The question “What do the Beatles mean to YOU?” was posed to the participants of the annual “All You Need is Love” benefit at the me&thee in Marblehead, MA.  This is the Eleventh Annual benefit.  Proceeds from this show go to sending musicians into the local schools for workshops and concerts.  We firmly believe that providing additional arts programs is a vital and very necessary part of every school curriculum.  Our musicians donate their time, energy and enthusiasm to this project and we can’t thank them enough!

This year’s benefit is on Saturday, May 21 at 7:30 at the me&thee in Marblehead, MA. Tickets to this show are available here.

Scrambled Eggs is a band of friends who love this benefit and look forward to it every year.  These four musicians met each other via the music of one of their rock heroes, Todd Rundgren, who admits his devotion to all things Beatles. In fact, Todd tours frequently with one Mr. Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) in his All-Starr Band.  Todd and his band, Utopia, also recorded an album, Deface the Music that paid tribute to the Fab Four.  Each of the songs on that album replicated the sound of various stages in Beatles music history.

Here’s what Scrambled Eggs had to say about The Beatles.

LIN SPRAGUE  (guitar, vocals)

I consider The Beatles music to be a kind of modern kind of folk music. It’s known and sung throughout the world in many cultures by many generations. It unites us.

For me personally, it represents the arc of life and personal growth. The early stuff is full of naive youthful energy, romance, optimism, and self-assurance. They later began to write as much about the world around them as about their inner selves, both the happy things and the not-so-happy. Their music is a spiritual journey, especially if you can experience it in chronological order.

And their career described a perfect path: they sprang from seemingly nowhere, conquered the world, proceeded to grow ever more surprising and audacious… then they were gone at the peak of their artistic power and popularity without ever having a chance to decline. It’s the perfect show business legend.

MIKE BIRCH  (bass guitar, vocals)

For me, it all started on a Sunday night in 1964 … February 9 … the Beatles took the stage on the Ed Sullivan show and while the girls in the audience screamed, my parents and grandparents exclaimed about the “long hairs” and a 7-year-old boy thought, ‘I’m going to learn to play the guitar one day!’

GRADY MOATES  (vocals, percussion)

I began my career in radio broadcasting as a part-time DJ in the deep south in 1963.  The songs of The Beatles were always on my radio programs.  I was a tenor in choir at my church, so singing harmonies along with the mop-tops was one of my favorite things to do.  When I graduated in 1965,  I spent
a glorious two weeks in Miami with my H.S. sweetheart, paying nineteen-cents-a-gallon and driving from one beach to another, from one nightclub to another, with the constant background of the “HELP!” album on every radio station.

Naturally, I joined a band in 1967, playing a Hammond B3 organ and singing lead vocals, and we did many, many Beatles covers, such as “Ticket To Ride”, “I Feel Fine” and “HELP!”.  Our song “Sanctimonious” was recorded 6 months before The Beatles released “Hey Jude”.  The construction of our song and their song is strikingly similar.  You can hear it here:

Now it’s 51 years later, and I’m still a major fan.  It’s quite obvious to me that without The Beatles, my life would have been quite different.

KEVIN WALL  (guitar, vocals)

I was fairly young when the Beatles came to America. My first recollection is the song “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” I certainly saw the effect the Beatles had on my older brothers. The band practices held in our living room, the neighbors calling the police to “stop all that noise.” For my 8th Christmas, I received a set of blue Rogers drums. I thought they were for me but it was really just a way to have drums at the house so the drummer didn’t have to lug his to practice ;-). By the third grade I was playing drums and singing in my older brothers’ band. I gave the bass guitar a try but my fingers were too small and that thing weighed a ton. When I was about 20 yrs old, I rejoined my brothers’ band as a rhythm guitar player and singer. Our second set consisted of a 17 song Beatles medley that began with “Nowhere Man”. My teens took place in the 70’s and the Beatles had long since broken up but every artist I listened to cited them as an influence. The Beatles showed everyone that you could write your owns songs, play the instruments and actually make a living doing something you love. 40+ years later I too am writing & singing my own songs, playing musical instruments and doing something I love. Every now and then I perform some songs by those lads from Liverpool.