Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511170112
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BAUDER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The long hair, the ``yeah-yeah-yeah's,'' the drugs, the bonfires of albums in Alabama because John Lennon once said they were more popular than Jesus Christ, led many to believe the mop tops were a sure sign that civilization was going down the drain.
Today they are cultural icons, worshipped as fervently - if not as peculiarly - as Elvis Presley.
And, most unexpectedly, they're back.
The three surviving ex-Beatles have collaborated on the most intense self-examination since their 1970 breakup. A six-hour, three-day TV documentary will start tonight, quickly followed by the release of three separate two-CD packages of rare recordings from studio vaults.
They include the closest thing we'll get to a reunion: two songs left behind by the late Lennon polished into ``new'' Beatles songs in the studio by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
The Beatles never truly left, in terms of the millions of people who continue to be fascinated by them and the long shadow their influence still casts on rock 'n' roll.
Catch a Beatles song on the radio and the words come instantly to mind, even if it's been years since you've heard them. ``Yesterday.'' ``Help!'' ``Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.'' ``Get Back.'' ``Something.'' ``Hey Jude.''
``They represent so many different things,'' said Mark Lewisohn, author of six books on the Beatles. ``For some, they represent the epitome, the best of pop music. For others, they represent growing up in the '60s. For me, it all comes down to music. I don't think we would be talking about them so much if it wasn't for the fact that their music was, and still is, quite wonderful.''
So much in today's popular music landscape can be traced, at least in part, to the work of the Beatles: performers who write their own material, musicians who use the studio as a creative canvas, concerts in baseball stadiums, videos to promote new songs.
Blame or credit them, even, for Michael Bolton's flowing locks. The singer said he first grew his hair long because the Beatles made it cool.
The Beatles' first American appearance on the ``Ed Sullivan Show,'' on Feb. 9, 1964, may have done more to guide future careers than a year's worth of talking by school guidance counselors.
``When I saw the Beatles on the `Ed Sullivan Show,' I looked at them and said, `That's it. That's what I want to do,''' recalled singer Billy Joel, then a teen-ager on Long Island.
He wasn't alone. Natalie Cole begged her bemused dad, Nat ``King'' Cole, for Beatles records. Members of the rock band Genesis said the band convinced them that they could be performers, not just songwriters.
Teen-ager Declan MacManus was thrilled when his bandleader father, Ross, brought home some Beatle autographs. The boy grew up to be singer Elvis Costello, and got to write songs with Paul McCartney.
The lads from Liverpool even had an influence on heavy metal. ``The Beatles were the main reason I wanted to do this,'' says Charlie Benante, drummer-guitarist-songwriter for Anthrax, who heard his first Beatles song when he was about 2 years old.
The Beatles brought songwriting to new heights in rock 'n' roll. Before the Beatles and Bob Dylan, it was rare for performers to write their own material. Today, the opposite is true.
``They really established the paradigm of the self-contained group - the group that played its own instruments, wrote its own songs, controlled its own artistic destiny and controlled its own sort of musical packaging,'' said Robert Palmer, author of the new book, ``Rock 'n' Roll - an Unruly History.''
The Lennon-McCartney songwriting team was a perfect blend of rock 'n' roll energy (John) and classic pop smarts (Paul), he said.
Echoes of their melodic style can be heard throughout almost all of today's guitar-based rock 'n' roll: It's beneath the punk energy of Green Day, the distorted guitars of Nirvana and the bittersweet tunes of the Gin Blossoms. ``Beatlesque'' is a favorite adjective for critics.
England's hottest new bands, Oasis and Blur, have a ``rivalry'' that's been compared to the Beatles and Rolling Stones, but they agree on one thing: their debt to the Beatles. Oasis even named a song, ``Wonderwall,'' after an obscure Harrison solo album.
``It's no longer unhip to say you like the Beatles or that they've influenced you,'' author Lewisohn said. ``As a matter of fact, it's quite trendy to say that.''
The thought of being a trend was repugnant to the Beatles. After growing sick of screaming fans drowning out their live performances, they stopped rehearsing toward the end, figuring why bother? John, Paul, George and Ringo retreated to the studio to create what was considered their greatest works. They invited orchestras to their sessions, dabbled in Indian instruments, used backward tape loops and otherwise experimented with ideas and technology.
The Beatles competed furiously with peers such as Dylan, the Stones, the Beach Boys and Byrds, fostering a dialogue at the top levels of music that is often emulated but never re-created, Palmer said.
``The Beatles opened up this whole atmosphere of experimentation in the context of pop records that for a brief time really flowered in a very public way. ... It didn't happen [for] very long,'' he said.
Lewisohn was frustrated in researching the Beatles because it was impossible to find an interview in 1963 or 1964 where their music was taken seriously. That all changed with the release of ``Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' in 1967.
This alternately melancholic, terrifying and exhilarating record captured as no other the complex textures of its time: a supercharged, corrosively contradictory summer when hippies grooved at the Monterey Pop Festival, black emotions exploded in riots in Detroit and Newark, and a war grew bloodier in Vietnam.
Youthful listeners somehow heard all of this in ``Sgt. Pepper'' - an album whose themes included Eastern culture, sweet and terrifying psychedelic fantasies, the widening gulf between young and old and, above all, loneliness.
``Sgt. Pepper'' sold 2.5 million records in its first three months and stayed on the charts for a staggering 113 weeks.
Today, rock music has its own hall of fame (with the Beatles, of course, as members), it's the subject of university courses and the latest albums are covered exhaustively in newspapers, magazines and on-line.
And it seems no information is too trivial about the Beatles. Most music sections in book stores have more works on the Beatles than any other artist.
Lewisohn's meticulous tome, ``The Complete Beatles Chronicle,'' takes 365 pages to detail the band's career day-by-day. Still, he gets dozens of letters from fans who said it wasn't enough.
Even mildly critical remarks bring out fiercely defensive fans. Palmer is still getting flak for the suggestion, in a PBS documentary, that maybe rock 'n' roll music didn't need to be ``saved'' by the Beatles.
All of this devotion is not lost on Capitol Records executives. They released the ``Live at the BBC'' CD last year as a ``test run'' for the anthology CDs and were stunned when it sold more than 5 million copies.
The Beatles and their representatives have readied a marketing blitz that may make hypemeister Michael Jackson envious. The plan is centered around making sure 3 million copies of the first CD anthology are in stores on Tuesday.
How's the new song?
``It turned out fabulous,'' said one biased observer, Ringo Starr. ``It turned out just like the Beatles. Why not?''
by CNB