The driving, dominant chords that open the song “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” heralded the beginning of something big when The Beatles strummed them over the screams of The Ed Sullivan Show’s studio audience on Feb. 9, 1964. Beatlemania gripped the country during the group’s first visit to the United States, but the explosion of fandom was just the beginning of a movement of UK-based rock musicians that would come to dominate American billboard charts.
The British Invasion describes the era of rock ’n’ roll following The Beatles’ iconic television performance, when groups like The Rolling Stones, The Zombies, The Animals, and others rode the wave of American infatuation with British-produced rock ’n’ roll. The phenomena helped to shape the music of the second half of the 1960s, which inspired musicians like Ed Miller, guitarist and bandleader of Unfinished Business. His group will perform a British Invasion tribute show in Santa Maria on May 29.
“I learned to play chords just going through Beatles songbooks when I was 14 years old,” Miller said. “There are songs on their first album that are challenging and difficult to pull off, and they were challenging for the average musician even at that time.”
The musical movement was fostered by a continuing support and respect for black musicians in the UK and other parts of Europe during the late ’50s and early ’60s, Miller explained, so that a generation of young British artists came to understand American music intimately. Blues, soul, and early rock performers like Little Richard, Ray Charles, and Chuck Berry had an indelible influence on the style that evolved out of songwriters like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, or Eric Burdon.
“A lot of these guys really honed their craft in Hamburg, Germany, before they came over here to the U.S.,” Miller said. “Hamburg was a kind of music center at the time, and they were covering American blues artists and rock ’n’ roll for hours on end.”
Miller and the members of his group represent five lifetimes spent honing the craft, with each member holding the British Invasion groups and their influences in high regard. The group has performed tribute shows featuring The Beatles before and is especially equipped to recreate some of the sounds of the iconic group.
“We’re in our 60s, most of us, so we’ve accumulated instruments over time, and that really helps approximate the sound,” Miller said. “We all have vintage instruments from the era, so that’s how we do it instrumentally.”
An Epiphone Country Gentleman electric guitar like Miller’s along with the support of bassist Jim Witt’s Hofner violin bass allows Unfinished Business to both sound the part and look it. Instrument choice contributed to each group’s character and mystique, which musicians like Miller have emulated ever since.
Each member of Unfinished Business—which includes Miller on lead guitar and vocals, Ben Davis on rhythm guitar and vocals, Jim Witt on bass guitar and vocals, drummer Dave Hollister, and keyboardist Thomas “Toes” Cuffe—travel equipped with a number of instruments each. Miller has several electric guitars, as well as an acoustic 12-string, at the ready for a number of songs.
Though there is a range of difference between songs by The Beatles and tunes by the Dave Clark Five or Gerry and The Pacemakers, the spirit of the music is united, Miller explained, in the quest for a catchy tune with unforgettable rhythm.
“It’s the composition; the melodies and harmonies just stick in your mind and you’re humming after you hear them,” he said. “It really was relatable to everyone, especially young people, and still is even today.
“For some reason my grandkids, when they ride with me in the car, they want to hear this music,” he added. “I think they are attracted to the melody and the happy, energetic spirit.”
Contact Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 21-28, 2015.