Story and photo by Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — What place better than the Corvette Diner to take a man who has earned his living on-stage being the “fifth Beatle” in the tribute group “Rain” which opened a five-concert set at San Diego’s Civic Center on Friday night and will close after two concerts on Sunday?
Mark Beyer, a keyboardist who provides all the studio sounds the Beatles incorporated into their records, appreciated side-by-side posters at Corvette’s pairing George Harrison with Paul McCartney and John Lennon with Ringo Starr, but he was even more impressed with the artistic interpretation on Corvette’s wall of “The Yellow Submarine,” a song, like every Beatle song, that the 51-year-old musician has known and performed for most of his life.
Enjoying other songs of the 1950s and 1960s that Corvette’s pipes through its amplifiers, Beyer cocked his head and listened carefully when the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” broke through the din. The song, he said, has been a source of fascination for him since he was an elementary school student. Besides being the theme of the Beatles’ most popular movie, it was also used in a Beatles cartoon series that used to be shown on Saturday mornings in Louisville, Kentucky, where Beyer grew up. He relates that when he was approximately 6, he would put a mop or rag on his head, and pretend to play an air guitar in front of a mirror as the song came on.
His older sister, Sherry, once warned him never, but never, to touch her Beatles albums, but like many a little brother, he interpreted her admonition simply as a challenge. Enlisting his babysitter in a musical conspiracy one evening when Sherry was out on a date, he played one Beatles record after another, and sitting at the piano, was able to pick out the melodies without benefit of written music. The discovery of that talent led to Beyer taking music lessons and eventually to his career.
Can you recall the startling first chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”? Beyer told me that among rock musicians, it is a celebrated mystery. “There have been debates and articles and research and arguments over what exactly is that first chord and what instruments are involved in that first chord,” he said. “There were even some scientists that used some kind of computer algorithm to figure out the notes of that chord.”
The mystery was solved — apparently — by Randy Bachman, a former guitarist of the Canadian rock group The Guess Who, who later played under his own name in the Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Bachman went to the Abbey Road Studios and at the invitation of Giles Martin (the son of knighted record producer George Martin) listened to the masters of “A Hard Day’s Night,” later telling his conclusions in the following You Tube audio.
Beyer said there is still some controversy within the “Rain” band whether Bachman got every element of the chord right –with Beyer being one of those who believes Bachman nailed it. When “Rain” performs “A Hard Day’s Night,” Beyer on synthesizer emphasizes a “G suspended seventh chord.”
Beyer will return to Louisville for a rest after the San Diego performances, and a keyboardist he trained will take over duties. (They alternate). Before San Diego, Beyer and the group had performed to packed houses in Japan, where, he said, the Beatles are very popular even though most people in the audience don’t understand the words of their songs.
It’s now more than 40 years since McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr went their separate ways, and yet the group is still popular. Isn’t that popularity likely to fade?
Beyer said the children in audiences around the world are often seen mouthing the words to the songs, with seeming more familiarity with Beatles lyrics than their parents or grandparents have.
I mentioned to Beyer that I typically listen to Classical Music Station XLNC1 on my car radio, and that more and more, the station seems to be playing Beatles songs, set to orchestration, and performed by the London Philharmonic.
That’s not surprising, said Beyer. “The Beatles are the Beethoven and Bach of our century,” he said. “Their music will be played hundreds of years from now.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Great read!