First Chords
In this month’s newsletter, the 15-year-old John Lennon’s life is changed by a single song.
“To me rock n roll was real, everything else was unreal. It was the only thing to get through to me, of all the things that were happening to me when I was 15.” - John Lennon - Beatles Anthology
But first some…
Beatley News Updates
The Savage Young Beatles
On the morning of November 16th, the guys in The Savage Young Beatles made a brief, and somewhat chilly TV appearance on the UK’s breakfast show “Lorraine” for a spot to help promote a charity record. It was filmed in front of the Beatles’ statues in Liverpool.
In gig news, The Savage Young Beatles will return to the historic Jacaranda Club in Liverpool to headline on 30th December 2023. - Tickets will be available HERE.
We are delighted to announce that The Savage Young Beatles will be back in the USA for a joint gig with The Black Ties at Daryl’s House in Pawling, New York on February 7th to commemorate and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Beatles' arrival in the USA - Tickets are already available HERE
Rock out to the BTWB Playlist
If you enjoy the early rock-n-roll years and the music that inspired the Fab Four you can now enjoy a great selection of songs from the period on the new Before They Were Beatles playlist on Spotify. If you haven’t given it a listen recently, we’ve added a few new tracks over the last few months -
Podcast Updates
Like many of us, I have some thoughts about the new Beatles song, Now & Then, and the remixed Red & Blue greatest hits album releases. You can check them out in a new bonus episode of the Before They Were Beatles podcast out now.
It’s been a productive week of prep work for the upcoming The Forgotten Beatles podcast series with the scripts for the first two episodes completed. We are now firmly on track to launch early in the New Year.
What Else Is Alan Working On?
For more information on what else I have going on with writing, podcasting, and general slice-of-life stuff, check out my regular FREE weekly CAN’T SEE THE FOREST newsletter -
You might like to check out this issue from earlier in the month in which I discussed my initial reactions to the release of Now & Then. -
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And now on to the good stuff…
1956 - First Chords
As discussed in the second issue of this newsletter
The reaction to Heartbreak Hotel was subdued in the UK where the BBC didn’t consider it fit for general entertainment and placed it on a restricted-play list.
Despite the BBC’s misgivings, the song was Elvis's first chart success in the UK debuting in the British charts in May 1956 and peaking at number two the following month.
Yet its impact on the development of British rock music, and the future of one particular Liverpool teenager was incalculable. From the moment he first heard Heartbreak Hotel, the young John Lennon couldn’t get enough of Elvis.
John probably first heard Heartbreak Hotel on Radio Luxembourg, the biggest commercial radio station in Europe, whose English-language pop and rock shows attracted a large teenage audience outside of the stricter confines of the BBC’s approved listening list. The station had started to play his songs in late 1955 with That’s All Right Mama, without any real impact, but it was when they started to play Heartbreak Hotel in the spring of 1956 that many teenagers started to take notice(1) , among them John Lennon and friends.
Pete Shotton recalled
“Heartbreak Hotel was the most exciting thing we’d ever heard. It was the spark, then the whole world opened up for us.”
John became a devotee, starting to copy the look, the sound, and wanting to emulate the performance.
