The American popular music business does not
like surprises.
Well maybe I should rephrase that.
Everybody likes surprises, good surprises.
But the fact is that over the course of the
twentieth century and even into the last couple
of decades of this century, the American music
business has tried to control to a certain
extent, of course to promote, even to a certain
extent keep control of the popular music business
so they can predict what is going to happen.
They are not always very successful at it
I should tell you because truth be told it
is very difficult to tell what is going to
be popular especially in popular music because
audiences tend to be quite fickle.
But anyway, that is the way they would have
it.
They like to control popular the world of
music as much as they can.
So when I talk to you today about two of the
biggest acts in the history of twentieth century
popular music, Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
What I want to stress the fact that they really
were in many ways surprises to the American
music business.
In a certain sense, they came out of nowhere.
Let's start with the story of Elvis Presley.
And the year is 1956, that is really the big
year for the rise of Elvis Presley in this
country.
If we go back to the end of the Second World
War and have a look at the way the American
music business was configured at that time.
In the period right after 1945 and leading
up to the sort of break out of rock and roll
in 1955, the American music business was divided
up into what they thought were three categories
of music.
Divided up in very pragmatic kinds of ways
in terms of what they thought the markets
for popular music were in this country.
And so the biggest of those markets is what
we will call the mainstream pop market.
Singers like that would be people like Bing
Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Les Paul and Mary Ford,
singers like that.
And the audience for that was thought to be
middle class, urban and increasingly suburban
white people.
There were two other markets that were thought
of more as niche markets.
There was country and western, which was really
thought of as music for southern whites or
recently relocated southern whites who had
come to urban areas but still wanted music
from their southern culture.
And African Americans who in many cases also
had relocated from rural areas in the south
to urban areas in the north.
These two smaller markets, country and western
and rhythm and blues, the major labels the
big money in music business were really not
so concerned with.
The real money was in mainstream pop.
So it would often happen that a song would
be a hit on the rhythm and blues chart but
never appear on the mainstream pop charts.
Or if it would, it would be covered by an
artist who was already known to people on
the popular music charts.
So for example, coming from country and western,
Bob Wills and his Texas playboys-- how's that
as a name of a group for you, had a big hit
on the country and western charts with New
San Antonio Rose.
But when it became a hit on the pop charts
it was covered by Bing Crosby.
So often times a song could cross over but
not that particular record.
What starts to happen in 1955 is the actual
records themselves start crossing over, mostly
from the R&B charts.
We start to see hits from people in 1955,
top pop hits like Bill Haley and the Comets'
"Rock Around The Clock", "Maybelline" from
Chuck Barry, songs from Fats Domino and Little
Richard and so we begin to see a kind of a
crossover.
Well what happens over the course of the 1950s
is that crossover increases.
By the time we get to 1958 or 1959, over 90
percent of songs that were hits on the R&B
charts were hits on the pop charts.
This idea of controlling the business with
three categories was beginning to fall apart.
And at the center of that falling apart was
a young guy from Tupelo, Mississippi via Memphis,
Tennessee, Elvis Presley, who was originally
signed to a small independent label in Memphis.
Sun Records, recording for Sam Phillips in
1954.
He recorded "That's Alright Mama".
Everybody thinks of that as early Elvis, but
the important thing about Elvis is when he
signed with RCA records.
At the end of 1955, they paid what they thought
was an astronomical fee for Elvis Presley--
$35,000 for Elvis Presley to move to RCA records.
In those days it was like a sports signing
or something.
In those days who would spend that much money
on a crazy, twitchy country singer?
Elvis Presley was that crazy, twitchy country
singer and when RCA got behind him and started
to put him on television, started to put his
records onto wider distribution across the
country, we got a whole series of hits.
"Heartbreak Hotel", "Hound Dog", "Don't Be
Cruel", by the end of the year it was "Love
Me Tender".
What was interesting about Elvis was that
he came in to the pop music world through
the country western door.
He was signed by RCA in Nashville not so much
out of the New York Office.
His first recordings were all done in Nashville.
In fact, Chet Adkins was rhythm guitarist
and sort of session producer on a lot of those
early recordings along with Steve Sholes.
One thing that is surprising about Elvis is
he came into pop from country, and that really
hadn't happened so much before.
The other thing the was surprising about Elvis
is that he started to have hits on all three
charts at the same time in a world that had
been constructed so that you can predict which
records would land in which markets.
Elvis Presley was selling in all those markets
and all the time.
A fantastic thing that absolutely surprised
the popular music business, but look, they
were happy to make the money.
Let me tell you that.
So Elvis Presley was a big surprise.
Now if we fast-forward to the year 1963/1964.
On February the 9th 1964, the Beatles appeared
on the Ed Sullivan show.
Everybody knows about this performance, right.
It was one of those key moments in pop culture;
George Harrison likes to tell the story that
the statistics show that for the moments that
The Beatles were on TV in New York, crime
in New York was actually down.
Even criminals stopped to watch The Beatles
on Ed Sullivan.
But the Beatles were actually quite a surprise
because they came from someplace that a pop
band, especially one that would have sustained
success, had never come from before.
And that was Great Britain.
In the period before 1964, no British star
had really had sustained success in this country.
Now British artists had had hits on the charts;
Lonnie Donegan in 1956 with "Rock Island Line",
the famous Skiffle tune.
Acker Bilk had "Stranger on the Shore."
The Joe Meeks produced Tornadoes's had a hit
with "Telestar", a number one hit actually.
But the biggest name in pop music in the UK
in the career before the Beatles was Cliff
Richard.
And Cliff Richard had a whole series of hits;
I mean dozens of hits in the UK.
None of them could ever get any traction in
this country.
So much so that The Beatles told their manager,
Brian Epstein, we won't play America until
we have got a hit.
Because if Cliff Richard can't get any traction
in the US, we will totally fail and we are
not interested in that.
So Brian Epstein, their manager, starts to
work on getting them these three performances
on the Ed Sullivan show.
The Beatles had in the UK, a hit at number
17 at the end of 1962 with "Love Me Do" and
then three number one hits in a row.
They had "Please Please Me', "From Me to You",
and "She Loves You", none of which could they
get released in this country.
The record company in this country was Capitol
and Capitol was actually a subsidiary of EMI,
the big company The Beatles recorded for in
the UK.
Even Capitol would not release the records
in this country.
Why?
Nobody was interested in a British band.
I am telling you, it would not work.
The Brian Epstein at the end of 1963 gets
these gigs lined up for The Beatles, three
nights on the Ed Sullivan show.
Fantastic.
The Beatles have told them, they are not going
over until they have a hit.
But Capitol records is convinced, they will
release The Beatles' newest single but they
are going to have to put some money behind
it.
They put all kinds of money behind the promotion
of The Beatles.
They start this campaign: The Beatles are
coming, The Beatles are coming!
By the end of December, 1963, "I Wanna Hold
Your Hand" is released in this country.
By the third week in January, it is number
one in the cash box charts, by the first weeks
in February, it is number one on the Billboard
Charts, and by February 9th, 1964, the Beatles
are on Ed Sullivan.
Fantastic.
What a wonderful coincidence of events for
them.
What it did, is it provided a tremendous surprise
because all of a sudden, the American popular
music business was faced with a fad for groups
that were British, with matching haircuts
and suits, and those great British accents.
Right, the British invasion.
And it was a total surprise to them.
And of course The Beatles' sustained success
was a surprise to everybody, but even The
Beatles themselves.
So in many ways, The Beatles came out of nowhere
into this country and surprised the American
popular music business.
Now if we were going to continue this story
of Elvis and The Beatles, we might want to
think about the rise of Michael Jackson in
the 1980s for example.
Even though Michael Jackson had been a child
star in the 1970s and had some pretty good
success with disco music at the end of the
70s, when he brought out that album, 'Thriller',
it was bigger than any record that had thought,
they didn't think it could happen again, this
Beatles/Elvis thing.
But a lot of it was fueled by his videos on
MTV.
Which really had just launched at the beginning
of the 80s and had itself come out of nowhere.
So when we think about these things and the
ability to control the popular music business,
we see that a lot of times, some of the best
things come as surprises as much as the music
business would not like them to be surprises.
And the story of Michael Jackson, well, that
is a story for another day.
Thank you very much.
