“Rock and roll is the music that inspired me to play music. There is nothing conceptually better than rock and roll.” — John
R
eturning to Abbey Road on September 11, they once again tried to get “Love
Me Do” to sound right. This time, George wasn’t taking any chances with the drumming, and brought in a session player. The new Beatle didn’t seem to mind being replaced and played tambourine on the single’s B·side, “P.S. I Love You”. For the number written by John and Paul, Ringo played only the maraca. It was a sound that would be featured several of their early recordings. After the second session, Martin and the group were satisfied and had a single to release. Apart from a few basic adverts that EMI placed in the national music papers, the record company put no promotion behind the single. Neither Parlophone nor George Martin were part of the company’s pop royalty and the small label couldn’t expect EMI to spend much advertising on an unknown group. Brian Epstein, with his local record shops, made sure that it sold well in Liverpool. He ordered 10,000 copies of the disc, a massive number that would prove difficult to sell, even though The Beatles had hundreds of fans in Liverpool. Brian had been told that this was the minimum number of copies that had to be sold to get a record into the national Top Twenty. The record was an instant hit in shops around the northwest of England and shot to Number One in Mersey Bear’s Top Twenty chart. On the strength of those regional sales, it also made the Number 17 spot in the NME. As copies of “Love Me Do” continued to sell, The Beatles made their first appearance on television on October 17. It was not a national broadcast, but a local news/review program that was put out by Manchester-based Granada TV. Pre-filmed in the Cavern on August 22, just after Ringo had replaced Pete Best, the footage showed them singing one of their many covers of US rhythm and blues numbers, Richie Barrett’s “Some Other Guy”. Producer Johnny Hamp had battled with his bosses at Granada to get the film shown, but would go on to put The Beatles on the show several more times over the coming months. He later recalled, “I first saw The Beatles in a club in Hamburg. They were very scruffy characters, but they had a beat in their music which I liked ... I got into a lot of trouble over it. Everyone said they were too rough, too untidy. But I liked them. I put them on again and again.” On October 29, Hamp even brought the group into the Granada studio, where they were filmed performing
John Lennon, 1957
“Love Me Do” and “A Taste of Honey”. The new footage was transmitted on People and Places on November 2.
17