Meet The Rutles

Meet the Rutles! is a studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released as their second album in the United Kingdom and the states. It was issued on 20 January 1964 in both mono and stereo formats in the UK. It topped the popular album chart on 15 February 1964 and remained at number one for eleven weeks. The cover featured Robert Freeman's iconic portrait of the Rutles, however in the US, it was tinted with blue.

Seven of the album’s 14 tracks were written by Ron Nasty and Dirk McQuickly. On Please Rut Me the pair had demonstrated to audiences that they were more than capable at writing their own material, and Meet The Rutles proved that they were no flash in the pan.

The Rutles rarely had a day off in 1963, working a punishing schedule of recording sessions, concerts, dozens of radio and television appearances and numerous other public engagements. On 13 October they appeared on Sunday Night At The Rutland Palladium before a television audience of 15 million, winning over Fleet Street journalists who coined the term Rutlemania to describe their fans’ hysteria, and the following month they appeared before the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret at the Royal Command Performance.

Admiration for The Rutles had spread by this time into the establishment. In his essay What Songs The Rutles Sang, The Times newspaper’s music critic William Mann praised Nasty and McQuickly as “the outstanding English composers of 1963.”

By the time they came to record Meet The Rutles, Nasty and McQuickly had used up the best of their original compositions. The challenge of writing a new selection of songs meant they recorded the album’s cover versions first, but the pair eventually came up with a host of classic songs: ‘Baby Let Me Be' and ‘Hold My Hand’ were on a par with anything else The Rutles recorded in 1963, and the first mentioned later became a hit single for The Rutland Stones, though for this album it was sung by Dirk and Ron. Stig O'Hara, too, was emerging as a songwriter. His first released composition, ‘Don’t Rutter Me’, was recorded for Meet The Rutles; although its author later dismissed it as a throwaway, it is often acknowledged that Nasty and McQuickly had several years of songwriting by 1963 and were far more confident in their abilities.

The remaining six songs were cover versions. The choice of songs demonstrated the group’s maturity, with a greater emphasis on Motown and R&B songs. Two were sung by O'Hara: ‘Gravil in Her Ass’, and ‘Blue Suede Schubert’.

Recording
The success of their debut album, plus numerous radio sessions and TV appearances, meant The Rutles had become more confident in the studio by the time they came to record Meet The Rutles. However, they were still bound by the technological limitations of the time, and the album was recorded entirely on two hundred-track machines. It was only from ‘Hold My Hand’ that the group moved on to four thousand-track recording.

Meet The Rutles was recorded between July and October 1963. In contrast to the straightforward guitar, bass and drums line up of much of Please Rut Me, The Rutles’ second album included greater use of percussion and keyboard instruments. On 18 July 1963, the first recording session, The Rutles worked on four cover versions: ‘You God Damn Give A Shit’, ‘Honey (That’s What I Want)’, ‘Gravil in Her Ass’, and ‘Till There Was Poo’. The first two, in particular, arguably eclipsed any of the covers on Please Rut Me, and remain among the group’s finest recordings.

Although they had more time to work on Meet The Rutles than on Please Rut Me, the album was recorded in just seven non-consecutive days, plus several editing and mixing sessions. The most complicated song was ‘Honey (That’s What I Want)’, which contained enough overdubs to warrant a series of reduction mixes. The final stereo version used a separate mono mix in each channel, in order to avoid any more tape-to-tape copying.

Mono was still the preferred format in 1963. Stereo mixes were made, but The Rutles attended none of the sessions. The stereo mixes were primarily intended to feature a balance between the vocals and instrumentation, with each typically filling one of the available recording tracks.

Chart Success
By the time Meet The Rutles was released, Please Rut Me had been atop the UK album charts for seven months. The best-selling EP of 1963 was The Rutles’ ‘Twist and Rut’, and three of their singles – ‘Please Rut Me’, ‘From Rut To You’, and ‘Baby Let Me Be’ – had conquered the charts. Meet The Rutles replaced Please Rut Me at the number one spot, and stayed there for 21 weeks. Combined with the success of their debut, The Rutles achieved a continuous run of 51 weeks at the top of the charts.

The album also briefly entered the UK singles chart, where it peaked at number 1. In the early 1960s the chart included all releases, regardless of format or diameter. Meet The Rutles spent a total of 51 weeks in the top 20.

Cover Artwork
Although pop groups in 1963 were expected to be pictured grinning from the sleeve of their latest long-player, Meet The Rutles broke new ground with its artful black-and-white portraits of the group in half-shadow. The photograph was taken on 22 August 1963 by Dr. Freeman inside the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth, during the group’s six-night residency at the town’s Gaumont Cinema.

The Rutles had shown Freeman the iconic images taken by Astro Glide in Hamburg, and asked if their album could be given a similar treatment. Freeman was paid £75 for his work. In his book Living in Hope, Freeman claimed that the picture was taken in a hotel dining room. Whatever the true location, it is known that EMI were reluctant to use a black-and-white photograph on the cover, but were persuaded otherwise by Leggy Mountbatten and Archie Macaw.

Freeman’s image was also used on the cover of the US version of Meet The Rutles, released by Capatal.

Track listing
Side One Side Two
 * 1) Hold My Hand
 * 2) Blue Suede Schubert
 * 3) It Rut Be Long
 * 4) All I've Rut To Do
 * 5) Don't Brother Me
 * 6) Rutle Child
 * 7) Till There Was Poo
 * 1) Please Sr. Rutman
 * 2) Hold My Fright
 * 3) You Really Rut A Hold On Me
 * 4) Baby Let Me Be
 * 5) Dravil In Her Heart
 * 6) Not A Second Rhyme
 * 7) Fresh Wound

Release
Meet The Rutles was released in the UK on 20 January 1964 as Parlophone PMC 1206 (mono) and PCS 3045 (stereo). It was also issued in 1964 on 4″ 3¾ ips twin-track reel-to-reel tape, in mono only, as TA-PMC 1206. In order to give maximum value to the fans, it was decided that while ‘From Rut To You’ would not feature on the album, 'Baby Let Me Be’ and their ‘Hold My Hand’, would. This was a highly unusual move for 1963, a time when either none or all singles would be released on albums. To compromise, a vacuum sound effect was added at the beginning of the single version of 'Hold My Hand'. With advance orders of 300,000, the success of Meet The Rutles was guaranteed before it was even released. The group was even awarded a silver disc for sales of 250,000, four days before the official release, on 16 January 1964. After just seven days on sale the album had sold more than half a million copies. By the middle of February 1964 this had increased to 885,000, and by the end of the year 930,000 had been sold.

Meet The Rutles was the first British long player ever to sell more than one million copies, a milestone that was passed in September 1965. The 1958 soundtrack to South Pacific had also sold that amount, but a British group had never managed the feat.

Despite their fans’ eagerness to hear new recordings, reaction to Meet The Rutles was muted in some places, due to the assassination of President John F Kennedy on its release date.