Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Article from 1967
Derivative Mewing
Not so long ago, the pop scene was going nowhere.
Rock 'n' roll had catapulted into the bestseller charts in the 1950s on the
chugging riffs of Bill Haley and His Comets (Rock Around the Clock) and the
rhythmic caterwauling of Elvis Presley. But even they were bleached-out copies
of the vibrant, earthy rhythm-and-blues sung in the subculture of Negro music.
Until the early 1960s, rock 'n' roll went through a doldrum of derivative mewing
by white singers, with only occasional breakthroughs by such Negroes as Ray
Charles and Fats Domino.
The Beatles, along with other British groups--the Rolling Stones, the
Animals--revitalized rock by closely imitating (and frankly crediting) such
Negro originators of the style as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Soon
the Negro "soul sound" surged into the white mass market. The old-line blues
merchants have enjoyed a revival, and a younger, slicker breed of
rhythm-and-blues singers--notably Lou Rawls, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the
Supremes--have taken up commanding positions on the sales charts. "Until the
Beatles exposed the origins, the white kids didn't know anything about the
music," says Veteran Blues Shouter Waters, 52. "Now they've learned it was in
their backyard all the time."
As the Beatles moved on, absorbing and extending Bob Dylan's folk-rock hybrid
and sowing innovations of their own, they were like musical Johnny Appleseeds;
wherever they went, they left flourishing fields for other groups to cultivate.
"They were saying, 'If you want to get better, here's the route,'" says Art
Garfunkel, 25, half of the folkrock duo, Simon and Garfunkel. Nowadays,
according to Independent Record Producer Charlie Greene, 28, "no matter how hard
anybody tries, no matter how good they are, almost everything they do is a cop
on the Beatles." Yet the Beatles' example is not limiting but liberating, as
other rock musicians have attested with generous praise. Says hefty Cass Elliott
of The Mama's and The Papa's: "They're untouchable."
Today, the rock scene has shifted from England back to the U.S., and
particularly to the West Coast (some San Franciscans are calling their city the
Liverpool of the U.S.). There, as elsewhere in the States, rock is currently in
the-midst of a huge syncretic surge toward a new idiom--and the Beatles' wildly
eclectic spirit hovers over it all. As the Lovin' Spoonful's songwriter, John
Sebastian, says: "Here we are in the middle of the mulch."
Blues, folk, country and western, ragas, psychedelic light and sound effects,
swatches of Mahler, jazzlike improvisations--all are spaded into the mulch by
such vital and imaginative groups as the Doors, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson
Airplane, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Byrds and the new British trio,
the Cream. Like the Beatles, most of these groups write their own music and
thereby try not only to arrive at their own peculiar mixture of elements, but
also to stamp their identity on whatever they do.
Hippie Anthem. None has so far matched the distinctiveness and power of the
Beatles' mixture--which, after all, is responsible for having boosted them into
their supramusical status. Thus their flirtation with drugs and the dropout
attitude behind songs like A Day in the Life disturbs many fans, not to mention
worried parents. The whole Sgt. Pepper album is "drenched in drugs," as the
editor of a London music magazine puts it. One track features Drummer Ringo
Starr quavering, "I get high with a little help from my friends." Another
number, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, evokes a drug-induced hallucination, and
even the initials of the title spell out LSD, though the Beatles plead sheer
coincidence.
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The Beatles Lyrics
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