Free Beatles vs. Stones by John McMillian

joints. Though it has been said frequently that Dylan turned the Beatles on to pot for the first time, that may be just shy of the truth. According to Harrison, a Liverpool drummer had once treated the band to some low-grade schwag. But this was the first time the group had gotten themselves really and truly high. And it was under these combined influences, of Dylan and marijuana, that the Beatles began dramatically refashioning their attitudes, writing weightier and moreexperimental songs, and embracing personal styles that were truer to their bohemian origins.
    By contrast, the Beatles had a dreadful time meeting with Elvis Presley a year later (at a rented Bel-Air mansion, on August 27, 1965). Whether sedated, stoned, or both, Elvis seemed strangely bored by the Beatles, and at one point he threatened to ditch the party and go to bed early. For their part, the Beatles seemed not to know how to behave in the company of their boyhood idol, and so mostly they just sat there gawking, except for Lennon, who committed numerous unpardonable solecisms. First, he broke into a bizarre Inspector Clouseau routine that he seemed reluctant to let go. Then, when he finally stopped speaking to Elvis in a cheeky French accent, he had the brass to chide him about his mid-career slump: his trite singles and lame movies. Later, Lennon explained that his impertinent behavior arose from his disappointment with what Elvis had become.“It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck,” he sneered.
    Seeing the Rolling Stones was altogether different. The Beatles were plainly curious about this new band that Giorgio had been exclaiming about, but they could not have been that excited. None of the Stones’ music had yet been released. At the time, the Beatles were awed just to be living in London.“[W]e were provincial kids coming to the big city, so it was all magic to us,” McCartney said.
    By contrast, the Stones had been following the Beatles avidly. The richest firsthand account of the group’s early behavior and attitudes comes from Jimmy Phelge, a flatmate to Brian, Mick, and Keith at Edith Grove (who claims to be the “Mr. Jimmy” that’s referenced in the third verse of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”). In his 1998 memoir, Nankering with the Stones , Phelge reveals that the Stones heard the Beatles for the first time on a BBC radio program (probably Saturday Club , which featured the Beatles on January 26, 1963). Jones, in fact, had tuned in that day specifically in order to hear the Beatles, his curiosity having been piqued by the enthusiastic bits of press coverage they were garnering. But the moment he heardthe first bars of “Love Me Do” blaring out of the radiogram, Phelge says that “Brian’s face dropped,” and he barked at Keith to come over from the next room.
    “Love Me Do” was written in what the Beatles probably considered a bluesy idiom,but as musicologist Ian MacDonald points out, the song’s most conspicuous element—Lennon’s wailing harmonica riff—was played in a technically “overblown” style and was completely lacking in bent notes. As such, “it had little in common with any of the American style blues.” Still, harmonicas were rarely used in British pop.Probably the Beatles got the idea to incorporate the harmonica from Bruce Channel, the Texas-born American crooner whose “Hey! Baby”—a number 2 hit in the UK in 1962—they used to cover. Regardless, it was enough to send the Stones into a tizzy.Phelge recounts the scene this way:
“Oh no,” said Brian. “Listen to that. They’re doing it!”
“Hang on, let’s hear the guitar,” said Keith, listening intently.
“Fuck it.”
“They’ve got harmonies too,” said Brian. “It’s just what we didn’t want.”
I listened and thought the Beatles sounded OK, but so what? Just another group. “What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Can’t you hear?” said Keith. “They’re using a harmonica—they’ve beaten us to