CTP (S3ENovSpecial4) From Liverpool Streets To Beatles Secrets With Historian David Bedford

CTP (S3ENovSpecial4) From Liverpool Streets To Beatles Secrets With Historian David Bedford 
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond 
We trace Liverpool roots, chronic illness, and a serendipitous gift from Yoko Ono that set David Bedford on a path to uncover Beatles truths. From Brian Epstein’s role to skiffle’s impact, we challenge myths with local detail and studio history.
• life near Penny Lane and the Dingle shaping perspective
• misdiagnosis and fibromyalgia pushing a career pivot
• Yoko Ono’s donation to Dovedale School opening doors
• Brian Epstein’s influence and the real breakup dynamics
• George Martin, ADT, and four-track innovation
• the Quarrymen today and living Beatles history
• skiffle, Lonnie Donegan, and country roots in Beatle music
• favorite songs, lyrical origins, and Liverpool landmarks
• reflections on honesty in art and technology
Please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the ChristiTutionalist movement https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP   

A Short Story: A Lasting Legacy? book Trailer

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 2:06 Growing Up In Liverpool’s Beatles Orbit
• 5:45 Illness, Faith, And A New Path
• 12:48 Yoko Ono, Brian Epstein, And The Breakup
• 19:21 Favorite Songs And George Martin’s Role
• 23:11 Tribute Bands And Living The Legacy
• 27:11 Four Tracks, Big Ideas, And Studio Innovation
• 33:01 Skiffle Roots And Country’s Hidden Influence
• 43:56 Websites, Thanks, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello, welcome to another episode of Institutionals Podcast. I am your host, Joseph and Blender. That's L-E-N-A-R-T at the front. Thank you for tuning in. As Brandon used to say on his show. Let's get on with the show. Me too. Hello everyone. Welcome to another Christitutionalist podcast. Welcome me. Welcoming a hunt. This happens a lot. I hit recording the brain in the mouth. Don't know, not welcoming me. I am welcoming to the show today. David Bedford, all the way over across the pond in England, a world-renowned Beatles historian, author, and filmmaker. And I tried to get him for marches, music weeks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11

But he's busy. It's now September. He's finally available, thankfully, to talk to. Who knows? We got the same, we got the same year.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

That's not bad.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

Yeah, right. In a better light than never, as they say.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Yeah, and I'll try to.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

And it's been a holiday's night.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

So I'll perfect. You lead me into, I was just about to say, I'll try to avoid the obvious. Did you just come in from the strawberry fields? And how is your a day in the life going, Huns?

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Nah, no. Well, in my life, I've had so many of these things. We could go all day on this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56

Yes, that's both figurative and literal. I mean, he.

SPEAKER_00: 2:03

Well, I'm just making a life in the day. How's that?

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

Yeah. So indeed, first, how are things across the pond? And by that, for US listeners, I don't mean across the river in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I mean over in Liverpool, England. Not Kidney Pool. That's the next town over.

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

It's it's all good. It's all good. Um, and I've spent the last 36 years living just off Penny Lane. Yeah. Literally, I am I'm within half a mile of Penny Lane. And that's where I've lived for over 30 years. So that's good. The sky is blue. Blue suburban skies in Penny Lane. What more could you want?

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

Yeah, right. You either had to either live near Penny Lane or Abbey Road, right?

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

And Abbey Road's 200 miles away, so I'll I'll stick with Penny Lane.

SPEAKER_01: 2:56

Okay. So let's back this uh garbage truck up. Beep, beep, beep. Where were you born and raised? We know the where you are now, but you know, the down and dirty, nitty gritty of indeed what got you to where you are now, or how much time did he spend in prison for what?

SPEAKER_00: 3:24

Inconclusive. That's what they said of the photographs. Inconclusive. So that's good with uh no, but my my life started out. Um, funny enough with you being um Christitutionalist. My father was a vicar in the Church of England, so I've grown up in the church, and what brought my dad to Liverpool was when he became a vicar, and so the parish he became vicar of was St. Philemon with St. Silas, which is in the Dingle in Liverpool, and the Dingle is where Ringo Starr is from.

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

Another nice connection, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 4:04

So literally the because we had the house came um with the the vicarage with with the job, so as you walked out of my back gate, you turned right 10 yards. That was Madrin Street where Ringo Starr was born.

SPEAKER_01: 4:18

So almost literally, you were pre-ordained to be a Beatles. Say it's story.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

I lived in the Dingle till I was 24. I actually went to the school that Ringo had been to, St. Silas. So I but I I lived all around there till I was 24 years old. Um by which time I've been married nearly two years, and my wife and I, we were just looking somewhere to move to to bigger house to start a family. And not by well, depends what you mean by by design, but um the house we ended up with is literally just off Penny Lane. So, yeah, last 36 years, that's that's where we've been. We got three daughters born in the same hospital that John Lennon was born in.

SPEAKER_01: 5:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

They all attended Dovedale School, which is where both John Lennon and George Harrison attended.

SPEAKER_01: 5:09

You couldn't possibly plan that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:15

Exactly. I gave up I gave up planning my life a long, long time ago. I would have made an absolute mess of well, more of a mess than it is. Um yeah, so I I stopped planning my life a long, long time ago.

SPEAKER_01: 5:26

So you weren't born in Liverpool though. Where were you born?

SPEAKER_00: 5:30

Uh it's a place called Guildford in Surrey, near London. Um, but I've been in Liverpool.

SPEAKER_01: 5:35

Oh, I'm I'm sorry to hear that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

Yeah, no, something has to be. But we moved to Liverpool when I was four years old. So I've got no memory of anywhere else. This is all that I know, is is Liverpool. So it's it's always been my city and never left.

SPEAKER_01: 5:53

So indeed, the obvious next question is how did God literally open the skies and say, You were gonna be a Beatles historian, or how did that come about?

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

Well, this is where I say you you couldn't have planned any of this, and it's um it's funny, you know where where Paul writes about having a thorn in his flesh and he prayed for it to be taken away, and it and God said, No, my strength's all you need. So a similar thing happened to me. So 25 years ago, I'd left school at 18, went to work for an insurance company, um, had a really good job, and then um started feeling ill at the end of 1998. They then decided I had rheumatoid arthritis, started with all kinds of medication, and said at this rate, by the age of 40, maybe 50, you'll be in a wheelchair. So I was uh 35 at the time. Um so I I was in such a bad way physically that my doctor signed me off work for a month and I never went back to work. And so that was definitely not in my plan was to uh be medically retired at 35. Wife, three young children, mortgage. Uh now, thankfully, because I worked for an insurance company, my salary, my job wasn't insured. So they were able to give me uh ill health pension. So with suddenly thinking at 35, what am I gonna do? And they said you'll not be able to do a full-time job again.

unknown: 7:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 7:36

Um Yeah, not to interrupt, but yeah, I I I'm on disability, have been since 2004 myself, due to a myriad of health issues. You mentioned RA, familiar with it, father side of the family, my grandmother had it, indeed, was uh she didn't she got around on crutches though, but yeah, but yeah, so sadly familiar.

SPEAKER_00: 8:07

But the interesting thing was that my doctor, um, my rheumatologist was telling me, Oh, you're so much better. And I said, uh, no, I'm not. And he said, Oh, yes, you are. Said, No, I'm not. Said, I'm that bad, I can't sleep, I'm in pain. My doctor signed me off work and he said, You should get back to work. You're a young man with a family, you should be ashamed. I went, I went to see my my GP and he said, I'm sending you for another uh a second opinion. Saw this other professor, different hospital, and he said, You've not got rheumatoid arthritis, you've got none of the symptoms of it. Eventually, it took another year. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

SPEAKER_01: 9:49

One of my many lists of problems, yeah, once again, sadly familiar.

SPEAKER_00: 9:58

Yeah, yeah, and and there's and it's hard to find other guys who've got it because it things less than one in ten fibrosufferers are male.

SPEAKER_01: 10:07

Yeah, and and and I I understand your predicament. Like, I'm sure your feeling was I would like to go back to that. Was my position. I uh I don't want to be out of work, I'm not ready to retire uh in 2004. I I wasn't 35, but still I I I was planning on working another 20 years. My 401k was nowhere near built up enough to handle transitioning to a retirement at the age I did, and like you, I what am I gonna do? And exactly I I'd always written my whole life, so okay, well, I I guess God is opening that door for me to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 11:01

Uh I've never written. I've never been a writer. Um, I did a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 11:07

I just let alone a paperback writer, but I'm exactly that I'm very good.

SPEAKER_00: 11:13

Saw what you did there.

unknown: 11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:16

No, I'd done a bit of um, I did a little school magazine when I was at school, and I would put together our like little church, parish magazine, but I'd never been a writer, anything like that. And again, this is where all the timings come together in a way that could never have worked out myself. So the very month that I was signed off work, we were doing some fundraising for the local school, Dovedale School, uh, where my kids were. And the person who responded to our fundraiser was Yoko Bono. And Yoko got in touch and said, John loved his time at Dovedale. I'd love to support what you're doing. How much do you need? And we needed somewhere around£27,000. Um, and she said, Well, I'll give you£30,000 to everything you need to do, have a bit of extra money in the pot, um, and then she made several visits to the school to meet with the with the pupils. Um, I met her on a subsequent trip and actually met her in the house John Lennon grew up in, uh, Mendip's. Uh, met her in there, and we took some of the children from the school there, and she was wonderful with the children. But with this this moment in June 2000 of me being signed off work, Yoko giving the money. I then met a former pupil from Dovedale who was in the year between John Lennon and George Harrison. I knew them both. And he was um writing some of his story memories for a Beatles magazine. So I was chatting with him and he said, I've got this, but I can't use email because of course we're going back 25 years, it was dial up internet, or remember all that kind of funny noises and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

I'm a former IT guy, so yeah, I've I've been online since the huge computer dial up 300 broad days online before there was such a thing as the internet, so yes, I know what you mean. Exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

Yeah, so I was doing all that with work already, so I knew how to do all that. So I said to him, like, give me your stuff, I'll email it to the editor. So I emailed it and I said to the editor, said, By the way, Yoko's just given us this money. Um, would you be interested in the story? And he said, Yeah. So I wrote my very first article, which was all about Yoko giving the money. And I said to the guy at the editor and said, Look, is anybody covering Beatles events in Liverpool? Do you want me to do some stuff? He said, We'd love you to, and that's how it started. So it was that that perfect coming together, totally unplanned from my part.

SPEAKER_01: 14:04

God saw a door closed, he opened the window, and you thought enough to climb through it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 14:14

And so it just became in a way, because my doctor was brilliant, he he just encouraged me. Um best advice he gave me was right, you've now got this diagnosis, it's chronic condition, chronic pain 24-7, the rest of your life. We don't know what causes it, so we can't cure it. We can only treat some symptoms. You've now got to manage your life around this. Obviously, physically, I'd gone from you know being very active, playing various sports, running around with the kids and stuff to not being able to walk 50 yards without severe pain. And he said to me, right, one ways of looking at it. You could sit at home, be in pain, feel sorry for yourself, and that just become your life. Or if you find something to occupy your brain, your brain cannot be thinking of the pain at the same time, it's thinking of other things. Distraction. Correct. Best advice I ever got. Um always thankful to use the one.

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

Keep your brain busy and it helps the body health, or it may not improve it, but as you don't have to it it helps distract from it. Preoccupy yourself with that, so you're kind of then ignoring the pain receptor signals that are indeed still firing in the head. But now you mentioned Yoko, so yeah, gotta ask the question. Did Yoko break up the Beatles?

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

No.

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

No, not so the answer I expected, but I gotta ask. I'm you know, I'm sure you've been asked a million times, right?

SPEAKER_00: 16:04

Yeah, and I'd actually say I think she maybe prolonged the Beatles for longer than they would have done otherwise because John was so obsessed with it. If they the others are stuck so that Yoko can't come into the studio, can't come in with what we're doing, John would have said fine, I quit. He he would have stopped. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

That that is the best rebuttal to that that I've heard today. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02: 16:35

My pleasure, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01: 16:37

Because that is, of course, uh the oh, I'm not myth isn't the word I want, but the the preferred narrative, the accepted reality is oh, she did it, right? No, you everybody wants a villain.

SPEAKER_00: 17:42

Now and she was the perfect one for it, wasn't she?

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Yeah, in some respects, I'm sure. Yeah, that's you know, I to a lot of people, and the way the press treated her, they kind of fed that villain narrative. She they made her always look standoffish and full of hubris and wanting John only for herself. And so we didn't all, especially outside of England, get a real although they moved to New York later, right? Uh, we didn't really get a good, clear, full, honest picture.

SPEAKER_00: 18:32

Exactly right. Yeah. Now what broke up the Beatles was it began when Brian Epstein died. August 1967. Brian was the glue that held them together, he was the only manager they'd ever have. He was the guy they trusted. He'd taken them from you know Liverpool. He was the only guy who could have got them out of Liverpool. You know, if there wasn't a Brian Epstein there, they never would have made it. He guided them, he did everything, and he's the only one that they trusted. Once Brian was gone, and they're not touring anymore, they started going off and doing solo projects. And in a way, Paul is the one mostly who's trying to keep them together to find the projects and keep them going on stuff, so that changes then the balance, and the it's like the power shift from John to Paul. Paul's not just a musician now, he's he's part manager, part musical director, and he's doing his best to keep them together and coming up with new ideas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:34

Well, that's always been the norm before them, during them, and after them. Um that groups don't last. There's always personality issues. You could be the best friends in the world and get on each other's nerves still. Of course you can.

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

It's like family. Look what happens to brothers. No, think of Don and Phil, who wouldn't speak for years and years. Now look at Oasis back on the road because Liam and Noel didn't speak for years and years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:06

Brothers in Banjo. Eventually, groups, if they're not together as long as the Beatles were to have built up some reserves, if they do break up early in the process, they find, oh shit, we're out of money. We gotta go back on tour.

SPEAKER_00: 20:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 20:25

But I mean, what the stones? Uh they keep going other longevity groups. I mean the Who, I guess. Uh but there are exceptions to the rule for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 20:42

Very much, very much.

SPEAKER_01: 20:45

So I know it's like asking who's your favorite kid? What's your favorite Beatle tune?

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

Uh, favorite Beatles. Oh, and it changes a lot of the time, but I still think a day in the life is is the absolute masterpiece. Uh holds up the best. It's just just to the genius of the two of them being able to take fragments of different songs and put them together and create that with the with the other genius of George Martin in there, who no, he was the fifth beatle, he was the extra musician in the band. You know, he he was that important to them. To be able to come up with something like that. I think I read a quote somewhere that said uh from Freddie Mercury saying you we would not have got Bohemian Rhapsody if we didn't have a day in the life.

SPEAKER_01: 21:36

I've heard that quote before, yes, absolutely. I mean, we wouldn't have a lot of other music if not for the Beatles blazing entrail. Uh, they right now for me, I have to say because my sister was named after the song, not Eleanor, not Pepper, Michelle.

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

Michelle, yeah, a great, great song. And well, I've always enjoyed trying to find where the songs came from, you know, and how they put them together. Um, which is why I love the song of Penny Lane, because I was able to prove that John Lennon wrote a verse in Penny Lane, it's not all Paul's song. There's a song about the behind the shelter in the middle of the ground about the pretty nurse in turning poppies from a trait. Though she feels as if she's in the place she is anyway. Well, the guy I was talking about before, who was writing about his story around Penny Lane and Dove Down. He told me who the pretty nurse was. Because he was stood next to her when John Lennon and his best mate Pete Shotten came and spoke to her. And the girl's name was Beth Davidson. She was at a nurse cadet, about 14 years old, selling poppies for Remembrance Day. And John and Pete Shotten go and talk to them. And the reason she's in the song is because Beth was the girlfriend of Pete Shotten and went on to marry Pete Shotten. So John Lennon put his best friend's wife in a Beatles song and no D knew.

SPEAKER_01: 23:14

Well, I think I I've got a book called How to Write a Book and Get It Published, Hints Tips and Techniques. The saying goes back write about what you know. You fictionalize things, or you don't tell the whole tale. People don't need to necessarily, or like the old dragnet show, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Yes, exactly. But indeed, write about what you know, write about what you encounter, fictionalize it, fantasize it. Even a fantasy writer generally will take a scene from somewhere in reality, and you you have right so that like fictionalizing London then as a fantasy, you change the names of things, you change slightly definitions of buildings, but in order to keep it straight in your own brain, you need some root in reality to create that, yes?

SPEAKER_00: 24:25

Yeah, and that that's why Penny Lane was so good, because everybody was analysing every lyric that they wrote. So they thought if we write about our childhood in Liverpool, nobody's gonna be able to work it out. So they had all those things because they were all real places, it was all a very, very important place to them, but they could keep something for themselves which nobody else could interpret, and so nobody's fully understood it until I was able to piece together the geography, the history, and all these elements together to put it on the city. Connecting all the dots, yes, yeah, and that's what I love to do. That that that's the fun thing, fun part of what I get to do. So, from what started is in a way, it was almost therapy, it was something for me to do, having been signed off work, and suddenly there I was in Liverpool, and I just started then meeting people connected to the story of the Beatles and interviewing them, um, and coming back to how we started of why I'm so busy. So um just published my ninth book connected to the Beatles, and this weekend I'd been in Germany because John Lennon's first group, The Quarrymen, I performed with two of the surviving members of the Quarrymen. I I've I'd gone from I'd first met them over 20 years ago, um I got them to come and play Dovedale School, and because a couple of the guys live locally, we just got to know each other over the years. Well, the last two and a half years, I've been performing with the quarrymen, and it's just it's it's it's so much fun, it is so much fun. So, as well as you know, getting to do do all these books, you know, two documentary films. We've got um a player being a historian for that's opening up in Liverpool in a couple of weeks' time, playing with the quarrymen and say doing all these things. If I'd have stayed in work and I hadn't fallen ill, I never would have done any of these things.

SPEAKER_01: 26:35

Right. Oh, I think God knew in your soul you were an investigative journalist, and therefore that's why this door, the door, one door was closed so that window could open for you to go through. Absolutely. And I like I also like love the rat pack. And in 2006, when I was in Vegas, thankfully, they used to play at the Sahara where the rat pack used to play, but they were at the Union Casino when I was there in 2006, and thank goodness I got the chance to see the rat pack is back crew. And oh my the oh, it's not like impersonators, it's like, oh my god, I'm seeing Joey Business Bishop, oh my god, that's Dean Martin. It's not which is leading to the question: do you have, do you know, a favorite Beatles cover band or tribute band that tours about?

SPEAKER_00: 27:41

Um, there are so many of them. Um there would be yeah, that there's there's two really good ones um over in America. The best ones have been uh the Fab Fo FAUX um and Rain. Two of them who performed um on on Broadway, amongst other places. So they've been they've been going for years and years. I go over to I've been going to New Jersey to a fest for Beatles fans. So I mean I've done that maybe 10 times over the last 15 years, and there's a band there called Liverpool who are just the most phenomenal musicians. They can play any Beatles song absolutely brilliant. So I I love them as well. Over here we've got the bootleg Beatles in Liverpool, we've got the Mersey Beatles and the Cavan Beatles from Liverpool who are all superb, absolutely superb.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

And do they indeed do themselves up to look as best they can like them?

SPEAKER_00: 28:43

Yeah, yeah. A great one we went to, I think was it last year or the year before? And yeah, the bootlegged Beatles, so they've been together for about 25 years, and they performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonica Orchestra, and they did um the whole of I think it was the whole of Let It Be and Abbey Road, everything.

SPEAKER_01: 29:08

Oh my goodness, it it was just it was like they were all still here, yeah. Some some of them are gone and performing together. It was as if it was a real Beatles reunion tour.

SPEAKER_00: 29:23

Well, it is, and for me, who of course was too young to have seen them because I was only born in 1965, so I never got to see anything.

SPEAKER_01: 29:30

Oh, I'm glad you said that because uh that reminds me now. I was gonna mention, and I forgot till you said being born, I was born in '62. And indeed, mom dragged me to Detroit Airport when the Beatles flew in.

SPEAKER_00: 29:49

Oh, cool. There you go.

SPEAKER_01: 29:51

So, of course, I couldn't remember it, but I know I was there.

SPEAKER_00: 29:56

You were there, yeah. I I I didn't get any of that, so I have to live it vicariously. Um, and seeing trivia bands, but having the fun then of playing with the quarry men, um, who were John's first group, and you know, and because I've got to know them so well, we we just tell stories of what it was like, and you think, yeah, it's just amazing. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 30:23

I was gonna joke, this is all an act. We know you don't really like the Beagles. Who is your really who really is your favorite band? So who is your second favorite band? Or um trying to throw your curve there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:41

No, it comes out, it's either it's either the Eagles or Bruce Springsteen. They're probably the the two that I listen to the most, but there's a bit of the Beatles and the Eagles. Oh, yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, and and and from Bruce as well. Absolutely, no doubt. But um, but probably my fab four when I was growing up were a band called Status Quo. Now, they've never really made it in the States over here.

SPEAKER_01: 31:10

That's why I'm saying who?

SPEAKER_00: 31:12

Yeah, no, no, not the who. No, I've seen the who. No, no, I like them as well. No, but so Status Quo with were the the band that I grew up watching, uh, and love it.

SPEAKER_01: 31:24

And yeah, I love the name, that's a good name.

SPEAKER_00: 31:28

Yeah, well, it keeps things a nice and even keel, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

So things and and that's really I mean, there's so many groups over so much time going back to when recording. Recordings were first invented that we could sing onto a recording and someone could play it back. That it gets harder and harder. It's like going through the phone book. John Public Eleanor Blitzkrieg is our band name, right? It's hard to come up with something more unique now.

SPEAKER_00: 32:06

It is, it is. And because so many people can like record in the bedroom, because technology has done that. If you go back and just think of the quality of the recordings that the Beatles did, and this way you give credit to George Martin overall, but then the engineers who work with them, when you're working with just four tracks, that's all you've got. And the fact you can go back and digitally remaster them shows how good the original recordings were, and how good the four Beatles were as musicians.

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

Yeah.

unknown: 32:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:45

If we had today, back in the late 70s, early 80s, my dad had a polka band. They had th a three-record deal. So I wrote not polka music, but I wrote and recorded country pop rock music. But indeed, yeah, I was recording on a four-track. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, not that easy. Then came the eight-tracks, and no, we're not talking about the eight-track player in your college. What do you mean? Yeah. If if we had today where anyone can record directly multiple tracks, a hundred tracks, if you wanted, into your laptop and release direct to the internet singles at 99 cents, I'd still be writing and recording music rather than writing and publishing books.

SPEAKER_00: 33:43

Yeah, exactly. It's such a different world. And so that that gives you a great appreciation for what these engineers were doing. Because times you know, the Beatles would go into a studio and say, We want this. And they say, That doesn't exist. Yes, but we want it. So one of the guys, uh, Ken Townsend, right, he was there from the first audition in June 62 and was with the Beatles for many, many years. He invented things called ADT, the automatic double tracking. So instead of having to record your voice twice, he just he invented that.

unknown: 34:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:19

So the Beatles could use it.

SPEAKER_01: 34:21

There were a lot of people trying to run double four tracks and sync them, which was uh a miraculous test. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00: 34:31

Yeah, and that's it. They had to come up with these ideas and inventions to try and keep pace because the Beatles were never satisfied with oh, we found our sound, like like the Stones did. We we like the blues and R and B, we'll stick with that. No, they did Namason.

SPEAKER_01: 34:48

Well, except for the disco area and the Stones released a couple disco songs, but that's let's not go there with that.

SPEAKER_00: 34:59

We'll just not mention that.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

Oh, I lost my chain of thought.

SPEAKER_00: 35:04

Now I was gonna think if every Beatles album was an evolution on the previous one, it was something new. And they weren't afraid to try something different. They were never satisfied with oh, this is good enough. We can earn our money, and we'll just we'll just churn out these songs and stuff. Now, let's push the boundaries, let's try something different. With the fans, something different.

SPEAKER_01: 35:29

Yeah, I thought of what it was came back in my brain. Thank you for delivering that back. Rush, the Canadian rock, right? Spirit of radio, all this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted. It's really just a question of your honesty. Yeah, your honesty. It's the same now with AI and book writing. You can cheat, but you're being dishonest. Are you an honest musician or a cheater? Are you an honest author, writer, or are you a cheater?

SPEAKER_00: 36:09

Exactly. No, uh this whole thing of put something into AI and it'll write a book for you. No, I I learned the hard way. Um, because I know I didn't even I had no book deal. I was just doing these interviews because it was something to do. And it's funny enough, the reason I ended up with all these notes was one of the problems with fibromyalgia is short-term memory loss. And so I'd start reading a book. I get 10 pages in and forgotten what I've just read. So I just started making notes and slipping them into the books. So it wasn't till I'd been.

SPEAKER_01: 36:47

Another reason why you want, and I just got the proof of my eighth book, Christitutional's Politics 3, third in the series based on the podcast. You want a physical book, so you could do that. You can't do that in an e-book.

SPEAKER_00: 37:05

Exactly right, and that's why you know. I remember when you know the e-books came out and said this will be the death of a book.

SPEAKER_01: 37:12

What do you do when the power goes out?

SPEAKER_00: 37:15

Exactly right. And the and the children, they still want a book, and adults still want to hold a book. I've got a Kindle, it's great for you know skimming through stuff, or if I'm on holiday. But I've got a library full of books.

SPEAKER_01: 37:29

Oh, it can be convenient, but yeah, but something you want preserved, you need the physical book. And not replacement. Go back to the the cheating aspect, then there's the other. The other side of that coin is Boston, who oh, we were, you know, they had they used organs but refused to use synthesizers, and they do various tricks to make the organs sound like a synthesizer. Well, why not just use the yeah? I mean, you're being too there. Oh, thank you. That's the right word. Yes, they are the antithesis of what Rush was singing about there, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 38:20

Absolutely, definitely, because the the Beatles were pushing boundaries with technology, but it didn't replace they were still three guitars and drums, but they were adding in, you know, a mood synthesizer, all these uh Indian instruments, they were things that would complement and add to attract to experiment with to make it sound different. But you look at the last live performance on the rooftop, it's still three get three guitars and drums, plus they got Billy Preston on the organ.

SPEAKER_01: 38:51

Yeah, I I that's one of the things I love most about the Beatles, and and kind of maybe there might not be a manheim steamroller without a Beatles, right? A willingness to bring in all kinds of instruments others may never have even heard of.

SPEAKER_00: 39:11

Exactly, exactly right. And and they would they were saying, you know, don't just sit back and accept what you've got. But that's one thing I I love, particularly with all the stuff with the quarrymen, is we performed the songs that John and the Quarrymen were performing back in 56 to 58. So a lot of it is the skiffle music. And there's a guy, Lonnie Donegan. Have you heard of Lonnie Donegan?

SPEAKER_01: 39:35

No.

SPEAKER_00: 39:36

Okay, so George Harrison said no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. And he's right. Lonnie Donegan's the guy who changed everything in this country when it came to music because he invented this craze called skiffle. And it was so simple, it was all based on um old American country, uh, American folk and blues songs, really simple stuff. Um, he loved um Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, people like that. And he was saying, learn three chords, there's a hundred songs you can play, make your own instruments, start a group, and thousands of groups started in the 50s because of Lonnie Donegan and Skiffle. And if it wasn't for him, nobody had the concept of forming a group and going out to buy an instrument. That didn't happen. You had to go to through proper music tuition, learn to read the dots. That was the only way you got into musicianship as a career. But Donnegan comes along and says, Have some fun, make your instruments. You don't need a lot of skill, just go and enjoy yourself. That's how John Paul and George and most of the big musicians, like um Jagger and Richards, um, like the guy Jimmy Page, no, people like that, they all started through Skiffle.

SPEAKER_01: 41:04

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the three chords thing. It brings to mind to me the old Cheech and song, Cheech and Chong joke song, Earache My Eye, right? I only know three chords. Well, that's actually the truth. I mean, you go through the entire Eagles to throw back to them, uh, the their first best of record, I had the songbook for that. And indeed, I could play the songs because they mostly were the same chords. But depending on how you arrange them, and it's not what you have, it's what you do with them, and you because you mentioned country, right? The joke is always oh, rednecks, they don't really know they're all the same chords. But reality is uh research has so shown, scientific studies have shown the biggest hits tend to have the same chords. Exactly right. Is that coincidence?

SPEAKER_00: 42:14

I think that now well now you mentioned country music. So one of the books I've written is called The Country of Liverpool, Nashville of the North, because we had the biggest country western scene here at the same time as beat music was taken off, we had the big biggest one in Europe was here in Liverpool because the roots of Skiffle were in country music and the roots of the Beatles were in country music because what what they all realised was particularly thinking of someone like Hank Williams, you can hear the beginnings of rock and roll already with Hank Williams. Think of the artists who influenced the Beatles. Okay, so Carl Perkins, Rockabilly, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Elvis, all these guys all had their roots in country music. And what these groups who started in Skiffle realized was the same three chords played country songs and then played rock and roll. It's the same three chords, and so Skiffle died out after a couple of years. And so in Liverpool, you were left with you either went down the country route or the beat route, but a lot of the others did a mix of the two. And so country music was at the root of a lot of the Beatles' music, a lot more than people realize, and a lot of gospel led to the country.

SPEAKER_01: 43:39

Absolutely right. Yep, yeah, it was a cold there. Well, we could talk for a week. I think we have a week. I like I think we're 40 minutes in. I like to keep my shows 30, even a little less, because I call it today's Twitter attention span, right? Yeah, everybody just get yeah, give me the sound bite, give me the headline. I don't want details matter, people. You need to dig into things, but the longer it is means less people will tune in. Uh so do you have a website for people to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00: 44:21

I do. It's nice and simple. It is davidabedford.com. Nice and simple. Davidabedford.com.

SPEAKER_01: 44:31

Okay, yep. And that'll be in the notes. And uh I'll I'll put in post put it on the scroll at the bottom of the screen. And uh so I you oh I've if you look at your initials in the mirror, you're bad. Ah bads are good. Yeah, just the idiotic way my O C D A D H D brain works. It's just stupid. D-A-B right in a mirror, B-H. I get it. In case of it, I know you got it, but in case if somebody out there didn't get the possibly my worst of lamest of funds I've ever given.

SPEAKER_00: 45:20

Don't worry, I've given many, many lame puns. I'm known for them.

SPEAKER_01: 45:25

All right, thank you. I don't know when this will air, but of course when it does, I'll be letting you know.

SPEAKER_00: 45:32

Perfect. Joe, thank you so much. This has been great fun. Take care, God bless. And you too, my friend. Take care.

SPEAKER_01: 46:09

We need your help. Thank you for having tuned into another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.