The Beatles' Raw Power

Good morning, dear friends of Hive. I hope you are all well. Please accept my warmest and most fraternal greetings, which I also extend to the wonderful project at https://scrobble.life/. Welcome to my review.

Today I bring you another one of those songs that, due to the era and historical moment of The Beatles, doesn't quite fit in. In fact, many music critics agree that the album "Beatles For Sale" is atypical. If we look at their previous album, "A Hard Day's Night," The Beatles had already composed all their original songs. However, a few months later they released this LP with several covers of other artists' songs. This was common practice in their early days, but they resumed that approach on this LP, and the musical strategy worked out magnificently.

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An example of this is the song I'm sharing with you today, titled "Rock and Roll Music," which doesn't belong to the Lennon-McCartney duo, but is a version or cover of the original 1957 song by Charles Edward Anderson Berry, better known as Chuck Berry. As I've mentioned in other reviews of The Beatles, they had several idols, including this American, Berry.

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John Lennon once said in the 1970s that "Rock and Roll Music" was a tribute to Berry, and I believe it is, because besides this song, they sang or covered several Chuck Berry songs, among the most notable being the one I'm mentioning today, and others like "Johnny B. Goode," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Roll Over Beethoven," and many more. Since "Rock and Roll Music" was a song they were very familiar with even before Beatlemania began, they performed it at almost all their live shows, television appearances, and radio shows, including their concert at the Budokan in Japan, which was almost one of their last concerts, in mid-1966. A few weeks later, they performed in San Francisco at Candlestick Park, which was indeed their last major concert, and of course, they also performed it there as the opening act. In fact, some of the scenes in this video show The Beatles performing the song at the Budokan Martial Arts Arena in 1966.

The Beatles' version is included on the LP "Beatles For Sale" and is the fourth track on that album. Recorded in mid-October 1964 at EMI Studios in London, it embodies the original and timeless rock and roll of the 1950s. Produced by George Martin for the Parlophone label, it was released in North America by Capitol Records on an album titled "Beatles '65." Then in 1976, a compilation album titled "Rock and Roll Music" was released, which included all those upbeat tracks in that style on a single disc (remember that by 1976, the group known as the Beatles no longer existed). This song was also released as a single in some countries, with "No Replay" on the B-side, another track from the LP "Beatles For Sale."

In the mid-1970s, the Californian group "Beach Boys" recorded their own version of this Berry song, with a more beachy, surfer vibe. I also think their version is great.

The story goes that Berry had a sister who loved classical music, in contrast to Chuck, who preferred popular music, and specifically rock and roll. It makes me chuckle when the last lines of the song say, "I ain't interested in hearing you play the tango, I ain't in the mood to hear the mambo. It's too early for the conga, so keep playing this piano so I can hear some of that rock and roll music."

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In this wonderful version, we can appreciate John on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Paul on bass, George on lead guitar, Ringo on drums, and George Martin on piano. Well, my dear friends, this is the end of this review. Made with much love for all of you, we'll see each other, read each other, and comment again soon... Blessings!