does put into context who
they were, why they became who they did,
and, as you say, why they gelled as ultimately John,
Paul, George, and Ringo.
It was John, Paul, George, and Pete,
or drummer, or undesirable member, as you'll read in here.
And then it became Ringo.
MARK LEWISOHN: And that order is important.
Psychologically, the constitution
of the Beatles as a band is John, Paul, George, and Ringo
because John started it 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 fall nicely of the tongue,
it's absolutely essential to understanding the relationships
within the group.
TONY TRAGUARDO: And just to add, one of the fascinating things
about the book is that it's written in a narrative form.
And you see sort of how different people could have--
you know, there were some near misses
of people who weave in and out of the Beatles' lives
at different times.
So many instances of things could
have been radically different if one domino had
been slightly out of place.
And while other books, you'd see a little
of that, because you have it so beautifully laid out,
you really do see the, if you want to say,
fate or just the circumstances that put it all together.
Brilliantly done.
MARK LEWISOHN: Thank you.
ROB LEONARD: I also think you, just
a little review of the book, you look
at the bigger circle as well as the inner circle.
I think the people like Brian Epstein,
you don't start where he first meets the Beatles.
It's before that.
George Martin and other people who managed them or--
TONY TRAGUARDO: In the sphere.
ROB LEONARD: In quotes.
MARK LEWISOHN: To me, it's always wrong
when you get a book where, for example, Ringo
joins the Beatles in '62.
So most of the books on the Beatles
will have their story to that point
and then bring him in and do a little quick back story
and that's it.
But actually all these people are growing up in the same city
at the same time.
They're all living there.
They're all on parallel tracks that sometimes cross over
before they really have met.
This is not a book about legends.
This is a book about four people who
thought differently and acted differently, and were
original and daring and prepared to break all the rules.
So it's really important to actually put them properly
all in the same space at the same time
because they're all going to see the same films at the same time
in the cinema, the Elvis films or whatever.
And they're all listening to the same records.
And they are crossing over one another
even before they know it.
So it makes it much more of a cogent and real story
if you've actually got them in the same place
at the same time.
ROB LEONARD: And also the fact that they also
met the right people who believed in them-- Brian
Epstein, George Martin.
If they were signed to Decca--
MARK LEWISOHN: They were lucky to get
Brian Epstein as their manager.
They were extraordinarily lucky to get
George Martin as their producer.
And he, in turn, was extraordinarily
lucky to get them.
Because as I show in the book, he
didn't actually want to sign them.
He actually had his arm twisted 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's career fell into two paths,
really, which was if he ever followed a formula
and did whatever the formulaic thing to do
was with unoriginal talent, the records were really quite poor.
And I have a collection of them now,
George Martin's poor records.
There's a box full of them.
But if he ever worked with original minds, people
who were really creative in their own right,
he would bring all his creativity to the palette
as well.
And the results were fantastic.
So meeting the Beatles, for George,
was just the most perfect thing because their thing was always,
what do you mean we can't do that?
It's just like, what do you mean no?
Well, if you say no, we'll say yes, as the song goes.
I mean, that actually is Paul McCartney's mantra to this day.
You say yes, I'll say no.
Or you say no, I'll say yes.
And the Beatles always operated that way.
As soon as they got to Abbey Road studios,
and they met a sheet of paper full of rules like that,
they went, well, we're going 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 they broke them all, they
made "Sergeant Pepper" and "Revolver" and "Abbey Road"
and "The White Album" and all these things
that were just culturally pushing the envelope so far.
MITCH AXELROD: Well, I want to open it up
to questions from the audience.
But I will say as far as the narrative in the book,
you do get a sense when you read this
that you are in their story.
And that's, I think, one of the biggest compliments
I can pay you.
Because I felt like I was actually
walking down the street with John, with George,
with Ringo, and Paul.
And you really were there with them.
And that has not happened before in any other book I've read.
So I mean, kudos.
MARK LEWISOHN: Thank you.
MITCH AXELROD: It is a really fascinating book, really is.
MARK LEWISOHN: Thank you.
TONY TRAGUARDO: To bring in the ruddles humor,
you brought in the sights, the sounds,
the smells of the actual.
And you'll read about that in the book.
There's actually a comment about the smells.
MITCH AXELROD: So do we have any questions
from the audience for Mark?
Sure.
AUDIENCE: Thanks for being here.
And thanks for writing this book.
As one of the only people in the room who probably saw "The Ed
Sullivan Show" the first time it was shown--
and my father said that can't be their real hair-- it became
sort of a genetic piece of my fabric, of growing up,
my culture and my background.
And I wonder if the same sort of feeling
happens with any other artists later on.
Is there another generation that has another artist that
becomes so genetic in their core being?
Or is this a once in a lifetime, once in a generation,
once in a millennium thing?
MARK LEWISOHN: Well, I'll throw this one open to the panel
here.
But from my own point of view, I mean,
the obvious answer is that every generation has its heroes.
And every generation has its key musical influences.
I always think that it is the music
you hear when you're, say, 14 to 19 or 20
that has the greatest impact on you in terms
of shaping your opinion.
But on the other hand, subsequent generations
wouldn't have had anything as profound as the Beatles
or as artistically deep and satisfying as the Beatles.
Molds can really only be broken once.
I mean, there are so many molds to be broken,
but the Beatles just-- they changed so many things
that after that, everyone was, in a way,
always treading in their footsteps.
But of course, if asked an 18-year-old today,
though he might know of the Beatles, which
is an amazing thing in itself, that
wouldn't necessarily be his or her game changer.
That's what I feel.
What do you think?
MITCH AXELROD: Well, you know, to me,
Dexys Midnight Runners with "Come On Eileen."
There's no one like Dexys Midnight Runners.
No, to me, I mean, you're asking the wrong person because to me,
I'm up here because of the Beatles.
Well, I'm up here because of my parents.
But I'm up here, really, because the Beatles
were a big influence on my life.
I don't think there's anybody-- you have always said,
there were circumstances that made the Beatles who they were.
And I don't think those can happen again.
I just don't.
MARK LEWISOHN: They were born at the right time.
And they entered our lives at the right time as well.
ROB LEONARD: I think some bands have
had a place in rock history.
MARK LEWISOHN: Oh, absolutely.
ROB LEONARD: But I think culturally,
in the bigger picture, the Beatles knocked down
so many doors and stuff.
MARK LEWISOHN: I think, I mean, there
was always this thing about who's
going to be the next band to be as big as the Beatles.
And after about 30 years, eventually people
stopped asking because it just isn't possible.
Times have moved on.
MITCH AXELROD: I think, actually, the curse--
ROB LEONARD: But there's no Ed Sullivan show either.
TONY TRAGUARDO: Well, I was just going to say,
I think part of it has to do with the idea
that "The Ed Sullivan Show" was such
a huge simultaneous exposure.
I think that there have been acts since then.
You read about Elton John's performance
at the Troubadour that broke him wide open.
U2 had some stunning performances.
But these were often live performances
that were reviewed.
Springsteen being called the future of rock and roll.
We saw it in individual performances
that would get reviewed.
But to have had it given to all of us on the Sullivan show,
here it is.
ROB LEONARD: And how many bands got
started the next day because of "The Ed Sullivan Show"?
TONY TRAGUARDO: Because of "The Ed Sullivan Show."
MITCH AXELROD: Well, it's funny because I feel bad for Elvis
because Elvis probably thought the same thing.
Well, no one's going to be bigger than me.
And then, a few years later, it's the Beatles.
And, like, oh, damn.
ROB LEONARD: I do have a question for you, Mark.
And it concerns the Sullivan show.
Here in America, it's a moment.
In Great Britain, "The Ed Sullivan Show"
wasn't broadcast there.
How was that looked at from Great Britain?
MARK LEWISOHN: I used to read about "The Ed Sullivan Show"
for years as a Beatles fan.
And also I was always interested in broadcasting, as well.
But I didn't actually see it until the video age
when you could actually get to see tapes of things.
For us, that was not the show.
For us, we had our own landmark moments, a couple of big TV
shows the Beatles did.
But more than anything else, whereas the Beatles, well,
they were number one at a time of the Sullivan show here.
But that was where the nation saw them for the first time.
In England, it happened a few months earlier.
And it mostly happened through the records and radio.
And then people saw them on television
and thought they were great.
We didn't have that one single defining
moment like you've had here.
MITCH AXELROD: We have our next question from Mark Lapidos.
We should just tell everybody that Mark Lapidos
is the founder of what was known as Beatlefest in 1974
and since changed to The Fest for Beatles Fans.
And Mark Lewisohn is going to be a guest,
if you want to tell people about that after your question.
MARK LAPIDOS: Sure.
First of all, there are other people here
who were there for "The Ed Sullivan Show."
And it's a little known fact that to this day
it's the largest audience in the history 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 gets more than 33%, I don't think.
So that Ed Sullivan show, as George said, of course,
many times, even the criminals, they don't watch us.
But anyway, I have a question.
I have no idea if you're writing about this
because this book only goes up to the end of '62
and I'm only up to page 50 or 60.
It's going to take me maybe 10 years to get through it.
But I'm loving it so far.
I don't know how much you delve into the music part of it.
But I guess for book three, I have 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 if you know about this,
what your answer would be.
"Penny Lane."
I met with him about 20 years ago.
I said, can I ask you one trivia question?
He said, sure.
I said, what happened at the end of "Penny Lane"?
Why is it only on the promotional single in the US?
So do you have an answer, Mark?
MARK LEWISOHN: Why--
TONY TRAGUARDO: You should let people what--
MITCH AXELROD: You mean the trumpet ending.
MARK LAPIDOS: The trumpets, the trumpet ending,
it's only on the promotional single.
It never made it on the American single or album.
MARK LEWISOHN: Did he tell you it
was because Paul wanted to change it at the last minute?
MARK LAPIDOS: No.
MARK LEWISOHN: What did he tell you?
MARK LAPIDOS: I'll give you an answer in a minute, but--
TONY TRAGUARDO: Well, now we know what the answer is.
We already know the answer.
MARK LAPIDOS: This is exactly what he said.
He said, we were just 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 were turning out product.
I mean, that is yet another amazing thing
about the Beatles is that all the recorded material that we
know and love all came out in the space of about 7
and 1/2 years.
I mean, 13 albums in 7 and 1/2 years,
if you're looking at the UK products, which
is the way they shaped it.
And all those singles and other tracks, as well.
I mean, 200-odd tracks in seven years.
An act these days would probably do
one or two albums in that time?
And they completely wiped clean and drew again
the face of popular music in that period.
One of the things I do in this book
is actually name number all the years.
So 1958 is really the year when the Beatles are first-- they're
not the Beatles yet, but in fact, they
went around as a trio at one point--
John, Paul, and George-- called J Page 3.
TONY TRAGUARDO: That was a new discovery.
That was something that had never surfaced before.
Where did you find--
MARK LEWISOHN: Tracked down this guy who was actually
their manager for a while and had a recording of them
that he wiped, unfortunately.
But they were J Page 3.
J for John, P-A for Paul, and G-E for George,
and 3 because they were a trio, three guitarists.
And that is year one.
1958, when they started going around together, is year one.
So 1964, when they played the Sullivan show,
that's year seven.
There's a tendency in America to think
they kind of arrived when they played the Sullivan show,
but that was year seven.
And when they broke up, it was year 13.
Now they don't get a recording contract until year five,
but that doesn't mean they're not together.
They're still very much working and finding out who they are,
and young lads having fun and all that,
and having adventures.
Actually, they were together 13 years,
much more than people realize.
MITCH AXELROD: And we did want to say
that Mark will be at The Fest for Beatles fans
on this Sunday, February 9, correct?
MARK LEWISOHN: The anniversary of the Sullivan show.
MITCH AXELROD: Absolutely.
MARK LEWISOHN: I shall being doing my Ed Sullivan
impressions.
MITCH AXELROD: Oh, good.
I'll be doing my Topo Gigio impression.
I'm short enough so.
Do we have any other questions for Mark?
TONY TRAGUARDO: We're being told to wrap it up.
MITCH AXELROD: We're being told to wrap it up.
One more question?
Anybody?
Al?
AUDIENCE: Actually, I did have one--
MITCH AXELROD: Can you go to the mic, please?
AUDIENCE: OK.
MITCH AXELROD: Sorry.
And then I believe Mark will be doing signing.
We don't?
I'm sorry, Al, you--
TONY TRAGUARDO: Can you ask 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, you talked about the hostility
that the London music establishment had
toward Liverpool, or indifference, maybe.
And yet there was in that first batch of teen idols,
there was one Liverpudlian, Billy Fury.
But he didn't apparently become sort of an icon
for the other budding musicians in Liverpool.
Is there a particular reason for that?
MARK LEWISOHN: Yeah, Billy Fury was the first Liverpool
rock-and-roll star before the Beatles.
His real name was Ronald Wycherly.
And he actually was in the same class at school as Ringo.
But so embarrassing was the Liverpool accent,
or perceived to be in those days in the UK--
and that's another thing the Beatles did.
In my country, in England, they completely
changed the class system.
Well, not changed it, but challenged it.
And opened it up to people.
Because they had northern working class accents.
And that had always been embarrassing before.
Billy Fury never said a word publicly
because of his Liverpool accent.
His manager said to him, don't speak.
And when he sang, he sang in an American voice.
So no one really knew he was from Liverpool.
It wasn't important.
But when the Beatles broke through, it's like, yeah,
we're from Liverpool.
We're from the north.
You got a problem with that?
And that was a real challenge to people,
which is why they received hostility to begin with.
But eventually, within about a year,
everyone was putting on a northern accent to be cool.
That's just a small measure of the impact that they had.
MITCH AXELROD: Well, the book is called "The Beatles
All These Years, Tune In, Volume One."
There will be three of these by Crown Archetype.
Thank you very much.
We appreciate Mark being here.
We appreciate Google having us here.
[APPLAUSE]
MARK LEWISOHN: Thank you.
MITCH AXELROD: Thank you.