B eatle's Anthology

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 31 Dec 2005 11:40 am

Au contraire, b0b, I often like innovative syntheses. I like modern classical music and avant garde jazz (when I'm in the mood). I like groups like Osibisa, that mixed African, Latin, jazz and rock. I liked country-rock. I loved the rock-blues-Latin of Santana. I really loved Hendrix. Hendrix may be a better competing analogy for innovation than the Stones (I liked their stuff because I liked the sound and the beat, not because of its innovation). It was the particular mix that the Beatles came up with that left me cold. It was a mixture of rock with modern classical and music hall stuff. I was just always more surprised at people's overreaction to it than by anything I heard in the music or lyrics. But maybe it's all just taste, and there's no accounting for that.

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 31 Dec 2005 11:41 am

What Bill Hatcher said.

Also, what b0b said.

Forever and ever, Amen.

I will agree that the early Beatles stuff was cutesy and somewhat trite. However, there is a HUGE difference, artistically, in "Love Me Do" and the "long medley" from Side B of Abbey Road... in just a few short years. I think that some people wrote them off in the early years as "simply" a teenybopper act and never gave them a serious listen after that... when they probably should've.

Since Roger is an Englishman, a contemporary, and played on actual shows with them, I'm sure he wouldn't be quite as obsessed as we American kids who were 9 and 10 years old when the '64 Ed Sullivan appearance was broadcast. As a 9-year-old kid, I was QUITE impressed.

Roger, I read an early 60's interview where Lennon listed The Searchers as his favorite band!

All of those guys were influenced by Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Carl Perkins and the whole rockabilly scene. The Everlys too. I've heard several outtakes where John and Paul were calling each other "Don" and "Phil". They were in awe of those guys, just as I'm in awe of the Beatles.

I read recently where, when Ringo first visited the Capitol Records office in LA, he wanted to know if Buck Owens was in town so that he could meet him.

Sorry for the ramble.

[This message was edited by Rick McDuffie on 31 December 2005 at 11:50 AM.]

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 31 Dec 2005 11:55 am

I detested the Beatles at first - all that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stuff from "Meet the Beatles" seemed pretty sappy to me, even at age 11 when they hit. The second album was better, but that was mostly rehashed Chuck Berry - I prefer the original - but it was "The Beatles", so everyone went nuts.

I believe that it was their early commercial success and hero worship that gave them the freedom to really pursue their muse. It wasn't until "Rubber Soul" and "Yesterday and Today" that I thought they really started to come into their own. Musically, what they did was to incorporate more complex chord progressions from more mainstream pop music. There is some very nice stuff, but I don't see this as revolutionary in the same sense as early jazz, bebop, the great early tunesmiths from tin pan alley, Stravinsky, Webern, and so on. Lyrically, they got much more interesting also, but again, DD is right on the money about influences from Dylan back through the beat poets. And all these people are part of older threads of musical and writing influences.

I think their timing was a big part of their early success. After JFK was shot in Nov 63, we in the US needed something, and the Beatles were there, at the right time and the right place. Part of this was the meteoric rise of mass media right around then. I think the Beatles changed the business model for popular music more than anything.

Roger Rettig posts:

I believe that the rock'n'roll genesis of the mid-fifties was the catalyst for social change; the Beatles picked up the ball and ran further with it, that's all.

I agree, and I'd go further than that. Yes, for me, Elvis was the real revolutionary, but that's just because I noticed it at the time. I'd go further and say that jump blues (like Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner) was the main catalyst for Elvis and 50s rock'n'roll, which was catalyzed by swing and bebop, which was catalyzed by early jazz and blues, which was catalyzed by .... And country music weaves its way through through this thread also. I also agree with Roger, those Everly Brothers harmonies just blow them all away. These observations are what caused me to move somewhat away from rock music, and more into blues, jazz, country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and so on.

All good music is derivative, David. The fact that you prefer the Stones shows that you prefer music that imitates original sources to music that is an original synthesis from a variety of influences.

DD also clearly argued that it is all derivative, and I agree. But I disagree that the Stones "imitate" original sources any more than anybody else, including the Beatles. They are each the branch points of different styles of popular/rock music, and each forged a highly original sound. The Stones are not just rehashed Chuck Berry, and Chuck Berry is not just rehashed T-Bone. The Stones mix early R&R, raw blues, country, and funk. Chuck has tons of country influence in his tune. Practically anybody of influence mixed styles in an interesting and unique way.

... unlike the Beatles, whose palette was extremely broad and far more sophisticated.

Yes, musically the later Beatles are more harmonically sophisticated than the typical rock band, but not near as sophisticated as many other styles of music. Further, I like sophistication, but not for its own sake. I'd infinitely rather hear a real good rock band pump out some 3-chord tune than any of the current "Beatle-esque" pop-grunge bands that litter the landscape these days. For sophisticated, I still prefer jazz or classical. Not all good music is harmonically sophisticated.

To be even more blasphemous, I would argue that people like Link Wray, The Velvet Underground, and The Stooges had much more influence on what is now popular in "modern rock" than the Beatles or even the Stones. I'm sure many people are very unhappy about that, but I think it's true.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 31 Dec 2005 12:10 pm

Who is your favorite Beatle?

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 31 Dec 2005 12:39 pm

My favorite Rutle is Stig.

Terry Edwards · Post by **Terry Edwards** » 31 Dec 2005 1:47 pm

To be even more blasphemous, I would argue that people like Link Wray, The Velvet Underground, and The Stooges had much more influence on what is now popular in "modern rock" than the Beatles or even the Stones

Right you are, Dave!

I just received the new Green Day DVD "Bullet In A Bible". Possibly the best Rock concert I've ever seen and Green Day has acheived pop stardom in spite of themselves!

Stooges --> Ramones --> Green Day.

Terry

Edited to say that Green Day is more melodic than most punk rock bands - probably a Beatles influence.[This message was edited by Terry Edwards on 31 December 2005 at 01:55 PM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 31 Dec 2005 2:37 pm

Thanks for saying it a little better than I have, Dave M. I was around 17 when the Beatles hit. I had listened to alot of classical music, jazz, musicals, rock'n'roll (from the very beginning), r&b, blues, folk and Dylan by that time. So I guess I was not easy to impress. As the Beatles got more experimental and innovative, so did Dylan, the Stones and everyone else in rock. I just did not see them as being that far out ahead everything else. It is definitely true that their early fortune allowed them to indulge in experimental concepts and original orchestration in a way no one in rock had ever been able to do. [This message was edited by David Doggett on 31 December 2005 at 03:34 PM.]

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 1 Jan 2006 3:05 pm

There are some interesting points being made on this thread...

Jim Cohen:

Yes! When Jerry Lee Lewis played on that BBC Radio session, the Beatles (and us, I might add) were in awe of him, and tried to ply him with dumb questions - he was singularly unimpressed with any of us, however....

It might be hard for Americans to see it as we did, but for us America was the fount of all good music, especially back in the early '60s. In the '50s, the only ground-breaking and creative British artiste was Lonnie Donegan; all other UK 'r'n'r' acts were a pale copy of Elvis. The American records just sounded so much better than ours, too. So, even 'though by '64 the Beatles were huge in Britain, they still held the US pioneers in great esteem.

My first encounter with them was in January, '63. We were rehearsing at a ballroom in Hull in the north-east of England when John and Paul walked in.
'Are you'se playing here tonight?' said Paul.
'Yes', I said.
'F***!', said John - 'We've driven all the way from Liverpool - our agent's screwed up!!!'

(I checked in the 'Beatles Chronicles' and it STILL says that they played at the Majestic, Hull, that day. Wrong!) We were pleased to meet them, though - 'Please Please Me' (son of 'Cathy's Clown') had just jumped in the charts that week, and we, as mere sidemen to a pop-star, were pretty impressed that a group could pull that off!

As for the Beatles influences, I got a good insight when I did a TV show with George Harrison in '76; we sat in the BBC Club at Lime Grove and talked guitars and music for a few hours! It was no surprise to learn that he and I (being the same age) loved all the same things - Chet (that's why he had a Gretsch!), the Everlys, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee, Scotty Moore, and many others

Anyone interested in the real genesis of British pop/rock should study the career of Lonnie Donegan - you simply can't imagine what a huge effect he had on all of us who are now in our sixties. The Beatles were no exception.

A 'PS' for Doug B.:

Yes, that concert was a bit daunting! In March, 1964, the Stones had already scored with a couple of hits, and the Beatles were obviously the biggest thing in music. Eden Kane (my job) had won 'best single', or something, so we had to plough through a few songs while ten thousand girls shrieked for the Beatles!

We did a four week tour in '65 with The Stones, and they had their first #1 with 'Not Fade Away' while we were on the road. As a result, we lost our top-billing spot half way through the tour.....

RR[This message was edited by Roger Rettig on 01 January 2006 at 04:17 PM.]

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 1 Jan 2006 3:41 pm

Roger, That must have been an incredible experience. I'd give anything to have been in your shoes.

Funny, considering how popular the Beatles were, George never becamee a big guitar hero. And the fact that he played a Country Gentleman didn't really boost Gretsch's sales a lot.

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 1 Jan 2006 4:09 pm

Mike,

I must respectfully disagree re: Gretsch. At the point that they appeared on Ed Sullivan's show, Gretsch were on pretty shaky ground but, overnight, orders for 'Country Gentleman' guitars went through the ceiling. It didn't ultimately save the old Gretsch company, but it gave them a 'stay of execution'. This has been well-documented in a couple 'Gretsch story' books.

I don't disagree that George himself didn't really become a 'guitar god', but that's quite refreshing in a way. I didn't know him at all well, but he remained a humble individual, and was very modest about his own abilities.

I was playing guitar and steel in 'Pump Boys & Dinettes' at the Alberry Theater in the West End of London in '84, when the stage-door man told me that I had a visitor. I was very pleasantly surprised to find George waiting to say 'hello' to me. (You can bet THAT raised my 'stock' with the cast and crew!!!) Anyway, George always acknowledged me, and we met a handful of times over the years. I think it was the pedal steel connection that fascinated him.

Having re-read my earlier posts, I'm rather afraid that this all sounds like flagrant name-dropping! Please understand that, while these encounters meant very little in the early '60s, I've come to appreciate that I/we had a unique perspective of what came to be important music history. I'm not a fan, by any means, but I enjoy their records more today than I ever did.

I did a tour of 'Best Little Whorehouse...' last year, and the 20-something year-old drummer, Matt Crawford (a GREAT player!) turned out to be the most insanely obsessed Beatle afficionado I'd ever met. Once, at a wild London party in '65, I made a grab for the last turkey-leg on the buffet, and an outraged Lennon called me a very rude name.... When I recounted this to Matt, he said: "Oh, man, that's fantastic!!! John Lennon called you a ****!!!!"

With a reaction like that, it's sort-of hard to resist telling the stories....

RR

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 1 Jan 2006 4:21 pm

As far as the guitar thing, I remember reading that Fender was about ready to get out of the solid-body guitar market after the Beatles hit---George with the Gretsches, John with the Ricks, and Paul with that Hofner bass. I'm not sure about amps, but I imagine that VCox sales went through the roof, too.

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 1 Jan 2006 7:09 pm

Where I lived, everybody wanted a Country Gentleman and a Vox Super Beatle... it's just that not many kids could afford either.

I think George was a guitar hero in 1967. It's just that he's been eclipsed by others for many years now, and we've forgotten. He was always extremely tasty, if not flashy.

I especially enjoyed his distinctive slide work.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 1 Jan 2006 9:21 pm

I guess I stand corrected about the popularity of the Country Gent. Still, one sees a lot more strats....

I have a later Baldwin Country Gent with real f holes. I also had a "real" one (a '67) at one time but I felt that the Baldwin was the better of the 2, so I kept it and sold the other one.

I find that different guitars inspire me to play differently. For years I used a Tele exclusively, and when I played the signature line from Day Tripper, it worked on the Tele, but when I played it on the Country Gent it felt right. There is something about that guitar that makes the line fall right into place in a way that it doesn't on a tele.

Makes me wonder if George might have come up with a different line if he had been playing a different guitar.

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"Never underestimate the value of eccentrics and Lunatics" -Lional Luthor (Smallville) [This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 01 January 2006 at 11:00 PM.]

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 3 Jan 2006 5:39 am

Roger, thanks for the great anecdotes of George H. and the rest of The Beatles. I was in the first grade in 1963, but was already a pop music fan. Once the Beatles hit big on the radio here, I became a huge fan, and they were a big influence on me wanting to become a musician. I lost interest in them in the latter part of their career, especially after Hendrix, Clapton and Page became popular. I thought rock music should be "guitar" music, if you know what I mean. The strings and horns seemed to get in the way.

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Zum U-12 w/True Tone pickup thru a Nashville 112

Strats thru a VHT Super 30

Band Pics
http://community.webshots.com/album/176544894AuXSmi

jonchristopherdavis.com

www.lonestarattitude.net

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 3 Jan 2006 6:33 am

Roger, with names like that you can drop them any day. Do you have any Stones stories? Yardbirds? You should write a book someday.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 3 Jan 2006 10:06 am

Day Tripper was recorded using an Epiphone Casino. Check that out. Harrison was long passed using his Country Gentleman by that time.

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 3 Jan 2006 11:27 am

Daytripper was recorded using a Gibson SG standard wasn't it?

John McGann · Post by **John McGann** » 3 Jan 2006 1:03 pm

"Beatles Gear" book suggests maybe ES-345, similar to Casino. Day Tripper recorded in the middle of the "Rubber Soul" sessions...

SG for Paperback Writer and Rain...
Strat for Nowhere Man...
Les Paul and/or Rosewood Tele toward the White Album/Abbey Rd./Let It Be[This message was edited by Beatlegeek John McGann on 03 January 2006 at 01:05 PM.][This message was edited by John McGann on 03 January 2006 at 01:14 PM.]

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 3 Jan 2006 2:18 pm

Actually it is the string guages and scale length that influence the way I play. Perhaps the reason daytripper feels better on my Gretsch has something to do with those factors. (I use heavier strings with a wound 3rd on the Gretsch, and slinkys on the Tele.)

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 3 Jan 2006 3:31 pm

I also use heavier strings on my Gretsch. They just seem to add more tone to the guitar.

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 4 Jan 2006 5:24 am

The books I have read credit the Day Tripper hook to Lennon.

I believe George played his Tennesseean longer than the Country Gentleman, and preferred it. The "Ed Sullivan" Country Gentleman was destroyed when it fell off the boot of a car, where it had been strapped down (not quite well enough, apparently).[This message was edited by Rick McDuffie on 04 January 2006 at 08:44 AM.]

Jeff Agnew · Post by **Jeff Agnew** » 4 Jan 2006 6:33 am

Really reluctant to enter this debate, as so much is personal taste. Still:

Musically, what they did was to incorporate more complex chord progressions from more mainstream pop music. There is some very nice stuff, but I don't see this as revolutionary in the same sense as early jazz, bebop, the great early tunesmiths from tin pan alley...

Notwithstanding that it's difficult to rank across styles which musical innovations are more revolutionary, professional musicologists do consider the Beatles' writers to be the modern heirs to those great tunesmiths Dave mentions.

There are several analyses of their work, including at least one of book length. A few shortened versions are available online, including Semantic shifts in Beatles' chord progressions. This gets fairly dense in academic prose, but here's an interesting excerpt:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It is not the chords themselves, but the chord sequences that are at the core of the sound of the Beatles. Their unorthodoxy on this point made it so difficult for other groups — especially for those with a blues background — to cover their songs. It still is responsible for the ongoing debate on which chord is which in a specific Beatles' song...

Earlier on the style of popular music found some support in cadences, standard chord progressions like the turnaround [I -» vi -» IV -» V] and its many variants, and the chain of fifths or turn-back [VI7 -» II7 -» V7 -» I] (Van der Merwe, 1989). In the first few years of their career the Beatles discarded the support of these cadences (Kramarz, 1983: 132). At the start of their career as songwriters their favorite way of doing this, was by inserting unexpected chords. Later on, as a result, in their hands the cadences crumbled into pieces. Sometimes by turning into unpredictable chord sequences; sometimes to the effect of becoming "harmonic ostinato's," repeated combinations of just two chords (Middleton, 1990: 282). At the end of 1964, the songs on the album "Beatles for Sale" show that the Beatles could do without the support of these cadences. Piecing chords together seemed their way of composing. Or, as MacDonald (1994: 10) says: "In short, they had no preconceptions about the next chord, an openness which they consciously exploited (...)."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Check out the rest of the article for detailed examples.

Another essay examines some of the very points we've been discussing here regarding derivative music. Summary:

Every writer of rock music, one way or the other, is reworking the lines of earlier songs. Even in their most innovative compositions the Beatles too were using the style components of the songs they had heard and loved. In some special cases, they even — unconsciously — made new songs out of some older ones, as Ian Hammond here shows for the McCartney compositions "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Yesterday". As the masterprint of the former, he unearths "When The Saints (Go Marching In)". For the latter — the song for which sources composer Paul McCartney himself sought in vain for a whole month — Hammond points at Ray Charles' version of that other old sweet song: "Georgia On My Mind".

Read the whole thing for a fascinating look at the songwriting/creative process.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 4 Jan 2006 5:57 pm

Now that it's been pointed out, I can see the relationship between The Saints and I Saw Her Standing There. But Yesterday and Georgia?

Is this wrong, or am I'm missing something?

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 4 Jan 2006 6:46 pm

I taught the guitar player in our first band ever how to play the signature line in Day Tripper over the phone. We were one of ten bands that won in a battle of the bands contest. The prize was to get to record one tune on a 33 rpm album sold locally in the music stores. It was called The Louisville Scene. The Beatles had the very biggest influence on me and the people I was playing with at the time. Those were great years!

Dave Brophy · Post by **Dave Brophy** » 4 Jan 2006 10:06 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>But Yesterday and Georgia?
Is this wrong, or am I'm missing something?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've read that article before,and I find the arguments it makes absurd.The melodies of those 2 songs aren't even on the same continent.
Btw,the new Beatles bio by Spitz mentions that Paul lifted the bass line to "17" (original title of "I Saw Her Standing There")from Chuck Berry's "I'm Talkin' Bout You."