ON JUNE 6th 1962, peering through the control-room glass at a male quartet in EMI’s recording studio in north-west London, an engineer said to himself, „Good God, what’ve we got ‚ere?“
Four long-haired Liverpudlians in thin-lapelled suits and flamenco boots had arrived to tape some songs: „Besame Mucho“, „Love Me Do“, „PS I Love You“ and „Ask Me Why“. The band’s name, according to the men at EMI, was absurd.
This scene is described on page 666 of „Tune In“, Mark Lewisohn’s astounding 946-page book about the early days of the Beatles. By the time readers reach this page, they’ll have got the point. By the standards of the day the Beatles were quite bizarre. They were radical composers, though they didn’t know a stave from a semi-quaver. Half a century on, they remain revelatory. Many have tried in vain to follow their example. The phenomenon of those odd-looking young men ranks among the most compelling stories of the 20th century.
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It is hard to imagine a wide readership for a nearly 1,000-page tome about the Beatles‘ pre-fame strivings. Yet „Tune In“, a decade in the making and first in a projected trilogy called „All These Years“, has hypnotic appeal. It wears its almost obsessive learning lightly. Readers know what’s coming, but Mr Lewisohn writes with admirable restraint, scarcely alluding to the extraordinary twists and turns of the next few years.
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #169 – 13.01.2026, 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba