20 MusicWeek 24.01.14 PROFILE THE BEATLES 50
down his life for them.” The door opened by The Beatles, which reached a
peak in April 1964 when they became the only act in history to occupy the entire top five positions of the Hot 100, was soon penetrated by countless other UK acts. The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie & The Dreamers, Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, Herman’s Hermits, The Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five all followed by topping the Hot 100 in the two years after The Beatles’ breakthrough, but Asher and his colleague Gordon Waller as Peter and Gordon were the first Brits to emulate what the Fab Four had done. A World Without Love reached No 1 on the Billboard countdown in June 1964, by which time four Beatles songs had already been chart-toppers that year. The song in question had been penned by
McCartney (although credited with Lennon), but rejected by John as not being right for The Beatles. “Apparently John found it very amusing,” Asher
remembers, “Paul would sing the first line, ‘Please lock me away…’ and John would go, ‘OK!’” But when Peter and Gordon, who passed away
in 2009, landed a contract with EMI’s Columbia Records Asher went back to McCartney about the song and whether the pair could record it instead. Its chart-topping success firstly in the UK and then the States took them to the US for the first time and Asher found himself part of a British Invasion when, according to him, the word Beatle itself became an almost generic term for British artists there. “I remember being in an elevator in a hotel and
this kid goes, ‘You a Beatle?’ You go, ‘Sorry, I beg your pardon?’ ‘You a Beatle?’ ‘No, I’m not a member
THE BEATLES’ US ALBUMS: HOW THEY DIFFER
Beatlemania united UK and US music fans in the Sixties, but in the first few years of the group’s recording career their respective albums issued in the two markets were very different. While now albums by acts tend to be
identical wherever they are released globally, back in the Fab Four’s heyday the group’s US record label Capitol had contrasting ideas about how to package their tracks compared to what happened in the UK with Parlophone. It resulted in all the Beatles albums released up to and
including in 1966 having different tracklistings in the States compared to the UK and, in some cases, alternative titles, song mixes and artwork. Thirteen of these US albums have been re-issued by
Apple Corps and Universal this week to mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles conquering the States. They go chronologically from Meet The Beatles, their first Capitol Records album in the States, which came out in January 1964 and spent 11 weeks at No 1 on the Billboard chart to Hey Jude, which was issued in February 1970, by which time the group had stopped as a recording unit. Part of the reason early on in The Beatles’ career their
UK and US albums were so different was that initially Capitol Records did not have American rights to all their repertoire. This was because, despite being EMI’s US wing, Capitol firstly declined to release the group’s recordings in the territory because they did not believe there would be a market for them, so instead EMI licensed them to a series of independents.
Among these independents was Vee-Jay Records, home of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, which ahead of Capitol actually released the first ever Fab Four album in the US – Introducing…The Beatles. This came out on January 10 1964, 10 days before Meet The Beatles and contained 12 of the 14 tracks from their first UK album Please Please Me. It is not part of Universal’s re- issues programme. Another reason for the contrasting UK and US albums was US-issued albums in the
Sixties tended to have up to 12 tracks, while The Beatles’ UK albums had sometimes 14. The British albums also generally did not to include tracks released as A or B sides of singles, but Capitol wanted these on albums to give them another selling point and allow them to stretch out the group’s tracks over more albums. This resulted in the creation of additional albums with titles such as Beatles VI and Yesterday and Today, which mean little to UK fans but were No 1 albums in the US. It was not until Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in
June 1967 a Beatles album was identically released in the UK and US and this continued to be the pattern with all their regular studio albums until they split. The Beatles’ US re-issues have come out in both mono
and stereo versions, with the exception of The Beatles’ Story and Hey Jude, which are stereo only. They are available in a boxed set with replicated original LP artwork and inner sleeves plus a 64-page booklet containing photos and promotional art. The albums have also gone on sale separately for a limited time.
ABOVE “Ladie and gentlemen... The Beatles”: Performing on The Ed Sullivan Show in Miami in February 1964
of The Beatles’ and their father said, ‘Yeah, but you’re English and part of this thing that is going on.’ You realised being a Beatle was like, oh you are part of this strange phenomenon with people with long hair and tight trousers who appear to be taking over your country.” Being a British musician in America at that time
turned you into a first-class citizen, but Asher acknowledges it was really largely about the Fab Four and then the rest.
“He loved that band in every way and I really think he would have laid down his life for them” PETER ASHER ON BRIAN EPSTEIN
“It was kind of 90% Beatles, 10% everybody else
put together. They were the British Invasion. We were just the trimmings.”
THE BEATLES’ RECORD- BREAKING CHART ACHIEVEMENTS IN 1964
In their US breakthrough year of 1964 The Beatles set a series of chart feats on the Billboard Hot 100 that have never been equalled or bettered. They include: n Biggest monopoly of the top five – On the countdown dated April 4 the group occupied the entire top five positions with Can’t Buy Me Love at No 1, Twist And Shout at No 2, She Loves You at No 3 and I Want To Hold Your Hand and Please Please Me at 4 and 5. n Most concurrent hits in Hot 100 – A week after their top five monopoly, the group claimed 14 of the chart’s 100 positions n Only act to replace themselves at No 1 and then do it again – After a seven-week run at the top I Want To Hold Your Hand was replaced in March for two weeks by She Loves You before Can’t Buy Me Love took over for five weeks n Longest monopoly of the top two positions – The Beatles occupied the chart’s two main positions continuously from the charts dated February 22 to April 25 n Most No 1s in a calendar year – Six Beatles tracks topped the Hot 100 in 1964 with the achievement completed by Love Me Do, A Hard Day’s Night and I Feel Fine
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Photo: Apple Corps
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