Thursday, July 06, 2006

Today in Rock & Roll History


In the comments a couple of guys mention having seen the Beatles in concert. So here's today's R&R trivia in their honor (thanks to The Writers Almanac):

It was on this day in 1957 that two teenagers named John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met at a church dance in Liverpool, England.

The biggest event in John Lennon's neighborhood every summer was a party and dance held by St. Peter's parish church. There was a carnival and a parade with decorated floats, and that event was held on this day in 1957. John Lennon, with a little maneuvering, had gotten The Quarrymen a place in the parade, playing their music from atop one of the floats, and they also had an invitation to play at the dance afterwards.

The float The Quarrymen played on brought up the rear of the parade, and they attracted a large group of teenagers. One of the teenagers was a kid from a different high school named Paul McCartney. He had hoped to pick up girls at the church dance, and so he had ridden his bicycle over from his neighborhood.

In the audience, Paul McCartney was impressed by John's singing, and by the way John seemed to be challenging everyone in the room to a fight. After the performance, Paul went over to meet this guy. Paul and John were introduced, but they didn't hit it off until Paul mentioned that he played guitar, and he knew how to tune one. None of the other boys had learned how to do that yet. They'd all been forced to ask local musicians to tune their guitars for them.

John was even more impressed that Paul knew the lyrics of recent rock and roll songs. John could never remember lyrics, which was why he often made up new ones while he was singing. Paul volunteered to write out the lyrics for the song "Be Bop a Lula" for John, and the two became fast friends. By 1959, they were calling themselves The Beatles.

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