The jazz musician who tried to pick a fight with The Beatles: “What is he, a fucking clarinettist?”
Not everything that The Beatles did was meant to be the most mind-blowing fucking piece of music to ever hit the airwaves.
They had the potential to make something fantastic, but there was nothing wrong with them making pop tunes in their early days, which made every girl fall in love with them when they came onscreen. But as much as the Fab Four lit up the goddamn charts, that didn’t mean that they didn’t face ridicule from their peers along the way as well.
You have to remember that this was still the era when rock and roll was considered a dangerous force in the music industry. Elvis Presley might look tame by today’s standards, but judging by the treatment that he was getting by the greater music press, most people would have thought that he was nothing but a hooligan looking to terrorise the youth with his salacious dance moves. But when The Beatles came onscreen on The Ed Sullivan Show, things felt a bit safer.
All of them were mild-mannered English kids in America’s eyes, and since all of their songs were about puppy love in the beginning, it was easy for them to get the nodding approval of grandparents when they heard tunes like ‘Yesterday’ on the radio. If four cheeky lads from Liverpool could become the biggest band in the world playing mindless pop tunes, that wasn’t exactly going to endear them to the crowd that was looking for more sophisticated music whenever they turned on the radio.
Even when they were playing in Liverpool, Paul McCartney remembered getting a few notes from people when they started playing Everly Brothers tunes. People wanted to hear either blues or jazz at that point, and no matter how hard they tried, they weren’t suddenly going to start poring over music theory until they could hang with people like John Coltrane. But for all of the happy-go-lucky charm they had, there was a small petty feud that arose when Benny Goodman first saw them.
Compared to the Fabs, Goodman came from a totally different world. His ‘King of Swing’ title wasn’t made by accident, and whenever one of his big bands came through town, there was always going to be a little bit of a rub between those looking to hear a band playing off each other and hearing a bunch of screaming girls all but drown out the music whenever The Beatles played.
As Macca remembers, Goodman’s less-than-stellar comments towards his group led to him trading some playful jabs back, saying, “I don’t want to be the old fuddy-duddy who says ‘Ooh, music was better in our day’. I don’t think that. They were always trying to get us to say Benny Goodman was terrible. And he was! Ha! Cos he started slagging us off, so we’d say ‘Well, he’s not so good. What is he, a fucking clarinettist?’”
If anything, Goodman slagging them off probably did McCartney a favour in the long run. Even if he didn’t understand where some of the new kids were coming from when he heard them on the radio, he knew it was best to give them a chance and see what the next generation can bring to music rather than not giving them the time of day, even talking about how he loved modern acts like Christine and the Queens and Kendrick Lamar.
Because even after all those years removed from being a nobody, McCartney never forgot the importance of people trying to make for themselves in music. Every art form only lasts by those who will carry it on, and as far as McCartney was concerned, who was he to say to silence voices that demanded to be heard?
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.