50 years ago this month.....everything in pop music changed

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 29 Jan 2014 10:09 am

Who is Albert?

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 29 Jan 2014 10:16 am

Mr Lee.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 29 Jan 2014 10:21 am

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 29 Jan 2014 11:50 am

Oh, did he play with The Beatles?

Steve Hinson · Post by **Steve Hinson** » 29 Jan 2014 11:51 am

b0b wrote:Oh, did he play with The Beatles?

...no,but he could have...

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 29 Jan 2014 11:53 am

He very well could be the infamous "Fifth Beatle.."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Beatle

Jan Viljoen · Post by **Jan Viljoen** » 2 Feb 2014 10:59 pm

Hi Guys, love all your comments.
The Beatles was a strange fenomenon in '68.
We only got to hear them on radio.

My cousins staying in Johannesburg had the, I wanna hold your hand, LP. We played it over and over.

But how about this.

Thanks.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 3 Feb 2014 2:54 pm

Shown left to right in image from the “All Things Must Pass” recording session: Pete Drake,George Harrsion, Ringo Starr, Peter Frampton (kneeling next to steel) and Billy Preston.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 17 Feb 2014 7:23 am

b0b wrote:
In my opinion, any musician who disses The Beatles music hasn't really listened to them. They were the brightest musical light of the 20th century. Many of their songs are genuine masterpieces of composition and harmony. You may not like them as people and you may not like their cultural influence, but there's no denying their awesome talent and the fact that it changed the very foundations of popular music.

I would certainly agree with that... I remember I bought the first album on sale when it came out at the local discount store..$1.80 MONO.. I still have it !

Last I checked Vox didn't make any "Super Elvis" amps or "Super Rolling Stones" amps... The Beatles are responsible for so much more than just the music, they changed the culture for those of us that were budding players back then...I was playing in an all instrumental Ventures style band..until " I saw her standing there" ..I still cover that one today. All of a sudden 4 guitar player types were singing and singing harmony, something we never even thought about...After learning and singing Beatles songs then we went backwards and sang Elvis and Chuck Berry...but it was the Beatles that forced the issue for us.It was the Beatles that brought the kids to the dances, it was really fun...The the next thing ya know my parents were screaming at me to get a haircut !

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 17 Feb 2014 7:35 am

I hope b0b wasn't talking about me!

I didn't 'diss' their music - it's just a long way from being amongst my favourite listening. If we're talking about just pop, I infinitely prefer Don and Phil.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 17 Feb 2014 7:42 am

Roger Rettig wrote: If we're talking about just pop, I infinitely prefer Don and Phil.

edited for correction

Now Don and Phil are worthy of their own thread...!

Great singers , great performers, perhaps the icon of harmony blends...

and yes writers too...

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 17 Feb 2014 7:52 am

NOT WRITERS?????

'Cathy's Clown', ''Til I Kissed You', 'So Sad', 'When Will I be loved' and lots more!

And we're not talking B-sides here!

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 17 Feb 2014 7:54 am

In their early days they took a close look at black artists like Doris Troy, Smokey Robinson, Arthur Alexander and others. I don't know if that was "in the air" and other British groups did that also, or if they just followed the Beatles. There's a movement called "Northern Soul" since the seventies in Britain and they specialise in old "Soul Music".
Amazing...

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 17 Feb 2014 8:04 am

I'd have to say that the interest in more obscure US artists was initially driven by our first hearing Ray Charles. At that time RC wasn't the internationally known singer he eventually became and, in fact, I became interested after hearing Elvis' 'I Got A Woman' and the Everly's 'Leave My Woman Alone'.

Liverpool, being an important seaport, was a good place for merchant seamen bringing hitherto unkown American records to our shores (same was true of London then, of course). I'm sure that was a big factor in the Beatles' (and other bands of that time) influence. The Searchers and the Big Three were also known for 'finding' interesting American material.

Our first exposure to US roots and blues music? No question - that was through Lonnie Donegan.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 17 Feb 2014 8:10 am

Roger Rettig wrote:NOT WRITERS?????

'Cathy's Clown', ''Til I Kissed You', 'So Sad', 'When Will I be loved' and lots more!

And we're not talking B-sides here!

Ahh yes..my simple brain overlooked those..

I take it all back.

age is my only excuse !

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 17 Feb 2014 10:05 am

Yes Roger, they had so many competants (in search for a better word) like the Searchers, the Big Three, the Undertakers and not to put these down, the Beatles were more unique and they wrote their own songs. All of those Liverpool groups had a special sound and it's not hard to guess that they influenced the Beatles.

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 17 Feb 2014 6:10 pm

i like those other liverpool groups...but...why is it that they did not continue to evolve, improve and grow like beatles did? most sort of got to one level and then just stopped there.

Rick Schacter · Post by **Rick Schacter** » 17 Feb 2014 6:59 pm

Bill Hatcher wrote:i like those other liverpool groups...but...why is it that they did not continue to evolve, improve and grow like beatles did? most sort of got to one level and then just stopped there.

The other groups didn't have George Martin?

Rick

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 17 Feb 2014 8:37 pm

Rick Schacter wrote:
Bill Hatcher wrote:i like those other liverpool groups...but...why is it that they did not continue to evolve, improve and grow like beatles did? most sort of got to one level and then just stopped there.
The other groups didn't have George Martin?

Rick

he did produce gerry and the pacemakers ferry cross the mersy lp i do believe. had a hit with them on how do you do what you do...a song he had the beatles record but they didnt want to do it and it sounds like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44RNo5DUwY0

marsdens version was a big hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQD-m2AQoXc

i actually think this hollies cut epitomizes the mersey sound as much as any cut from that era. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B2_OTRpPd4

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 17 Feb 2014 9:21 pm

I agree about the Beatles version of "How Do You Do It". It sounds surprisingly dull and flat next to Gerry and the Pacemakers version. Here's a live performance by Gerry and band, sounds pretty good for live! ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig20b9EXU0Y

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 18 Feb 2014 1:17 am

The Gerry and the Pacemakers clip is nice, I liked them a lot, I always like Gerry's voice, but in contrast they fell short for the big picture, the look, the image, one singer, one identity. The crowd was not overly going crazy . They had the music down but the peripherals were missing. They didn't have a Ringo type looking kool on the drums with a mop top.

Interesting, Martin recorded "How do you do it" with the Beatles but they didn't want to release it because it wasn't their song. Looking back that was a smart move for the Beatles, what did they know back then ? Gerry's version, produced by Martin was released and spent 3 weeks as #1 then bumped by..guess who, the Beatles with their own tune,"From Me to you"...were they really that smart and ahead of the game ?

Other groups did evolve, without George Martin. The Kinks, the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds..man they really evolved. Those bands found an identity. More than just the music, they created something to go with the music. Page, Townshend, the Davies brothers, Daltry,Plant, Jagger/Richards...they each figured out a way to get beyond the music, above the baseline noise.

Martin obviously was a big plus for the Beatles but he wasn't the reason the Beatles succeeded. He was not on the Ed Sullivan show.

For the Beatles the timing was right, the era was right, the music was right, the band members were right and the collaborative minds of Lennon and McCartney were right. Had it been five years earlier or later it probably would not have happened.

Plus the singing voices of the two Beatle primary's was distinctive. You knew it was one of them when you heard the record, still do. IF you look back at what George Martin says about the Beatles, it was the voices of John and Paul that got his attention early on, not the music.

Perhaps the Beatles fell into it, who knows , but they put everything they had into it and seized the moment. They drew from multiple influences and ended up being themselves.

not a bad day...

It's highly probably they put in their 10,000 hours or very close to it before the first hit record.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 18 Feb 2014 3:38 am

Other groups did evolve, without George Martin. The Kinks, the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds..

Ray Davis reviewing "Revolver", I think the Kinks influenced them too.
http://www.kindakinks.net/misc/articles/beatles.html

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 18 Feb 2014 6:08 am

funny read , that Ray Davies review of Revolver.

I saw Dave and Ray ( Kinks) at the Philmore East NYC around 71 or so, they were great...

Not long after Dave Davies had his stroke, I somehow found an email for him and sent him best wishes, not that much later he replied with a thank you ! How about that !

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 18 Feb 2014 9:19 am

Dave Davies is really good!

Les Cargill · Post by **Les Cargill** » 23 Feb 2014 11:23 am

b0b wrote:I've been working on Beatles songs these past few years, and I'm constantly amazed at how different they are. Not just different from the hundreds of country and rock tunes I know, but different from each other. There may have been a Beatles "sound", but there is no such thing as a typical Beatles chord progression. Once they got past their early "rock and roll" phase, every song was a new experience.

Paul's bass parts in particular impress the crap out of me.

Paul's a great bassist, but so was Jamerson.

It is interesting music, but I bet you had the same experience I did - "in the past few years" being the key. I'm of an age to where we had wind ensemble arrangements of Beatles songs in junior high ( between 1972 and 1974). I didn't play a Beatles song with a live band until my late thirties - mid to late '90s. That happened because GenX musicians I was playing with had grown up with it. My perception is that there have been multiple renaissances of those songs. People who built on their foundations were selling a lot of records during my formative years. The talk then was that they had eclipsed the Beatles.

People of a certain age were also somewhat *hostile* to the Beatles, in my experience. Very curious phenomenon. The older guys I played country with in the start of the 1980s, for example were of that. I would not have known who Ernest Tubb or even Elvis really were without them.

Thanks for the Howard Goodall link. Interesting. But the real industrial impetus for composers is still not music or concert halls, it's film scores and avant garde has always had a home there. He also ignores film composers like Aaron Copeland ( who was active well past the Beatles ) and others - Lalo Schifrin ( yes, "Mission Impossible" but lots of other stuff too - the "Dirty Harry" films), Enrico Morricone. Copeland did use 12-tone row and what not.

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