Before the 1950s musical recording was a primitive affair. Tracks were laid down on anything the artists could get their hands on - Glen Miller's first albums were recorded on common or garden sellotape, for example.
1952: Although recording engineers had been aware of electricity for several years (it was invented in 1943), most of them still considered it a bit frivolous. All this changed in September 1952, when a man called Joe Meek had the bright idea of connecting his mixing desk to the mains. Foolishly, a couple of years later Joe Meek died, and the idea might have ended then and there if it hadn't been for a naive young work experience lad called George Martin...
Nesta Falkirk, chief tea lady at abbey road studios, 1927-2005, explains:
"George used to have the job of sweeping up all the used chords at the end of the day. On this particular occasion - I remember it well, because dear Joe had died only three days earlier and I was still using the mourning kettle..."
She pauses to dab at a rheumy eye with her stained old apron, then continues:
"...On this particular occasion, a rather brittle F# had got caught under the drumkit. Poor Georgy was having a devil of a time finding all the pieces and he knew it would be more than his job was worth to miss a single bit.
"Suddenly who should pop in but little Linda and Yoko! Apparently they were courting two young gentlemen who wanted to be musicians. They couldn't afford to pay much, but if George would let their beaus record after hours, on the sly, Linda would make him a lovely supper and Yoko would eat it for him.
"Well, Georgy agreed straight away, on the condition that he could operate the equipment, to make sure it didn't get bent or anything. The next night Paul and John turned up for their first session."
Because George had no formal training in production, at first he copied Meek's ideas slavishly. Soon, however, his hidden genius began to make itself known.
One of the first techniques he brought in was the use of pheromones at the actual recording stage. Record companies had been having limited success for years by simply rubbing pig testosterone into album sleeves - Frank Sinatra is just one artist who acknowledges his debt to porcine hormones - but George went one step better.
According to top pop historian Michael Fenchurch:
"John Lennon had quite an effeminate voice, and the lad McCartney was scarcely better. Trouble is they wanted to sing rock and roll, see? And you need to be a bit well, growly like, for that. So George had the bright idea of smearing this stuff from lions on the tape."
The process was actually a fairly simple one, as can be seen in the diagram below. Every adult male lion has a small patch of grape-like nodules (the so-called
grufflecluster) just behind the testicles. These were removed, ground into a fine paste and applied liberally to the magnetic tape. Vocals were then recorded as normal.
Even George himself was astounded by the results. Two weeks later every female of reproductive age in Britain had bought a copy of the first single and Beatlemania was born!
WINDYPOPS SAYS: Tom Jones once pressed his grufflecluster against my back.