Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  Norrie Paramor got his the following day, when the BBC unveiled its new Saturday-night entertainment That Was The Week That Was. Fast, funny, scathing and scabrous, it was the first TV show anywhere in the world to expose and wantonly skewer public figures … and Paramor was a principal target in the premiere edition, prompted by his EMI A&R colleague George Martin. The host of TW3 (as it became known) was David Frost, the same young man who, eight months earlier, as a program researcher, had treated George to a cheap lunch and received rich tales of the way Paramor worked, particularly his tendency to slip his own songs onto B-sides or A-sides. About to become the public face of “the satire boom,” and the first Sixties-made TV star, Frost was determined to set down a marker. He stood before the nation this first night and, in a self-written sketch running almost six minutes, hit Paramor hard: “Norrie is an ordinary man writing ordinary tunes with ordinary words. During the last ten years, Norrie Paramor has used all his power and all his influence and made everything ordinary.”

  Those who missed the show—Norrie included—heard all about it. PARAMOR PILLORIED! shouted Melody Maker, devoting an entire page to commentary and reactions. It was the talk of the business for months, and the question on everyone’s lips was, had an insider dished the dirt? Paramor’s secretary, Frances Friedlander, remembers the whole business as “horrible” and thinks Norrie never found out who was behind it.23 Little else was discussed at EMI all day Monday, not by the reps on the road, nor at the Hayes pressing plant, the Manchester Square head office, or the St. John’s Wood studios … and the gossip was still reverberating when the Beatles swung by to make their second record.

  RECORDING SESSION

  Monday, November 26, 1962. Number 2 studio, EMI, London.

  RECORDING: Please Please Me; Ask Me Why.

  The Beatles’ three previous Abbey Road sessions had a hunched-shoulders feel about them, the parties slightly kicking against each other, reined in by restrictions, at odds over material, beset by nerves and frustrations, working … but not working well.

  This was a restart. “Love Me Do” ’s impressive run up the charts and the November 16 office confab altered everything—the work was efficient, energetic, exciting and harmonious, the chemistry gelled, the jokes flew, everything clicked, and inside the allotted three hours the Beatles-George Martin production line started rolling. “It went beautifully,” George said. “The whole session was a joy.”24

  The aim was clear: to tape both sides of the second Parlophone record, for January 11 release. The titles were known and the music familiar: these weren’t songs that needed much more producer input. “Ask Me Why” would be remade almost as they’d done it in June; “Please Please Me” had already been rearranged to everyone’s satisfaction and they needed only to play it as best they could and then add harmonica. Number 2, becoming their usual studio, was booked 7 ’til 10PM, ample time—and by verbal agreement they arrived at six for an hour’s rehearsal and technical prep.

  There was no session drummer. The four on the floor, setting up in the far left corner, were John, Paul, George and Ringo. In the upstairs control room, behind the glass, there was no Ron Richards. George Martin was the “A/M in Attendance” (as the studio red form specified), their usual engineer Norman Smith was manipulating the mixing desk, and an assistant was on hand to start, stop and spool the tapes and make tea. Brian Epstein and Neil Aspinall were present, along with a couple of invited guests: the NME’s Alan Smith, who’d be offering a written account of the session to Mersey Beat, and Bobby Brown, who’d traveled in the van with Neil while the Beatles and Brian took the train.

  Bobby followed them down to the studio, to sit among them as they rehearsed … and to receive an unexpected invitation. Would she play piano on “Please Please Me”? The question was quite apposite—Lindy Ness and Lou Steen had been lying under Jim Mac’s piano in June when John and Paul worked on the song, now John wanted a girl to help them record it. His request was specific: that Bobby play certain chords at three junctures, emphasizing the fast doubled guitar escalations at 0.12, 0.40 and 1.25. “John was showing me these chords on the piano, saying, ‘So Bobby, you can play this …’ and I just said to him, ‘You’re mad. There’s no way I can do this.’ He said, ‘But you can play piano,’ and I said, ‘Yes, but I have to have a piece of music in front of me.’ It went on like this for some time, and in the end I just said I can’t do it.”25 It couldn’t have happened anyway. She wasn’t in the Musicians’ Union and non-union talent was prohibited from recording.

  George Martin then cleared the floor of all but the Beatles, so the session proper could start. Having decided to make an album, it made sense to tape them in stereo as well as mono, but George again shied away from using Abbey Road’s four-track recorder, opting instead for the twin-track process, recording all the vocals in one mono channel and all the instruments in the other, allowing only a rudimentary stereo mix at a later date.

  They did the most important number first. When the red light went on for “Please Please Me,” John was standing there with the Jumbo Gibson acoustic, plugged into his Vox amp, George was holding the treasured Gretsch Duo Jet, plugged into his Vox, Paul’s Hofner Violin bass was plugged into the studio’s Leak amp, and Ringo was sitting behind his six-piece Premier kit. Each guitar amp/speaker had a state-of-the-art microphone in front, Ringo’s drums had two (one by the bass, one overhead) and there were two vocal mikes. “Please Please Me” had never been a stage number—it was purely a studio song—but they played as if on the road, instruments and voices live, a straight performance for as many takes as George Martin considered necessary, which was fifteen.

  The song’s virtues had been obvious in September’s recording—two minutes of exhilarating harmonies, melodies, riffs and runs—only this time they did it so much better and so much hotter, properly finding their feet in the studio for the first time. The vocals are a formidable fusion of John’s lead and Paul’s high-note harmony, bowling the song along with electric energy. John’s quadruple Come on! calls are echoed in snappy girl-group sound by Paul and George, rising in pitch to crank the tension. George’s playing is solid, John’s is buried, and the bass (in spite of its cheapness) proves itself both great for recording and dynamic in Paul’s hands. He gives the song its pulsing heartbeat by playing mostly a fast repeated single note, while also tripping into an attractive and intuitive countermelody. And Ringo keeps the rock beat right on time, full of meaty fills and flourishes—a top performance. The whole thing is high energy until, after precisely two minutes, it skids to a halt with everything still happening at once and falsetto vocals slapped excitingly on top.

  Once John had overdubbed the harmonica parts—designed to double George’s motif guitar lines—it was done, and it was great. “Love Me Do” was unlike anyone else’s recording and now “Please Please Me” took that initiative and ran several miles with it. Nothing remotely like this had ever been made before, not in Britain or America. The influences were checked—Orbison, Everlys, Isleys, Smokey’s Miracles, Goffin and King—but the Beatles had taken them and created something else, something vital, joyful, earthy, throaty, catchy and genuinely uplifting. For the second time, only more so, they had a new sound.

  Upstairs, George Martin reached across Norman Smith, pressed the talkback key and let his voice boom into the studio below: “Gentlemen, you’ve just made your first number 1 record.”26

  “They laughed at me,” he told the NME six months later … but, for sure, they knew. Please Please Me had number 1 stamped all over it. The tape would require just a little tidying, notably an edit to cover where John sang the wrong words (a regular problem of his), but that would be done another day and they didn’t need to be there for it. Here and now, mono reference lacquers (acetate discs) were cut—Brian would take some with him when meeting John and Paul’s prospective new publishers next morning.27

  Everyone then had a canteen break and Alan Smith took the chance to grab a few words with George Martin. Bei
ng Beatles producer already entailed a writer taking notes at his session and soliciting quotes about plans and prospects, which assured him all the more that he’d found a winner. George told Smith about his ideas for making a live LP in the Cavern, with most of the numbers written by John and Paul; he likened the Beatles to a “male Shirelles” (which will have delighted them) and, inevitably, he glowed about them as people: “The thing I like about the Beatles is their great sense of humor—and their talent, naturally. It’s a real pleasure to work with them because they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’ve got ability, but if they make mistakes they can joke about it. I think they’ll go a long way in show business.”28

  One of their jokes was about Norrie Paramor. The Beatles hadn’t seen That Was The Week That Was—they’d been playing Prestatyn on Saturday night, another drawing-pin in Brian’s wall map—but the topic was discussed around the canteen table and it was a conversation John promptly collapsed when he called Britain’s foremost record producer Noddy Paranoid.29

  And if, as George said, the Beatles were to “go a long way in show business,” they’d be going there speedily. John noticed Bobby Brown being unusually quiet at the table—she was tired, and intimidated by the company and surroundings—so he proffered a remedy. “He took out a pill and said, ‘Take that,’ ” she says. “I took it and didn’t notice much difference. It could have been aspirin as far as I was concerned.” It wasn’t, of course. Just back from Hamburg, John had a fresh supply of Prellies, some of which were rattling in his suit-pocket. Bobby’s experience suggests every likelihood John was speeding at the session, which would also indicate a fair chance he wasn’t the only one. The Beatles could play “Please Please Me” well in every situation, straight or high, but they did it at such a lick here that the effect of a few Grosse Fräulein slimming pills can’t be ruled out.

  They’re not audible on “Ask Me Why,” the B-side recorded after the break—the Beatles sound relaxed and assured all the way. It’s a finely crafted mid-tempo piece, decorative, catchy, melodic, Miracles-ish and ending with an unusual and appealing minor seventh chord. John strums his plugged-in Jumbo and sings lead, Paul handles bass and yet more highly effective co-vocals, Ringo keeps the Latinish beat dead steady, and George plays lead, omitting a few little phrases heard in June’s BBC recording, which might have been George Martin’s suggestion. It took only six takes to find the “best.”

  Tony Barrow—fed word by Brian—called the session “unusually smooth and brief” in the following Saturday’s Liverpool Echo, and it certainly was. Booked for three hours, they finished fifteen minutes under. Ten days before, the Beatles told George Martin they worked better in front of an audience than in the recording studio, but at the instant he was relaying their words to Alan Smith, they’d gone out of date. Tuned in and moved in—the studio had started to be the Beatles’ second home.

  The session was a triumph for Ringo. He’d taken a hefty kick up the backside on their last visit, suffering the indignity of substitution. Was he going to take it lying down or was he going to damn well show George Martin? John, Paul and George knew their man could deliver—it was one of the many reasons they picked him. He played with imagination and skill on both “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why,” securing a self-confidence in the studio that would never leave him. They all did. And their producer was telling them they’d made a number 1.

  It’s possible he also talked to them of America, because he was certainly thinking it. EMI correspondence makes clear that George Martin believed “Please Please Me” could break the Beatles in the States. During December, EMI’s Licensed Repertoire manager Roland Rennie sent two letters about it to Joe Zerga at Transglobal Music in New York. On the 11th, he wrote, “George Martin, the A. and R. responsible for producing the Beatles’ records, has come up with what we consider to be a smash. Could you please place this record with a company which will really get behind [it]? We here are certain this record will be in the Top five in this country shortly after its release.” And on the 28th: “we have great faith both in the artistes and in the record because George Martin is really anxious to establish the Beatles on your side of the Atlantic.”30

  It must have been such sweet music to Brian. He’d set his eyes on America almost the moment he saw the Beatles, and now, only a year on, they seemed an inch from stepping through. These two letters also make it clear that whereas “Love Me Do” had enjoyed minimal support inside Manchester Square, “Please Please Me” would have something like maximum.

  First, however, the Beatles had to endure the agony of suppressing their surefire hit for another five weeks. The shackle would come off in the first days of 1963, and then they’d be pushing “Please Please Me” hard, everywhere, town to town, all over the country and across the airwaves.

  The Beatles’ turning-point TV booking—the one that would plug their name, their sound, their look, their personalities and “Please Please Me” into the eyes and ears of at least nine million possible buyers—was fixed the following day by John and Paul’s new music publisher. Brian had two morning appointments on Tuesday, November 27, the first at ten, the second at eleven; the latter, with Dick James, was arranged by phone from George Martin’s office, and when Brian mentioned the name of the first man he’d be seeing, the first man who’d be hearing his “Please Please Me” acetate, James was bold enough to remark that this other publisher would “take the song whether it’s good, bad or indifferent.” He asked for, and received, a fair chance to make a pitch for it himself, despite being the day’s second appointment.

  He [Brian] said, “I promise you I will not give the song away before you’ve had an opportunity to hear it and assess it—and I can see your enthusiasm for it.” He sounded very much a man of his word and I accepted this. Well, I had to. I arranged to meet him at my office at eleven o’clock.

  About 10.20, my secretary announced that Brian Epstein had arrived, and she ushered him into my office. I said, “I thought we were going to meet at eleven?” and he said, “Well, I’ve had enough of that. I had an appointment at ten and I was there at ten, and there was [only] an office boy. At 10.10 nobody had turned up and I wasn’t going to play it to an office boy. You’re good enough to be here wanting to meet me, so here I am and I’m not going back to that [other] publisher.”31

  Dick James had already canvassed good opinion on the Beatles—from his 15-year-old son Stephen, from BBC radio producer Peter Pilbeam, and from Dick James Music receptionist Lee Perry, who counted “Love Me Do” among her favorite current records.32 He was already prepared to publish “Please Please Me” for all these reasons, and because of George Martin’s conviction it was a huge hit, but he wasn’t prepared for it to knock him over. He and Brian were sitting in his triple-aspect office plum over the corner of Denmark Street, opposite Foyle’s bookshop; Brian drew the acetate from his attaché case, handed it across the desk, James lowered the stylus, and the Beatles’ unbridled exuberance exploded into the room.

  Last night I said these words to my girl …

  James would be asked to recall the moment more times than he could ever count. “I just hit the ceiling. He said, ‘What do you think?’ and I said, ‘I think it must be number 1. If we get the breaks and can get the exposure on the record, it must be number 1.’ ”

  Exposure was the key, and James delivered a masterstroke. Philip Jones, the producer of his 1950s Radio Luxembourg shows, all those treacly sing-along sessions, was now producer of Thank Your Lucky Stars, ITV’s one networked pop show. James called him and said he should sit tight because he was going to hear something exciting. He held telephone to gramophone and the-coming-sound scorched 110 miles to Birmingham, singing in the wire.

  Jones said yes, the Beatles could appear on Lucky Stars. The show prerecorded every Sunday for screening the following Saturday—what was the record’s release date? Brian said Friday, January 11. The ideal broadcast was the 12th … but the previous Sunday the Beatles would be in Scotland. Brian tu
rned a page in his 1963 diary (pocket version) and confirmed they were free to record the following Sunday, the 13th, and the booking was made. It was a fantastic achievement for James to have pulled from the hat. Ardmore and Beechwood hadn’t got the Beatles on Thank Your Lucky Stars; Dick James had, in the space of five minutes. He’d proved what he could do, and the only way was forward. Their meeting lasted the rest of the morning and his enthusiasm only grew.

  James was about to turn 42 and had more than twenty years’ broad professional experience in plugging, publishing, managing, songwriting and performing: he was still one of very few British singers to have achieved an American top twenty hit. He knew “Please Please Me” was strong and very much liked “Ask Me Why.” He also knew George Martin was planning to use a batch of the Beatles’ self-written songs on their live LP. So what with those to come, these two now, and the pair that Ardmore and Beechwood published, he’d found a rich seam of new material. Brian confirmed it: as well as managing the Beatles he also represented John and Paul as composers, and (as Paul liked to claim) they had a hundred songs tucked away.

  With this revelation, the two men strolled to the French restaurant La Maisonette on Tottenham Court Road to talk over lunch. Each acquainted the other with what had brought him to this point, and—listening intently as Brian spoke—James could not have been more impressed. “He was telling me about the Beatles and what they were like and their sense of humor, and one could see that his admiration, his utter 100 percent immersion in their career and what they were trying to do … this was an incredible attitude I was seeing from him—just as much as he was seeing a very refreshing attitude, a genuine attitude, on my part.”