@mikelavigne perfectly said! My all time favorite is Abbey Road and until I learned that Let It Be wasn't their last album I used to be confused. Their evolution heard through their albums is pure magic.
What does it take to be a die hard Beatles fan?
I am the first to admit that I am a Beatles fan. And might even say that I am die hard. A recent film and recent album has me questioning the latter.
Peter Jackson's film "Get Back" and the 2022 "de-mixed" release of "Revolver" were both somewhat over the top for even a long time Beatles fan.
I had difficulty getting through both the film and the album.
Yes, it was pretty cool to get an inside look at the prep for the famous rooftop concert. But it became tedious to listen to all the "bla bla" in the studio and the endless fiddling of non Beatles songs.
Not to mention all that time "practicing" in the studio to come up with 3 or 4 songs.
And it was cool to hear the de-mixed versions of Revolver material, but 63 tracks with much relatively meaningless stuff took me 2 days to get through.
I certainly can appreciate the attraction to the behind the scenes things.
But neither the film or the album gave me much insight into who these guys are were/are.
The film was especially disappointing.
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The most interesting part of the movie to me is hearing George say that the best band he’s ever heard was that of Ray Charles. Levon Helm was of the same opinion. @stuartk’s mention of George’s gardening is apt. George talked about not practicing guitar anymore after a certain point (i.e. when he picked up the sitar, from where came my comment about his interest in and focus on that obnoxious-sounding instrument---imo---ruining his guitar playing), and of not being motivated to keep progressing like his pal Eric was (not everyone agrees with that assessment of Clapton). Harrison’s guitar playing in The Beatles is a model of musical taste, of playing for the song. As I said, his solo in "Nowhere Man" is a very favorite of mine. That style of guitar playing unfortunately became passe in the latter half of the 60’s, ironically because of the rise in Rock music of the style in which Clapton himself played: Blues above all else. But after The Beatles? George was indeed more interesting in gardening than anything else, including music. At least he went out well, The Traveling Wilbury’s being delightful. Actually, in his latter years it was ukulele George was playing, not guitar. Ya know, Lennon was not shy of expressing his opinion of Harrison’s singing, which was rather brutal. I’d rather listen to George’s post-Beatles singing than Lennon’s, and yes I realize that is a minority opinion. In his defense, at least George didn’t call his wife "mother". Now THAT is pathetic.
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There’s somewhat of a parallel in the life of John McLaughlin who became a dedicated student of, I believe, the vina (someone correct me if I’m mistaken). It got to the point where decided he had to drop the vina because he felt, deep down, he was a guitar player and that he was in effect "betraying" himself by allowing the vina to seduce him away from guitar. Your "Blues above all else" assertion about Clapton makes me curious about your definition of Blues. Any min pent based soloing? It seems to me he was able play very melodically at times. Since the focus of this thread is the Beatles, I’ll point to Clapton’s solo on "Something" as a primary example. From my perspective, There are others as well, sprinkled throughout his discography. But, as I acknowledged, our respective conception of "Blues" may differ. I'm no EC fan-boy. In the panoply of British guitar players, I'd place many above him. Still, I believe he deserves credit where credit is due. |
@stuartk I mean he was very involved with the development |
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