|
|
Category: "Announcements"
Very early in The Beatles’ career, they were just beginning to spread their wings as songwriters but didn’t have enough material to cover a whole live show, let alone their first album. They relied on cover versions of songs that they’d honed in their stage act over many years. As their career progressed, cover tunes declined on their albums until there was nothing but original material on their recordings. This article covers only the American albums and only up until their Yesterday…And Today album. I realize that on their Let It Be album they covered “Maggie Mae,” an English folk standard, but that was more or less a studio jam or filler.
I was a teenager in the sixties so naturally I’d have a fascination with The Beatles, more so than, let’s say, someone ten to fifteen years younger than myself. Occasionally I’ll run into one of these people and the conversation will roll around to The Beatles and their contributions to the music scene. They’ll usually say something about how The Beatles were overrated or hyped beyond reality or some other comment meant to minimize the accomplishments of these lads from Liverpool. Well, being the Beatle enthusiast that I am, this is one topic where I can debate intelligently with just about anyone. Just so we can put this subject to rest once and for all, I’ll present this column to all you naysayers so you will have the facts before you try to put down the most successful rock group of all time. For example…
I originally broke away from my duo to go solo about eight years ago and over those eight years, I thought I had perfected my act to be about as smooth and easy as it could get. Guess not. I stumbled upon a program that really lets me concentrate on the music and not on the organizing of my material. I'll explain more about the program further down.
No, this article has nothing to do with the Ben Stiller movie of the same name. Last Saturday our local museum held a nostalgic display event featuring the rock and roll bands that originated from my hometown and the surrounding areas between the fifties and the eighties. A few weeks prior to the event most of us musicians received emails asking us to submit photos, thoughts, memories, memorabilia and even some vintage gear that they could display for the public. We all got name tags, which was a good thing since NONE of us looked like the photos on the wall that had been blown up to giant poster size.
As you may already know, The Beatles wrote a lot of their songs about real people who had come and gone from their lives over the years. Some I don’t need to explain, such as The Ballad of John and Yoko. It’s obviously about John and Yoko. But it also mentions Peter Brown, Brian Epstein’s personal assistant, who knew the whereabouts of all The Beatles at any time. There were many more people immortalized within the lyrics of their music. Let’s talk about some of the other names mentioned in Beatle tunes, such as:
When I play with my duo we do a song by The Righteous Brothers called “Unchained Melody.” Not particularly one of my favorites, but my partner can reach the notes, so we do it. It’s my job to create the lyrics sheets with additional information that we can share with the audience. When I researched this song I found that this version was considered the best, although not the first…or second…or even third or fourth. Nope, The Righteous Brothers release was the fifth version of this song. That got me to thinking about other such occurrences, such as:
Newsletter
Recent comments