Five Pounds and One Mic: The Story Behind the First Ever Recording by The Quarrymen ...
Before The Beatles became the biggest band in the world and the most successful rock band of all time, they were just like every other group of friends with musical dreams. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison all met through a series of introductions taking place on buses and at garden parties. And by the time 1958 came along, they were all members of the same band, The Quarrymen.
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As The Quarrymen, Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney did the typical—performed at churches, clubs, schools, as well as other informal non-traditional venues. They played a mix of skiffle, rock and roll, and rockabilly music, and they covered American artists such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Larry Williams.
However, at some point in 1958, they recorded their first-ever original song. An original song written by George Harrison and Paul McCartney about friendship and love in the face of everything that can go wrong. For a couple of teenagers, it is quite the introspective and sentimentally deep songs, but then again, and despite their normalness, these were The Beatles.
The Beatles’ Quick Trip to a One-Room Recording Studio
Regarding the day they recorded their first ever original song, McCartney stated The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present, “We found an advert for a little studio, Percy Phillips in Kensington – Liverpool’s Kensington, not quite as posh as London’s Kensington. It was about half an hour away by bus. It cost you five pounds to make a demo record on shellac; that’s the old-fashioned way of doing it.”
“Each of us had managed to scrape a pound together, which wasn’t too hard once we set our minds to it. If it had been five each, that might have been a bit more challenging…So we showed up at Percy Phillips’s recording studio, which was basically a small room with one mic. We were young kids with our own equipment, and you’d have to wait your turn, like at a doctor’s office,” continued McCartney.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Peter Burditt
