The Beatles: Please Please Me/Introducing...The Beatles: America's No. 1, Vocal Group

The Beatles: Please Please Me/Introducing...The Beatles: America's No. 1,  Vocal Group

1963

Parlophone/Vee-Jay Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc/Vinyl

Track Listing (UK Version)  1. I Saw Her Standing There  2. Misery  3. Anna (Go to Him)  4. Chains  5.  Boys  6. Ask Me Why  7. Please Please Me  8. Love Me Do  9.  P.S. I Love You  10. Baby It's You  11. Do You Want to Know a Secret  12. A Taste of Honey  13. There's a Place  14. Twist and Shout



I have the original UK version of "Please Please Me" on compact Disc and the abridged US version, titled "Introducing...The Beatles: America's No. 1,  Vocal Group" on vinyl...



The U.S. version is missing two tracks ( "Ask Me Why" and "Please Please Me.")  I can't remember where the "America's No. 1,  Vocal Group" vinyl came from...Did my Mom give it to me? Hmmm...

Anyway , this was the Beatles legendary 1963 debut album...Although I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the Beatles...They were only the most successful and innovative band to ever exist...It's hard to believe that they were only were around (in a recording capacity anyway) for 7 years...

Now I'm going to be super honest, I've never fallen head over heels in love with early Beatles...To me, the band hit its stride once they all donned psychedelic  Cap'n Crunch jackets and sang about strawberry people & mushroom skies and shit...

A lot of Beatles fans will probably also find it shocking that I never really heard them until I was in my early twenties...It was simply something I never ran across...I didn't know anyone who listened to them, and I heard one or two of the early 60's hits on the radio once or twice, but it didn't leave any real impact on me...

The only later Beatles song I'd ever heard was a video clip of a bearded Paul McCartney sitting at a piano playing the overblown "The Long & Winding Road" (which I later recognized as a scene from the "Let it Be" movie), and it didn't exactly set my punk-loving heart on fire...

Around 1998 or so, I was driving around Alpena, Michigan, listening to a tape my now-wife gave me. After the other music was over it started playing the music she had originally taped over...I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Not only was it far-freaking-out psychedelia, but the hooks were unbelievable! It was love at first listen!

I later found out I was listening to "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the Beatles...I spent the following months selling my other records so I could afford to pick up every Beatles album I could find...



(This Manowar record is now in an Alpena Pawn Shop somewhere...)

 But yea...I knew who the Swell Maps were before I had ever heard the Beatles...But I'm actually grateful for this, since I didn't get a chance to take it for granted and it's always nice to find your favorite band so late in life...

Anyway, the music on "Please Please Me" isn't psychedelic or anything (in fact it's almost impossible to wrap your mind around the fact that this was only 4 years away from "Sgt Pepper)...It's just straight-forward early sixties rock n' roll; full of hand-claps, yea yea yeas, and whoos (shake hair...).

It's clear to me why kids went ape-shit over this at the time...Go back and listen to the stuff that was popular at the time!

 These guys were like a bolt of lightning on the scene, with Ringo's relentless drumming behind the spindly guitars and songs so catchy that they were stuck in your head the moment you heard 'em...I can only imagine what it was like putting the needle down on this record back in '63 and hearing "I Saw Her Standing There" raving out the hi-fi speakers...(Although the version here is highly inferior to Tiffany's 1987 synth-pop update...



(Nahhh..Not really, I'm just trying to see if you're still paying attention.)

And all the originals are just as great (Don't even get me started on "There's a Place," I freakin' love this song!) However, the covers kind of bring this down for me...Most of them sound so old-fashioned next to the Beatles exhilarating new take on pop...Barring, of course, John Lennon's live-wire take on "Twist and Shout" that closes the album with one of the most flat-out bad-ass vocal takes in music history...

I do have to say I find "Boys" intriguing...I love how they don't change the gender, leaving poor Ringo to exclaim how much he likes boys for three minutes...

"Well, I talk about boys,
Don't ya know I MEAN boys,
Well, I talk about boys, now,
Aaahhh, boys,
Well, I talk about boys, now,
What a bundle of joy!"

Don't ask don't tell, I guess...Oh yea...This reminds me of this picture I've only really seen recently...

 ...Two girls getting it on during an old Beatles show while some chick sitting in front of them loses her damn mind! Awesome!

Although it's always fun to hear the Beatles humble, rocking roots, this is probably my least favorite Beatles album...These guys really did improve at an shocking rate...Each Beatles album was better than the last until finally there was nothing else they could do but break up...but we'll get to that waaayy later...

Oh yea, a couple of weeks ago I ran across an old tape my wife made of "The Beatles Years" radio program, that she recorded back in 1998 (as close as I can tell). It's a 90 minute tape, so I broke it up and I'm going to be posting about 13-20 minutes of it over the next 6 days... I never listened to the show when it was originally on, so I'm going to turn the Friday Night Record Party over to Amy 80 for more information on this...




 

"I was pretty obsessed with The Beatles and every Sunday, from 9-10 a.m,  the local oldies radio station played the "Beatles Years" show. I almost always listened to it and remember taping it a lot. This tape alone has several episodes on it, and  I'm sure I recorded others but I don't know if those tapes exist anymore.

 There definitely shouldn't be any alcohol around while you listen to this. I would recommend a tall glass of orange juice...

(WTF?! Tang is not Orange Juice..)

(Okay, that's better...)

...and definitely bacon and eggs...

At least some kind of  breakfast food cooking. An episode of "Beatles Years "is not complete without the delicious smell of Sunday morning breakfast in the air.

I do remember this particular episode being one of my favorites, because it had songs I had never heard. I ended up owning everything on this episode except for "Swanee River" and the Yoko Ono album.



I've looked for the Yoko Ono album, "Rising." I think I actually found it at the Zia Records in Tucson, but I decided to buy something else instead. I can't recall what album I chose over it, but I definitely remember that happening. I love the song "New York Woman" that they play here. I've never been a huge Yoko fan but there's something really pretty about her hushed, spooky voice on this song, and the music rocks on it. To this day, I haven't been able to bring myself to buy the album, but I  always have a copy of this song around in one form or another.

This episode starts with show's host, J.J. Jackson introducing Matt of  "Good Day Sunshine" magazine.  I remember always planning on subscribing to the magazine, but I never did. $15 was a lot of money when I was 14. Hell, $15 is a lot of money now! 

They also discuss Ringo's then-upcoming "Vertical Man" album, so this episode must've been from January or February 1998. I remember being at my mom's house and there was snow on the ground...

So let's go back to that winter morning  and listen to "The Beatles Years" on WHNN 96.1..."
 

Okay, if that wasn't enough Beatles for ya (Listening back to the radio show, there actually aren't any  Beatles songs in it...(Only solo material and Beatles family members...) Let's check out "There's a Place" by the Beatles...Enjoy...