20 Ways John Lennon Changed The World
Klaus Voorman, Earl Slick and MOJO’s writers on how John Lennon changed the world… with what he sang, played, said and did.
1. By the way he sang Twist & Shout
Tempered in the furnaces of The Cavern and the Star-Club, The Beatles’ vocal attack was the closest any British rock’n’roll singers had come to the fire, energy and expression of American originators such as Little Richard and Larry Williams, The Isley Brothers and Barrett Strong. And it was Lennon’s raw, open-throated singing that sold these influential interpretations. In the summer of ’63, Twist And Shout, a raucous set-closer, was the lead track on their UK Number 1 EP and made their earlier singles sound, well, British, while Lennon’s vocal – the last recorded in a 12-hour February 11 session for Please Please Me – had a bug-eyed desperation that made an unlikely virtue of his understandably failing pipes. The Beatles’ Twist And Shout is slightly slower than The Top Notes’ 1961 original, and closely followed the Isleys’ cover, right down to McCartney and Harrison’s scream-inducing “whooos!”, but in 2 minutes 33 seconds it made every previous milky British imitator of real rock’n’roll redundant.
Source: mojo4music.com
