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The Beatles was created by Eric Idle with songs composed by Neil Innes.
The Rutles members in "All You Need Is Cash" were:
The Rutles members on Rutland Weekend Television and Saturday Night Live were
There is some confusion over the names and actors; Kevin was supposedly the name of the drummer, yet the SNL version calls him Barry. Also, Eric Idle was labeled as Dirk in the SNL version, while his memoirs identify him as playing Stig.
On the "Archaeology", Neil, Barry, and Rikki used their real names. The late Ollie Halsall also appeared, as some songs were outtakes from the 1978 sessions.
The Rutles began life in 1975 as a sketch on Eric Idle's BBC television series Rutland Weekend Television. Rutland was the smallest county in England until the local government re-organization of 1974 when it literally ceased to exist (it has since been restored). Eric Idle found it amusing to suggest that he was the face of a mock broadcasting company run from this insignificant rural location. (The name alludes to the real television broadcaster London Weekend Television; London being covered by two ITV franchises. Any Rutland TV station would be pretty small, so a Rutland Weekend Television would have to be ridiculously tiny.)
The initial sketch presented Neil Innes fronting The Rutles singing "I Must Be In Love", a masterful pastiche of some of the early Lennon-McCartney tunes. As part of the merchandising material produced 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 two Rutles songs "I Must Be In Love" and "The Children of Rock and Roll" (later reworked as "Good Times Roll").
Two years later when Eric Idle was asked to appear on the American NBC show 'Saturday Night' (later to become Saturday Night Live), he took along Neil Innes and incorporated some of the Rutles material into one or two sketches. The material proved to be extremely popular and a suggestion that he produce a lengthier programme led to the 1978 mockumentary film "All You Need Is Cash". The film purports to be a documentary on the rise and fall of the band paralleling much of the history of the Beatles. George Harrison makes a cameo appearance in the film as a TV interviewer and a number of well known comedians including Michael Palin, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd also appear. The cast also includes Bianca Jagger as one of the Rutles girlfriends, Ron Wood as a Hell's Angel, and Mick Jagger and Paul Simon as themselves. The programme is notable for bringing together British and American comic talent in a way that has seldom happened before or since. A 66-minute syndicated version was available for some time on video and DVD but has since been superseded by a restored 72-minute version.
Ron Nasty first met Dirk McQuickly in January 1959, at the now-historical address of 43, Egg Lane, Liverpool. Having joined up with Stig O'Hara, they started playing as a trio. After 18 months, they discovered Barry Wom hiding in their van, and the classic line-up was complete.
In 1960, at the suggestion of then-manager Arthur Scouse, the group went to Hamburg where, with fifth member Leppo, they played all the clubs on the Reeperbahn. Tragically Leppo was lost in transit on the return trip.
In October 1961, fate intervened in the shape and other attributes of one-legged retail chemist Leggy Mountbatten, who, falling into the Cavern Club one night, decided he liked the cut of the boys' gib (and other attributes). He became their manager, cleaned up their image, and touted them around the major record companies. Eventually they signed to Parlourphone, and their debut album, recorded in 20 minutes, became an enormous success. By December 1963, they were the biggest thing ever to hit the music business, with nineteen out of the top twenty singles in the UK.
1964 saw Rutlemania go worldwide and then some. The group swiftly conquered the U.S., while McNasty's book of comic prose, Out of me Head, dominated the best-seller lists. In July of that year, the group's first film, A Hard Day's Rut, was released. This was followed in 1965 by Ouch!. By this time, Rutlemania had reached such a fever pitch that crowd control was a serious problem. In August 1965, the prefab four played a sell-out concert at New York's Ché Stadium ("named after Cuban guerrilla leader Ché Stadium" rather than Che Guevara), arriving a day early in order to get away before the audience arrived.
In 1966, controversy hit the Rutles when Ron Nasty was quoted as saying that the group were "bigger than God". Nasty, however, insisted that he had been misquoted, and had actually said they were bigger than Rod, referring to Rod Stewart, then a relative unknown. The band bounced back with their 1967 masterpiece Sergeant Rutter's Only Darts Club Band, though this too was misted over in controversy when the group claim they wrote it under the influence of tea, which they had been introduced to by Bob Dylan. When Nasty was arrested for possession of tea, there was a national outcry and a leader in The Times called for tea to be legalised. More bad news followed for the group - while staying with the mystic Arthur Sultan at his retreat in Bognor Regis, the band heard that Mountbatten had left them, emigrating to Australia. Some critics argue that the band lost their direction at this point. Their self-indulgent TV movie about four Oxford professors on a tour of English tea-shops, The Tragical History Tour, was regarded as a failure, despite the success of the soundtrack, which included the classic songs "W.C. Fields Forever" and "I Am The Waitress".
In April 1968, the group launched their new record company, Rutle Corps. Despite signing up some promising talent (notably Arthur Hodgeson and the Kneecaps), poor financial management finally led to the label's ultimate failure. It was in this atmosphere that the group's last album, Let it Rut, was recorded. Soon afterwards, the band fell apart amid much legal wrangling, with McQuickly suing Nasty and O'Hara, Wom suing McQuickly, Nasty suing O'Hara and Wom, and in all the confusion, O'Hara accidentally suing himself. Wom had some success with his solo LP, When You Find the Girl of Your Dreams in the Arms of some Scotsman from Hull, but like the other members, soon drifted into obscurity, punctuated only by the making of a 1978 retrospective documentary, "All You need Is Cash".
A soundtrack album entitled The Rutles containing a number of tongue-in-cheek pastiches of Beatles' songs was also released. 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!") and "Doubleback Alley" ("Penny Lane"). However, its real tribute is in its subtly layered blending of elements from many classic Lennon-McCartney tunes. Multiple listenings are required to discern all the sources referenced in titles, lyrics, melodies, and song structures (the former two mainly the province of Innes, the latter two mainly of Halsall). The uncanny replication of the Beatles "sound" was also due in large part to Halsall. Were it not for the inherently ironic lyrics, it might be difficult to distinguish the songs from true Beatles numbers. The original LP album omitted several songs which were restored on the 1990 CD reissue.
The band reunited (without Eric Idle) in the mid-1990s for a few one-off gigs and in 1996, a second album, The Rutles Archaeology, a send-up of the Beatles' six-disc Anthology was released. Most of the tracks on this album spoof the Sgt. Pepper period of the Beatles. (In fact many were not specifically written as Rutles songs, but were adapted to fit.)
The Japanese release of Archaeology includes 4 bonus tracks: "Lullaby", "Baby S'il Vous Plait", "It's Looking Good" (rehearsal), and "My Little Ukelele".
Bootlegs include "Hard Days Rut", "Rehearsal", "Sweet Rutle Tracks", "Rutles To Let", "Sgt Rutters Only Darts Club Band", and "Rutland's Rare Rutles Revisited." More information on these can be found at bootlegzone.com.
Meet The Rutles
With The Rutles
A Hard Day's Rut
Rutles For Sale
This Is...The Savage Young Rutles
Ouch!
Rutle Soul
Revolter
Yesterday, Tomorrow, And Lunchtimes
Travolta
Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band
Tragical History Tour
The Rutles (aka "The Shite Album")
Yellow Submarine Sandwich
Get Up And Go
Shabby Road
Let It Rot
Ron Nasty / Polyvinyl Wicker Trio
All Things Fall Down
Goodnight Vietnam
Venus And Marbles
White Dopes On Punk
When You Find The Girl Of Your Dreams In The Arms Of Some Scotsmen From Hull
Finchley Road
The Rutles corps logo is a banana.
It should be noted that the Rutles came before the age of tribute bands.
Despite the bonus tracks, "The Rutles" CD has one song edited: "Hold My Hand", which opened the LP, originally had a sound-effects intro.
Nasty went on to form a post-Rutles band as well: the Plastic Ono Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (this is a parody of Innes' real band the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band). They've only been mentioned once: in a 1996 article about the "Archaeology" in Goldmine.
The 1978 rehearsals have been bootlegged, and feature several interesting oddities, including "Piggy In The Middle" with the lyrics that appear in the LP's liners, and a never-released track called "Plenty Of Time" (a cover of a song by Grimms).
It's possible that an upcoming book, "We Love the Rutles", could be released - the author just has to find a publisher willing to carry it.
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