By now I can hear everyone whisper: what the f*** are The Beatles doing on a progressive website?? and I can't blame any of you, but if you take a closer look at the entire career of The Beatles then you have to agree that this band indeed has been progressive all the way! The Beatles are the foundation on which the entire music business is built. In barely eight years they wrote all of pop's history and they were the first to introduce synthesizers, mellotron and loads of classical influences in their music (violins and cello in "Eleanor Rigby" and Bach trumpet in "Penny Lane," to name but two). When we talk about The Beatles we should never speak about the four we know so well but we should talk about the five Beatles, because producer George Martin certainly has played a vital role in the band's history, shaping their music from catchy demos into the classics we all know and love.

November 13th, 2000, was a special occasion as it meant the launch of two separate things. First of all it meant the launch of the official Beatles website which is located at www.thebeatles.com. Secondly it meant the launch of the very first greatest hits package called 1 as it contains the band's 27 number one hits they gathered both in the UK and in the States, all crammed onto one shiny little disc. None other than his Excellency Mr. David Colvin, CMG, British Ambassador to Belgium, invited a handful of media people and Beatles enthusiasts to the British Embassy in Brussels. I was there to witness the fact that the Ambassador received a platinum award for advance sales already exceeding 50,000 units in Belgium out of the hands of a beaming Erwin Goegebeur, Managing Director of EMI Music Belgium. In his speech the Ambassador stressed the levels of co-operation between the UK and the neighbouring countries and beyond, together with the Belgo-British conference under the patronage of HRH Prince Philippe and HRH The Prince of Wales. Mr. Colvin left behind the politics and trade and concentrated on what he called "probably one of the UK's great cultural Ambassadors." He also referred to 1965 when HM Queen Elizabeth II awarded The Beatles with an MBE at Buckingham Palace, recommended by the then PM Harold Wilson. "Today, 35 years later, it certainly means something when all of these 'old' songs still have such an impressive number of the press core represented at the launch," his Excellency said.

Mr. Erwin Goegebeur told the press that he was only ten years old when The Beatles broke up, but still enjoys listening to their music. Today, one of his teenage nephews plundered his private record collection to listen to Revolver, Sgt. Pepper and The White Album and it certainly wasn't because the music reminded him of his youth, but simply because his favourite bands keep referring to The Beatles as being an important influence on their songwriting. "The fact that today every young musician who has the ambition to write a well-crafted pop song still needs to study the musical output of Lennon and McCartney is enough proof that the most important aspect in the history of The Beatles is their music," said the Managing Director of EMI Belgium. Then Mr. Colvin was presented with the already mentioned platinum award (to the envy of yours truly!) and we were shown some film-collage of the best moments out of the extraordinary career of the four from Liverpool.

To give the launch an extra dimension one of the TV stations present thought of an interesting angle and invited the Ambassador to climb on the roof of the Embassy (a platform on the third floor mind you) and join two well-known Belgian musicians, both very big fans of The Beatles: Jan Leyers and Jean Blaute. Of course, it was like a remake of the famous roof concert The Beatles did on top of the Apple building in Saville Row Nr 3 way back on 30th January in 1969, their last ever live appearance together! The TV director asked the Ambassador to say a couple of words and Mr. Colvin spoke: "I'm sitting on the roof of the British Embassy in Beatles style and my friend here on my left is going to sing one of the Beatles' hits." Soon Leyers and Blaute kicked off with a couple of bars of an acoustic rendition of "As Tears Go By." Very strange as, of course, this song has been written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Oldham for Marianne Faithfull in early 1964 and later also recorded by the Rolling Stones themselves. Maybe our musicians had a "blank" or they did this on purpose just to see whether the media people present would give any remarks. Especially Blaute is known for being a laugh and always happy to include a practical joke. Then the TV guy asked the Ambassador if there was one small fragment he could sing, too, which Mr. Colvin answered : "I'll have to ask my agent about that." After the laughter died down, the TV guy once again turned to the Ambassador asking him what his favourite Beatles song was, to which Mr. Colvin answered without hesitation "The Long And Winding Road." Backed by our two musicians, he went as far as singing the title, turned to the camera and said: "I don't know the rest of the words." There was still some blank tape in the camera so Leyers and Blaute got the time to throw in one more so they opted for "Ticket To Ride" because "As Tears Go By" was both their favourite and had already been done. After only a couple of bars into "Ticket To Ride" Leyers stopped, then turned to the camera and said "the rest will cost you!" Then came the part which typecasts the British sense of humour. As our musicians sang "Help" they turned to the Ambassador who sang: "I need some more staff" which of course resulted in laughter all around. Leyers continued: "Hey Jude..." and as no reaction came from the other people present he improvised "... don't mess it up." The musical quiz went one further with a couple of bars of "Yellow Submarine" which the Ambassador could directly refer to, but he had great trouble in knowing which song it was once Leyers strung the first chord for "A Hard Day's Night." The improvisation came to an end with a brief "Hey Jude" which saw the Ambassador's wife run back and forth, armed with a huge cardboard display made to promote The Beatles 1 album.

But then, the album itself. Well what can one say. Of course it is impossible for a band like The Beatles to put their best material onto one CD because every song they have ever written is a classic so every music fan should indeed own the entire Beatles catalogue (I know an illegal CD-ROM exists on which you can find all of the Beatles output, so in the future, who knows there might be a legal version of this). When the red and blue double albums were released, the first spanning the 1962-1966 period and the second the 1967-1970 period, they were referred to as being the greatest hits packages of The Beatles. That was four albums. Now we are talking about one single album so how do you go about sifting through the band's material to do just that? Someone at EMI HQ must have had the brilliant idea to put all of the band's UK and US number ones together. This resulted in no fewer than 27 songs with a total playing time of 79:08, containing not one boring second! From "Love Me Do" down to "The Long And Winding Road" it's all there. In total these 27 Beatles songs topped the charts for no fewer than 128 weeks between 2nd May 1963 and 13th June 1970.

Don't forget that The Beatles have left behind a firm impression with musicians active in our beloved genre of "progressive rock." Ayreon, Flower Kings and Spock's Beard are just three of the names that spring to mind. The Flower Kings did a splendid version of "Across The Universe" on their recent X-mas disc (another great Beatles "invention"!) whilst Spock's Beard members Neal Morse and Nick d'Virgilio tackle both "We Can Work It Out" and "Strawberry Fields" on their recently released Two Separate Gorillas 2CD set. Let us not forget Yes who covered "Every Little Thing" in their early days, Dream Theater who did "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" with Marillion's Steve Hogarth guesting on vocals when the band (and friends) performed at the famous Ronnie Scott's club in London on January 31st 1995. And then there's "Tribute" by Rick Wakeman, where he pays tribute to this great band by means of 11 Beatles songs arranged for the ivories. And there are plenty more bands in our genre who covered a Beatles song, whether for release on an album or as a surprise during live gigs. Whatever way you look at it there will never be a band like The Beatles ever again. The sheer magic of blending those four individual talents together is a supernatural fact nobody can explain. Even if your entire record collection consists of progressive rock and nothing but progressive rock, even then do you need 1 because it's the best all round Beatles collection ever to be released. The crystal clear transfer from the mastertape onto CD reveals every little detail as it was recorded those many years ago. It shows once again that with little possibilities in the studio these people were able to write timeless tunes whereas today when everyone can build a studio in his/her backyard there are very few people who have the talent to write songs. Maybe it's time to get back to basics?

With lifelong gratitude to John, Paul, George, Ringo and George Martin and the strongest wish to one day in my life meet one of the Beatles "face to face." Fifteen years ago I missed George Harrison in LA by one day, and two years ago my interview with Ringo Starr was cancelled a couple of days before it had to take place. Maybe out there someone with the right contacts can "fix it for me" even if this only means a mere five minutes with one of my all-time heroes. You know where to contact me.

From Me To You, John "Bo Bo" Bollenberg

Here's some additional detail on 1:

Love Me Do / From Me To You / She Loves You / I Want To Hold Your Hand / Can't Buy Me Love / A Hard Day's Night / I Feel Fine / Eight Days A Week / Ticket To Ride / Help! / Yesterday / Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out / Paperback Writer / Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby / Penny Lane / All You Need Is Love / Hello, Goodbye / Lady Madonna / Hey Jude / Get Back / The Ballad Of John And Yoko / Something / Come Together / Let It Be / The Long And Winding Road

[As I update this article (image location reorganization) in November 2015, it is probably worth noting that the 1 collection has been reissued this month on CD, and with a treasure trove of videos remastered/restored, on DVD and Blu-Ray, too. If you are the ultimate Beatles fan (with money to spend), you can splurge on the deluxe 2Blu-Ray (or 2DVD) + CD version. That's their 27 Number 1 singles, videos of those 27 gems (DVD/BR disc 1), plus an additional 23 videos on the second DVD/BR disc... along with other extras. While there are bands who have lasted longer than the Beatles (as a group), the Stones, The Who, etc., I can't think of any other band whose music has had such a far-ranging impact/influence... which continues to this day. And in a way that I don't see any band that has come in their wake will ever have... And I think to ever expect that would put way too much pressure on said band, they'd implode long before... -ed.]

Links: The Beatles

Copyright © by ProgressiveWorld.net All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2000-11-21 (4061 reads)