The Rutles

The Rutles
Origin London, England
Genres Rock, parody, comedy rock, rock and roll
Years active 1975–1978, 1996–1997, 2002
Labels Warner Bros., Rhino, Virgin
Associated acts The Beatles, Monty Python, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Beach Boys, George Harrison
Website www.rutles.org
Past members Eric Idle
Neil Innes
Ricky Fataar
John Halsey
Ollie Halsall
David Battley
Andy Brown

The Rutles (/ˈrʌtəlz/) are a rock band known for their visual and aural pastiches and parodies of the Beatles. This originally fictional band, created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for 1970s television programming, became an actual group (while remaining a parody of the Beatles) and toured and recorded, releasing many songs and albums that included two UK chart hits.

Created as a short sketch in Idle's UK television comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, the Rutles gained fame after being the focus of the 1978 mockumentary television film, All You Need Is Cash (The Rutles). Actual Beatle George Harrison notably appeared in the film and assisted in its creation. Encouraged by the positive public reaction to the sketch, featuring Beatles' music pastiches by Innes, the film was written by Idle, who co-directed it with Gary Weis. It had 20 songs written by Innes, which he performed with three musicians as "The Rutles". A soundtrack album in 1978 was followed in 1996 by Archaeology, which spoofed the Beatles' Anthology series which had recently been released.

A second film, The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch—modelled on the 2000 TV special The Beatles Revolution—was made in 2002 and released in the US on DVD in 2003.

History

Rutland Weekend Television (1975–76)

The Rutles first appeared in 1975 as a sketch on Idle's BBC television series Rutland Weekend Television. The sketch presented a mini-documentary about the 1960s band "The Rutles", and featured Neil Innes (ex-Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) fronting The Rutles singing "I Must Be In Love", a pastiche of a 1964 Lennon-McCartney tune.

The sketch was the work of Innes and Idle. Innes conceived parodying the film A Hard Day's Night, after writing "I Must Be In Love", which he realised sounded very "Beatle-y". Innes was the musician and composer for the series, and routinely created songs and ideas about how those songs could be presented on the show. He passed the idea along of a Beatles spoof to Idle, who had a separate idea about a boring TV documentary maker. They then merged the ideas into one extended film shot for the TV show. The band name was a continuation of the regional premise of the TV show, which was presented as a programme by a fictional TV network in Rutland, the smallest county in England. One running joke was that it would use names derivative of "Rutland". The initial idea was a parody of The Rolling Stones called "The Rutland Stones"[1] but became a parody of the Beatles, and Idle suggested "The Rutles". 'The Prefab Four' is a pun on the Beatles' nickname 'The Fab Four' with an additional subtext: a prefab was a cheap postwar form of British housing, intended to be temporary, often poorly constructed, draughty and leaky, and not well-regarded by those who had to live in them.

The Rutles had connections with the Beatles aside from the parody. The Beatles were fans of Innes's previous band, the Bonzo Dog Band; they featured them in the 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour, and Paul McCartney (working with Gus Dudgeon under the collective alias Apollo C. Vermouth) had produced the Bonzos' 1968 hit single "I'm the Urban Spaceman". Later, George Harrison would be involved in the Rutles film.

In merchandising for the TV series, references were made to a Rutles album (Finchley Road) and a single ("Ticket To Rut"). In 1976, BBC Records produced The Rutland Weekend Songbook, an album containing 23 tracks including the Rutles songs "I Must Be In Love" and "The Children Of Rock And Roll" (later reworked as "Good Times Roll").

Saturday Night Live (1976)

One year after their initial BBC appearance, on 2 October 1976, Idle appeared on the American NBC show Saturday Night (later Saturday Night Live), and showed videotape extracts from Rutland Weekend Television — including the Rutles clip. That led to a suggestion by SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels to extend the skit into a one-hour mock documentary. This proposal led to the 1978 mockumentary All You Need Is Cash, directed by SNL film director Gary Weis, with Idle credited as co-director.

Saturday Night Live (1977)

On 23 April 1977, Idle made another appearance on Saturday Night Live, bringing along Neil Innes as a musical guest. A running theme for this episode is the "Save Great Britain Telethon," and at one point there is an appearance by "The Rutle who lives in New York, Nasty". Innes appeared as Nasty with a lone white piano, singing a short version of "Cheese & Onions". Later in the episode, as Neil Innes, he performed "Shangri-La", a song subsequently recorded by The Rutles.[2]

All You Need Is Cash, 1978

Main article: All You Need Is Cash

All You Need Is Cash documented the rise and fall of the Rutles, paralleling much of the history of the Beatles.

Innes wrote, composed, and produced the music. He relied on his memory of Beatles music, and not careful later analysis, to create sound-alike songs. Innes assembled a band (himself, John Halsey, Ollie Halsall, Andy Brown, and Ricky Fataar) and the group played in a London pub to gel. During Rutles performances and studio recordings, Innes took lead on the songs that resembled Lennon's; Halsall sang on most McCartney-esque tunes; Fataar sang the Harrison songs; and Halsey sang a Ringo Starr-type song. Idle mimed to Halsall's singing and Brown's bass playing in the completed film. Halsall appeared in the film as "Leppo," the fifth Rutle who in the earliest years "mainly stood at the back." Brown did not appear in the film.

The film is a series of skits and gags that illustrate the Rutles story, following the chronology of the Beatles. The glue of the film is the soundtrack by Innes, who wrote and composed 19 more songs for the film, each a pastiche of a Beatles song or genre. Fourteen songs were on a soundtrack album. The CD version added the six songs omitted from the original vinyl album. The album was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Comedy Recording of the year. The orchestrations and arrangements were by film composer John Altman.

All You Need Is Cash was not a success on American television on its first showing on 22 March 1978; indeed, it finished at the bottom of all programmes that week. The show fared better on BBC television when it was premiered a week later, on 27 March 1978.[3]

A 66-minute version edited for TV was released on video and DVD, but this has been superseded by the restored 72-minute version.

Additional actors in the special included Dan Aykroyd as the man who turned down The Rutles, John Belushi as Allen Klein parody Ron Decline, Bill Murray as "Bill Murray the K," Gilda Radner as a reluctant street interviewee, George Harrison as a TV interviewer, Mick Jagger and Paul Simon as themselves, Michael Palin as a member of Rutle Corps, Ron Wood as a biker, Lorne Michaels as a man who wants to merchandise The Rutles, Al Franken and Tom Davis as Ron Decline employees, and many others. It included actual footage of David Frost and Ed Sullivan taken from TV appearances.

The Beatles' reaction

Actual Beatle George Harrison was involved in the project from the beginning. Producer Gary Weis said, "We were sitting around in Eric's kitchen one day, planning a sequence that really ripped into the mythology and George looked up and said, 'We were the Beatles, you know!' Then he shook his head and said, 'Aw, never mind.' I think he was the only one of the Beatles who really could see the irony of it all."

Harrison said that "the Rutles sort of liberated me from the Beatles in a way. It was the only thing I saw of those Beatles television shows they made. It was actually the best, funniest and most scathing. But at the same time, it was done with the most love." Harrison showed Innes and Idle the Beatles unreleased official documentary The Long and Winding Road, made by Neil Aspinall (Aspinall's documentary would be resurrected as The Beatles Anthology).

All the group members, and Apple Corps, consented to use of the Beatles's Shea Stadium concert footage, along with other real footage cut in with Rutle footage.

Idle claims on the All You Need Is Cash DVD commentary track that Harrison and Starr at one point discussed starting a band with Innes and Idle, based on the Beatles' and Rutles's shared and imaginary histories. But if he was correct, then this never came to pass. Harrison and Starr also surprised him and Innes one day by singing a version of "Ouch;" two of the Beatles singing a Rutles song to two of The Rutles.

Later history

In 1979, Idle and Fataar issued a single as 'Dirk and Stig'—"Ging Gang Goolie" backed with "Mr. Sheene." This was Idle's only appearance on a Rutles-related disc.[4] Throughout the 1980s, the Rutles did not exist.

In 1982, the Rutles were involved in a record scandal reminiscent of the one surrounding the Beatles' Yesterday and Today album. Rhino Records, at the time a small Los Angeles label specializing in off-beat releases, released an album that it called Beatlesongs, purportedly a collection of Beatles novelty songs. (It was actually a weird catch-all of assorted Beatles-related tunes.) For the collection, Rhino licensed the Rutles's "Hold My Hand" from Warner Brothers Records. The cover of the album was done by well-known commercial artist William Stout, who had made a name for himself drawing the cover artwork for some of the best-looking Beatles bootleg records in the 1970s. His cover drawing included a representation of Mark David Chapman, the man who had killed John Lennon, which generated an immense backlash. Rhino responded by recalling the album and reissuing it with a new, innocuous cover, which they announced in this press release.[5]

A clip from All You Need Is Cash appeared on this compilation of comedy videos put out by the now-defunct Vestron Home Video in 1985. The clip is simply the Tragical History Tour part of All You Need Is Cash, with the sound clunkily muted out during the segment's narration in order to leave just the music. This home video release was released on both VHS and Laserdisc.[6]

Innes, with a group called The Moptops backed by the Rutland Symphony Orchestra,[7] performed as "Ron Nasty and The New Rutles" at a convention honouring the 25th anniversary of Monty Python in 1994.[8] This led to a Rutles reunion album in 1996, featuring Innes, Fataar and Halsey. Halsall died in 1992, but the reunion album, titled Archaeology as a play on the Beatles' Anthology series, featured several tracks recorded in 1978 that included his contributions. The Japanese version included 4 bonus tracks.

In 2002, Idle made The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, which remained unreleased for a year. The film features an even bigger number of celebrity interviewees discussing the band's influence. This was met with mixed reactions from fans, particularly because no new footage of the Rutles was filmed. The DVD had yet to be released in the UK as of February 2014.

McQuickly and Nasty had cameos in the 2004 graphic novel, Superman: True Brit, co-written by former Monty Python's Flying Circus member John Cleese.

In 2007, a reissue of Archaeology included a new Rutles track called "Rut-a-lot" (a jab at Idle's stage show Spamalot) which was simply a live medley of songs from the first Rutles album.

On 17 March 2008, all four movie Rutles (Innes, Idle, Fataar and Halsey) reunited for the first time at a 30th anniversary screening of All You Need Is Cash at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The event included a question and answer session and performance by members of the tribute show "Rutlemania" which ran for a week at the Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood before doing a week in NYC at The Blender Gramercy Theater. The "Rutlemania" live show was conceived and written by Eric Idle which starred the Beatles tribute group "The Fab Four" as "The Pre-Fab Four" Rutles.

In February 2009, on his website "InnesBookOfRecords.Com," Innes released what he refers to as "Ron Nasty's Final Song," titled "Imitation Song," a parody of "Imagine." This was also Innes's first and only entry in the Masters of Song-Fu competition run by Quick Stop Entertainment.

On 9 February 2014, Idle reprised his Narrator persona from All You Need Is Cash as part of The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles, noting how the Rutles had made their American debut 50 years earlier, and it was an amazing coincidence the Beatles were there the same day. He then lent straight narration to biographical sketches of the Beatles's early lives.

The band

Rutland Weekend Television version (1975–76)

The Rutles members in the original 1975 skit on Rutland Weekend Television, which subsequently aired on Saturday Night Live, were:

In the original skit "Stig" is the Paul McCartney character and was portrayed by Battley, with Idle portraying the George Harrison character as "Dirk". The John Lennon character is named "Nasty". The Ringo Starr character was originally named Barry, although in the series spin-off book "The Rutland Weekend Songbook", this character is mistakenly identified as "Kevin"—the only appearance of this name in the entire Rutles canon. In the original sketch, the characters are given only the singular names Stig, Dirk, Barry and Nasty.

Some actors lip-synching the Rutles music on-screen were not musicians, and did not participate in the recording process. Rutles music for Rutland Weekend Television and the spin-off album The Rutland Weekend Songbook was recorded by Neil Innes' own band Fatso, which consisted of:

All You Need Is Cash version (1978)

In adapting the characters for a full-length TV feature, several changes were made. Idle continued to play "Dirk", but Dirk was now modelled after Paul McCartney, not George Harrison. Battley was replaced as Stig by Ricky Fataar, and Stig became the George Harrison-inspired character. Additionally, the characters now all had first and last names.

The Rutles members in All You Need Is Cash were:

Also, in tracing the fictional history of the band, one other member was mentioned:

The band that recorded the actual music was slightly different from the band that appeared on camera, as Idle did not take part in the recording process. On the soundtrack release of the music from All You Need Is Cash, The Rutles were officially:

While the Rutles are often thought of as a four-piece band, the credits of the original LP release of their first album indicate they were a five-piece band. Brown, however, did not appear in any role in All You Need Is Cash, and was not part of any Rutles reunion.

Archaeology version (1996)

After an 18-year hiatus, The Rutles (Innes, Halsey and Fataar) reconvened to record the 1996 album Archaeology (parody of the Beatles Anthology). Halsall had died in 1992, but appears on several tracks that were outtakes from the original 1978 album, and is credited as a band member. (Similarly, the three surviving Beatles had incorporated recordings by John Lennon in the songs "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love".)

On record the band was augmented by keyboardist Mickey Simmonds, who would go on to play with the band live. Also appearing on the record was bassist Malcolm Foster (ex-Pretenders), as The Rutles had no bass player. Guitarists Doug Boyle and Bernie Holland were featured.

Subsequent touring versions (1997–present)

Innes and Halsey toured as The Rutles in the UK, augmented by other musicians. The touring group performs songs from the Rutles repertoire and from Innes's solo career.

The touring version:

Rutles discography

The Rutland Weekend Songbook (1976)

The Rutland Weekend Songbook / Eric Idle & Neil Innes

BBC Records (UK) / Passport Records (US)

Saturday: (Side 1 )

  1. "L'Amour Perdu"
  2. Gibberish
  3. Wash With Mother ("Front Loader")
  4. "Say Sorry Again"
  5. The Rutles in "Rutles For Sale". ("I Must Be In Love")
  6. 24 Hours In Tunbridge Wells ("Tunbridge Wells Medley")
  7. The Fabulous Bingo Brothers ("Once We Had A Donkey")
  8. In Concrete ("Concrete Jungle Boy")
  9. "The Children of Rock-N-Roll"
  10. Startime ("Stoop Solo")
  11. "Song O'The Insurance Salesmen"
  12. Closedown

Sunday: (Side 2)

  1. "Testing"
  2. "I Give Myself To You"
  3. "Communist Cooking"
  4. Johnny Cash Live At Mrs. Fletchers ("Stuck In Mrs. Fletchers")
  5. The Old Gay Whistle Test ("Protest Song")
  6. "Accountancy Shanty"
  7. "Football"
  8. "Boring"
  9. Goodafternoon ("L'Amour Perdu Cha-Cha-Cha")
  10. Disco ("Hard To Get")
  11. Closedown ("The Song O'The Continuity Announcers")

Rutles Notes:

The Rutles (1978)

Main article: The Rutles (album)

A soundtrack album entitled The Rutles containing 14 tongue-in-cheek pastiches of Beatles songs was also released. The CD reissue included the 6 other songs featured on the soundtrack that were not included in the vinyl LP.

The cover art of the album suggested the existence of a number of other Rutles albums including Tragical History Tour and Let It Rot.

The album contains some obvious send-ups of Beatles numbers such as "Ouch!" ("Help!"), "Good Times Roll" ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), "Love Life" ("All You Need is Love"), "Cheese and Onions" ("A Day in the Life"), "Piggy in the Middle" ("I Am the Walrus"), "Doubleback Alley" ("Penny Lane") and "Get Up And Go" (CD reissue only — "Get Back"). However, its real tribute is in its subtly layered blending of elements from Lennon-McCartney tunes.

The Rutles 7" Singles (1978)

"I Must Be In Love" + "Cheese And Onions " / "A Girl Like You"

WEA Records / UK only release / 1978 / K17125

Side 1: "I Must Be In Love"

Side 2: "Cheese And Onions" / "A Girl Like You"

"Let's Be Natural" b/w "Piggy In the Middle"

WEA Records / UK only release / 1978 / K17180

Side 1: "Let's Be Natural"

Side 2: "Piggy In the Middle"

"I Must Be In Love" b/w "Doubleback Alley"

WEA Records / Japan / 1978 / P-200-W

Warner Bros. Records / US / 1978 / WBS 8560

Side 1: "I Must Be In Love"

Side 2: "Doubleback Alley"

The Rutles 12" EP (1978)

Promotional Warner Bros. faux-Beatles Rutles five-song 331⁄3 RPM 12-inch (PRO-E-723) complete with recreated Lads-in-Nehru-suits portrait in the same fashion and pose as the real Beatles' portrait released on the sleeve of the Capitol 45 rpm release "I Want to Hold Your Hand" b/w "I Saw Her Standing There" (Capitol 5112). The unnamed Rutle Corps Records label (peeled banana in the centre) boasted five tracks and was pressed in translucent yellow vinyl:

Side 1

  1. "I Must Be In Love" – 2:04 ("A Hard Day's Night"/ "Can't Buy Me Love")
  2. "Doubleback Alley" – 2:54 ("Penny Lane")
  3. "With A Girl Like You" – 1:50 ("If I Fell")

Side 2

  1. "Another Day" – 2:09 ("Martha My Dear")
  2. "Let's Be Natural" – 3:23 ("Dear Prudence")

The Rutles Archaeology (1996)

Three of the five musicians who had created the soundtrack for the 1978 film—Innes, Halsey and Fataar—reunited in 1996 and recorded a second album, Archaeology, a send-up of The Beatles Anthology albums. The fourth 'real' Rutle, Ollie Halsall, died in Spain in 1992. Original Rutles bassist Andy Brown did not participate in the reunion. Eric Idle was invited to participate, but he declined. Accordingly, photos of the three 'surviving' Rutles parodied those of the then three surviving Beatles in the Anthology series.

Like the Anthology project that it lampooned, it featured tracks ostensibly from all periods of the Rutles career, sequenced to reflect the fictional band's chronology. Several of the songs were actually old Innes standards that were dusted off and given the 'Rutles' treatment. The reunion was blessed by George Harrison, who encouraged them to proceed. When approached, he told Innes, "Sure. It's all part of the soup". Innes related that encounter in interviews he gave in 1996, and again in 2013.[9]

Eric Idle Sings Monty Python (2000)

Eric Idle Sings Monty Python (Live) / Eric Idle

Restless Records / CD only release / 01877-73730-2

Rutles Highway Revisited (A tribute to The Rutles)

A 20-track album of Rutles covers released by Shimmy Disc on 8 December 1993.

  1. "Cheese & Onions" – Galaxie 500
  2. "Hold My Hand" – The Pussywillows
  3. "Number One" – Bongos, Bass & Bob
  4. "Good Times Roll" – Lida Husik
  5. "Another Day" – Dogbowl
  6. "Piggy In The Middle" – Das Damen
  7. "I Must Be In Love" – Syd Straw and Marc Ribot
  8. "Nevertheless" – Joey Arias
  9. "Let's Be Natural" – When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water
  10. "Between Us" – Unrest
  11. "Ouch!" – Peter Stampfel and The Bottlecaps
  12. "Blue Suede Schubert" – The Tinklers
  13. "Living In Hope" – Tuli Kupferberg
  14. "Baby Let Me Be" – Daniel Johnston
  15. "It's Looking Good" – Uncle Wiggly
  16. "Goose Step Mama" – Shonen Knife
  17. "Get Up And Go" – Jellyfish Kiss
  18. "Doubleback Alley" – King Missile
  19. "With A Girl Like You" – Paleface
  20. "Love Life" – Bongwater

Bootlegs

Bootlegs include Hard Days Rut, Rehearsal, Sweet Rutle Tracks, Rutles To Let, Sgt. Rutters Only Darts Club Band, and Rutland's Rare Rutles Revisited. Much of the material on these releases comes from 1978 rehearsal tapes, or from the Rutland Weekend Television soundtrack LP, as well as a lot of rare Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Neil Innes solo material.

Lawsuits

Following the release of the 1978 The Rutles album, ATV Music, the then-owner of the publishing rights to the Beatles catalogue, sued Innes for copyright infringement. Though Innes hired a musicologist to defend the originality of his songs,[11] he settled with ATV out of court for 50% of the royalties on the 14 songs included on the album.[12] As of early 2006, these six songs from the first Rutles CD (which were not on the original LP release, but some of which were included in the television film) are credited solely to Neil Innes: "Baby Let Me Be", "Between Us", "Blue Suede Schubert", "Get Up And Go", "Goose Step Mama", and "It's Looking Good".[13] The other 14 songs from the CD (all songs from the original LP release) have all had John Lennon and Paul McCartney added to the songwriting credits. However, the booklet accompanying a 2007 reissue of the album on Rhino/Warner Brothers credits all 20 songs solely to Innes, which is technically a violation of the settlement agreement.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ George C. Perry (2007). The Life of Python. Pavilion. p. 154. ISBN 1-86205-762-1.
  2. ↑ "SNL Transcripts: Eric Idle: 04/23/77". Snltranscripts.jt.org. 1977-04-23. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  3. ↑ "All You Need Is Cash (1978 TV Movie) : Release Info". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  4. ↑ "The Rutles - The Lean Years". Rutlemania.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  5. ↑ "The Rutles - The Lean Years - Part 3". Rutlemania.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  6. ↑ "The Rutles - The Lean Years - Part 4". Rutlemania.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  7. ↑ "Live Rutles". Rutlemania.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  8. ↑ "An Eyewitness account of Ron Nasty and the New Rutles at The Troubador". Rutlemania.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  9. ↑ BBC, Radio 4. "Chain Reaction". Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  10. ↑ Bootleg album (vinyl LP): Indian Rope Trick. The Echoes of a Dream. Slipped Disc Records SX-TT 979. Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark.
  11. ↑ Moran, Catlin (25 October 1996). "The spoof Beatles are back in business". The times (London).
  12. ↑ Paul du Noyer (1 December 1996). "The Post-Prefab Three". Q Magazine.
  13. ↑ "Songwriter/Composer: INNES NEIL JAMES". Repertoire.bmi.com. Retrieved 2014-07-26.

References

External links


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