I WANNA BE THE BEATLES (1964)

 

I was messing around this morning looking for some music to listen to, and I came across this record from 1964 titled "The Fabulous Beats Go Country Style!"

The music is early Beatles' style ripoff music made to try and capitalize on The Beatles' popularity.

This was a fairly common phenomenon back in the 60's.

This music on this record is supposed to be Beatles' style, but tinged with country. Does it work or not is up to you to decide. Part Liverpool and part Bakersfield, here's....

THE FABULOUS BEATS - "There She Goes"

 

Here's a couple more examples of how this all worked. These cheap labels like Coronet made records that you would find at small grocery store or dime store displays, and they would normally sell for around 99 cents. 

I first saw this 1964 album called "The Beetle Beat" by The Buggs in a small grocery store named "Miracle Market," but I wasn't suckered into buying it.

They tried everything, a cover tune or two, and songs that had titles that sounded like Beatles' songs. They made the guys comb their hair down to resemble something close to a Beatles' haircut, and would say things like "Recorded In England" to complete the facade.  

Here's a song made to sound like a Beatles' tune.

THE BUGGS - "Liverpool Drag"

 

 

Yet another record from 1964 in this masquerade was this one by B. Brock And The Sultans titled "Do The Beetle." They liked to misspell Beatle a lot to avoid copyright infringement I would imagine.

This album has one Beatles' cover, and the rest are off the wall 'Beetle' tunes.

Here's a pretty crazy exmple.

B. BROCK AND THE SULTANS - "30 Lb Beetle"

 

Pulling out all the stops, and last but not least in this little series is yet another record from 1964 that baffled me for years before the internet came around titled "The Beagle and the Four Liverpool Whigs."

This record on the Sutton label barely even tries. 

There's one Beatles' cover, and the rest of the music is all over the place, because this was just a repackaging of another album recorded earlier by The Spark Plugs called "Crazy Beat." All they did was change the name of the band and change the order of the songs.

 

So if you've never heard it before, get ready for the least song ever to sound like The Beatles.

THE SPARK PLUGS aka THE BEAGLE AND THE FOUR LIVERPOOL WHIGS

"Painless Thoughts" aka "Chicken"