Del Shannon (December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990) was an American rock and roll singer-songwriter who had a No. 1 hit, “Runaway”, in 1961.

Del Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He grew up in Coopersville, a small town near Grand Rapids. There he learned ukulele and guitar and listened to country and western music, including Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell. In 1954, he was drafted into the Army, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called The Cool Flames.

When his service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan, and worked in a furniture factory as a truck driver and selling carpets. He also found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott’s group, working at the Hi-Lo Club. When DeMott was fired in 1958, Westover took over as leader and singer, giving himself the name Charlie Johnson, and renaming his band The Big Little Show Band.

In early 1959 he added keyboardist Max Crook, who played the Musitron (his own invention of an early synthesizer). Crook had made recordings and persuaded Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin to hear the band. In turn, McLaughlin took the group’s demos to Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists in Detroit. In July 1960, Westover and Crook signed to become recording artists and composers, on the Bigtop label. Balk suggested Westover use a new name, and they came up with Del Shannon, combining a friend’s assumed surname with Del from his favorite car, the Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

Success

He flew to New York City, but his first sessions did not produce results. McLaughlin persuaded Shannon and Crook to rewrite and re-record one of their earlier songs, originally called “Little Runaway”, using the Musitron as lead instrument. On January 21, 1961, they recorded “Runaway”, released as a single in February 1961. It reached #1 in the Billboard chart in April.

Shannon followed with “Hats Off to Larry”, which peaked at #5 (Billboard) and #2 on Cashbox in 1961, and the less popular “So Long, Baby,” another song of breakup bitterness. “Runaway” and “Hats Off to Larry” were recorded in a day. “Little Town Flirt”, in 1962 (with Bob Babbitt), reached #12 in 1963, as did the album of the same name. After these hits, Shannon was unable to keep his momentum in the U.S., but continued his success in England, where he had always been more popular. In 1963, he became the first American to record a cover version of a song by The Beatles: his “From Me to You” charted in the US before The Beatles’ version.

Del Shannon with Tom Petty

Berlee Records and move to Amy

By August 1963, Shannon’s relationship with his managers and Bigtop had soured, so he formed his own label, Berlee Records, named after his parents and distributed by Diamond Records. Two singles were issued: the apparently Four Seasons-inspired “Sue’s Gotta Be Mine” was a moderate hit, attaining #71 in the US and #21 in the UK (where Shannon’s records continued on the London label). The second single, “That’s The Way Love Is”, did not chart, and Shannon patched things up with his managers soon after. In early 1964, he was placed on Amy (Stateside in the UK), and the Berlee label disappeared.

He returned to the charts immediately with “Handy Man” (a 1960 hit by Jimmy Jones), “Do You Wanna Dance” (a 1958 hit by Bobby Freeman), and two originals, “Keep Searchin’” (#3 in the UK; #9 in the US), and “Stranger in Town” (#40 in the UK).

In the latter part of 1964, Shannon produced a demo recording session for a young fellow Michigander named Bob Seger, who would go on to stardom much later. Del gave acetates of the session to Dick Clark (Del was on one of Clark’s tours in 1965) and by 1966 Bob Seger was recording for Philadelphia’s famed Cameo Records label, resulting in some regional hits which would eventually lead to a major-label deal with Capitol Records.

Also in late 1964, Del paid tribute to one of his own musical idols, with Del Shannon sings Hank Williams, Amy Records 8004, released in the closing days of 1964. The album was recorded in hardcore country honky-tonk style and no singles were released.

Shannon opened with Ike and Tina Turner at Dave Hull’s Hullabaloo in Los Angeles, California on 22 December 1965.

Discography

Compilations

The Very Best Of – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/del-shannon-the-very-best-of/

Duran Duran (pronounced /djʊərˈæn.djʊərˈæn/ dew-ran-dew-ran) are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven “Second British Invasion” of the United States, where they were first seen in the 1981 film Listen to London. Since the 1980s, they have placed 14 singles in the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100 and have, according to the Sunday Mercury, sold more than 100 million records. While they were generally considered part of the New Romantic scene along with bands such as Spandau Ballet when they first emerged, they later shed this image. The band worked with fashion designers to build a sharp and elegant image that earned them the nickname “the prettiest boys in rock.” The band’s controversial videos, which included partial nudity and suggestions of sexuality, became popular in the early 1980s on the then-new music video channel MTV. Duran Duran were among the first bands to have their videos shot by professional directors with 35 mm film movie cameras, which gave their videos a much more polished look. In 1984, the band were early innovators with video technology in their live stadium shows.

The group was formed by Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Stephen Duffy, with the later addition of Roger Taylor and, after numerous personnel changes, Andy Taylor and Simon Le Bon. (None of the Taylors are related, and Roger Taylor is not to be confused with the Queen drummer of the same name.) The group has never disbanded, but the lineup has changed to include guitarist Warren Cuccurullo from 1989 to 2001 and drummer Sterling Campbell from 1989 to 1991. The reunion of the original five members in the early 2000s created a stir among the band’s fans and music media. Andy Taylor left the band in mid-2006, and London guitarist Dom Brown has since been working with the band as a session player and touring member.

1978–1980: Formation and early years

John Taylor and Nick Rhodes formed Duran Duran in Birmingham in 1978, where they would become the resident band at the city’s Rum Runner nightclub. At the club they were doing jobs such as John working the door and with Nick deejaying for £10 a night. They began rehearsing and regularly playing at the venue. There were many nearby nightclubs, and the one “significant” one, where bands such as The Sex Pistols and The Clash played gigs, was called Barbarella’s. They would go on to name the band after the villain from Barbarella, Roger Vadim’s French science-fiction film. The villain, played by Milo O’Shea, is named “Dr. Durand Durand”.

The band’s first singer was Stephen Duffy. Simon Colley soon joined Taylor, Rhodes and Duffy. Colley was the band’s original bass player, as Taylor was the guitarist at this point. This was the first complete line-up of the band that played live shows. For drums and percussion, an electronic drum machine belonging to Rhodes was used. Colley left the band prior to the addition of Andy Taylor. A few guitarists were subsequently auditioned (for the most part, unsuccessfully) as well a handful of vocalists joining after Duffy left Duran Duran early in 1979. Among the handful of vocalists they had prior to Simon Le Bon was Andy Wickett, who had a major part in the writing of “Girls on Film” during his tenure with the band, according to Andy Taylor’s autobiography. (Wickett is also featured on some of the demos that were presented to EMI.) According to both Wickett’s and John Taylor’s websites, Wickett co-wrote an early version of the song that came to be known as “Rio” Tenor sax solo by Andy Hamilton. Upon Colley and Wickett’s departures, the band enlisted singer Jeff Thomas and guitarist Alan Curtis, each for only a relatively brief period of time, before finally settling on Andy Taylor for lead guitar and Le Bon for vocals in 1980.

Discography

Studio Albums

1990 Liberty – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/duran-duran-liberty/

1993 Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/duran-duran-duran-duran-the-wedding-album-2/

The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (aka Jim McGuinn) remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973. Although they only managed to attain the huge commercial success of contemporaries like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones for a short period of time (1965–66), The Byrds are today considered by critics to be one of the most influential bands of the 1960s. Initially, they pioneered the musical genre of folk rock, melding the influence of The Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music. As the 1960s progressed, the band were also influential in originating psychedelic rock, raga rock, and country rock. In addition, the band’s signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn’s jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar has continued to be influential on popular music up to the present day. Among the band’s most enduring songs are their cover versions of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, along with the self-penned originals, “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”, “Eight Miles High”, “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, and “Chestnut Mare”.

The original five-piece line-up of The Byrds consisted of Jim McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals), Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), and Michael Clarke (drums). However, this version of the band was relatively short-lived and by early 1966, Clark had left due to problems associated with anxiety and his increasing isolation within the group. The Byrds continued as a quartet until late 1967, when Crosby and Clarke also departed the band. McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit new members, including country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, but by late 1968, Hillman and Parsons had also exited the band. McGuinn, who by this time had changed his name to Roger after a flirtation with the Subud religion, elected to rebuild the band’s membership and between 1968 and 1973, he helmed a new incarnation of The Byrds, featuring guitarist Clarence White among others. McGuinn disbanded the then current line-up in early 1973, to make way for a reunion of the original quintet. The Byrds’ final album was released in March 1973, with the reunited group disbanding soon afterwards.

Several ex-members of the band went on to have successful careers of their own, either as solo artists or as part of groups, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or The Desert Rose Band. In the late 1980s, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke both began touring as The Byrds, prompting a legal challenge from McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman over the rights to the band’s name. As a result of this, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman performed a series of reunion concerts as The Byrds between 1988 and 1990, and also recorded four new Byrds’ songs. On January 16, 1991, The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw the five original members performing together for the last time. McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman still remain active but Gene Clark died of a heart attack in 1991, and Michael Clarke died of liver failure in 1993.

History

Formation 1964

The nucleus of The Byrds formed in early 1964, when Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby came together as a trio. All three musicians had a background rooted in folk music, with each one having worked as a folk singer on the acoustic coffeehouse circuit during the early 1960s. In addition, they had all served time, independently of each other, as sidemen in various “collegiate folk” groups: McGuinn with The Limeliters and the Chad Mitchell Trio, Clark with The New Christy Minstrels, and Crosby with Les Baxter’s Balladeers. McGuinn had also spent time as a professional songwriter at the Brill Building in New York City, under the tutelage of Bobby Darin. By early 1964, McGuinn had become enamored with the music of The Beatles, and had begun to intersperse his solo folk repertoire with acoustic versions of Beatles’ songs. While performing at The Troubadour folk club in Los Angeles, McGuinn was approached by fellow Beatles fan Gene Clark, and the pair soon formed a Peter and Gordon-style duo, playing Beatles’ covers, Beatlesque renditions of traditional folk songs, and some self-penned material. Soon after, David Crosby introduced himself to the duo at The Troubadour and began harmonizing with them on some of their songs. Impressed by the blend of their voices, the three musicians formed a trio and named themselves The Jet Set, a moniker inspired by McGuinn’s love of aeronautics.

Crosby introduced McGuinn and Clark to his associate Jim Dickson, who had access to World Pacific Studios, where he had been recording demos of Crosby. Sensing the trio’s potential, Dickson quickly took on management duties for the group, while his business partner, Eddie Tickner, became the group’s accountant and financial manager. Dickson began utilizing World Pacific Studios to record the trio as they honed their craft and perfected their blend of Beatles pop and Bob Dylan-style folk. It was during the rehearsals at World Pacific that the band’s folk rock sound—a blend of their own Beatles-influenced material and their Beatlesque covers of contemporary folk songs—began to coalesce. Initially, this blend arose organically from the band’s own folk music roots and their desire to emulate The Beatles, but as rehearsals continued, the band began to actively attempt to bridge the gap between folk music and rock.

Drummer Michael Clarke was added to The Jet Set in mid-1964. Clarke was recruited largely due to his good looks and Brian Jones-esque hairstyle, rather than for his musical experience, which was limited to having played congas in a semi-professional capacity in and around San Francisco and L.A. Clarke did not even own his own drum kit and initially had to play on a makeshift setup consisting of cardboard boxes and a tambourine. As the band continued to rehearse, Dickson arranged a one-off single deal for the group with Elektra Records’ founder Jac Holzman. The single, which coupled the band originals “Please Let Me Love You” and “Don’t Be Long”, featured McGuinn, Clark, and Crosby, augmented by session musicians Ray Pohlman on bass and Earl Palmer on drums. In an attempt to cash in on the British Invasion craze that was dominating the American charts at the time, the band’s name was changed for the single release to the suitably British-sounding The Beefeaters. “Please Let Me Love You” was issued by Elektra Records on October 7, 1964, but it failed to chart.

In August 1964, Dickson managed to acquire an acetate disc of the then-unreleased Bob Dylan song “Mr. Tambourine Man”, which he felt would make an effective cover for The Jet Set. Although the band were initially unimpressed with the song, they began rehearsing it with a rock band arrangement, changing the time signature from 2/4 to a rockier 4/4 configuration in the process. In an attempt to bolster the group’s confidence in the song, Dickson invited Dylan himself to World Pacific to hear the band perform “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Impressed by the group’s rendition, Dylan enthusiastically commented “Wow, man! You can dance to that!”, and his ringing endorsement erased any lingering doubts that the band had over the song’s suitability.

Soon after, inspired by The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, the band decided to equip themselves with similar instruments to the Fab Four: a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar for McGuinn, a Ludwig drum kit for Clarke, and a Gretsch Tennessean guitar for Clark (although Crosby commandeered it soon after, resulting in Clark switching to tambourine). In October 1964, Dickson recruited mandolin player Chris Hillman as The Jet Set’s bassist. Hillman’s background was more oriented towards country music than folk or rock, having been a member of the bluegrass groups the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, The Hillmen (aka the Golden State Boys), and concurrently with his recruitment into The Jet Set, The Green Grass Group. Through connections that Dickson had with impresario Benny Shapiro, and with a helpful recommendation from jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, the group signed a recording contract with Columbia Records on November 10, 1964. Two weeks later, during a Thanksgiving dinner at Eddie Tickner’s house, The Jet Set decided to rename themselves The Byrds, a moniker that retained the theme of flight and also echoed the deliberate misspelling of “The Beatles”.

Folk rock (1965–1966)

On January 20, 1965, The Byrds entered Columbia Studios in Hollywood to record “Mr. Tambourine Man” for release as their debut single on Columbia. Since the band had not yet completely gelled musically, McGuinn was the only Byrd to play on “Mr. Tambourine Man” and its Gene Clark penned B-side, “I Knew I’d Want You”. Rather than using band members, producer Terry Melcher instead hired The Wrecking Crew, a collection of top session musicians including Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel, Jerry Cole, and Leon Russell, who (along with McGuinn on guitar) provided the instrumental backing track over which McGuinn, Crosby and Clark sang. By the time the sessions for their debut album began in March 1965, however, Melcher was satisfied that the band was competent enough to record its own musical backing. However, the use of outside musicians on The Byrds’ debut single has given rise to the persistent myth that all of the playing on their debut album was done by session musicians.

While the band waited for “Mr. Tambourine Man” to be released, they began a residency at Ciro’s Le Disc nightclub on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. The band’s regular appearances at Ciro’s during March and April 1965 allowed them to hone their ensemble playing, perfect their aloof stage persona, and expand their repertoire. In addition, it was during their residency at the nightclub that the band first began to accrue a dedicated following among L.A.’s youth culture and hip Hollywood fraternity, with scenesters like Kim Fowley, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Arthur Lee, and Sonny & Cher regularly attending the band’s performances. On March 26, 1965, the author of the band’s forthcoming debut single, Bob Dylan, made an impromptu visit to the club and joined The Byrds on stage for a rendition of Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do”. The excitement generated by The Byrds at Ciro’s quickly made them a must-see fixture on L.A.’s nightclub scene and resulted in hordes of teenagers filling the sidewalks outside the club, desperate to see the band perform. A number of noted music historians and authors, including Richie Unterberger, Ric Menck, and Peter Buckley, have suggested that the crowds of young Bohemians and hipsters that gathered at Ciro’s to see The Byrds perform represented the first stirrings of the West Coast hippie counterculture.

Columbia Records eventually released the “Mr. Tambourine Man” single on April 12, 1965. The full, electric rock band treatment that The Byrds and producer Terry Melcher had given the song effectively created the template for the musical subgenre of folk rock. McGuinn’s melodic, jangling twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar playing—which was heavily compressed to produce an extremely bright and sustained tone—was immediately influential and has remained so to the present day. The single also featured another major characteristic of the band’s sound: their clear harmony singing, which usually featured McGuinn and Clark in unison, with Crosby providing the high harmony. Additionally, Richie Unterberger has noted that the song’s abstract lyrics took rock and pop songwriting to new heights; never before had such intellectual and literary wordplay been combined with rock instrumentation by a popular music group.

Within three months “Mr. Tambourine Man” had become the first folk rock smash hit, reaching number 1 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart. The single’s success initiated the folk rock boom of 1965 and 1966, during which a number of Byrds-influenced acts had hits on the American and British charts. The term “folk rock” was itself coined by the American music press to describe the band’s sound in June 1965, at roughly the same time as “Mr. Tambourine Man” peaked at #1 in the U.S. The Mr. Tambourine Man album followed on June 21, 1965, peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and number 7 on the UK Albums Chart. The album mixed reworkings of folk songs, including Pete Seeger’s musical adaptation of the Idris Davies’ poem “The Bells of Rhymney”, with a number of other Dylan covers and the band’s own compositions, the majority of which were written by Gene Clark. In particular, Clark’s “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” has gone on to become a rock music standard, with many critics considering it one of the band’s and Clark’s best songs. Writing for the Allmusic website, critic Mark Deming has noted that the use of the word “probably” in the song’s refrain of “I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone” lends the track a depth of subtext that was unusual for a pop song in the mid-1960s. Upon release, the Mr. Tambourine Man album, like the single of the same name, was influential in popularizing folk rock and served to establish the band as an internationally successful rock act, representing the first effective American challenge to the dominance of The Beatles and the British Invasion.

The Byrds’ next single was “All I Really Want to Do”, another interpretation of a Dylan song. Despite the success of “Mr. Tambourine Man”, The Byrds were reluctant to release another Dylan-penned single, feeling that it was too formulaic, but Columbia Records were insistent, believing that another Dylan cover would result in an instant hit for the group. The Byrds’ rendition of “All I Really Want to Do” is noticeably different in structure to Dylan’s original: it features an ascending melody progression in the chorus and utilizes a completely new melody for one of the song’s verses, in order to turn it into a Beatlesque, minor-key bridge. Issued on June 14, 1965, while “Mr. Tambourine Man” was still climbing the U.S. charts, the single was rush-released by Columbia in an attempt to bury a rival cover version that Cher had released simultaneously on Imperial Records. A chart battle ensued, but The Byrds’ rendition stalled at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Cher’s version reached number 15. The reverse was true in the UK, however, where The Byrds’ version reached number 4, while Cher’s peaked at number 9.

Discography

Studio Albums

1965 Mr Tambourine Man – coming soon 23/09/2011

1966 Fifth Dimension – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/byrds-fifth-dimension/

Younger Than Yesterday – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/byrds-younger-than-yesterday/

The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. From 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals). Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the group later worked in many genres ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways. The nature of their enormous popularity, which first emerged as the “Beatlemania” fad, transformed as their songwriting grew in sophistication. The group came to be perceived as the embodiment of progressive ideals, seeing their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.

With an early five-piece line-up of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe (bass) and Pete Best (drums), The Beatles built their reputation in Liverpool and Hamburg clubs over a three-year period from 1960. Sutcliffe left the group in 1961, and Best was replaced by Starr the following year. Moulded into a professional outfit by music store owner Brian Epstein after he offered to act as the group’s manager, and with their musical potential enhanced by the hands-on creativity of producer George Martin, The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the United Kingdom in late 1962 with their first single, “Love Me Do”. Gaining international popularity over the course of the next year, they toured extensively until 1966, then retreated to the recording studio until their break-up in 1970. Each then found success in an independent musical career. Lennon was murdered outside his home in New York City in 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in 2001. McCartney and Starr remain active.

During their studio years, The Beatles produced what critics consider some of their finest material including the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), widely regarded as a masterpiece. Four decades after their break-up, The Beatles’ music continues to be popular. The Beatles have had more number one albums on the UK charts, and held down the top spot longer, than any other musical act. According to RIAA certifications, they have sold more albums in the United States than any other artist. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the all-time top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the US singles chart’s fiftieth anniversary, with The Beatles at number one. They have been honoured with 7 Grammy Awards, and they have received 15 Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. The Beatles were collectively included in Time magazine’s compilation of the 20th century’s 100 most influential people.

History

Formation and early years (1957–1962)

Aged sixteen, singer and guitarist John Lennon formed the skiffle group The Quarrymen with some Liverpool schoolfriends in March 1957. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a guitarist after he and Lennon met that July. When McCartney in turn invited George Harrison to watch the group the following February, the fourteen-year-old joined as lead guitarist. By 1960, Lennon’s schoolfriends had left the group, he had begun studies at the Liverpool College of Art and the three guitarists were playing rock and roll whenever they could get a drummer. Joining on bass in January, Lennon’s fellow student Stuart Sutcliffe suggested changing the band name to “The Beetles” as a tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets, and they became “The Beatals” for the first few months of the year. After trying other names including “Johnny and the Moondogs”, “Long John and The Beetles” and “The Silver Beatles”, the band finally became “The Beatles” in August. The lack of a permanent drummer posed a problem when the group’s unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged a resident band booking for them in Hamburg, Germany. Before the end of August they auditioned and hired drummer Pete Best, and the five-piece band left for Hamburg four days later, contracted to fairground showman Bruno Koschmider for a 48-night residency. “Hamburg in those days did not have rock ‘n’ roll music clubs. It had strip clubs”, says biographer Philip Norman.

Bruno had the idea of bringing in rock groups to play in various clubs. They had this formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of people lurching in and the other lot lurching out. And the bands would play all the time to catch the passing traffic. In an American red-light district, they would call it nonstop striptease.
Many of the bands that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool…It was an accident. Bruno went to London to look for bands. But he happened to meet a Liverpool entrepreneur in Soho, who was down in London by pure chance. And he arranged to send some bands over.

Harrison, only 17 years old in August 1960, obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age. Initially placing The Beatles at the Indra Club, Koschmider moved them to the Kaiserkeller in October after the Indra was closed down due to noise complaints. When they violated their contract by performing at the rival Top Ten Club, Koschmider reported the underage Harrison to the authorities, leading to his deportation in November. McCartney and Best were arrested for arson a week later when they set fire to a condom nailed to a wall in their room; they too were deported. Lennon returned to Liverpool in mid-December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg with his new German fiancée, Astrid Kirchherr, for another month. Kirchherr took the first professional photos of the group and cut Sutcliffe’s hair in the German “exi” (existentialist) style of the time, a look later adopted by the other Beatles.

During the next two years, the group were resident for further periods in Hamburg. They used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances. Sutcliffe decided to leave the band in early 1961 and resume his art studies in Germany, so McCartney took up bass. German producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece to act as Tony Sheridan’s backing band on a series of recordings. Credited to “Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers”, the single “My Bonnie”, recorded in June and released four months later, reached number 32 in the Musikmarkt chart. The Beatles were also becoming more popular back home in Liverpool. During one of the band’s frequent appearances there at The Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record store owner and music columnist. When the band appointed Epstein manager in January 1962, Kaempfert agreed to release them from the German record contract. After Decca Records rejected the band with the comment “Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein”, George Martin signed the group to EMI’s Parlophone label. News of a tragedy greeted them on their return to Hamburg in April. Meeting them at the airport, a stricken Kirchherr told them of Sutcliffe’s death from a brain haemorrhage.

Abbey Road Studios main entrance In Liverpool, the Merseybeat movement was gathering force. The band had its first recording session under Martin’s direction at EMI Studios in London in June 1962. Martin complained to Epstein about Best’s drumming and suggested the band use a session drummer in the studio. Instead, Best was replaced by Ringo Starr. Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join The Beatles, had already performed with them in Best’s occasional absence. Martin still hired session drummer Andy White for one session. White played on the single “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”. Released in October, “Love Me Do” was a top twenty UK hit, peaking at number seventeen on the chart. After a November studio session that yielded what would be their second single, “Please Please Me”, they made their TV debut with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places.

The band concluded their last Hamburg stint in December 1962. By now it had become the pattern that all four members contributed vocals, although Starr’s restricted range meant he sang lead only rarely. Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership; as the band’s success grew, their celebrated collaboration limited Harrison’s opportunities as lead vocalist. Epstein, sensing The Beatles’ commercial potential, encouraged the group to adopt a professional attitude to performing. Lennon recalled the manager saying, “Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you’re going to have to change—stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking.” Lennon said, “We used to dress how we liked, on and off stage. He’d tell us that jeans were not particularly smart and could we possibly manage to wear proper trousers, but he didn’t want us suddenly looking square. He’d let us have our own sense of individuality … it was a choice of making it or still eating chicken on stage.”

Beatlemania and touring years (1963–1966)

UK popularity, Please Please Me and With The Beatles

In the wake of the moderate success of “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me” met with a more emphatic reception, reaching number two on the UK singles chart after its January 1963 release. Martin originally intended to record The Beatles’ debut LP live at the Cavern Club. Finding it had “the acoustic ambience of an oil tank”, he elected to create a “live” album in one session at Abbey Road Studios. Ten songs were recorded for Please Please Me, accompanied on the album by the four tracks already released on the two singles. Recalling how the band “rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day”, an Allmusic reviewer comments, “Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins.” Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were “just writing songs à la Everly Brothers, à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that—to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant.”

Released in March 1963, the album reached number one on the British chart. This initiated a run during which eleven of their twelve studio albums released in the United Kingdom through 1970 hit number one. The band’s third single, “From Me to You”, came out in April and was also a chart-topping hit. It began an almost unbroken run of seventeen British number one singles for the band, including all but one of the eighteen they put out over the next six years. On its release in August, the band’s fourth single, “She Loves You”, achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks. It became their first single to sell a million copies, and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978 when it was topped by “Mull of Kintyre”, performed by McCartney and his post-Beatles band, Wings. The popularity of their music brought with it increasing press attention. The band members responded with a cheeky, irreverent attitude that defied what was expected of pop musicians and inspired even more interest.

The Beatles’ logo, seen on the front of Starr’s bass drum during the group’s major touring years, was based on an impromptu sketch by instrument retailer and designer Ivor Arbiter upon instruction from Epstein that the design should emphasize the word “beat”. The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold, dubbed “Beatlemania”. Although not billed as tour leaders, they overshadowed other acts including Tommy Roe, Chris Montez and Roy Orbison, American artists who had established great popularity in the UK. Performances everywhere, both on tour and at many one-off shows around the country, were greeted with riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans. Police found it necessary to use high-pressure water hoses to control the crowds, and there were debates in Parliament concerning the thousands of police officers putting themselves at risk to protect the group. In late October, a five-day tour of Sweden saw the band venture abroad for the first time since the Hamburg chapter. Returning to the UK, they were greeted at Heathrow Airport in heavy rain by thousands of fans in “a scene similar to a shark-feeding frenzy”, attended by fifty journalists and photographers and a BBC Television camera crew. The next day, they began yet another British tour, scheduled for six weeks. By now, they were indisputably the headliners.

Please Please Me was still topping the album chart. It maintained the position for thirty weeks, only to be displaced by With The Beatles which itself held the top spot for twenty-one weeks. Making much greater use of studio production techniques than its “live” predecessor, the album was recorded between July and October. With The Beatles is described by Allmusic as “a sequel of the highest order—one that betters the original by developing its own tone and adding depth.” In a reversal of what had until then been standard practice, the album was released in late November ahead of the impending single “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, with the song excluded in order to maximize the single’s sales. With The Beatles caught the attention of The Times’ music critic William Mann, who went as far as to suggest that Lennon and McCartney were “the outstanding English composers of 1963″. The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability. With The Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack. Drafting a press release shortly before the record came out, Tony Barrow, the band’s press officer, thought up a new descriptive phrase for the quartet that would be widely adopted: the “Fab Four”.

“British Invasion”

The Beatles’ releases in the United States were initially delayed for nearly a year when Capitol Records, EMI’s American subsidiary, declined to issue either “Please Please Me” or “From Me to You”. Negotiations with independent US labels led to the release of some singles, but issues with royalties and derision of the band’s “moptop” hairstyle posed further obstacles. Once Capitol did start to issue the material, rather than releasing the LPs in their original configuration, they compiled distinct US albums from an assortment of the band’s recordings and issued songs of their own choice as singles. American chart success came after Epstein arranged for a $40,000 US marketing campaign and secured the support of disk jockey Carrol James, who first played the band’s records in mid-December 1963, initiating their music’s spread across US radio. This triggered great demand, leading Capitol to rush-release “I Want to Hold Your Hand” that same month. The band’s US debut had already been scheduled to take place a few weeks later.

The Beatles left the United Kingdom on 7 February 1964, with an estimated four thousand fans gathered at Heathrow, waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. At New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport they were greeted by another uproarious crowd estimated at three thousand people. They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households,or 34 percent of the American population, and according to the Nielsen rating service, it was “the largest audience that had ever been recorded for an American television program.” The next morning critical consensus in the US was generally against the group, but a day later their first US concert saw Beatlemania erupt at Washington Coliseum. Back in New York the following day, they met with another strong reception during their two shows at Carnegie Hall. The band then flew to Florida and appeared on the weekly Ed Sullivan Show a second time, before another 70 million viewers, before returning to the UK on 22 February.

Discography

Studio Albums

1963 Please Please Me – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beatles-please-please-me/

1963 With The Beatles – coming soon 08/09/2011

Alternate Mixes

The Alternate Abbey Road – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beatles-the-alternate-abbey-road/

Unofficial Live Albums (Bootlegs)

Live At The Hollywood Bowl – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beatles-live-at-the-hollywood-bowl/

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, and together with Paul McCartney formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager, his first band, The Quarrymen, evolving into The Beatles in 1960. As the group began to undergo the disintegration that led to their break-up towards the end of that decade, Lennon launched a solo career that would span the next, punctuated by critically acclaimed albums, including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine”.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, on film, and in interviews, and became controversial through his work as a peace activist. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon’s administration to deport him, while his songs were adapted as anthems by the anti-war movement. Disengaging himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, Lennon reemerged in October 1980 with a new single and a comeback album, Double Fantasy, but was murdered weeks after their release.

Lennon’s solo album sales in the United States alone stand at 14 million units, and as performer, writer, or co-writer he is responsible for 27 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart.a In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008 Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

1940–57: Early years

Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son’s birth. He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John “Jack” Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother, but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man’s child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool’s Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon’s father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, ‘Bobby’ Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.

Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family’s farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, learning how to play “Ain’t That a Shame” by Fats Domino.

In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature:

Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic musician. But I cannot be what I am not. Because of my attitude, all the other boys’ parents … instinctively recognised what I was, which was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their kids, which I did. … I did my best to disrupt every friend’s home … Partly, maybe, it was out of envy that I didn’t have this so-called home, but I really did … There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic … that was my first feminist education … One happened to be my mother … she just couldn’t deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn’t cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister … the fact that I wasn’t with my parents made me see that parents are not gods.

He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon’s senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes’s family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, “John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16.” He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).

Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, “A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad.” He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: “Certainly on the road to failure … hopeless … rather a clown in class … wasting other pupils’ time.”

His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she “lent” her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi’s, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son’s musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, “The guitar’s all very well, John, but you’ll never make a living out of it”. On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths’ house, was struck by a car and killed.

Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened. Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model’s lap during a life drawing class. He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was “thrown out of the college before his final year.”

1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo work
Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band. Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year.” According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon’s continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him “close to erasing his identity”. 1967 saw the release of “Strawberry Fields Forever”, hailed by TIME magazine for its “astonishing inventiveness”, and the group’s landmark album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon’s lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon–McCartney’s early years.

In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales, and were informed of Epstein’s death during the seminar. “I knew we were in trouble then”, Lennon said later. “I didn’t have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared”. They later travelled to Maharishi’s ashram in India for further guidance, where they composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.

The anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon’s only appearance in a non–Beatles’ full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967. McCartney organised the group’s first post-Epstein project, the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon’s acclaimed, Lewis Carroll-inspired “I am the Walrus”, was a success. With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, “artistic freedom within a business structure”, but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney’s own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney never signed the management contract.

At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film. Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called “Bag One” depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon’s creative focus continued to move beyond The Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. In protest at Britain’s involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced. Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles “Give Peace a Chance” (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969), “Cold Turkey” (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin) and “Instant Karma!”.

Lennon left the group in September 1969, and agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, but he was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon’s reaction was, “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!” He later wrote, “I started the band. I disbanded it. It’s as simple as that.” In later interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, “I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record.” He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr “got fed up with being sidemen for Paul … After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?”

Discography

Studio Albums

1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/john-lennon-plastic-ono-band/

1971 Imagine – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/john-lennon-imagine/

1972 Sometime in New York City – 20/12/2011

Double Fantasy – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/john-lennon-double-fantasy/

As he was part of The Beatles you could say I have always been into the music of John Lennon and of course you would be right. However this section is deoted to his solo output from the last days of the group to his early death.

It’s difficult to say when I actually first came into his solo stuff. I suppose looking back it was 2 singles that did it for me, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and Mind Games. The first is one of if not the best of the Xmas singles. The second is a truly great song. The lyrics are great, the song has a great ‘hook’.

The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons’ father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962. The band’s early music gained popularity across the United States for its close vocal harmonies and lyrics reflecting a Southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance. By the mid 1960s, Brian Wilson’s growing creative ambition and songwriting ability would dominate the group’s musical direction. The primarily Wilson-composed Pet Sounds album and “Good Vibrations” single (both released in 1966) featured a complex, intricate and multi-layered sound that was a far cry from the simple surf rock of The Beach Boys’ early years.

However, Wilson would soon lose control of the band because of mental-health and substance-abuse issues. Subsequently, although they released a number of popular albums (in various musical styles, with different line-ups) in ensuing years, the group never managed to reclaim its mid-’60s peak when The Beach Boys briefly challenged The Beatles both in terms of commercial and critical appeal. Since the 1980s, there has been much legal-wrangling among the group members over royalties, songwriting credits, and use of the band’s name. While The Beach Boys released their last studio album in 1996, a number of versions of the band, each fronted by a surviving member of the original quintet (Dennis and Carl Wilson died in 1983 and 1998, respectively), continue to tour.

The Beach Boys have often been called “America’s Band”, and Allmusic has stated that “the band’s unerring ability… made them America’s first, best rock band.” The group has had 36 United States Top 40 hits (the most by an American rock band) and 56 Hot 100 hits, including four number-one singles. Rolling Stone magazine listed The Beach Boys at number 12 on their 2004 list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. The core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

The group is also one of America’s highest-selling acts, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide since their debut in 1961. Though no official figure exists, it is estimated at present to be between 110 million and 120 million. This makes them one of the best-selling groups in America, rivaled only by The Four Seasons.

Formative years

At age 16, Brian Wilson shared a bedroom with his brothers, Dennis and Carl, in their family home in Hawthorne. He watched his father, Murry Wilson, play piano and listened intently to the harmonies of vocal groups like The Four Freshmen. One night he taught his brothers a song called “Ivory Tower” and how to sing the background harmonies. “We practiced night after night, singing softly hoping we wouldn’t wake our Dad.” For his 16th birthday, Brian was given a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He learned how to overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl and their mother. He would play piano and later added Carl playing the Rickenbacker guitar he got as a Christmas present.

Soon Brian was avidly listening to Johnny Otis on his KFOX radio show, a favorite station of Carl’s. Inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the rhythm and blues songs he heard, he changed his piano-playing style and started writing songs. His enthusiasm interfered with his music studies at school. He failed to complete a twelfth-grade piano sonata, but did submit an original composition, called “Surfin’”.

Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin Mike Love. Brian taught Love’s sister Maureen and a friend harmonies. Later, Brian, Mike Love and two friends performed at Hawthorne High School, drawing tremendous applause for their version of doo-wop group The Olympics’ “Hully Gully”. Brian also knew Al Jardine, a high school classmate, who had already played guitar in a folk group called The Islanders. One day, on the spur of the moment, they asked a couple of football players in the school training room to learn harmony parts, but it wasn’t a success—the bass singer was flat.

Brian suggested to Jardine that they team up with his cousin and brother Carl. It was at these sessions, held in Brian’s bedroom, that “the Beach Boys sound” began to form. Brian says: “Everyone contributed something. Carl kept us hip to the latest tunes, Al taught us his repertoire of folk songs, and Dennis, though he didn’t [then] play anything, added a combustible spark just by his presence.” Love encouraged Brian to write songs and gave the fledgling band its name: The Pendletones, derived from the Pendleton woolen shirts popular at the time. In their earliest performances, the band wore the heavy wool jacket-like shirts, which were favored by surfers in the South Bay. Although surfing motifs were very prominent in their early songs, Dennis was the only band-member who surfed. He suggested that his brothers compose some songs celebrating his hobby and the lifestyle which had developed around it in Southern California.

Jardine and a singer friend, Gary Winfrey, went to Brian’s to see if he could help out with a version of a folk song they wanted to record—”Sloop John B”. In Brian’s absence, the two spoke with Murry, a music industry veteran of modest success. In September 1961, Murry arranged for The Pendletones to meet publishers Hite and Dorinda Morgan at Stereo Masters in Hollywood. The group performed a slower ballad, “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring”, but failed to impress the Morgans. After an awkward pause, Dennis mentioned they had an original song, “Surfin’”. Brian was taken aback—he had not finished writing the song—but Hite Morgan was interested and asked them to call back when the song was complete.

With help from Love, Brian finished the song and the group rented guitars, drums, amplifiers and microphones. They practiced for three days while the Wilsons’ parents were on a short vacation. When they auditioned again a few days later, Hite Morgan declared: “That’s a smash!” In October, The Pendletones recorded twelve takes of “Surfin’” in the Morgans’ cramped offices. A small number of singles were pressed. When the boys eagerly unpacked the first box of singles, on the Candix Records label, they were shocked to see their band name changed to “Beach Boys”. Murry Wilson, now intimately involved with the band’s fortunes, called the Morgans. Apparently a young promotion worker, Russ Regan, made the change to more obviously tie the group in with other surf bands of the time. The limited budget meant the labels could not be reprinted.

Discography

Studio Albums

Carl and the Passions (So Tough) – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beach-boys-carl-and-the-passions-so-tough/

Love You – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beach-boys-love-you/

Compilations

Sounds of Summer – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beach-boys-sounds-of-the-summer/

Unofficial Live Albums (Bootlegs)

Aloha From Hawaii and Hollywood – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/beach-boys-aloha-from-hawaii-and-hollywood/

I was 3 when the 60s’ started so my initial memories of this decade are somewhat vague.

As with most other kids I tended to listen to what my parents were playing on their radiogram(!).

These were all 45′s or singles as they were referred to back then. I can certainly remember the following:

Beatles – Twist and Shout (EP, extended play) and the number one singles, She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Shadows – Atlantis

Gerry & Pacemakers – How Do You It & I Like It

Freddie & Dreamers – You Were Made For Me.

Dave Clark 5 – Bits and Pieces and Glad All Over

Not a massive selection you might think but one that definitely captured my interest at an early stage.

One song that I still love to this day from that period is WILLIE AND THE HAND JIVE by Cliff Richard. I don’t even think it was an A side but in those days (and at that age) it didn’t matter, you just played it! Even though I now have the Eric Clapton and Johnny Otis versions this song by Cliff always gets my feet tapping.

My next musical memory comes from 1967 when I had enough money to buy the latest hit and I couldn’t decide whether to buy Traffic’s “Hole In My Shoe” or Dave Davies’s “Death Of A Clown”. Anyway I decided to get the Traffic single so off I went to the shops however I came back back with “Death Of A Clown”! – typical of me. Needless to say I now have several copies of both!

As with most kids of that period I used to spend a lot of time with some of my relations whilst my parents were out of work etc. One of these was (to me anyway) an avid music fan. He had loads of singles and a few Long Players (LPs).

Amongst these were four early Beach Boys albums and it was these that made me an admirer to this very day. They were Surfin’ Safari, Surfin USA, Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down Volume 2.

In later years (pre internet) I spent a lot of time trying to obtain a copy of Shut Down Volume 1 only to discover that it wasn’t an official Beach Boys album but a compilation of early surf  and drag songs.

In the late 60′s there were a set of LP’s released on the cheap featuring hits of the day being covered by studio artists. One of these featured hits from 1969. I had access to a copy and looking back it had some classic songs on it, for example Honky Tonk Women, Where Do You Go To My Lovely and In The Year 2525 to name but 3.

Elvis was still going in the 60′s albeit in a somewhat watered down version of his pre army self. One of his 60′s hits that has remained one of my all time favourite songs was IT’S NOW OR NEVER. Another of the aforementioned singles that I used to belt out in my tentertive years.

I suppose like most people I discovered a lot of good sixties music years after the end of the decade. One such artist was Bob Dylan. In the early 70′s I bought Desire and then headed into his back catalogue where I discovered the classics, LIKE A ROLLING STONE and JUST LIKE A WOMAN to name but two.

The end of the decade saw the emergence of reggae mainly thrrough the Trojan record label.

Keane are an English alternative rock band from Battle, East Sussex, formed in 1997. The group currently comprises Tim Rice-Oxley (piano, backing vocals), Tom Chaplin (lead vocals, guitar), Richard Hughes (drums, percussion) and Jesse Quin (bass guitar, percussion), who first played with the band in late 2007 during the concerts of the single The Night Sky. Their original line-up included founder and guitarist Dominic Scott, who left in 2001.

Keane achieved mainstream success with the release of their debut album, Hopes and Fears, in 2004. The album won multiple awards and was the second best-selling British album of the year. Their second studio album, Under the Iron Sea, continued the band’s success, topping the album charts in the UK and debuting at number-four on the Billboard 200 chart. Their third album, Perfect Symmetry was released in October 2008. In May 2008, both Hopes and Fears (number 13) and Under the Iron Sea (number were voted by readers of Q magazine as among the best British albums ever, with Keane, The Beatles, Oasis and Radiohead the only artists having two albums in the top 20. Their fourth record, Night Train, was released in May 2010, debuting at number 1 on the UK Chart and at number 25 at Billboard 200 US chart.

Keane are known for using a piano (or a synth) as the lead instrument instead of guitars, differentiating them from most other rock bands. The inclusion of a distorted piano effect in 2006 and various synthesisers were a common feature in their music that back then combined the piano rock sound used during their first album and the more electronic sound which developed on the second and third albums. Since the start of their career, the band has sold over 10 million albums worldwide. From their album Perfect Symmetry in 2008, they included the electric guitar, making the sound of the band much more varied, but not leaving aside the traditional piano.

History

Early years and formation (1995-97)

Rice-Oxley’s brother — also called Tom — is a few months younger than Chaplin, who was born in March 1979. Their mothers became friends, as did Chaplin and Rice-Oxley. Tom Chaplin’s father David was the headmaster of Vinehall School in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, (owned by Chaplin’s family) for 25 years, the school all three attended until the age of 13. They later attended Tonbridge School in Kent, where Rice-Oxley met Dominic Scott; both of them discovered rapidly their liking for music. Richard Hughes, future drummer for the band, also attended Tonbridge. Chaplin had also learned to play the flute but none of them considered music as a proper career at the time.

In 1993, while studying at University College, London for a degree in classics, Rice-Oxley managed to form a rock band with Scott, and invited Hughes to play drums. The band, named Lotus Eaters started as a cover band, playing songs by the members’ favourite bands, including U2, Oasis, and The Beatles, and rehearsing at home.

After listening to Rice-Oxley’s piano playing during a weekend at Virginia Water, Surrey in 1997, Chris Martin invited him to join his newly formed band Coldplay. However, Rice-Oxley declined because he did not want to leave The Lotus Eaters, stating, “I was seriously interested, but Keane were already operational and Coldplay’s keyboard player idea was dropped.” Because of Martin’s offer, and although Hughes and Scott were originally opposed to it, Chaplin joined the band in 1997, taking Rice-Oxley’s place as vocalist and adding himself as the acoustic guitarist. Chaplin’s recruitment also marked a change of name from The Lotus Eaters to Cherry Keane, after a friend of Chaplin’s mother, whom Rice-Oxley and Chaplin knew when they were young. She took care of them and would tell them to go for their dreams. At her death from cancer,, she had left money for Chaplin’s family. Chaplin commented: “I used some of the money to see me through the harder times with the music.” The name was shortened to Keane soon afterward.

Chaplin departed for South Africa in the summer of 1997 to work as a volunteer during his gap year. Chaplin’s early experiences there would later be reflected in the band’s position for the Make Poverty History campaign. Returning a year later, in July 1998, following a meeting with friend David Lloyd Seaman, Hughes’ first words when the band picked up Chaplin at the airport were, “we’ve got a gig in ten days.” With original material, Keane made their debut live appearance at the “Hope & Anchor” pub on 13 July 1998. In this same year, Chaplin went to Edinburgh University to study for a degree in art history. However, he later quit his degree and moved to London in order to pursue a full-time musical career with his friends. After their debut performance, the band went touring London’s pub gig circuit throughout 1998 and 1999.

Discography

Studio Albums

2004 Hopes and Fears – http://www.bopping-elf.co.uk/keane-hopes-and-fears/

I was 43 when the new century started. What now for a middle-aged rocker?

With the coming of the internet, music has become more generally available. To expand on that what I mean is that material from groups such as Pink Floyd and the Stones are accessible which I could never have found pre-internet.

The first song I ever downloaded was YELLOW by Coldplay.

I’m 55 now and the age gap between me and the pop music age is greater than ever however the occasional ‘modern’ artist does catch my eye – one such one is Adele, I think she has a fabulous voice.

I’m not into Rap music music although I do like Eminem. I’ve most of his albums and can apprecaite (when I understand them) his lyrics.

Due to the demise of MEGAUPLOAD  some of the links are now not available. I am slowly replacing them with working links from RAPIDSHARE.

I am about 32% of the way through the site. I have removed a lot of dead links and replaced a lot of them with new Rapidshare links.

New content is still being added.

Please be patient – I am also exploring alternative storage sites.

IT’S ONLY ROCK N ROLL

Welcome to the new home of the “It’s Only Rock And Roll” website.

Here you will find the music that has kept me going for at least 45 of my 54 years!!

I must stress that the music you find here is for evaluation purposes or tasters if you like, only. If you like what you find please go and buy the original copies.

The site is very much ‘under construction’ and probably always will be so patience is the order of the day!

I’ve you have any comments and/or requests please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to comply.

Please report any non working links.

Thanks

The Bopping Elf

The content here has been split into logical sections (according to me).

Here is a list of the sections:

1. 2000+

2. 60′s Gold

3. 70′s Gold

4. 80′s Gold

5. 90′s Gold

6. American New Wave

7. American Rock

8. American Southern Rock

9. British Blues

10. British Rock

11. Compilations

12. Divas

13. Electronic

14. Hard Rock

15. Pop

Format

There are several artists included within each section.

1. 2000+

a. Keane

2. 60′s Gold

a. Beach Boys

b. Beatles

1. John Lennon

c. Byrds

d. Del Shannon

e. Donovan

f. Hollies

g. Joe Cocker

h. The Kinks

i. The Lovin’ Spoonful

3. 70′s Gold

a. 10cc

4. 80′s Gold

a. A-HA

b. Bryan Adams

c. Cure