Thursday, June 25, 2015

Was I Right, Or Was I Right?

In my post of February 7, 2013 I was talking about an L.A. radio station fanzine's story that The Beatles were contemplating recording--what became--the Revolver album at Stax record studio in Memphis.

The line was that Brian Epstein was worried about security if The Beatles stayed in Memphis.  That was bull, of course, because the 1966 touring Beatles played in Memphis after our John created a storm of anger in America with his comments that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" and his opinion that Christianity would fade.  There were boycotts and threats but the 1966 touring Beatles still played there.  So much for security concerns.

In a May 30, 2015 article at www.beatlesarchive.net they reproduce and talk about a May 6, 1966 letter George wrote to Paul Drew, an Atlanta DJ at radio station WQXI.

Harrison describes recording Revolver and says in a postscript:
     "Did you hear that we nearly recorded in Memphis with Jim Stuart.  We would all like it a lot, but too many people get insane with money ideas at the mention of the word Beatles', so it fell through!"

So there's the real reason.  But . . . .  In an interview with John and Ringo published in Melody Maker magazine July 9, 1966, Ringo talked about taking about 10 weeks to complete Revolver:
     "But we've spent so long on it because we insisted on having the time to do what we wanted to.  As we're quite big with EMI at the moment, they don't argue." (my emphasis.)

Because The Beatles were at the top of their game, and when, for instance, The Rolling Stones recorded several albums in the U.S., you wonder if the real reason was money.

But it wasn't because of security.