Paul McCartney looked back to the early days of rock n' roll and how they changed his life as a teenager back in Liverpool, England. “Macca” has once again answered a fan's question to him on his official website (PaulMcCartney.com) as part of the “You Gave Me The Answer” online Q&A. A fan named Wayne asked the former-Beatle: “What is the one thing that has changed your approach to music forever?”
McCartney answered, “The advent of rock n' roll. It's very hard to imagine now that there was a time before rock n' roll, because it's now history. But there really was! We were kids from Liverpool being brought up on more traditional music from my dad's era. It would be a family party and he would play the piano and people would sit around having a sing-song, so that was great. And I still love that kind of music. Then on the radio there was a lot of novelty songs, a lot of comedy songs. But then rock n' roll came along and it was a completely different sound. And very exciting! And it was like — wow! It gave you a completely different feeling from anything you'd ever felt with music. But it was ours, that’s what was great.”
McCartney, who was hit by the rock bug by the first flush of American rockers, bonded quickly over the music with good friend George Harrison — and then very soon after, John Lennon: “We were teenagers, so hearing Elvis Presley sing 'Heartbreak Hotel' was shocking, in a good way. Hearing Little Richard screaming 'Good Golly, Miss Molly' or ‘Lucille’ was so revolutionary. And hearing Buddy Holly sing 'That'll Be The Day.' Now that we know those songs quite well and they're part of musical history, it is very hard to imagine hearing them for the first time.”
Paul McCartney recalled that for the Beatles, rock's initial impact during the mid-1950's was powerful, immediate, and all consuming: “And then suddenly Elvis (Presley) arrived, and Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino, and all the guys — Jerry Lee (Lewis) and y'know, Little Richard, all the rest of 'em. That really did it. From then on you were into rock n' roll, and mainly, that was the whole direction.”
