The Beatles: Rock Band / 09.09.09

When The Beatles moved into the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, they expected to be making music in the basement – not on the roof. The bottom floor housed a recording studio where a number of The Beatles’ friends and associates laid down tracks, and where the group itself rehearsed and recorded parts of the Let It Be album. But the real history was made on January 30, 1969, when The Beatles decided that their overdue return to live performance would happen on the rooftop at lunch hour.

So who was lucky enough to catch that show? Probably people who worked in the fashion industry, since Savile Row is all about style. The street’s association with first-class tailoring goes back more than a century. The term “bespoke” originated here; when customers would select the specific fabric for their suit, that cloth was said to “be spoken for.”  By 1969, many of the world’s most stylish figures had visited the tailors on Savile Row; those customers included Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Frank Sinatra. That ultimate ’60s icon, James Bond, also got his clothes there: In the film Dr. No, Bond is asked where he got his clothes and he responds “My tailor, on Savile Row.”

The Beatles needed a headquarters for Apple, already looking to be one of the most ambitious business projects ever launched by a mere musical group. As conceived by the band, Apple would produce electronics, launch a record label, run a store, and sponsor others’ creative pursuits.  Some of these ideas proved more workable than others; the store of Baker Street soon closed with a massive giveaway. Yet 3 Savile Road would remain the hub of The Beatles’ business to the present day.

The group moved into the basement studio at Apple after an earlier attempt to make their album went downhill. They first tried to do the Let It Be album at Twickenham Film Studios with the cameras running, but the filming proved too much of a distraction. Things went more smoothly at Apple. The classic “Get Back” was the one of first things to be recorded there, and most of the now-familiar album tracks followed suit. There was still the question of where to stage the live show that was planned as the new film’s centerpiece. A few ambitious ideas were floated and rejected, until The Beatles decided – only four days before the event – to play on the roof. Passersby got serenaded with 42 minutes’ worth of music before police arrived to shut things down; even The Beatles apparently weren’t allowed to stop traffic on a workday. John signed off with his immortal line, “I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition.”