BEATLES/EVOLVER:62 – By & With MARK LEWISOHN

To the Bloombury Theatre in WC1 for a preview of Mark Lewisohn’s second public discourse on The Beatles. In 2019 Mark, now universally acclaimed as the world’s leading authority on the Fab Four, expounded on the group’s Abbey Road LP in a talk intriguingly titled Hornsey Road, after a site where EMI almost bought a recording studio so that the famous St John’s Wood premises could be reserved for classical and jazz musicians only. This never happened but if it had The Beatles would have recorded there and, ipso facto, Abbey Road would have been called Hornsey Road.

        This sort of left-field, join-up-the-dots and occasionally slightly surreal thinking illuminates Mark’s outlook when he shares his knowledge with those who, like me, are enthralled by the depth of his research. “The deeper you go, the higher you fly,” he says, introducing his new show, if it can be called that. Beatles/Evolver:62 comprises 62 sparkling gems from his archives that relate, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, to The Beatles’ progress in the year before they exploded into the national consciousness. 

        

        The results of the research Mark expounded on yesterday can be found in the pages of Tune-In, the first book in his multi-volume biography of The Beatles, published in 2013. His talk is essentially a demonstration of his methods, expanded with details that seem all the more profound when extracted from the page and brought into focus by his words and insight. 

        A large screen behind him is filled with icons that represent each of the 62 moments. Some are of great import, like Ringo replacing the hapless Pete Best or the series of events that led to George Martin becoming their producer at Parlophone, and some are trivial but enormously fascinating, like Mark’s claim that on March 7, during what was The Beatles’ first appearance on national radio, on a BBC show broadcast from Manchester called Here We Go, their live cover of The Marvelettes’ ‘Please Mr Postman’ was not only their radio debut but the first time anything from Tamla Motown had been broadcast on BBC radio. 

        Mark revels in coincidences. In the last week of October Paul and a girlfriend called Celia Mortimor hitchhiked to London to see the sights, staying with John’s friend Ivan Vaughan who lived in a flat on Great Portland Street. Deep research on Mark’s part among electoral records has revealed that Dr Richard Asher and his wife Margaret lived in the same building, along with their children, Peter, Jane and Clare, and that George Martin took oboe lessons from Margaret in the same premises. And that week, according to Celia, Paul was working on new song about a girl who was just seventeen. 

        Mark is at pains to get at the truth and disprove myths that have circulated over the years through sloppy reportage. For example, while it is generally accepted that Decca passed on The Beatles following their disappointing audition on January 1, the reality is that Brian Epstein passed on Decca, or at least passed on the terms that Decca offered. This, of course, was to The Beatles’ good fortune in the long term, not least because Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, whom Decca signed instead, were obliged to anonymously record LPs of current hit songs for their downmarket Ace Of Clubs label. Can you imagine JPG&R doing that?

        And, of course, while Decca’s A&R chief Dick Rowe became notorious as the ‘man who passed on The Beatles’, he was far from alone in this. In America Atlantic’s celebrated Jerry Wexler did the same thing, as did Laurie Records whose A&R man at the time was Doug Morris, a future chairman and CEO of the Universal Music Group, subsequently fulfilling the same role at Sony Music. Both were sent copies of ‘Please Please Me’. Strangely, Morris didn’t respond to Mark’s request for a comment on this.

        What did take my breath away was Mark’s research into the no-hopers who were signed by UK record labels while Epstein was desperately trying to get a deal for his Beatles. With the aid of pictures of their actual singles, Mark lists dozens of singers with little or no experience, all of whom made inferior records that went nowhere. Most of these complete unknowns – there were no groups and none played an instrument – were even promoted for having done regular jobs, as if a few years apprenticed to a painter and decorator was all that was required to record a hit. Meanwhile The Beatles, who’d logged up thousands of hours on stage in Liverpool and Hamburg, who had a thriving Fan Club in Liverpool and who were regularly voted Top Group in local polls, were shown the door. 

What were the record companies playing at? What were they thinking? Mark can’t answer those questions, only laugh, as did his preview audience. It was more than simple complacency, or even deafness. The answer, of course, is that in 1962 the UK record industry was a closed shop, run by middle-aged men who dictated what their young consumers were going to get, which was not what they wanted. The Beatles were so new, so different, so self-contained, so engaging, so experienced, so talented and, ultimately, so wanted that no one in the record business could see the wood for the trees. In Mark’s view, what they became wasn’t surprising really, not after you’ve heard him explain how and why it all happened. In a nutshell, they broke the system. 

        The talk is chronological and lasts just over two hours, with a break. Anyone with an interest not only in The Beatles but in the era just before fame beckoned will love it. My only complaint is that in doing shows like this Mark breaks off from writing the second in his trilogy of books, a tome I await with an eagerness now bordering on obsession. 

Beatles/Evolver: 62 is at the Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London WC1, on October 7 at 7.30pm and October 8 at 2.30pm and 7.30 pm. Tickets go on sale from 10am on Friday July 29 and can be obtained from the theatre. Unlike Hornsey Road, as yet Mark has no plans to take his show to other parts of the UK.