A half-century later, it finally can be revealed.
The Fifth Beatle was…
EMI TG12345 Mk1.
Who can argue with Ken Womack? Certainly, nobody who heard him speak earlier this month at the Morristown & Township Library about his new book, Solid State, The Story of Abbey Road and the End of The Beatles — a shiny stocking-stuffer for the Beatlemaniac on your Christmas list.
EMI TG12345 Mk1 was the first solid-state, eight-track recording machine used at the Abbey Road studio in London where the Fab Four recorded most of their hits.
With twice the tracks of their previous tube-driven gear, the TG console enabled the Beatles to expand their musical palette for Abbey Road. Although hailed by many fans as the crowning achievement of a seminal band at its creative peak, the Beatles’ final album confounded some critics who had trouble embracing its distinctly clearer, warmer sonic quality.
The warm sound is all the more remarkable considering the deepening chill within the group in 1969.
Somehow, Womack writes, the now-jaded lads from Liverpool managed to Come Together one last time.
“You’d never guess that the four of them can’t stand each other,” George Martin, their producer (widely considered the real Fifth Beatle), observed during one unusually harmonious recording session.
It’s a wonder Abbey Road got made at all. John Lennon nearly killed himself in a car wreck, and with heroin. He brought a bed into the studio for the recuperating Yoko Ono, who had the audacity to eat one of George Harrison’s biscuits!
That was just about the last straw for the Quiet Beatle, who briefly quit earlier that year in frustration over his junior partner status. Happy-go-lucky Ringo Starr was aggrieved when pushed to play the only drum solo of his Beatles career. Paul McCartney’s perfectionism vexed the other three, who got even by trying to foist a new manager on him.
Yet somehow, the music prevailed. Harrison, who introduced sitar to the masses on Sgt. Pepper, brought the Moog synthesizer to Abbey Road. The album reached far and wide for inspiration, from Keith West (Grocer Jack) to Beethoven. (“The trick is to steal from the best,” Lennon quipped.)
Martin prodded them to attempt “the long one,” as they called the medley on side two. Accustomed to being trailblazers, the Beatles found themselves trailing The Who, the Small Faces and Frank Zappa, all experimenting with long-form, rock opera projects. They were determined to reclaim their primacy, Womack writes.
Solid State solves other age-old riddles:
Who was Polythene Pam?
Why was Mr. Mustard so Mean?
Who came in through Paul’s bathroom window?
This stuff isn’t new to hardcore Fabophiles. But Womack, a professor of English literature at Monmouth University and author of the blog Everything Fab Four, has a gift for weaving it all together in a crisp, engaging style that gives the Beatles their due while also acknowledging their not-so-Fab sides.
Womack’s visit last year, to discuss his superb two-part biography of George Martin, was among the library’s most popular presentations, said Assistant Director Mary Lynn Becza.
Solid State drew a good crowd, too, on a Sunday afternoon when even casual Beatles fans might feel blue.
“This is the darkest day on the Beatles calendar,” Womack said, noting John Lennon’s murder 39 years ago. “It’s a good thing, I think, that we’re celebrating the end of their career, which concluded in such uniquely fine style in the history of popular music.
“And it does end with a solid state…as they march off the stage in their unique way, into a kind of mystique-laden finality.”
