The Beatles played their final concert in 1966. They had success touring, but the danger they faced on the road left them exhausted and tired of live performances. While they didn’t announce it to their fans, they knew that they would play their last concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. They ended the show like they ended nearly every Beatles concert. Here’s the song they played to close out their final performance.
What song closed out The Beatles’ concert at Candlestick Park?
Each of The Beatles grew up on a steady diet of American music, and Little Richard was one of their favorite artists.
“Little Richard was one of the all-time greats,” John Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology. “The first time I heard him a friend of mine had been to Holland and brought back a 78 with ‘Long Tall Sally’ on one side, and ‘Slippin’ And Slidin” on the other. It blew our heads — we’d never heard anybody sing like that in our lives, and all those saxes playing like crazy.”
Years after Lennon first heard “Long Tall Sally,” he began performing it with The Beatles. Even after a number of successful songs, they still liked concluding their shows by playing it. Their final show was no different. They closed out their Candlestick Park concert with “Long Tall Sally.”
‘Long Tall Sally’ was the perfect song for The Beatles to end their concert
The song concluded their touring career perfectly. The band had grown tired of live performances and craved something new. Playing “Long Tall Sally” represented the end of the beginning half of their career. It called back to their earliest days as a band and closed out a chapter in their lives. After this show, their music evolved, growing more experimental and influential. By playing “Long Tall Sally,” they celebrated the end of an era.
Paul McCartney asked their press officer Tony Barrow to record the concert, but the tape cut off as they performed the song.
“I got the lot, except that the tape ran out in the middle of ‘Long Tall Sally,’” Barrow said, per Rolling Stone. “Paul was clearly chuffed to have such a unique souvenir of what would prove to be an historic evening,”
Little Richard turned down ownership of The Beatles
Clearly, Little Richard played a large role in The Beatles’ lives. He was nearly more significant to them, though. Their manager, Brian Epstein, offered Little Richard partial ownership of the band. He refused because he wasn’t sure they’d go anywhere.
“When they came off [stage], Brian Epstein said to me, ‘Richard, I’ll give you fifty percent of the Beatles.’ I couldn’t accept ’cos I never thought they would make it,” he said per the book The Life and Times of Little Richard by Charles White. “Brian Epstein said, ‘Take the masters [of Beatles songs] back to America with you and give them to the record company for me.’ I didn’t do that, but I did call up some people for them. I phoned Art Rupe and I also got in touch with Vee Jay, but I didn’t take a piece of them.”
