Come Together
Abbey Road led organizer to Louisville
by Walter Tunis

As he drives down Interstate 71 to Louisville, Gary Jacob can sense the pull.

For the past year, he has been organizing the biggest Beatles tribute imaginable, a sprawling, weekend-long festival that brings perhaps the most-championed pop voice of all time to life in a big way.

How big? Try 10 stages peppered around the Belvedere. Try 75 bands representing 45 states and 10 countries. All of it is designed with the idea of re-creating, at least for a holiday weekend, the thrill of Beatlemania.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, with half an hour of travel time left, Jacob senses the reality of the event he has brought, literally and figuratively, to Louisville from a far corner of another state. In essence, the interstate under his wheels has become Abbey Road.

"As I close in on Louisville, I start feeling this magnet pulling me right into the heart of what I've been working on for the past year," Jacob said. "Really the last five years. I start thinking about all those different emotions that come with doing something like this."

The event Jacob has designed is Abbey Road on the River. Proudly promoted as "The Biggest Beatles Festival in the World," it will offer scores of interpretive versions and visions of the music with which Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr shook the world more than four decades ago.

Named after the Beatles' final studio album, Abbey Road on the River is not a new creation. Jacob started the festival four years ago in his hometown, Cleveland. It caught on. It grew. And then it moved.

Last year, Jacob teamed with a pair of business associates in Louisville, won immediate endorsement from Mayor Jerry Abramson, and, almost as quickly, secured sponsorship to bring Abbey Road on the River to River City.

"After our third year in Cleveland, I realized this was something that resonated with fans more than any event I have ever produced," Jacob said. "The emotional touchstones were just incredible. But from an attendance point of view, a sponsorship point of view and even from the city's point of view, I didn't feel the event was being supported.

"Whereas previously in my career, I might have dropped it and moved on, this just felt too good to let go of."

So after courting several prospective new homes for the festival -- including Milwaukee, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio -- Jacob and his business partners settled on Louisville.

"Nothing compared to the reception we got there," he said. "We were blessed in the fact everyone in Louisville understood what we were proposing. They got on board not just as back-slappers but as teammates."

Louisville rocks

So what does Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, think about losing the biggest Beatle bash in the land to Kentucky?

"You know, I have to admit, being a home-grown Cleveland guy, the festival is better off in Louisville," said Ralph Criswell, guitarist for the Cleveland-based Beatles cover band Revolution Pie. The band has played Abbey Road on the River every year since its inception in 2002.

"It's been a pleasant surprise because we've seen the festival grow every year," Criswell said. "And I'm not just talking from a talent standpoint, but also from a logistics standpoint and especially from a community standpoint. It was just a good move."

Although bands that first played Abbey Road on the River last year know Louisville as the festival's only home, most think the city has done an exemplary job in embodying the spirit of fun, peace and, yes, even love that was at the heart of Beatles music.

"We had the time of our lives there," said percussionist John Garrett of the Sarasota, Fla., band Fab Three, which made its Abbey Road on the River debut in Louisville last year. "It was a beautiful place to have an event like this. It couldn't have been any better."

And what does Kentucky itself think of hosting a Beatlefest in the Bluegrass?

"The whole vibe, the whole atmosphere was unbelievable," said Hyden native Steve Sizemore, who fronts the Lexington-based Steve Sizemore Group. It also played Abbey Road on the River for the first time last year.

"You had this incredible cross section of people there, from kids all the way to the elderly, along with some of the best music you can possibly imagine. The spirit of the whole thing was so positive."

All you need is love

Perhaps the biggest fascination surrounding Abbey Road on the River isn't so much its current home as the still-feverish enthusiasm of Beatles fans supporting it.

Think of it. How can a band that forever changed the face of pop music before it died out in the spring of 1970 still trigger enough fervor to fuel an event on the scale of Abbey Road on the River in 2006?

"Well, that is the big question, isn't it?" Jacob said. "I mean, none of us really knows why. Other than Elvis, nobody could sustain this type of festival. And frankly, I doubt if even he could."

"Really, Paul McCartney said it best," Criswell added. "The message was always about love. If you look at their songs, whether it was a ballad or hard-rocking song, the theme was love. And that touches everybody."

Sizemore said, "I don't think what the Beatles did will ever be done in our lifetime again. I don't think any other band will ever have that impact."

Jacob doesn't think so, either. He thinks the true test of the Beatles' popularity doesn't come from staging events like Abbey Road on the River 36 years after the band's demise. It will be whether future audiences choose to keep Beatles music alive.

"Classical music has been able to sustain itself for hundreds of years," he said. "Beethoven, Mozart and Bach are still celebrated. Nobody's ever questioned their longevity. But we don't have a century-old historical reference for something like the Beatles.

"We can't yet visualize whether or not this music will still be played in 100 years. But my bet is that it will be. It was just good music."

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