>>
this week "
rolling stone
" magazine is all about the
beatles
. the
cover story
on the
private life
of
george harrison
. the magazine is out with a
special edition
of an album-by-album review of the entire
beatles
catalog. with us is contributing editor for controlling stone magazine, alan lite. i've read almost everything, and yet i've learned a lot. one of the most fascinating things i've learned is
george martin
who was there from the beginning of the studio, it even took him about three albums to figure out. and halfway through recording the third album he said, wait a second, these guys who started as a good band have turned themselves into a great band. even
george martin
-- you see this evolution as you go album by album by album, and it clicks.
>>
what's really striking when you do it is just the speed that it all happens, the speed that each album happens, they cut "
please please
me" in 12 hours. that was the whole thing.
>>
by the way, can you believe that,
mark mckinnon
? you've been involved with music before. usually you don't get a
kick drum
these days, a
kick drum
sound gated in less than 12 hours. they recorded an entire first album that still holds up today in 12 hours.
>>
i remember when "meet the
beatles
" came out and i played "i want to hold your hand" 1,000 times. these guys did so much before they got in the studio. years and years and years and years of practice. it doesn't happen like that anymore.
>>
the first few records they went in and played their set. they were ready to go. everything was in place.
>>
alan, that's another thing i was reminded of again, ha the
beatles
didn't just fall out of the sky, they honed their craft in hamburg, they worked
24 hours a day
on taking speed -- by the time they had a chance to record in
1962
, they were a battle-hardened band unlike any other band.
>>
and they were able to maintain that. the first albums basically up through "rubber sole," they were knocking a couple songs out, go back on the road. these albums were monumental historic records. we've got six hours, let's get a couple songs and then we've got to get off to the next show. it wasn't until "
sergeant pepper
" they went into the studio to make an album. everything before that, it's all on the fly and none of it suffers from that.
>>
the most stunning thing, look at these numbers,
sergeant pepper
on the starts 175 weeks. "the
white album
" 155, magical mystery temperature 91 weeks. the most remarkable things that you really understand by reading this is what they did in two years. two years that a lot of rock critics overlook.
1964
and
1965
, the number of albums they put out, the number of songs they wrote, while, as this book explains, while beatlemania was going on, it's never been duplicated.
>>
they're grabbing ten minutes on a bus and writing "
day tripper
," writing songs that would
live forever
. but it stays like that. you forget the whole thing is eight years.
>>
it wasn't a one-
trick pony
in terms of the sound. it evolved
over time
and adapted and different changes. different years with completely different sounds. it's amazing.
>>
we have in here, we were saying, these appreciations for each album. we had a different artist talk about that album. we have
james taylor
, bob wear from the
grateful dead
.
>>
what do the guys have to say? what influences do they find?
>>
james taylor
was signed to
apple records
at first and actually made his first album during downtime on the
white album
. he talked about what it was to watch them work and what it was to -- i think what everybody says is you would set your expectations for perfection and then they would surpass them. he was talking about, we're waiting for the next record. you'd wait and then it came and it was "
sergeant pepper
." and they were already at the top. they just kept pushing themselves farther and farther. that's what separates them from
everybody else
.
>>
what's your favorite story in here, what you didn't know before this got put together?
>>
i wrote a couple of them so i got deeper into researching those. for me it was that it gives you new appreciation for some of the smaller records. we know what "revolver" is, but to look at in between "
hard day
's night" and "help" they knocked this thing out. then you look and you see they did "i'm a looser" on that record. lennon starting writing these kinds of songs that nobody had written, these kinds of exploratory songs. this is a throw-away record and it breaks that kind of ground. it makes you appreciate those a little more.
>>
it's fascinating, the thing about
beatles for sale
that i've been fascinated about, it's sandwiched between two great albums, it's always overlooked. you look at these faces and these at the time boys in the early '20s, and yet they were already tired, it suggested the direction they were going to go in the future. it was going to be introspective and write songs like "i'm a loser."
>>
it's all happening, one goes straight into the next. it's not a surprise, but how each one kind of seeds what the next one -- where it's going to go to that you can start to tease it out.
>>
let me ask you an impossible question. what's your favorite album?
>>
different answer on a different day. "revolver" to me is the most perfect.
>>
what about you?
>>
i bounce back and forth from "revolver" to "the
white album
." that's definitely the song i would take to an island if i could only take one.
>>
which one do i put on the most is "the
white album
." "revolver" in terms of the full range of everything they could do, absolute peak of their game and pushing the hardest.
>>
i would be "
abbey road
" favorite.
>>
"
abbey road
."
>>
alan light
, thank you very much. more "
morning joe
" in just a moment. [ mrs.
