Listen → The Beatles (In Color)
Tracklist:
I Want To Hold Your Hand - Al Green
I Saw Her Standing There - Little Richard
You Can’t Do That - The Supremes
Ticket To Ride - Wee Willie Walker
Good Day Sunshine - Roy Redmond
The Long and Winding Road - Aretha Franklin
Get Back - The Dierdre Wilson Tabac
We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder
Lady Madonna - Junior Parker
Don’t Let Me Down - Randy Crawford
Let It Be - Bill Withers
Hey Jude - Wilson Pickett
Liner Notes
When The Beatles were coming up in the fifties, their home of Liverpool was transforming from a bleak and bombed-out port to a cultural and musical melting pot.
By ship or by shop, Liverpool was importing R&B, blues, and rock and roll music from Black artists in America—which is a long way from a few hundred years earlier when they were, tragically, the busiest slave port in Britain.
The long story short is that The Beatles heard Black music, worshipped Black music, idolized Black musicians, and would not exist without them.
In 1958, when John first heard “Long Tall Sally” and “Johnny Be Good,” he dropped out of school and bought a guitar. "Black music is my life,” he would later declare.
“If the Beatles ever wanted ‘a sound’ it was R&B,” Paul once said. “That was what we used to listen to, what we used to like, what we wanted to be like. Black. That was basically it."
John called Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley "the greatest influence on Earth." And said the same of Little Richard. Ringo said "Little Richard is my hero" Paul said he taught him "everything he knows."
Little Richard. Chucky Berry. Arthur Alexander. The Ronettes. The Shirelles. Ray Charles. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Billy Eckstine. Marvin Gaye.
This is the music The Beatles played on stage when their stuff wasn’t good enough yet. And this is the music that ultimately inspired and influenced their original songs.
"It wasn't a rip off," John explained, "It was a love in."
“You know, I don’t want anything from them,” Little Richard once told Dick Cavett. “All I want them to do is to spread what they got from me. You know, god gave it to me and they got it from me. And so, just carry the good word over the world. That’s all. I don’t want nothin’. I just want them to do what’s right.”
And so the great musical melting pot just kept boiling. The Beatles got their start by covering songs by Black artists, and Black artists eventually started covering the Beatle originals that Black music had inspired.
You might call it a revolver.
So here is a very small sampling of these covers. It's like an impression of an impression, or a reflection of a reflection. It’s like looking through an—I don’t know—glass onion?
Cover songs are often uninspired, uninteresting, and unworthy. In this case, they’re transcendent, compelling, and often superior.
▶︎ Listen to The Beatles (In Color)
That’s it for me, but hardly it for Black Beatles covers. This mix could have gone for hours without ever even coming close to a dud. Please, proceed with your own digital crate digging. And carry the good word.
Stay safe. Stay sane.