MY FIRST BEATLES RECORD: AN EARLY BASS PLAYING IMPRINTING
I saw my first Beatles record on a "Three Wise Men day", thanks to a little girl, some months older than myself, who happened to be my own cousin and was, like millions of girls of all ages all around the world, insanely in love with Paul at that time, If that was possible, given her age. I remember I began joking about it, but the moment she showed me one of her Epiphany's day presents, that cool japanese garden EP cover from the photo session they held when they were in Tokyo for their Budokan Hall concerts, with Ringo on the left, sitting in lotus position on a stone pedestal, George with what seems to be his SG Standard & John and Paul both with their colourful sunburst Epiphone Casino & Hofner 500-1 respectively, all except George wearing dark sunglasses & she played the record repeatedly for me, I was caught right away & it was forever.
Here in Spain that was the ELEANOR RIGBY, GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE, DR ROBERT & I WANT TO TELL YOU EP cover. (In the UK that record cover was the one for NOWHERE MAN, DRIVE MY CAR, MICHELLE & YOU WON'T SEE ME EP). All four tracks made a great impression on me, although not so much ELEANOR RIGBY, which seemed "the thing" with its impressive string arrangement, as the other three, mostly DR ROBERT (One of my all time favorites in spite of its detractors) with Lennon's magic voice and its fine and sharp guitars, GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE with the also great vocal part from Paul and its strong brass score & I WANT TO TELL YOU with its enigmatic guitar riff, but all of them for their superb bass parts.
Had it been the british EP the one to come first into my hands it would not have made any difference because all four tracks too have really great bass parts. It's very clear now that The Beatles were at their sweetest moment from RUBBER SOUL to SGT. PEPPER'S albums & that McCartney's bass Playing was just swell.
It was my father who bought for me my first Beatles record a couple of days later, PAPERBACK WRITER/RAIN single. I was then on my early teens & even more that the above mentioned record, it reached my tender soul at once. It was the finest & most potent pop record I'd ever come across &, of course, talking about bass playing, I just thought (I still do now) that RAIN, was simply one of the greatest tracks ever & its bass track had a lot to do with it, Wouldn't you all agree with that?
Maybe the records had been released about a couple of years before and I already knew, although very vaguely, some of their first hits such as PLEASE PLEASE ME, I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND, SHE LOVES YOU & maybe some more, but they were very rarely played on Franco's ultra fascist Radio Nacional & I was then perhaps too busy running around & jumping like a crazy cat. So, for me, those first two records through my father's huge compact Telefunken radio and record player, where you could pile a little lot of 45's, were the very beginning of it all.
Although I would later play mostly lead guitar, I got first imprinted with bass playing, so I kept after Paul like a little duck after an alien mother and whenever I could I borrowed a bass for a while to play a few songs like HELP, THE NIGHT BEFORE, TELL ME WHY, I'M HAPPY JUST TO DANCE WITH YOU & others, just to show off a little, you know.
Of course, I had already begun collecting everything I could find, old or new & always, each one of the records (for me it was all just EP's & singles then ;albums, books and the rest came only later) was a very pleasing surprise. When I bought a new single, let's say PENNY LANE /STRAWBERRY FIELDS, HELLO GOODBYE /I AM THE WALRUS or any of those I hadn't known before (each & every one of them) with my little money assignment, it was as if I was actually buying some delightful chocolate boxes, only these could last for ages. That was simply the greatest time in my life & it plunged me with a vice into english language and also guitar playing when I was hardly beginning to unveil my teens.
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