How to use this Page

By Gordon R. Thompson

As a regional businessman and a fledgling band manager, Brian Epstein presumed that the Beatles’ record company (EMI’s Parlophone) and Lennon and McCartney’s publisher (Ardmore and Beechwood) would support the record. This presumption would prove false, however, and Epstein would need to draw on all of the resources he could spare if he were to make the disc a success. He began with what he knew from the retail end of the industry and commenced rallying Liverpudlians to write letters to both Radio Luxembourg and the BBC asking them to play “Love Me Do.”

Just as the stations XERF (in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico) and CKLW (in Windsor, Ontario, Canada) were able to broadcast deep into the United States with transmitters many times more powerful than FCC-regulated American stations, a station in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg carpeted most of Western Europe.  Perhaps surprisingly, Radio Luxembourg (broadcast in the Medium Wave band) was British-owned and its English-language service became a primary outlet for UK businesses whose advertising the BBC declined. (The BBC refused to broadcast anything that suggested product promotion.) Radio Luxembourg suffered its sometimes-scratchy signal; but British listeners tuned in every night to embrace the pop music that Aunty Beeb would not play.

Expo 1958 Radio Luxembourg by Wouter Hagens. Creative Commons License.

British corporations like EMI and London music publishers like Essex Music directly controlled much of the station’s airtime by buying broadcast blocks during which they played pre-recorded programs. Indeed, on Monday 8 October 1962, the Beatles taped an interview at EMI’s headquarters in London, which Radio Luxembourg broadcast along with their recording of “Love Me Do” on Friday 12 October. (George Harrison later recalled the thrill of first hearing himself on that radio broadcast.) The Liverpool letters solicited by Epstein that arrived in Luxembourg eventually arrived at EMI in London where the manager hoped they would catch corporate attention and result in better domestic support for the Beatles and their releases.

Tony Barrow, whom Epstein had originally contacted at Decca Records in his quest to get the Beatles a recording contract, began work for NEMS (North End Music Stores) as the Beatles’ publicist. (He could hardly have imagined how his job description would evolve from soliciting the press’s attention to holding them at arm’s length.) As a reviewer and a liner-note writer, Barrow had often worked from press materials prepared by agents and managers. These releases could vary significantly in kind and quality, but among them, Barrow thought that the press kits from Leslie Perrin’s office (which had represented London’s infamous Raymond’s Revue Bar, among others) were particularly effective. Notably, a color-coded press kit walked readers through a client’s story, which made a reviewer’s tasks easier. Barrow appropriated this format in his preparations for promoting the Beatles.

The role of the press agent involved finding the right people to contact and, for that, Barrow needed names, addresses, and phone numbers. Coincidentally, he knew someone who had recently left Decca’s press office. The Beatles’ new agent presumed that the individual would have taken a copy of the company’s mailing list and, after a casual meal, they reached a mutually beneficial agreement. Brian Epstein’s new part-time press manager walked away with a cache of contacts.

Barrow began by introducing the Beatles to London’s music press, escorting the Liverpudlians from the Denmark Street offices of New Musical Express to Fleet Street’s Melody Maker. They were willing to go almost anywhere to meet anyone with access to print or broadcast media. For example, on 9 October 1962 (the day after taping the Radio Luxembourg program), they visited the offices of Record Mirror so that writers there could see how different they were from other entertainers and to hopefully experience some of the charm that had swayed George Martin.

The mixed results both encouraged the band and its manager, and disappointed them. Alan Smith, writing in the New Musical Express (26 October 1962), briefly introduced the band, highlighting how Lennon and McCartney had written their “hit.” However, if you were the Beatles searching the papers for even the briefest mention (which they did weekly), you found little.

Brian Epstein in a 1967 interview would justifiably take credit for some of the band’s early success, citing his diligence and perseverance. The slow climb of “Love Me Do” up the charts would be his vindication. By December 1962, despite setbacks, the single increased sales and nudged into the top twenty on the most respected (if selectively read) chart. They were poised for something and they were sure ‘twas for success.

Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out, offers an insider’s view of the British pop-music recording industry. Check out Gordon Thompson’s posts on The Beatles and other music here.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Selling the Beatles, 1962 appeared first on OUPblog.

By Gordon Thompson

Tweet

By Gordon Thompson

On 9 October, many in the world will remember John Winston Ono Lennon, born on this date in 1940. He, of course, would have been amused, although part of him (the part that self-identified as “genius”) would have anticipated the attention. However, he might also have questioned why the Beatles and their music, and this Beatle in particular, would remain so current in our cultural thinking. When Lennon described the Beatles as just a band that made it very, very big, why did we doubt him?

Today, the music of the Beatles remains popular, perhaps because it helped define a musical genre that continues to flourish, leading some to speculate that these songs and recordings express inherent transcendental qualities. Nevertheless, no graphed demonstration of harmonic relationships and melodic development and no semiotic divination of their lyrics can explain what these individuals and their music have meant to Western civilization. Those born in the aftermath of the Second World War harbor the most obvious explanations. A plurality of the children who came of age during the sixties continues to hold the Beatles as an ideal expression of that decade’s emphasis on self-determination and optimism.

The composer of “A Hard Day’s Night,” “If I Fell,” “Help!,” “Nowhere Man,” “In My Life,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Across the Universe,” “Imagine,” and other classics of the modern Western canon left an indelible mark on our notions of music and expression. Where Paul McCartney searched for polite answers to reassure adults, Lennon often seemed to taunt reporters, to the delight of adolescents and the adolescent at heart. When Lennon got into trouble (as he did when American Christians took umbrage at his comparison of fan reaction to the Beatles and to Jesus), we apprehended our own image in the mirror of his discomfort. Moreover, when he shed the conventions of adolescence for the complicated independence of adulthood, we followed his example, albeit usually with less flair and more humility.

In many ways, John Lennon represented a twentieth-century Everyman: someone in whom we could see ourselves re-imagined in extraordinary circumstances with a quicker wit and more charisma. His assassination thirty years ago in December 1980 consequently left an indelible mark on us, standing as one of those moments stained in memory and time. That he had recently emerged from a well-earned domestic sabbatical with renewed possibilities, which both he and his fans recognized, made his death all the more tragic.

Just as the Fab Four had helped to define adolescent identities, perhaps these same baby boomers recognized in Lennon’s death the fragility of our own existence writ large on the wall. And, as the writing hand moved on, we contemplated one last indisputable truth that this most poetic Beatle had bequeathed: the passion play of his life, career, and death had provided us with a sand mandala of our own impermanent individual selves.

Pop culture by definition presents a fleeting expression of our consciousness, which we perpetually construct and reconstruct; but we sometimes forget that the currents of culture have lasting effects on the swimmers. Lennon, Harrison, McCartney, and Starr may have only been musicians that made it very, very big; but, in their roles as ritual players on the altar of the sixties, they played out an extraordinary version of everyday universal lives.

Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties Br

0 Comments on John Winston Ono Lennon, Everyman as of 1/1/1900

Add a Comment

NOTE TO MYSELF: ONCE UPON A TIME I HAD A DREIDEL

THE CHANUKAH KING
by Eleanor Tylbor


There was the usual sense of excitement among students attending the Chavarim Afternoon Hebrew School a couple weeks before the onset of Chanukah. Throughout the school spinning dreidels whirled around the floor surface in anticipation of the annual competition held on the first night of Chanukah. Even then practise was no guarantee of a successful outcome of deposing "the dreidel king" who was defending his title for the fourth year in a row.

If there was anyone who personified the ideal qualities in a student it was Zelig Bornstein. At ten years of age he could do no wrong. A brilliant student academically he was also blessed with the voice of an angel and it was a given that he would sing the part of lead candle in the annual Chanukah concert. As if that wasn't enough to cause jealousy and rivalry among classmates, he ALWAYS won the annual dreidel competition.

Among the students of Mr. Meldrum's class there was the general belief that his cobalt blue dreidel with gold lettering on the sides possessed magical properties. There could be no other explanation to account for his perpetual dominance other than a mysterious and powerful outside source was at work, unavailable to his classmates. A few brave participants had come close to deposing him but somehow Zelig always managed to win out in the end. To further undermine his competitors confidence "The Dreidel King" did nothing to dispel the air of mystery surrounding his acumen.

"It's all right here," he would boast when asked the secret of his success, pointing to his wrist and flicking his fingers one-by-one to demonstrate his unbeatable technique, "and my magical dreidel, of course."

He never divulged any background information on how it was acquired and neither would he allow anyone to touch it much less give it a spin, further adding to the mystique.

"He" doesn't like leaving my hands," he would proffer in the way of an excuse, speaking of his top as if it was a living thing or a pet.

Externally, I professed animosity towards him as did the others, but internally I adored him from afar. However, this did not diminish my desire to win and I practiced fervently in the hope of improving my spin. I longed to emerge victorious if for no other reason than to make Zelig aware that I was alive, or at least be aware of my presence. It wasn't considered socially unacceptable to acknowledge the existence of the opposite sex, and even if he did harbor some stirrings of romantic feelings, he hid them well from me.

It would be fair to say that nearly every student in Mr. Meldrum's class dreamed of wresting the title away from him. We discussed the situation amongst ourselves, plotting a course of action that could de-throne him. Dreidel tossing techniques were assessed including "spit-shots" in which the "toss-ee" would spit or lick fingers to acquire more control of the toss, disallowed by Mr. Meldrum for hygienic reasons. Finger exercises were evaluated in addition to the benefits of knuckle cracking workouts before the competition, all of which were eventually discarded as ineffectual. Deep down inside we knew that the end result was out of our hands in the true sense of the word, and in those of the fates. There was always the glimmer of hope that perhaps the fates would smile on one of us. Anyone of us except Zelig.

Like a conquering hero "King" Zelig took center-stage tossing his dreidel from hand-to-hand as he walked, attempting to psyche out the participants. It was a piece of pure theatre as he produced a blue satin drawstring bag and reaching in, retrieved the cobalt blue dreidel smiling all the while. We took our places around the table, our hands clasped around the dreidels, waiting for our turn.

As the reigning champion he spun first, achieving the "gimel" and winning the first round. Dreidel competitors fell one after the other until it was time for me as the last competitor to

One by one he knocked out of the game until finally it was my turn. All eyes were upon me as I opened up my hand, gently allowing a cobalt blue object with gold lettering on the sides to drop on the surface of the table. There was an audible gasp from my fellow students accompanied shortly thereafter by excited whispers.

"D'ya see her dreidel?" they asked each other. "It's the same one as Zelig?s!"

At tournament time a large table was set up in the middle of the classroom and dreidels distributed to students. King Zelig tossed his dreidl from hand-to-hand, smiling smugly and acting self-assured. As the reigning champion Zelig spun first, achieving the letter "g" or "gimel", which meant that he won the first round. One by one we took turns and I landed on "hay", acquiring half of the pot composed of chocolate coins and other goodies, which pleased me no end. For the next few turns the dreaded "shin" turned up denoting a loss, accompanied by groans of disappointment from fellow students. Like many of the stories we were told focusing on unsurpassable victories over adversity, things turned in my favor. The king was dethroned and long live the new champion. Me. Jubilant cheers broke out among fellow students as they savored the moment for which they had all waited. My adversary, meanwhile, appeared stunned and in shock. Consumed with laughter and staring triumphantly into his eyes, I couldn't help but notice his were brimming with tears. It was bad enough being dethroned but having it done by a girl, was more than his young ego could handle in one day.

I could have chosen to ignore him and savor the moment of victory, since it was a long time coming and it probably wouldn't happen again. Instead, upon realizing that he had been humiliated in front of his male friends, a final showdown was suggested to determine the final victor. Needless to say, he amazingly emerged victorious.

He never did acknowledge my presence or reach out to thank me for my selfless gesture, in all the years of our attending Hebrew school together. He did allow me to spin first in a subsequent re-match the following year, presumably as a good will gesture on his part. In my mind I would always be queen to his king be it only for one occasion and that was better than nothing. That's life. Sometimes you win and sometimes you gotta lose.