The Beatle-ettes: The all-female garage rockers who responded to the Fab Four
By the mid-1960s, four lads from Liverpool had risen to become defining figures of popular culture across the world. The Beatles were closer to a cultural phenomenon than a pop band, and that fact seemed to go to their heads pretty quickly. The Fab Four seemed to have a lot of demands of their audience in the wake of this success: ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, ‘Ask Me Why’. Yet, for the most part, nobody seemed to be responding to these demands with anything other than screaming adoration.
That was until a group sprang up from New York City, calling themselves The Beatle-ettes. An all-female outfit drawing upon the sounds of garage rock and surf, their sound was a little more rough and ready than their mop-topped counterparts, but their music was based almost entirely on the sounds of Lennon and McCartney, with fairly bizarre results. Very little is known about the group itself, but they managed to release one single and one album in 1964, exercising their right to reply to The Beatles.
The album, entitled Outside Carnegie Hall in reference to the two shows the Beatles played at the iconic New York venue that year, features a deluge of tracks parodying and responding to Beatles hits. ‘Yes! You Can Hold My Hand’, ‘You Could Be My Lover’ and ‘This Girl’ form some of the highlights from the record, but The Beatle-ettes finest hour came with the release of the single ‘Only Seventeen’ that same year.
Drawing upon the inspiration of the cringeworthy opening lyrics of The Beatles’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, the parody outfit belts out “I know I’m only 17, but I’d sure like to be your queen”. The group deliver the line with the kind of garage rock sneer which makes it difficult to tell if they were being serious or whether they are simply lampooning The Beatles.
Of course, the New York garage outfit wasn’t the only group to be parodying The Beatles at that time, with the Barron Knights doing their best to put a humorous spin on the Fab Four back in the UK. After all, the bread and butter of comedy is holding a mirror up to society and pop culture, and there was no topic more universal in the mid-1960s than The Beatles.
Particularly after the band visited the United States for the first time back in 1964, Beatlemania had reached uncontrollable levels. Gigs, press conferences, and public appearances were overshadowed by legions of young girls screaming bloody murder at the sight of four blokes from Merseyside, in a way that made all future musical crazes seem pretty tame. Inevitably, this led more than a few artists, musicians, and establishment figures to take aim at the rise of Beatlemania.
It is not clear what side of the argument The Beatle-ettes landed upon. On one hand, their dedication to The Beatles’ songwriting, but on the other, their garage rock renderings of the band’s classic sound could reflect a kind of satirical sideswipe against McCartney and the gang. ‘Only Seventeen’, in particular, could certainly be viewed as a criticism of The Beatles’ loved-up leanings during those early years.
Whether or not the Beatle-ettes were infatuated with the band or parodying the ridiculousness of Beatlemania, their musical output was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Produced by ‘George Morton’, a pseudonym of ‘Shadow Morton’, who spent much of the 1960s producing hits for another all-female outfit, The Shangri-Las, which certainly explains why these bizarre Beatles parodies were afforded such high-quality productions.
The fate of The Beatle-ettes is unknown; the band seemingly faded into the ether after ‘Only Seventeen’, and their obscure LP release. However, the garage outfit remain worthy of note. Not only do they reflect the colossal presence of Beatlemania in the US during the mid-1960s, but their innovative parody songs predicted the later rise of female punk and riot grrrl outfits recording sneering parodies of mainstream male rock songs.
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