I just realised something about the Beatles

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
Yesterday I got a last minute call - a family issue called somebody away and I ended up at a small theatre, with a Beatles tribute band - Beatlemania, were were rather good. Very little to do but listen to be honest. They started with the 60s stuff, in the black suits. I knew all the songs and sang along, nearly word perfect. Then they moved forwards a few years and I carried on, but when they reappeared in the Sergeant Pepper gear, I realised I didn't know the words and as they moved forward I discovered I'd left them at the Pepper stage. All the weird stuff. However, when I got home i listened to Sergeant Pepper and rather liked it. They did an early track and mentioned 1964 - God, that's 60 years! All the stuff I'd rejected from the Pepper onwards period, now, I understand. Back then, I didn't!

Watching the drummer I also realised time has been unkind to Ringo - because the guy playing him had nailed his style and technique and while laid back, it was rather clever. All the drummer jokes really weren't deserved. I don't think some of it I could have played - not that I'm a drummer, just the timing. Not rubbish, just a bit clever. I checked the old stuff and he copied the style pretty well.
 
I saw one of the tribute bands several years ago with my ex wife. She knew the songs until about the Sgt Pepper point. I pretty much knew all of the songs, especially the Pepper, Abbey Road, Revolver era. They did the same thing with the costume changes (might have even been BeatleMania... can't remember).

Locally we have an annual festival called Abbey Road on the River. It always features 3 or 4 of the better Beatles tribute bands, plus a selection of acts, usually from the 60s.

As for Ringo's drumming, I mentioned that same thing in a thread recently. I just finished watching the Beatles Let It Be and Get Back series on Disney+, and Ringo never seemed to go into the typical kick/hat/snare groove, especially in the later days. He still keeps the beat going.
 
The music of the Beatles hit me unexpectedly at the age of 13. I was ambling along quite nicely, thank you very much, listening to the pop of the day {1976}, happy to have a cassette recorder, 2 cassette albums and radio, listening to the 2 Jackson 5 records I had, listening to the odd thing my sisters might play or my little brother's "Jungle Book" and "Winnie the Pooh & Tigger Too" records when he would play them. I was becoming a little more discerning and songs were beginning to mean a little more to me when 💥☄️🔥⚡KERBLAMMO !🌩️💫🌟💫🌊🌬️⛈️⚡✨🪐💫☄️💥
Under nefarious circumstances, I acquired a tape of the compilation "1967-70" and that night, I listened to it while I did my physics homework and struggled with a stomach ache. I liked physics at that time, but it was the worst physics homework I ever did. My teacher Mr Adams gave me 4/10, the worst score I ever got. I had to repeat the homework. And my stomach ache was so bad I couldn't go to school the next day.
But in both cases, I didn't care. I'd discovered the Beatles !
The reason my work was so bad was because I just couldn't concentrate on leverage {which is what we'd done that day in class and it should have been -was- easy} due to the mesmerizing music that I was hearing. Song after song of aural gold spilling from my little cassette speaker. That first side of the tape was amazing. I listened to it all night long as I wrestled with stomach pains. Hearing "A Day in the Life" and "I am the Walrus" in pitch blackness in the dead of night was an experience I'd never even imagined could be so indelible !
I listened to nothing else for weeks after. Interestingly, I didn't like the second side {1968-70} at first. It was only after about a month that I forced myself to and discovered just as much treasure there as on the first side. By this point, I was a regular frequenter of record shops and I used to study their album covers. These were the first pieces of art I'd ever liked. I'd locate, with that mysterious antennae that Beatle fans acquire young, any story or article that turned up and I started to piece together their history. Within a couple of months, I'd bought "Paperback Writer/Rain", "Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine" and "She Loves You/I'll Get You" and then the album "A Collection Of Beatles Oldies.....But Goldies" so really, within 2½ months of that first airing, I had a fairly good spread of their music and so pretty much from the beginning, I never put their music into categories like "the early stuff" or "the later, weird stuff." I can do so, but I don't really. It is all Beatle music to me. I love "P.S. I Love You," I love "Old Brown Shoe." I love "I Call Your Name," I love "Helter Skelter." I love "What You're Doing," I love "Octopus's Garden."
Tons of people don't like the Beatles. There's no reason, in a world of many choices, why they should.
But I do and have done so for most of my life.
 
rob aylestone said:
I knew all the songs and sang along, nearly word perfect. Then they moved forwards a few years and I carried on, but when they reappeared in the Sergeant Pepper gear, I realised I didn't know the words
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When I was 14, I bought the book "The Beatles Complete" which had most of the lyrics of their songs. There were a few curious omissions but nevertheless, I learned all the words, somehow. Even to this day, I know the lyrics of every song the Beatles wrote and put out as the Beatles back in the day. I can't say that about any other artist on earth. I don't even know the lyrics to any of my own songs !
 
rob aylestone said:
Watching the drummer I also realised time has been unkind to Ringo - because the guy playing him had nailed his style and technique and while laid back, it was rather clever. All the drummer jokes really weren't deserved. I don't think some of it I could have played - not that I'm a drummer, just the timing. Not rubbish, just a bit clever. I checked the old stuff and he copied the style pretty well.
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What does this mean? Nothing has been unkind to Ringo - drummers love him.
 
Sky Blue Lou said:
Ringo is/was, was/is, one of the best drummers ever hands down and indisputable. No Ringo, no Beatles.
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The White album was one of the last albums I heard in my evolution as a Beatle aficionado. Once I'd heard "Helter Skelter" and put that together with some of the drumming I heard on that first night {specifically "Strawberry Field Forever", but others too}, well, don't come near me if you're going to hit that "Ringo was an average drummer" button. George Martin didn't think much of him by 1968. I don't care if he's the worst drummer ever. I love his playing.
The funny thing is that even if he was an average drummer {and I'm not going to one of those "Ringo was the best ever" competitions either}, this misses the point. The point for me is that on those fantastic songs, he was the guy who played those drum parts. He found the drums to complement those songs. Even when Paul would suggest particular patterns like the ones on "Ticket to Ride" or "Tomorrow Never Knows." Ginger Baker may have been a superior drummer in every way but it's not him on "Savoy Truffle." Keith Moon may have been far more fizzy and dynamic but it's not him on "I Want You." John Bonham may have been a young Turk by the late 60s but it's not him holding together "Sun King" then going straight into "Mean Mr Mustard" {they were recorded in one go, together}.
To be fair, both Paul Macca and John Lennon were unrealistically demanding of Ringo and were always on at him to play like this drummer or that drummer and this had the result of pushing him to do the things that he did in his own Ringoistic way. And we have the benefit of the recordings all these years later where we can say "Wow, that was an interesting drum part !"
 
Papanate said:
What does this mean? Nothing has been unkind to Ringo - drummers love him
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Ringo {like many things Beatlesque} has gone through an up-and-down history just by dint of being the drummer in the Beatles. There's even a biography of him called "Ringo Starr - Straight Man or Joker ?" In one of the earliest books to look at the Beatles' music in a critical way, Roy Carr & Tony Tyler's "The Beatles - An Illustrated Record" from 1974, when commenting on "Ticket To Ride" they make the observation that his playing showed that he "wasn't just a lovable nose...." by playing some of the skilful stuff he did. Back in the day, he wasn't always thought highly of. George Martin didn't think much of him at first.
When Punk was all the rage, it was fashionable to rag on Ringo. In the jazz world, there have been times when it's been fashionable to rag on Ringo. Many drummers were inspired by Ringo initially, but as they progressed, left him far behind {which is what should have happened anyway} but as a consequence there could sometimes be a tendency to peg him as a lame, shitty drummer and to imply, if not state blatantly, that any drummer could have done what he did.
Then there's been times when there's been an attempt to present him as the apex of drumming which I think is silly.
He's Ringo, the guy who helped shape those amazing songs with a little thinking simplicity.
 
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