Portrait of Leo Fender in the Fullerton Museum exhibit
Telecaster guitars. Stratocasters. Fender Bassman amps. All essential equipment for rock and blues players of all stripes- Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, Roy Buchanan, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, and Otis Rush.
On a recent trip to Southern California, the legacy of Fender- the company founded by Leo Fender in the mid-1940s- was a proud part of the local culture.
In Fullerton, for example, the original shop opened by Fender and his wife in 1938- Fender Radio Repair- has historic plaques out front, placed by the National Register of Historic Places and the Fullerton Heritage organization. In back of the location is a colorful outsized mosaic of an iconic Fender Stratocaster guitar.
Historic plaques by the original location of Fender Radio Repair
The Stratocaster mosaic
At the Fullerton Museum Center, there’s an entire gallery devoted to Fender with an exhibit dubbed “Strumming Through the Decades- 30 Years with Fender.” Guitars, amps, portraits and historic photos of Fender and his collaborators, iconic ads and the stories of musicians who thrived with Fender instruments fill the room that is oddly silent considering the loud and proud music that was made with Fender equipment.
Eric Clapton’s 1958 tweed Twin amp in Fullerton
For example, guitarist Tommy Tedesco’s Telecaster sits quiet in an upright glass case. As part of the famous studio cadre called the Wrecking Crew (a name bassist Carol Kaye, who often played a Fender Precision bass, famously despises), Tedesco was one of the most sought after studio guitarists of his time, playing on recordings for artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Elvis Presley, and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as tons of famous movie and television soundtracks. And there his Telecaster sits, cigarette burn marks and all.
Tommy Tedesco’s Telecaster
Just down the road in Carlsbad is the Museum of Making Museum, created by NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants.) The museum is a feast of prime and pristine examples of all kinds of instruments and equipment- banjos, mandolins, guitars, pianos, amps, electronic gadgets- and classic Fender gear. That includes a 1965 Jaguar electric guitar, a 1953 Super Amp, a 1994 carved floral Stratocaster as well as a vintage 1955 Stratocaster featuring “tremolo action.”
Floral Stratocaster in the Museum of Making Music
1965 Fender Jaguar
These are some of the most influential instruments in the history of modern music making and it all started from a little radio repair shop that at first provided a valuable source of PA equipment, then developed into a world-wide well-spring of electric guitar design and technology.
A course of music and discussion created for Front Range Forum Fall 2024.
Notes and Play List by Tim Van Schmidt
Session 1: Introduction, The Beatles Before
Introduction
Facilitator Tim Van Schmidt has been a longtime Northern Colorado music journalist and photographer. He wrote a weekly “In Concert” column for The Coloradoan for 13 years and was the co-founder of Scene Magazine. Schmidt wrote for many regional newspapers including Fort Collins’ Forum and various entertainment publications. Most recently he wrote a weekly Recommended column for North Forty News and has been a regular contributor to The Blues Blast, a weekly blues digest published by the High Plains Blues Society. Schmidt also maintains six websites and has a successful YouTube channel. As a photographer, he has photographed hundreds of Colorado bands as well as big stars like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead and many more. Born in Illinois, Schmidt spent much of his life in the western US, making Fort Collins and Colorado his home in 1980. He is also a fervent Beatles fan.
“The Creative Arc of The Beatles” class is centered around Beatles music from 1963-1970- from the release of their first album (in England), “Please Please Me,” to the final album by the band, “Let It Be.” But as with every story, so much happened before and after those dates that the course focus must be flexible…
The Elephant in the Room
Before getting to The Beatles’ music, let’s address a big subject about the band. That is, the fact that “The Beatles” wasn’t just a music group, but it was also a huge and powerful commercial machine. The commercial aspect of the group goes a long way in explaining their popularity.
Yes, The Beatles- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr- were young, exuberant, talented and attractive but their success was also due to the fact that a number of interests were convinced they could make money off of them.
Investors weren’t wrong- the timing was just perfect for a band of four teen idols- and they did make a lot of money. That kind of money also demanded media attention which helped intensify the whole deal. It all started with those four musicians, but snowballed into an international phenomenon partly thanks to commercial investment.
Sadly, business issues also had a lot to do with the breakup of the group.
And let’s also say that not everyone liked The Beatles. They were the subjects of boycotts, bannings, burnings and protests as their press coverage sometimes went sour and their popularity seemed to uncomfortably supplant established cultural trends.
One musical genre that especially felt the seismic shift The Beatles created was Folk Music. All you have to do is to turn to the venerable folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary to get a bead on what happened.
Folk considered itself a smart and thought provoking music- and had been enjoying some popularity in the years leading up to The Beatles’ explosion. The Beatles were so much more elemental, wildly appealing to a much younger audience, and the snark from folkies- or maybe envy- is unmistakable in PP and M’s 1967 release “I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” making fun of The Beatles and other pop stars of the day including the Mamas and the Papas and Donovan.
Here’s what the lyrics say about The Beatles: “…and when the Beatles tell you, they’ve got a word love to sell you, they mean exactly what they say.”
Play List: Peter, Paul and Mary “I Dig Rock and Roll Music”
It’s ironic that “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” came out the same year The Beatles released their pop album masterpiece “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The Beatles had become groundbreaking songwriters and recording artists and Peter, Paul and Mary were already behind the times.
It’s true- The Beatles was a business and their success spurred cultural blowbacks. Their music also went to places no one had gone to before or even since. That’s the part of The Beatles career that is of concern here from this point on- the “creative arc” of The Beatles. It’s the music that matters.
The Beatles Before
1956
John Lennon started his first band in high school in 1956. Here’s what was going on in 1956:
Skiffle
Lonnie Donegan had a major hit in England in 1956 with his “skiffle” version of the Leadbelly tune “Rock Island Line.” Skiffle music was a mixture of American country, blues and folk influences, played on a mixture of acoustic instruments- whatever was available. This included the guitar and the skiffle craze helped to not only boost the sales of guitars in England but also inspired thousands of skiffle groups- scrounging up whatever instruments they could- like John Lennon’s high school group, The Quarrymen.
The significance of skiffle music cannot be underplayed- the attitude that you could make music with easily acquired instruments was powerful.
To give you the flavor of skiffle music, here’s the 1957 version of “Rock Island Line” by American country artist Johnny Cash- which sounds a lot like Donegan’s hit and includes some extra lyrics as well. It’s recorded from an original Sun Records 45:
Play List: Johnny Cash- “Rock Island Line”
Rock and Roll
A bigger bomb dropped in 1956 than skiffle music- rock and roll. The year began with the January release of Elvis Presley’s debut hit on a major label, “Heartbreak Hotel,” and continued as many of the seminal artists of the rock and roll era broke out into the record charts.
That included the great Little Richard, known as one of the wildest performers of the time, his voice rough and ready and his songs- maybe a little irreverent- revved up and full of energy. Here’s Little Richard doing his 1956 hit “Long Tall Sally,” also recorded from the original 45:
Play List: Little Richard “Long Tall Sally”
Paul McCartney joined John Lennon’s group in 1957 and his friend George Harrison joined in 1958. Other people dropped out. Other people came on including bassist and artist Stu Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best. The group went through various name changes, until finally settling on The Beatles. Sutcliffe, who was the first to suggest a version of The Beatles’ name, dropped out and Ringo Starr joined The Beatles in 1962, replacing Best on drums.
A seminal part of their experience as a young band was to play residencies at night clubs in Hamburg, Germany, thanks to a connection between their native Liverpool and Hamburg promoters. This began in 1960 and at this point, The Beatles was a cover band- playing every song they could learn while doing multiple sets a day in Germany.
Rock and roll was, of course, the order of the day. And naturally, the young musicians played the stuff that turned them on, like Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.”
Here’s what The Beatles did with Little Richard’s song.
This recording comes from an album I collected when I traveled through Hamburg in the summer of 1977. It’s a collection of 1962 recordings by a rock and roll fan that took his “personal tape recorder” into the Hamburg clubs and recorded several bands including The Beatles. I carried this record in my backpack all across Europe and back to get it home to my collection. While these are very rough recordings, they are an important document of the early Beatles.
Play List: The Beatles “Long Tall Sally” Live in Hamburg
Another 1956 hit The Beatles were playing in Hamburg in 1962 was Gene Vincent’s “Be Bop a Lula.”
Play List: The Beatles “Be Bop a Lula” Live in Hamburg
“Be Bop a Lula” apparently was an important tune to John Lennon. He recorded the song to lead off his 1975 album “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a tribute collection of rock and roll oldies The Beatles no doubt were playing in Hamburg. This recording is clean and perfect- and it still rocks.
I once interviewed a bass player who recorded with Lennon on these sessions and he told me that Lennon was the ultimate professional- apparently there was no messing around at his sessions.
Play List: John Lennon “Be Bop a Lula”
And you cannot talk about the rock and roll explosion that was 1956 without including the true king of rock and roll- Chuck Berry. Berry had it all covered- writing catchy songs, playing a stinging guitar and working the world as a performer. Here’s Chuck Berry’s seminal 1956 hit “Roll Over Beethoven.”
Play List: Chuck Berry “Roll Over Beethoven”
Here’s how The Beatles played the tune in Hamburg in 1962
Play List: The Beatles “Roll Over Beethoven” Live in Hamburg
1956 was a powerful year for music and the artists that followed in the next few years would figure prominently in the foundation of The Beatles’ music.
Perhaps one of the most influential duos of the time was the Everly Brothers- uniquely suited to give the young Beatles inspiration. One of the signature sounds of the Everly Brothers were their savory, close vocal harmonies. Lennon and McCartney were in the process of developing a similar kind of vocal interplay as they began writing their own songs together.
Here are two examples of music by the Everly Brothers, again recorded from the original 45s, “Bye Bye Love” from 1957 and “Wake Up Little Susie” from 1958. Listen to those great vocal harmonies.
Play List: The Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love”, “Wake Up Little Susie”
Playing their butts off in Hamburg helped shape The Beatles into a cohesive musical unit. Their first real experience in the recording studio came when the group was hired to back British guitarist Tony Sheridan- also a musician working in the Hamburg scene- both in the studio and on tour. In June 1961, they recorded several tunes with Sheridan, including “My Bonnie,” which became a hit in Germany.
In his auto-biography, “A Cellarful of Noise,” The Beatles’ super manager Brian Epstein credits this record as his introduction to The Beatles. In 1961, he was working in the family record store in Liverpool when a young man came in and asked for “My Bonnie”- a record from Germany by a new group, The Beatles.
Tony Sheridan and The Beatles “My Bonnie”
That’s right, this “My Bonnie” is the old folk song by the same name, but with rock and roll applied. This indicates something about the modus operandi of the young rock and rollers of the early 1960s. They could play any song, really, as long as it was fast and wild.
Here’s another one of those songs- Sheridan’s take on “The Saints.” It’s not hard to tell who Sheridan was trying to sound like in the beginning of the track.
Tony Sheridan and The Beatles “The Saints”
Back in Hamburg, The Beatles were still learning and playing a diversity of music. Here’s McCartney taking the lead on a Ray Charles song.
Play List: The Beatles “Halleluja I Love Her So”
But added to learning every song they could to fill out their sets, The Beatles were also beginning to write their own songs- and daring to perform them on stage right next to the popular songs of the day. Here’s another cut from Hamburg- McCartney again taking lead on their classic, “I Saw Her Standing There,” perhaps one of the best recordings on the album.
Play List: “I Saw Her Standing There”
Finally, in 1962, The Beatles got a recording contract- after first being rejected by Decca Records because “guitar groups were on their way out.” But before getting to The Beatles’ first single, here’s another reminder of the great vocal harmonies of the Everly Brothers.
Play List: Everly Brothers “Til I Kissed You”
From the very start of their studio career, with the recording of “Love Me Do” and two other songs in 1962, The Beatles worked with producer George Martin. Here’s the first single by that team- released originally in the United States on the Tollie Records label. Notice that the harmonica is a prominent sound here- more so than the guitars- simple yet very effective.
Play List: “Love Me Do”
Here’s the flip side to that first single to close out today’s session. It’s a sweet little innocuous tune, employing some group vocal interplay- multiple voices emphasizing certain words as the melody progresses- maybe something learned from doo wop vocal group records?
