A World Without The Beatles - A World Without Elvis

Last weekend I attended a special event hosted by the Grammy Foundation entitled: “An Evening with Sir George Martin – The Making of Sgt Pepper”.

It was an amazing evening to be sure and there where a number of celebrities in the audience (I Remember spotting Slash and Nancy Sinatra). But of course we where all waiting for the man who is often referred to as the 5th Beatle.

At 81 years old, Sir George is pretty spry, a great speaker, and very funny.

Before getting into the making of the most influential album in pop music history, he took a moment to tell us how he got started in record business, he told humorous stories about the crude technology used to record music in England during the 50's. Tape was still too noisy so they would record on wax disc. Also electricity was too erratic in England at the time to record sound consistently (It would fluctuate), so they would use gravity to power their recording equipment with a series gears and heavy ball (Quite amazing really).

But by the time he was introduced to the Beatles, recording tape was now the standard. It was at this point during his talk, that I came away with (what I felt) was the most significant bit of information.

I was certainly aware that the Beatles had already been turned down by some of the other record labels in England before being signed to Parlaphone records. But according to Sir George Martin (and he should know): By the time he was first introduced to John, Paul, George, and Ringo they had already been turned down by EVERY record label. Including the Parlaphone label that Sir George Martin was now in charge of running......He wasn't aware of this when he first sat down with their manager Brian Epstein and heard their demo. He didn't think the demo was very good either, but he said Brian Epstein pleaded with him, so he grudgingly said to go ahead and bring them to the studio and he would see if there something to them that the didn't hear on the demo......He added, that had he been award that everyone else had turned them down, he would have never agreed to give them a 2nd try.

But he didn't know so, he meet with them, and he felt that they had something......The rest as they say, "is history".

Now as I heard this, there is of course the obvious lesson to be learned about having faith in yourself, even after everyone has rejected you.

But even more astonishing to me is to consider, what if he had known?

What if he had known that every other label had already rejected them? He would have probably said "No thank you".

The Beatles had a strong loyal following in their hometown. It was the sight of kids lining up to see them play at the Cavern Club that first brought enabled their manager Brian Epstein to discover them. They had reached a level of buzz in their hometown and needed something to propel them to a higher level. And in those days there was no way to record an album without record label contract.

But if every label has already said no, what are you going to do?

Maybe things might have worked out in the end, but maybe that might have been it. The Beatles might have remained a local cover band playing at their local club until they and their audience got older and got busy with responsibilities like marriage, kids, etc

There is a similar story about Elvis. The owner of Sun records discovered Elvis as one of his customers (back in those days you could pay about 20 bucks and they would record a one off record of you singing. It was novelty item). Sam Phillips thought Elvis had an interesting voice and thought he might hook him up with some musicians that where looking for a singer. But it almost didn't happen. Sam invited Bill Black and Scotty Moore to jam with Elvis and after taking a number of stabs at traditional country western songs, nothing seemed to jell. They took a break and it seemed like nothing was going to come of it. Then Elvis picked up the guitar and started playing the blues song "That's All Right Mamma". The Band joined in and suddenly the magic happened.

But what if he hadn't picked up that guitar?

And what if Sir George had said “no thank you”?

A world with The Beatles?

A world without Elvis?

It boggles the mind.