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As he acknowledged his influences in a speech at SXSW 2012, Bruce Springsteen described the first time he spotted the cover of the Meet the Beatles! album.
In 1964 The Knickerbockers were a successful rock and R&B cover band, playing Top 40 hits at clubs in upstate New York. Lead singer Buddy Randell had the most experience; as Billy Crandall, the saxophonist had recorded the 1958 hit “Short Shorts” with the Royal Teens. Randell, who died in 1998, drummer Jimmy Walker, lead guitarist Beau Charles and his brother John, who played bass, formed the Knickerbockers in 1962.
Beau Charles told AltSounds that the band was playing in Glen Falls, NY when Randell bought Meet the Beatles! Randell repeatedly played the album on a small phonograph the group used to learn other artists’ songs.
WATCH // The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand
WATCH // The Beatles - This Boy
WATCH // The Beatles - Little Child
WATCH // The Knickerbockers - Lies
Enter Jerry Fuller, a singer-songwriter who’d penned hits like “Travelin’ Man” and “Young World” for Ricky Nelson. Fuller ran the New York office of Challenge Records, a small LA-based label, and its publishing wing, Four Star Music.
WATCH // Ricky Nelson - Travelin' Man
WATCH // Ricky Nelson - Young World
The Knickerbockers were hired to back up Fuller for an upcoming performance. Fuller said he sent a few of his records to the club for the band to learn.
With Fuller producing and engineer Bruce Botnick at the controls, the Knickerbockers went into Sunset Sound in 1965 to record the instrumental track for “Lies.” To “fatten” the sound, session player Gerry McGee was added on rhythm guitar. Fuller’s time spent with the band proved valuable. “When we recorded he let us be what we were, which was great. He didn't tried to change us,” Beau said. “We were a four-piece band that did good vocals.”
Beau’s brother John said the track took only a few takes to complete.
Remarkably, Challenge Records executives disagreed; they wanted to release a protest song, “The Coming Generation,” as the A-side of the Knickerbockers’ next single. As part of Challenge’s existing catalog, “The Coming Generation” would earn the label more money if it became a hit. Walker made plain what he thought of it: “That song sucks.”
WATCH // The Knickerbockers - The Coming Generation
“We were saying, ‘Nah, that's not us, that's imitation folk rock,’” said Walker. “We were young guys from New York, we weren’t holes-in-the-jeans-playing-rock guys. We were polished and tight and driving and exciting.”
The band had to fight Challenge just to get “Lies” as the B-side. “They had some weird opinions about songs,” said Beau. “They didn't even like ‘Lies.’” They thought it was negative because we said, “Lies, you think that you’re such a smart girl”—it was kind of a bitter song.
“We said, ‘Listen, OK, “The Coming Generation” is the main side, that's fine, but let’s just put “Lies” on the other side,” remembered John. “We knew the DJs had come in to the Red Velvet, heard the song a lot, and they liked it.”
With “The Coming Generation” as the single, Fuller and Challenge head of promotions Mel Bly began the task of visiting radio stations to try and gain some airplay. Disc jockey Dick Biondi, then at KRLA, remembers the meeting when he flipped “The Coming Generation” and played “Lies.”
Catch up on Jimmy Walker by visiting his website and Facebook page and pick up his latest CD, Playing to Win, here.
I remember running in and seeing that album cover with those four headshots. It was like the silent gods of Olympus. Your future was just sort of staring you in the face.That groundbreaking 1964 introduction to the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo would also have a profound effect on a self-professed “club band” from Bergenfield, New Jersey, whose now-classic single has often been mistaken as a “lost” Beatles track.
In 1964 The Knickerbockers were a successful rock and R&B cover band, playing Top 40 hits at clubs in upstate New York. Lead singer Buddy Randell had the most experience; as Billy Crandall, the saxophonist had recorded the 1958 hit “Short Shorts” with the Royal Teens. Randell, who died in 1998, drummer Jimmy Walker, lead guitarist Beau Charles and his brother John, who played bass, formed the Knickerbockers in 1962.
Beau Charles told AltSounds that the band was playing in Glen Falls, NY when Randell bought Meet the Beatles! Randell repeatedly played the album on a small phonograph the group used to learn other artists’ songs.
We liked the album more than we thought we would and we learned three or four songs right off the bat. We learned “It Won’t Be Long,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “This Boy,” “Little Child”…WATCH // The Beatles - It Won't Be Long
WATCH // The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand
WATCH // The Beatles - This Boy
WATCH // The Beatles - Little Child
On our midnight set, we would go upstairs and comb our hair down into our eyes. We thought this was a novelty, so we did it as a show. We came back downstairs and jumped on the stage and shook our heads and played the Beatles songs that we learned. And people were laughing and having fun but they were all dancing, they wanted to hear the Beatles, there was no doubt about it.
Right after the set we’d go back upstairs and fix our hair again (laughs).That John Lennon and Paul McCartney were writing their own songs impressed the group.
In those days, they wanted you to play what was popular. No one was writing their own songs. Maybe at the Brill Building they were trying to write pop songs, but those were songwriters. We were just doing covers and we did them very well.One night at their motel after a gig in Latham, NY, Randell had an inspiration that would become the Knickerbockers’ biggest hit. “The Beatles were out about a year and Buddy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, we should write something,’” said Beau. As Beau played his Rickenbacker guitar, he and Randell worked together at three in the morning and created a rock classic: “Lies.”
WATCH // The Knickerbockers - Lies
Enter Jerry Fuller, a singer-songwriter who’d penned hits like “Travelin’ Man” and “Young World” for Ricky Nelson. Fuller ran the New York office of Challenge Records, a small LA-based label, and its publishing wing, Four Star Music.
WATCH // Ricky Nelson - Travelin' Man
WATCH // Ricky Nelson - Young World
The Knickerbockers were hired to back up Fuller for an upcoming performance. Fuller said he sent a few of his records to the club for the band to learn.
And these guys, overnight, they learned the songs and backed me up. It sounded just like the record! I thought, boy, that's impressive. I stuck around and heard a little bit of their show and was knocked out with their sound…Fuller arranged for the Knickerbockers to play the Red Velvet, a Sunset Strip nightclub that was a popular hangout for TV and movie stars. Performers from rock music shows like Shindig! often sat in with the band, attracted by the Knickerbockers’ ability to accurately mimic whatever was riding the charts. But a favorite of the show biz crowd was the band’s original, “Lies.”
I would bring them to New York City to back me up on demos for the publishing company. I’d write a few songs and then they started writing a couple of things and I thought, well, this isn’t bad. So I called the home office and said, “I’m sick of New York, I want to come back to the Coast but I’m going to bring some guys with me.”
With Fuller producing and engineer Bruce Botnick at the controls, the Knickerbockers went into Sunset Sound in 1965 to record the instrumental track for “Lies.” To “fatten” the sound, session player Gerry McGee was added on rhythm guitar. Fuller’s time spent with the band proved valuable. “When we recorded he let us be what we were, which was great. He didn't tried to change us,” Beau said. “We were a four-piece band that did good vocals.”
Beau’s brother John said the track took only a few takes to complete.
It was fast because we’d been playing the song live for a long time and it’s basically the way we played it live…
We were driving kind of rock players and you can hear it on the record. We just really dug in and played hard…
We weren’t sitting in a chair and playing “Lies,” we were up on our feet and just rockin’ out.Walker described how he created the record’s powerful beat.
I tried to drive it and be sort of “pedal to the metal” from the instant we started the song. It was one of those kinds of songs where the approach was like a punch in the mouth. There was no buildup, it was like a horse comin’ out of the gate…The raucous lead guitar riffs by Beau Charles propelled “Lies” throughout the song. Beau attributes the raw quality of the sound to his Fender amplifier.
And so the drums were hard and raw and driving and so was the bass and yet at the end of this record John did something that was really magic, he built up the bass line by doubling up the notes.
My little secret was I had a little Champ amp that I bought in 1959. It was the first guitar amp I ever bought when I was first starting to learn the guitar. And it was really a practice amp but when you turned it up loud it would break up and that gave me that nice distorted sound on “Lies.”The vocals were later recorded at Leon Russell’s Skyhill Studios. Fuller said having more time in the studio would not have improved the finished product.
The little amp was great for that song. And I used it on many other songs after “Lies,” any time I was doing anything kind of raunchy or rock and roll-y, I would use the small amp because I didn’t like fuzz tones. I liked the overdriven amp much better for the guitar.
I think more time would have over-produced it. Sometimes you can improve yourself right out of a hit. You know when you’ve got it. And when you got it, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.Leaving the studio, everyone believed they’d recorded a hit. “We were all knocked out,” John said. “It just sounded so great on the playback. It just came together so fast, even those little ad libs that come near the end of the song.”
Remarkably, Challenge Records executives disagreed; they wanted to release a protest song, “The Coming Generation,” as the A-side of the Knickerbockers’ next single. As part of Challenge’s existing catalog, “The Coming Generation” would earn the label more money if it became a hit. Walker made plain what he thought of it: “That song sucks.”
WATCH // The Knickerbockers - The Coming Generation
“We were saying, ‘Nah, that's not us, that's imitation folk rock,’” said Walker. “We were young guys from New York, we weren’t holes-in-the-jeans-playing-rock guys. We were polished and tight and driving and exciting.”
The band had to fight Challenge just to get “Lies” as the B-side. “They had some weird opinions about songs,” said Beau. “They didn't even like ‘Lies.’” They thought it was negative because we said, “Lies, you think that you’re such a smart girl”—it was kind of a bitter song.
“We said, ‘Listen, OK, “The Coming Generation” is the main side, that's fine, but let’s just put “Lies” on the other side,” remembered John. “We knew the DJs had come in to the Red Velvet, heard the song a lot, and they liked it.”
With “The Coming Generation” as the single, Fuller and Challenge head of promotions Mel Bly began the task of visiting radio stations to try and gain some airplay. Disc jockey Dick Biondi, then at KRLA, remembers the meeting when he flipped “The Coming Generation” and played “Lies.”
When they gave me the record, I listened to it and they were pushing the other side. But I listened to the thing and I said, “Oh my God, this sounds so much like the Beatles, it’s scary. This has got to be a good selling record.” I said, “Yeah, I like it” and I made it my Pick of the Week and all of a sudden, it started making noise everyplace else.Rock jock B. Mitchel Reed of KFWB also picked up “Lies,” which shot to #1 in Los Angeles and Top 20 in the national charts. Beau says fan reaction to the song was immediate.
People said, “What was that, play it again!” and all of a sudden, bang, the song was like wildfire. The minute it was on the airwaves people responded to it, which was great. That's when we knew we had something. And we even thought we did in the studio when we listened to the playback. It had a good opening. It hooked you in.Despite the comparisons to the Beatles, Beau said that as they heard the final playback of “Lies” in the studio, they knew the record defined the Knickerbockers sound.
We all said, “Wow, it’s good,” we liked it. We didn’t go, “Wow, Beatles sound.” It just sounded like a good rock and roll record to us. If you listen to it now, the track is really roaring…Click here to pick up the entire catalog of the Knickerbockers’ club-band classics on Sundazed Records.
It boils up and explodes. That's what we tried to achieve even when we were playing live, we wanted to get to that exciting peak. And “Lies” does that.
Catch up on Jimmy Walker by visiting his website and Facebook page and pick up his latest CD, Playing to Win, here.
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