Let's get it straight. Some people say that The Beatles sucked before the year 1965 or 66 because some people are snobs. Every snob has to have moustache, and he has to like snob music. Snob like his tea with lemon and his coffee with cream. Snob loves to be snob.
However, being a snob ain't a crime.
But for me, the Beatles were at least as good when they were "just" a pop band. I can't help it, but nothing strikes me more than carefully crafted catchy pop song.
That was some kind of introduction. But the reason why I wrote it is because now I'm gonna talk about early Beatles.
Live At BBC vol 2 was released recently so I bought it. (Of course it is a cash-in and do not include anything new but I could not help but buy it anyway.) One thing that Vol 2 and it's predecessor Vol 1 prove is, contrary the rumors, the Beatles were not a ****ty live band. How could they had been? They were the ones who ruled the whole Hamburg with their stage show. So while I'm ready to admit they were not instrumentally extraordinary talented, they sure knew how to play.
However, this is not the point. The point is that these releases give us many clues about their roots. Their love for early rock n roll has been well documented.
Many of those straight fast rock n roll numbers, many of them by Chuck Berry, were sung by John. He really shows the power of his voice. Say, who could sing them better? Usually their versions are nearly equal to originals, though their version of Johnny Be Good is somehow a bit of pale when you compare it to the original by Chuck. But well, I have not hear even a single cover that would be better than Chuck's original Johhny Be Goode.
Then there's sappy stuff. Paul sings many of these and they are usually quite allright, although The Honeymoon Song is too, well, too sappy and honeymoonish even for me. (And I usually tolerate sappy stuff pretty well. However, Paul's greatest achievements are those times when he does his Little Richard impersonation and nearly surpasses the inventor. I mean, listen how he sings Long Tall Sally, and listen how the band groove. And after that, are you still capable to say that they did not know how to rock? They nearly put the early Stones to the shame. (I'm overstating now, but still.)
The biggest surprise is that George sings nearly as many songs as John and Paul did. Also it shows George's obsession with rockabilly and especially Carl Perkins. And he sings quite well, too. Unlike on the early studio records, his vocals works pretty well on Live at BBC. Also his guitar playing is good. He draws very much influence from Carl Perkins and Eddie Cochran and other rockabilly pioneers. But well, listen to his solo, for example, on I Saw Her Standing There and then listen to some classic Perkins and you can hear it clearly.
That leaves us with Ringo. Didn't he have such a friendly tone? Sadly his vocals are quite off key sometimes, maybe it was too hard to bang the drums and sing at the same time. Drummers are not supposed to sing, ya know.
Anyway these two records shows too how they played pretty obscure numbers. Also it shows, especially those Motown numbers, that they sang harmonies correctly even when they played live.
Also, I'll Be On My Way reminds us how profilic songwriters they were. It is as catchy as hell and pretty much equal to their other early hits. But they threw it away. They gave so many great songs to other artists. Bad To Me, I'll Be On My Way, I'm In Love and so on, it is an endless list. For example, Bad To Me. A perfect pop number, catchy as hell, great melody and all. Some songwriters like Noel Gallagher could kill for this kind of stuff.
John hated it, of course, but he hated every song he ever wrote.
I tried to be more serious now and left those stupid offtopic jokes out. Hope it helps. I have not decide yet should I try be myself or should I try to be serious. The best option would be to make some kind of mix between those styles but I have not learned how to do it yet.
|