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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

Here it is on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/...

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 28 December 2005 at 03:10 PM.]

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Mike
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Blue Moon Highway
(Country Music...and then some.)
www.bluemoonhighway.com

I would rather hear K.C. and the Sunshine Band any day of the week. Or that Tony Orlando and Dawn. Now that's snappy stuff!

Heh...

[This message was edited by Tucker Jackson on 27 December 2005 at 04:28 PM.]

I teach 50 guitar students a week. Most of them are teenagers. All of them know the Beatles classics. A few of them know some Stones songs. None of them ever heard of the Eagles.

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My Site - Instruction | My SteelTab

[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 27 December 2005 at 06:27 PM.]

Their so-called innovative sociopolitical messages were superficial watered-down versions of stuff that had been around a long time. To say they started the counterculture is completely false. The counterculture had roots as far back as the European Bohemians and the American beatniks of the '40s and '50s. The immediate ground from which the late '60s counterculture sprang were the beatnik/folkies of the early '60s. There was nothing in the Beatles' left-liberal nonviolent philosophy that hadn't been bouncing around campuses and coffee houses for decades. Again, however, the masses of young people who raised the Beatles to the status of culture gods were not familiar with what was old hat in Greenwich Village and Berkley.

The Beatles were of course among the top artists of their generation, and they did create some gems. But they can only be worshipped for their "innovation" by those who don't know their antecedents. I mentioned the Stones and the Eagles, because I simply always enjoyed their music more. That's the kind of personal preference one is free to indulge, if you were never swept off your feet by the mass hysteria and worship of everything Beatle. For me, the Beatles were okay, but I've heard as good or better before and since. I realize I'm in the minority in this view. But that's never bothered me. I don't mean to stop your worship; but I couldn't resist throwing in a dose of reality to balance things out a little.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 27 December 2005 at 07:20 PM.]

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But they can only be worshipped for their "innovation" by those who don't know their antecedents.

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LOL! We are such a bunch of ignorant mofos!

[This message was edited by John McGann on 27 December 2005 at 07:27 PM.]

Everybody has antecedents- even the antecedents have antecedents. The mark of genius in an artist is when that person has the ability to take the best of the antecedents and to marry them together in a new, distinctive style. There's no question but that albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road (my 3 favorites) were quantum leaps ahead for rock and roll.

[This message was edited by Rick McDuffie on 27 December 2005 at 09:03 PM.]

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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

"I Am the Walrus"

Pure genius. Lyrically, musically, texturally.

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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

And I would not argue with saying they had genius, especially for rockers. From the standpoint of rock, they brought a lot of sensibilities from other genres in, just like Dylan did. Maybe it took a European from art school to do that. American bohemian intelligentsia tended to disdain rock'n'roll and other pop genres.

And speaking of bubble gum music, nothing was ever more bubble gum than "I want to Hold Your Hand," and their other early hits. My jr. high kid sister was all over that stuff. The Eagles - bubble gum? I've heard them called slick and commercial, but never heard that. The Eagles came from very humble and unslick country-rock beginnings, and as they matured they became slicker and more sophisticated in their craft - just as the Beatles did. After having several chart toppers, a lot of jealous rockers wrote The Eagles off as "gone commercial." I never felt that way. I thought they took rather primitive country-rock and got way better at it, and perfected it until it had mass appeal. Hotel California was one of the best albums of all time. The Eagles can't help it if the masses, as they occassionally do, had great taste and made them a commercial success. They've been getting short shrift from music school rock critics ever since.

The Stones stayed closer to rock and blues roots than The Beatles, but did it in their own way. Maybe I like the garage band realness they've kept. The darkness of the Stones also has kept me interested. For whatever reasons, I haven't grown tired of listening to them - and you can dance to them. By contrast, The Beatles early stuff, with the choir boy harmonies, was just sickly sweet and goody-goody; and their later stuff seemed contrived, gimicky, pretentiously artsy, and overly romantic. I tired quickly of most of their stuff. But they did have a few masterpieces.

There is no question that the Beatles were the first of the British Invasion bands, and paved the way for the rest. Maybe without them there never would have been a British Invasion. Who's to say? It just seems a disservice to the rest of the invasion to imply it was all about The Beatles.

Bill Wyman, who I met at Donegan's memorial srvice in '03 in London, assured me that the same was true for him.

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.

You need to listen to the Quarrymen rehearsal tapes of 1960 and then just listen to Sgt. Pepper done only 8 years later.

Compare that to ANY of the other English beat groups of their day and you will see what sets Beatles apart from all of them.

Brian Wilson would be the American counterpart of McCartney/Lennon in that day. That is another discussion.

[This message was edited by Bill Hatcher on 28 December 2005 at 09:57 AM.]

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The Beatles ain't Beethoven

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No? fast forward 300 years… there’s a good chance that Beatles music will still be played in one form or another. This music will be part of our culture for years to come. Partly because so much of it was groundbreaking music, and partly because these guys are historical figures.

Like I said earlier, I haven’t listened to the Beatles in 30 years because I was so saturated with it in my youth, but I do believe that they stand head and shoulders above every other musical act of the 20th century, including Elvis and Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra called Something “the greatest love song ever written”.

Songs like Michelle and Yesterday have been recorded by hundreds of artists worldwide. Both of these songs are in The Real Book, 6th Edition. Beatles music is heard everywhere… in movies, commercials, etc.

As far as antecedents… even Beethoven had antecedents.

[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 28 December 2005 at 10:55 AM.]

They were the first band to play arenas. Mainly because no one act could ever put 60,000 people in a stadium before them.

The first band to use backward masking tracks. Along with numerous "tricks" in the studio that no one had ever done before.

The use of sitar and other instruments never used in rock songs before.

The first band to make music videos. Not a small thing in itself.

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The antecedents to "I Am the Walrus" are clearly beat poetry, in particular Bob Dylan, and modern classical music.

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That's a stretch. The beat poets and Dylan never composed music that equalled the complexity of the Beatles.

Take the best poetry you can find and try to compose a song. Or take the best melody you ever heard and try to add lyrics.

The Beatles did both and their entire body of work spanned just a few short years.

Of course they were influenced. Everybody is. It is what they did with those influences. They pushed the entire world.

The time signature in "All You Need Is Love".

The one chord masterpiece "Tommorrow never Knows"

All recording artists changed the way they wrote and recorded songs. You could take risks. And durig that period of time record companies allowed artists to take risks.

Times change.

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The first band to make music videos.

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And if this isn't enough, you can head over to the Afternoon Delight Steeler thread and find out that the legendary Starland Vocal Band could out-harmonize those zany mop tops any day of the week!