Music Man

It's 50 years since the first Beatles' single was released - Love Me Do - and strangely the critics now seem to be lining up to denigrate it.  Well certainly they went on to produce much better stuff, but you have to assess it in the light of the pop music scene of 1962.  We'd had a decade or so of Rock'n'Roll - twelve bar blues with a strong off-beat rhythm - good of its type but not remotely original, and suddenly we had this song with a poignant harmonica riff and a melody sung in open fourths and fifths - almost plainchant.  It came as a bolt from the blue.  The fact that with the benefit of hindsight it was not their best work is immaterial - at the time it was a breath of fresh air and certainly it opened my eyes - and ears.