“A great boost”: The concert Paul McCartney called the greatest honour of his career
When someone achieves as much as a Beatle had, it’s hard to think of anywhere else to go afterwards. The cheeky lads from Liverpool may have had some fantastic moments together, but when the entire world seemed to devour them whole the minute that they got big, there was no way any of them were hoping to be more famous than they already were. Then again, they were all still musical students, and even Paul McCartney could be wowed when listening to some of the new players on the scene.
But listening back to what was going on in the early 1960s, the Fab Four were always the leaders of the pack in terms of musical innovation. There were a handful of moments where they would make a straight-ahead rock and roll tune, but the majority of the time, they would be throwing in different pieces that didn’t necessarily come from the Chuck Berry songbook, like the jazz chords they would sprinkle into their tunes like ‘Michelle’.
Although the musical theory part of their sound was one thing, they were also interested in seeing where their muse would take them in the studio. With George Martin being their translator half the time, they would always try anything they could to sound different than before, whether that was mic’ing Ringo Starr’s drum kit in a different way or throwing in odd instruments like the sitar or even tape loops on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.
While it was guaranteed that half of the Revolver track listing would never see the stage due to the overdubs, Sgt Peppers was the first time they were free to run wild without having to worry about their concerts. They had become studio technicians, and listening to every song on the record, each one felt like a different experiment, whether that was the jaunty ‘When I’m 64’ or the psychedelic headtrip that went into creating the circus atmosphere on ‘Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite’.
“I put that down as one of the great honours of my career. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t have thought of it as an honour, but to me, it was like a great boost.”
Paul McCartney
But for all of the jovial tunes on the record, it never forgot how to get heavy. George Harrison was already working on some cerebral tunes when he contributed ‘Within You Without You’, and ‘A Day in the Life’ was among the finest collaborations Lennon and McCartney ever made, but the title track was what laid the groundwork for everything, complete with that heavily distorted guitar kicking things into gear at the top of the album.
While everyone in The Beatles considered the record a watershed moment in their history, hearing Jimi Hendrix cover the title track a few days after the album’s release was the first time McCartney felt a sense of pride in the record, saying, “He must have been so into it because normally it might take a day for rehearsal and then you might wonder whether you’d put it in, but he just opened with it. I put that down as one of the great honours of my career. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t have thought of it as an honour, but to me, it was like a great boost.”
At the same time, Hendrix not considering it an honour was simply the way he took most of his own compliments. Despite being one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, he always thought of himself as another decent blues player, which is what made his finest moments even more interesting when he tore through different pieces of rock and roll history like ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘All Along the Watchtower’.
Then again, Hendrix’s performance was further proof that he could have played nearly anything better than his contemporaries. The Beatles were the almighty masters of songwriting, but once one of their tunes fell into the hands of a true musical virtuoso, everything was bound to get kicked up a notch.
