George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass – more ambitious than the White Album in scope – is just brimming with rock beauty. Masterpiece is so cliche, but that’s more or less what it is. It’s easily the best of all the Beatles’ solo output. I hope one day we’ll hear a version of this with a deconstructed “Wall of Sound”®️ . It’s just too cluttered in spots, but nothing could keep these great songs from getting through. Let’s hope in another 48 years, people are still digging it.
On August 8, 1969, Scottish photographer Iain MacMillan shot the Fab Four crossing that most famous of London cross walks. Within 10 minutes, he captured what we all know and love as the cover of the Beatles’ swan song, Abbey Road, released in September 1969.
Almost as interesting as the album cover itself are some of the candid shots; the ones that weren’t used; the outtakes, if you will. I had some fun with some of these outtakes, giving them a just a bit of an artsy flair. [NOTE: Obviously the source photos are not mine. I don’t know who holds copyright.]
You couldn’t tell from these pictures that, in a little over a month, John would ask for his “divorce” from the Beatles, effectively finishing the group for good. They seem at least cordial, if not friendly with each other.
George Harrison passed away. Yesterday was the anniversary of his death, but I got distracted by other things. In any event, I really can’t believe a decade has come and gone without George
It’s nice to think that he was surrounded by friends and loved ones in his last months. Unlike his former bandmate, John Lennon, he had a chance to iron out all his differences with Paul McCartney (and any he might’ve had with Ringo, as well.) Before leaving us, he apparently embraced “traditional Christianity” (though he passed during a Hindu ritual of some sort) and left us with a really dang good album, Brainwashed. He was truly a great talent and a highly entertaining, funny cat. He was always searching for God and I hope, George found Him.
George and Olivia Harrison
Here’s one of his best solo songs. Luckily, we were able to hear it.
I’ve not written much lately. I’ve been busy with summer stuff and unrelated interests. When I have written, though, it seems like the content has been pretty Beatles-heavy. That will probably always be the case for me. It’s not a matter of having limited tastes as much as simply finding the Beatles more fascinating than most other artists. But I digress…
Apparently Rolling Stone has published a special edition magazine dedicated to the 100 Best Beatles Songs. Rolling Stone loves these lists. Personally, I’m starting to find them cliche — and usually Rolling Stone manages to mess them all up — but I have to admit that I’m a bit intrigued by this one.
Yahoo music blogger, Paul Grein of “Chart Watch,” in the context of this Rolling Stone list, has tackled a topic embedded in that list: “Who was the foremost member of the foremost group of all time?”
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart_watch/61973/chart-watch-extra-was-it-john-or-paul/
Really, there is no right way to answer that question. There is no one single way of comparing and contrasting Lennon and McCartney. If you pick one basis for comparison, like lyricism for instance, you’d be giving short shrift to another basis, say musicianship.
That said, I’ve maintained that for years that Paul McCartney really was the single most important member of the band from 1966. To make the historical case for that, I’d have to write a book. There’s no space for that here . Anyone knowledgeable and honest about it would have to admit that Paul is the person that dragged the band into the studio. He kept them working after their touring days ended. Had they waited around for John — a self-described “lazy mother *****er” — Revolver might have been the last Beatles album made.
McCartney was also a better musician than Lennon by miles. Pick any instrument: guitar, bass, piano, drums. Paul played it better than John. McCartney is on just about any list of “most important bassists in rock history” that you find. Who ever mentions John as an influential guitarist? I’ve seen his name on some lists, but he’s an also-ran amongst the so-called rock greats.
Like Brian Wilson, Paul simply understood musically innately. He could here an entire tune in his head, with much of the melodies and counter-melodies, sensing where to put which instruments and what to have them playing. According to George Martin, John always struggled to communicate his musical ideas in concrete, understandable ways. His requests were often vague. Paul, by contrast, usually knew the sound he was going for and communicated it well.
It is easy to say Lennon was the “better lyricist.” He definitely had the sharper tongue and painting images with words seemingly came easier to John than Paul. But Paul, as a lyricist, stands up against just about anyone in the rock business, especially those whose careers have lasted as long as his. Rather make some case song-for-song, I’d urge those interested in this debate to listen to McCartney’s Beatles work and pay attention to the lyrics. For every song like “Hello Goodbye” there are two songs like “For No One” or “You Never Give Me Your Money.”
This is a debate that will rage as long as people care enough about the Beatles to talk about them. Enjoy the argument.
On August 18, 1962, Ringo Starr debuted with the Beatles at the Horticulture Society Dance in Birkenhead, England. Ringo and the band had only the benefit of a two hour rehearsal to prep for the gig. Thus, 48 years ago today, the Fab Four as we know them was born.
Martin Scorsese and Nigel Sinclair team up to make a documentary on the life of George Harrison. Scorsese and George’s widow, Olivia, talked about the project at Cannes.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i417b9e1bf4bfc8ec055a530ee89abb6c?pn=2
This is a deeply personal journey for me, it’s been excruciating,” she (Olivia) says. I’ve been archiving for five years — 35 years, really. Throwing cassettes and letters in drawers, little things and pieces of paper that you find that say, ‘Goats on my roof.’ You think, What does that mean?
As much as I write about the Beatles, sometimes it feels like an insurmountable task to really break down their music, even just one album or song at a time, in any sort of interesting, meaningful way. Anything that could possibly be said about them has probably been said. Professional music critics tackle the hard task of reviewing their music. Not being anything approaching an “audiophile” or formally trained musician — I’m just a fan — I sometimes feel highly unqualified to review music.
Even so, I feel driven to say something about the brand new Beatles remastered CD’s, in particular the stuff in the Beatles in Mono box set. In short, I love it. The music sounds so fresh and alive, even in mono, a format most of us are no longer accustomed to hearing. Here are some random thoughts. Maybe this will pique your interest and you’ll fight and claw to get your hands on a copy of the BIM set.
I can’t wait to get my hands on the stereo set, which has already been shipped to me. Only 10,000 Beatles in Mono sets have been manufactured. At least that’s the official word. I’ve heard that more will be made to meet the unexpectedly high demand. If you can get your hands on this set, do it, and not just for completeness sake. The listening experience is worth the money (at least at list price.)
Laying on the floor, side by side, looking at the day’s newspaper, out popped out that week’s TV Guide. On the cover were four shaggy-haired men, a familiar look in the mid-70’s. “Mom, who are those guys?” I asked. “They’re the Beatles. They were really popular when I was a teenager.” I don’t remember where the conversation went from there, but I’ll never forget the picture or that moment. From then on I was fascinated by the Fab Four. I was no more than 5 years old, maybe 4.
My mom would shop in the Federal store or in Montgomery Ward and turn me loose in the music section. I would thumb through record-albums, spending most or my time in the Beatles section, dreaming of owning their albums, really having no clue about most of the music. But I knew they were good. Damned good. It was as if I sensed it. Eventually, for birthdays and Christmases, I got their records and 8 tracks from hip relatives. Their music was like a drug. I couldn’t get enough.
But it was this image, that graces the cover of this month’s “Rolling Stone” magazine, that really started it all. After seeing these 4 guys on that TV Guide — Lord knows why they were on it — music for me was never the same. Life, in fact, was never the same.
Lots of people love the Beatles. Most people that like rock at all at least appreciate them. In my experience, except for the most die-hard Beatles fans, their work before 1967 gets little or no recognition for it’s greatness. I still see or hear people call the early Beatles a “boy band” or “bubble gum pop,” but that notion is seriously flawed.
I just read this bit in the August 2009 edition of The Word magazine, from an article called “Why the Beatles are Underrated.” About the Beatles work between 1963 and 1966, the writer says:
While that second three-year career (1967 to 1970) is not without its delights, the first period was actually when their collective genius was operating at full tilt. To fully appreciate it from the vantage point of 2009 we have to shrug off our infatuation with fashionable gloom and shed the illusion that true artists are all complex and impenetrable. We must accept the fact that the greatest pop group of them all didn’t consider it beneath them to make their records for 14-year-old girls. When they made their classic records the false opposition between rock and pop hadn’t been invented. This wall between the two has been the refuge of scoundrels and snobs ever since. To appreciate why we still underrate the Beatles you have to shrug off that prejudice and travel back to 1963, when they were far from a done deal.
That about sums it up. The Beatles were a pop band, but all that meant is that they played popular music, as opposed to classical, jazz, pure blues, you name it. Rock was (and is) a form of pop music. Rock was pop. Pop was rock. The Beatles were rock. Get it? It’s that simple.
On August 5, 1966, one of the finest albums in pop-rock history, The Beatles’ Revolver, was released.
Back in 1987, when the Beatles catalog was released on CD and Sgt. Pepper’s turned 20, the Beatles’ “Summer of Love” was thought, in retrospect, to be the Beatles’ greatest work. Many music critics and even the Beatles’ contemporaries, reflected that Sgt. Pepper’s might arguably have been the greatest rock record ever made. Certainly that sentiment hasn’t disappeared.
It seems, though, that in the last 10 years or so, many Beatles fans and music lovers in general have looked back on Revolver, measured it against Sgt. Pepper’s, and concluded that Revolver was the better album. I fall into that category. “Tomorrow Never Knows” arguably broke more ground and sounded more ahead of its time than anything on Sgt. Pepper’s, “A Day in the Life” being the lone possible exception. The album as a whole holds up better. Sgt. Pepper’s, though still mind-blowing in many ways, sounds like a product of its age. If you didn’t know that Revolver was a Beatles album, and you heard it today for the first time, it might be hard for you to peg it as a product of the mid-60’s.
Whatever the case may be, it’s a classic. I always remember Revolver’s release date since it falls on my birthday; pretty cool, I think.
The Sound of the Pounding 