40 Years Of Grade-A 'Meet'

Way, way, back a long long long time ago, last May I believe, my friend and fellow Fufkiner Gary Pig Gold occupied Fufkin space by presenting our own warped take on the endless debate between Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Their Satanic Majesties Request. I represented The Beatles' June 1967 release, while Gary spoke up in favor of Mick and company's offering from the end of that year, though we both have fondness for both albums.

Well, we all know...or at least we've all been told...about how Pepper broke ground, revolutionized, inspired, changed, transformed, shaped etc., fill in the blanks with the overused buzz word of your choice. Nonetheless, as true as some of those claims may be, I believe a reasonable claim can be made that another Beatles album surpassed it as far as its impact on culture.

Rubber Soul? No, not that one. Revolver? Nope. Gotta be Abbey Roadthen, right? Negative.

My answer...which you've probably already guessed because there's probably a picture of it up at the top of this page...is the album that celebrates its fortieth birthday this very month: Meet The Beatles.

What? Meet The Beatles more culturally important than Sgt. Pepper? Hey, it's not so ridiculous when you think about it (or when you read someone else's thinking about it). After all, this was, for all practical purposes, the band's first American album. Oh sure, Vee-Jay had stuck out that thing called Introducing The Beatles six months earlier, but how many Americans even knew it existed until after Meet The Beatles began earning its must-have status? Besides, not that fans thought about this in early 1964, but one examination of the minimal packaging of Introducing The Beatles is all one needs to confirm any suspicion that Vee-Jay's decision to offer America the sounds of some British combo that some guy on the telephone from England named George Martin told them would be a big success was made with all the optimism of "Sure, why not? We can always cut it from the catalog if it stiffs." In fact, that's exactly what they did.

But Capitol knew a fundamental rule of advertising. Namely, most people won't buy something from you if you yourself don't present it very positively. And while Vee-Jay said "Here are some songs by this British group, in case you want it. It's okay if you don't." Capitol said "Woah! This fabulous group is knockin' em dead all over Europe and by golly, they're bound to do it to America too, and we wanna turn you onto them by way of these twelve songs which we know you're gonna like." After all, what did Introducing The Beatles offer on their back cover? Pictures of other Vee-Jay albums! THAT sure signifies faith in a product. Later copies replaced the self-advertising with nothing more than the song titles. But by contrast, look at all the info the back Meet The Beatles offered the buyers. Like what? Well, their names for starters. Any reader of the Meet The Beatles two sets of liner notes came away knowing their names, ages, main instruments played, obscure instruments also thrown into their recordings, the specific songs each one sings, and even when they've double-tracked their vocals. Wow! On top of that, the reader even learns of specific examples of unusual fan reaction in England and several other countries. The reader learns about some extraordinary record sales. The reader learns that even The Queen wanted to see them. Goodness gracious, the reader even learns the plight of reporter Anne Butler!

Now if you hadn't heard a note of their music before reading all that, wouldn't all this have you itching to hear what these young men sound like?

And then, once you did, you heard sounds tailor-made for that portable record player you keep in your basement with the overly trebled two-inch speaker that makes every record sound like an amplified telephone receiver. And it mattered not one bit how dark, dreary and lonely the basement may have been, because as soon as the needle hit the first sounds of the first song, your mind instantly traveled to some big exciting party somewhere, where everyone was smiling and dancing, and those four guys in the same collarless suits of that photo on the back cover were up on an elevated platform in the middle of the room playing those very songs.

Indeed, the sequence of the album worked like the set of a party band who knew how to space things out:

"I Want To Hold Your Hand" - Starts things off with a bang and wins us over instantly.

"I Saw Her Standing There" - Proof that this band knows how to keep the crowd dancing.

"This Boy" - Slow dance time. Softens things up for the moment and shows that they can sing just as good as they rock.

"It Won't Be Long" - Okay, back on your feet, crowd.

"All I've Got To Do" - Moderately, now. You can dance if you like, or you can go get some punch. You'll get plenty more chances to move your feet again. In fact...

"All My Loving" - Put down that Dixie Cup and twist away. Ladies and gentlemen, the band will be back shortly.

So how are we doing so far? Pretty good band, huh? Good songs, contagious excitement, and all the confidence in the world. These guys really...oh, excuse me, they're going back onstage.

"Don't Bother Me" - Nice way to kick off the second half, and nice to see they're letting that quiet looking guy do some singing.

"Little Child" - Hot damn, the party is back in full swing.

"Till There Was You" - Nothing like a nice quiet one to cool things down and to help out people in a romantic mood.

"Hold Me Tight" - Rocking again. They must be having fun with the back and forth vocals, since we're having fun just listening to them.

"I Wanna Be Your Man" - Ah, so the funny looking guy in the back *does* sing.

Uh oh, they're flicking the lights. Here comes the last song of the night...

"Not A Second Time" - Brings things to a comfortable close.

Now, of course, we know in retrospect that this wonderful sequence I've just described wasn't quite what The Beatles envisioned. Few, if any, American fans in early 1964 knew that Meet The Beatles was merely a fair but incomplete portion of their latest British album, With The Beatles, and that this mythical party had five other songs sandwiched between the ones we knew as Side Two.

No matter, though. Meet The Beatles stood on its own merit. Top 40 radio stations were doing the unthinkable...they were adding album cuts to their playlist. They had no choice but to do so, as "All My Loving," "This Boy" and "I Wanna Be Your Man" were getting just as many requests as "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

Meanwhile, thousands of kids across the country were thinking "Wow, WE gotta do this too! This sounds like a blast. Let's start a band. Who around here plays the drums? I'll play the guitar..." Therein lies a testament to my original argument: How many kids were inspired to go form a band based on what they heard on Sgt. Pepper? Well?

In short, Sgt. Pepper may have turned many musicians onto new adventurous avenues rock music could take...but Meet The Beatles was probably what inspired them to start making music in the first place!

Happy fortieth birthday to the album that served as the soundtrack to a nation going "Woah!"

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