Twist and Shout (EP)

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Twist and Shout
EP by
the Beatles
Released12 July 1963
Recorded11 February 1963
StudioEMI, London
GenreMerseybeat
Length8:32
LabelParlophone
ProducerGeorge Martin
The Beatles EP chronology
Twist and Shout
(1963) 		The Beatles' Hits
(1963)

Twist and Shout is the first UK extended play by the English rock band the Beatles, released in the UK on EMI's Parlophone label on 12 July 1963. It contains four tracks produced by George Martin that were previously released on the band's debut album Please Please Me. Rush-released to meet public appetite, the record topped the UK EP chart for twenty-one weeks, the biggest-selling EP of all time in the UK to that point, and became so successful that it registered on the NME Singles Chart, peaking at number four. The EP's cover photograph, featuring the Beatles jumping in a London bombsite, has been described by The Telegraph as "one of the key images of the 1960s".

Contents[edit]

"Twist and Shout", written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns and first recorded by R&B vocal group the Top Notes, typically closed the Beatles' set during their 1963 tour of Great Britain with Roy Orbison.[1] The band based their version of the twist song on the US hit version by the Isley Brothers recording and its "pounding beat" and "bloodcurdling John Lennon screams" made it a popular show-stopper, according to Alan Smith of the New Musical Express.[1] After the Beatles included "Twist and Shout" as the last track on their debut album Please Please Me, EMI received a deluge of requests for its issue as a single.[2] British record shops were reported to be similarly "besieged" by customers asking for the song.[3] The popularity of the Beatles version of the song boosted British sales of the earlier Isley Brothers recording that inspired it, first released in the UK in July 1962, and led to the release of a version by Brian Poole and the Tremeloes on Decca.[4][5][6][nb 1] The Beatles and George Martin did not consider "Twist and Shout" single material; they were opposed to lifting songs off Please Please Me, Paul McCartney believed it "a bit too off-beat to be commercial" and Lennon was concerned about how often he would have to sing it.[1] In a compromise to meet demand, EMI commissioned the Twist and Shout EP as a "special release".[2][7][nb 2] Side one of the EP features the title track (sung by Lennon) and "A Taste of Honey" (sung by McCartney), a Broadway song written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow that was first recorded in a vocal version by Billy Dee Williams in 1961.[9] Side two contains two Lennon-McCartney originals, "Do You Want to Know a Secret" (sung by George Harrison), then a recent UK chart hit in a version by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas, and "There's a Place" (sung by Lennon and McCartney).[10][11] All four tracks were recorded on 11 February 1963 in sessions that resulted in the bulk of the Please Please Me album.[12]

Packaging[edit]

The sleeve photograph, described by The Telegraph as "one of the key images of the 1960s, seeming to promise a new era in which youthful energy and vitality would triumph over drab postwar austerity", shows the Beatles jumping in the air at a bombsite off Euston Road, London.[13] It was taken by Fiona Adams, a young photographer keen to "break away from the conventional Hollywood-style of stage and studio shot", on a twin-lens Rolleiflex camera on 18 April 1963.[14][15][16][nb 3] The shot was featured in Boyfriend magazine before it was chosen for the EP.[13][16] Adams went uncredited on the packaging.[13] In 2009, the photograph was included in the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed; curator Terence Pepper described it as "one of the defining images of 20th-century culture".[13][15][18][nb 4] Liner notes were provided by Tony Barrow, who wrote that the EP presents "four contrasting facets of the quartet's vocal and instrumental ingenuity".[19]

Release[edit]

Advance orders of the Twist and Shout EP were reported to total at over 100,000 by its day of release on 12 July 1963.[20] It topped the national EP chart compiled by Record Retailer for 21 non-consecutive weeks beginning 27 July 1963 and ultimately spent 64 weeks on the chart.[21][22] It was certified silver, for more than 250,000 sales, on 13 August 1963, having become the biggest-selling EP of all time to that point in the UK.[23][24] It later sold over 650,000 copies.[25] Despite being more expensive than a single, the EP was so successful that it became the first EP to enter the top ten of the NME Singles Chart, peaking at number four.[26][27][28][29] Two more EPs, The Beatles' Hits and The Beatles (No. 1), were commissioned by August.[30]

A competing Beatles EP on Polydor, produced in Germany for export, was issued to the band's displeasure on 21 June 1963.[31] Entitled My Bonnie, it contains four 1961 Hamburg recordings of the Beatles with Pete Best, three of which feature the English rock and roll musician Tony Sheridan on lead vocals.[31][nb 5]

The Twist and Shout EP was reissued as part of The Beatles EP Collection vinyl box set in 1981.[32] The box set received a CD release in 1992.[33]

Reception and legacy[edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[11]

Tony Barrow, writing under his pseudonym Disker in the Liverpool Echo, considered "A Taste of Honey" the EP's highspot.[10] An anonymous writer in the Coventry Standard called it "a worthwhile mini-album",[34] while Gerry G. of the Pontypridd and Llantrisant Observer believed that had the Beatles released a single of "Twist and Shout" two months earlier instead, it "would have been better policy and a certain chart topper".[35] In a retrospective review, Bruce Eder of AllMusic described the record as "pretty daring as a summary of highlights from their debut album", citing the "uncommonly raw rock & roll" title track.[11] Eder considered the Beatles' EPs "more substantial as artifacts of their British output than most EPs were for most other bands" and highlighted the "excellent cover art, with superb photos of the group and actual notes on the back, like an LP".[11]

The EP was the first record Elvis Costello bought with his own money,[36] while John Robb of post-punk band The Membranes has described it as "the first time any kind of pop music got into my consciousness".[37] The packaging of the 1982 Genesis EP 3X3 pastiches the Twist and Shout EP and features liner notes by Tony Barrow.[38]

Track listing[edit]

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead singerLength
1."Twist and Shout"Bert Russell, Phil MedleyJohn Lennon2:33
2."A Taste of Honey"Ric Marlow, Bobby ScottPaul McCartney2:05
Total length:4:38
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Lead singerLength
1."Do You Want to Know a Secret"John Lennon, Paul McCartneyGeorge Harrison2:00
2."There's a Place"Lennon, McCartneyJohn Lennon and Paul McCartney1:53
Total length:3:53

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ According to Peter Blackman of the Evening Sentinel, the increased sales of the Isleys' "Twist and Shout", previously unsuccessful in the UK, demonstrated "just how easily the public can be manipulated".[5]
  2. ^ "Twist and Shout" finally appeared on a UK Beatles single in 1976 as the B-side of "Back in the U.S.S.R.", issued by Parlophone to promote the compilation album Rock 'n' Roll Music.[8]
  3. ^ Similar "jump" photographs of the Beatles were taken by Dežo Hoffmann in Liverpool the same month.[17]
  4. ^ The shot was later used on the cover of the Beatles' first Canadian album release, also titled Twist and Shout.[16]
  5. ^ Speaking in 1963, John Lennon described "My Bonnie" as "terrible. I wouldn't buy it. It could be anybody. We just bang around behind another singer."[6]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Smith, Alan (19 July 1963). "The 'Twist And Shout' Battle Hots Up! (And How The NME Helped)". NME. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  2. ^ a b Woodward, Eric (10 July 1963). "£240,000 over 20 years - guaranteed". Birmingham Evening Mail: 5. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  3. ^ G., Gerry (29 June 1963). "Record talk..." Pontypridd and Llantrisant Observer: 10. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  4. ^ Padgett, Ray (2017). Cover me : the stories behind the greatest cover songs of all time. New York. pp. 26–35. ISBN 978-1-4549-2250-6. OCLC 978537907.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ a b Blackman, Peter (29 June 1963). "In the groove". Evening Sentinel: 4. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  6. ^ a b Nevard, Mike (27 June 1963). "Hey, baby! This is beat week". Daily Herald: 8. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  7. ^ Leigh, Spencer (12 September 2016). Love Me Do to Love Me Don't - Beatles on Record. McNidder and Grace Limited. ISBN 9780857161352. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  8. ^ Hutson, John (6 July 1976). "Album track USSR makes single debut". Thanet Times. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  9. ^ Lewisohn, Mark (2013). The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. 1: Tune In. Crown Archetype. ISBN 978-1-4000-8305-3.
  10. ^ a b "Off the Record". Liverpool Echo: 6. 13 July 1963. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  11. ^ a b c d Eder, Bruce. "Twist and Shout [EP]". AllMusic. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  12. ^ Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-600-63561-1.
  13. ^ a b c d "Fiona Adams, photographer who took a celebrated shot of the Beatles – obituary". The Telegraph. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  14. ^ McNab, Ken (7 September 2023). Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania and the Mayhem of 1963. Polygon. ISBN 9781788855921.
  15. ^ a b Smith, Colin. "Fiona Adams obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  16. ^ a b c Hemmingsen, Piers (11 April 2016). The Beatles in Canada: The Origins of Beatlemania!. Wise Publications. ISBN 9781787590731. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
  17. ^ Dlhopolec, Peter. "Undoubted by The Beatles, Slovak photographer made the band jump". The Slovak Spectator. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
  18. ^ "National Portrait Gallery - Beatles to Bowie". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  19. ^ Twist and Shout (liner). The Beatles. Parlophone. 1963.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  20. ^ Doncaster, Patrick (25 July 1963). "Mr Talent Scouse plays a solo hand". Daily Mirror: 17. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  21. ^ Warwick, Neil; Kutner, Jon; Brown, Tony (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts: Singles and Albums (3rd ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-058-0.
  22. ^ Womack, Kenneth (2014). The Beatles Encyclopedia. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9798216052005. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  23. ^ Harris, June (17 July 1963). "Beatles recover from that fantastic EP". Disc. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  24. ^ Miles, Barry (2009). The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years. Omnibus. ISBN 9780857120007. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  25. ^ The Book of Golden Discs. Barrie & Jenkins. 1974. p. 156. ISBN 9780214204807. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  26. ^ Dunsbee, Tony (2015). Gathered From Coincidence: A Singular History of Sixties' Pop. M-Y Books Limited. ISBN 9781909908321. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  27. ^ Barrow, Tony (24 October 1963). "What it is like to be famous". Liverpool Echo: 4. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  28. ^ "Win 3 LPs". Birmingham Evening Mail: 17. 20 July 1963. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  29. ^ "NME top thirty" (PDF). NME: 5. 6 September 1963. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  30. ^ "More Beatles". Birmingham Evening Mail: 5. 21 August 1963. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  31. ^ a b Hunter, Nigel (13 July 1963). "Beatles need not be ashamed of these old ones" (PDF). Disc: 10. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  32. ^ Badman, Keith (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970–2001. London: Omnibus Press. pp. 291–92. ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6.
  33. ^ "Compact Disc EP Collection". AllMusic. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
  34. ^ "Beatle album". Coventry Standard: 12. 19 July 1963. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  35. ^ G., Gerry (13 July 1963). "Record talk..." Pontypridd and Llantrisant Observer: 15. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  36. ^ Costello, Elvis (2016). Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink. New York: Blue Rider Press. ISBN 978-0-399-18576-2.
  37. ^ Robb, John (March 2013). Punk Rock: An Oral History. PM Press. ISBN 9781604868388. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  38. ^ Waller, Johnny (25 December 1982). "Phil Collins". Sounds. Archived from the original on 7 February 2004.
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