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Sun 15 February 2026 21:00, UK
Both John Lennon and George Harrison belonged to a musical generation that shared a near-universal teen soundtrack, centred on rock ‘n’ roll’s seismic lightning bolt from across the Atlantic.
There was wiggle room, sure. Eric Clapton was more tethered to the old blues tradition, while Graham Bond was fundamentally shaped by jazz’s fluid rhythms, but the moment Elvis Presley first swivelled his hips and Chuck Berry plugged in his cherry red Gibson, America’s new rock export offered a generation of UK post-war kids growing up in the 1950s’ austerity grey a gripping window of colour far removed from the stifiling suburbs a different universe from drive ins, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola.
The Beatles were no different. While Paul McCartney boasted a more eclectic musical shaping, harbouring a lifelong love of music hall cheer and Rodgers and Hammerstein song standards, the teen Beatles were fed on a staple diet of rock ‘n’ roll sprinkled with some R&B when first picking up their instruments, even as far back as Lennon’s predecessor group The Quarrymen inexorably moving away from skiffle to the big RnR the moment McCartney and Harrison began curiously orbting the local Liverpool act.
Not every big US hit was so easy to listen to, however. Amid the States’ vast and unwieldy musical landscape, plenty of big numbers across later soul and R&B pop would only be discovered til years later, when under the managerial wing of music biz entrepreneur Brian Epstein.
Just as The Beatles had formed, but long before they were Fab and with Pete Best on drums, the four would congregate at Epstein’s North End Music Stores in the city centre, to hear the latest rare American imports. Among the plethora of new records to eagerly rifle through, one curious number that would pique all their interest was a debut big hit from an up-and-coming soul label out of Detroit.
Better known as Motown today, Berry Gordy initially founded the future soul institute as Tamla Records in 1959, first finding Billboard fame by penning an unabashed embrace of material fortune over the usual romantic fare with Janie Bradford, nabbing a respectable number 23 on the newly launched Hot 100. Recorded by Barrett Strong, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ bottled the classic early Motown sound, shimmering with R&B stomp but coated in just the right amount of the Motor City’s urban grit.
Gifted with a sharp antenna for what was bubbling away in the US charts, Epstein’s little Motown order would find its way into the hands of The Beatles, forming an essential part of their live repertoire of both their Hamburg and Cavern days. Over the years and across numerous interviews, Lennon and Harrison both namechecked Barrett’s sly hit as a personal favourite, and inspiring Lennon’s admirable cover that closes 1963’s With The Beatles.
‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ wasn’t just a much-loved song between the band, but formed one of the many essential musical bonds that helped nurture the group to greatness and rock-solid comradeship.
“It was interesting that when I joined The Beatles, we didn’t really know each other, but if you looked at each of our record collections, the four of us had virtually the same records,” drummer Ringo Starr reflected on 1995’s Anthology. “We all had The Miracles, we all had Barrett Strong and people like that. I suppose that helped us gel as musicians, and as a group.”
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