There a many, many bands & artists
that I love. Bands that I’ve seen several times, own all their albums
and know many details about, but the first love was The Beatles. Even
through phases of college radio, indie bands and generally being a club
rat, The Beatles never fell out of favor.
Being the youngest of seven kids I had
the fortune of inheriting records from my older brothers & sisters
and among them was a beat up copy of HELP! I wore this already worn out
LP down to the label. Even today, when listening to “Another Girl” I
still expect to hear the skip that was in the copy I owned. Any time a
Beatles movie found it’s way on TV, I watched. My friends and I
discussed the merits of albums, songs & lyrics. The girls I dated
had to love them as well. Yes Karen, I’m thinking of you today.
I grew up on the Capitol releases in the U.S., of course. It wasn’t for many years until I discovered that these were butchered versions (pun intended) of the U.K.
albums that Capitol chopped up to make more money. There were Japanese
versions of albums, colored vinyl, crappy reissues (Love Songs?) and I
had to have them all. I spent a ton of time at records store and even
went to a few Beatles Conventions.
