Living in the Material World

Martin does George a Treat

Martin Scorsese’s film about George Harrison, Living in the Material World, is a beautifully crafted confection of refreshingly unused archive footage alongside material that you know so well you’ve forgotten how to look at it. Scorsese grabs the material by the scruff of its visual neck and makes you marvel at it again; retelling afresh that wondrous tale about scouse upstarts from the provinces changing the world. It showed on HBO in the USA on October 5th & 6th, on BBC 2 Arena in the Autumn and has just been released on DVD and you should see it.

Just like No Direction Home(!) featuring Bob Dylan, Scorsese presents an old story using old material with intelligence and movie smarts, fired by his own passion for the music and personal affection for the protagonists. Allied with his long-established ability to create memorable musical documentaries, well he was a cameraman at Woodstock, he choreographs George’s own Last Waltz with skilful edits, unexpected links and new interviews. Scorsese has found unseen outtakes and previously rejected photographic stills, and links them to well-known clips of the Beatles where he often zooms in so tightly on them playing live that he creates a kind of grainy simulation of 3D, adding an unexpected immediacy to old stock. With both Harrison’s and the Beatles music digitally re-mastered he makes sure that the sound is fresh and loud, allowing him to present George Harrison to us anew, both visually and aurally, opening out fresh interpretations of the ‘quiet Beatle; quiet blunt apparently. 

Revealing interviews from Astrid Kirchherr, Klaus Voorman, Patti Boyd and especially Eric Clapton (“of course I wanted

Beatle George

Here Comes George Harrison

The Group Genius known as TheBeatles means John, Paul, George & Ringo acting together in harmony to create and record great music. They became recording artists of distinction when, with the support of George Martin, they got their group songwriting, arranging and recording right with Please, Please Me; with the help of their friends. George Martin was moved to say, “gentlemen you have just recorded your first number 1.’ Curiously they had most of these elements in place, including three part harmonies, five years earlier when George Harrison passed the audition with Lennon on a bus back in 1957 by playing Raunchy. I first heard him in 1963 when a friend played me the Beatles first album Please Please Me and George sang Do You Want to Know a Secret?  

Back then we knew George as the lead guitarist in the breakthrough MerseyBeat group the Beatles; so we looked to what he was interested in as a guitarist. But George was unusual as a lead guitarist, he didnt play lead guitar lines, like Hank Marvin in the Shadows or, his later best friend, Eric Clapton in Cream. He played lead guitar in songs and helped amplify the quality of Lennon and McCartney compositions. And, just like John and Paul, he spent the fifties in love with Rock and Roll and, like them, helped overturn the classics. There is a playlist of this post on YouTube and this video has great pix of George; based on a live recording at the BBC with an interview by Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. George can Roll Over Beethoven;  

Beatles BELTers

Beatles resources for #elt & #esl

The Beatles for ELT; Nice idea! Here is the playlist on YouTube. Well The Beatles were just a bunch of layabouts with only one A level between them. Paul got English and was going to train as a teacher, but then went to Hamburg instead of staying in Liverpool. This is his chance to make up to us for being so selfish and becoming a musician instead of a teacher. Here is his song about where he lived in Liverpool featuring the Number 46 bus. Pictures and Map of Penny Lane;  

The Beatles Apple 1968

The Beatles Creativity (5) ‘you say you want a Revolution?’

1968 is The Beatles’ most fascinating year, they had transformed music in terms of singles and albums but in 1968 they were aiming to transform the music industry by making their company Apple into a musical collective. Singles were no longer formulaic, melodic sing-a-longs designed to make to make money for the songwriters, producers, managers and record companies rather than the artists. Albums were no longer the accidental re-packaging of singles or merely fan souvenirs of live shows, as they had been when The Beatles started and remained throughout the sixties. In terms of this analysis of their creativity they had completed the three main stages of development; being guided, working collaboratively and breaking the rules by 1967. So what came next? 1968.  The magisterial Walter Everett said “the year of 1968 was a time of simultaneous rejuvenation and the dissolution of The Beatles.”

In We Are The Beatles I described the Beatles’ style as evolving from the musical creativity of their psychedelic period 1966-67 to a loose Atelier style, unconsciously aping the studio organisational form of Renaissance artists. By this I mean that they had learnt their craft and now, forced to run their own business, decided to try to create with Apple Corps the company they would liked to have signed for, and so began working with many other artists. Paul completed Step Inside Love with Cilla, George recorded the Inner Light with local musicians in India whilst recording his ‘Wonderwall‘ soundtrack John woke up one morning with the words of his ‘most perfect lyric’ flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. It’s Across The Universe;  

Happy Birthday Ringo

Peace & Love Tribute to Ringo @ 70

So a drummer who I didn’t really rate at first, because he was part of a song-based band and didn’t show off, went on to become arguably the best rock drummer at supporting the song. Given that he had Lennon and McCartney, then Harrison, to support you have to say that the quality he was given to work with was pretty amazing. But here’s the thing, he improved the songs, rounded them out, supported them, made them work as recorded songs in the studio. Here are 13 Reasons why Ringo is a great drummer, and a good Ringo biography. Lennon called him “the heart of The Beatles” George said that without him it was “like a car with three wheels” and Paul said “he’s just a loveable, interesting intelligent bloke. I say that after a Hard Days Night, Tomorrow Never Knows. Have a great one Ringo (and the burger after the Hard Rock show). Here he is with Paul and George playing something from the fifties; Raunchy;

Rain; What would I put down as I my favourite Ringo track? Several actually and they change from time to time. The first time I noticed Ringo was in the intro to She Loves You; I just love a good drum roll in the intro. And in the great Rain (only a B-side!) he wallops those skins from the off, even louder when remastered. (Warning contains Volume!). Rain; More Ringo Drumming;

Beatles Psychedelia 1966-67

Beatles Creativity (4) All You Need is Heutagogy

Being settled in London The Beatles had fed their creativity in 1964 & 65 with a series of collaborations with their musical peers. They were now rooted in London’s social life with Ringo’s legendary flat at 34 Montagu Square their main hangout outside of Abbey Road studio 2. London in the early sixties was exploding with the energy of new post-war ideas that revolted out of art schools into style, fashion and design. This was exemplified by Mary Quant, miniskirts, Bazaar, photography, magazines, beatniks, Viper skiffle, rock n roll, clubs, Coke, uppers, music and working-class cool. For the very first time, in the country that had invented trade unions, the working class were being celebrated for their cool rather than their militancy. Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, Duffy, Donovan and Bailey along with Twiggy and others were democratising the cultural industries. The Beatles took the next step which was to re-invent their own cultural industry, music, through the love they made with their creative use of their studio craft, collaborations (Martin’s arrangements & Geoff’s engineering), Paul’s music hall melodies, John’s performance art decision-making, Ringo’s rhythmic support, George’s ego-less experiments and new songs; psychedelia. Starting with Tomorrow Never Knows; of course! There is a continuous YouTube Playlist of this post here.

Beatles Singles 1962-64

Beatles Creativity Phase Two; Singles Men

Trevor Horn, who in November 1963 was inspired to become a producer when he noticed the difference between the Beatles error-strewn live performance on the Royal Variety Show compared to the exuberant polish of their studio songs, observed that there is always one weak member of a group when it comes to recording; which is why he says he never recorded U2.  George Martin thought the same with Pete Best and, sadly, I think that Pete was a live rock n roll drummer and not cut out for the studio work supporting the song that Ringo delivered at Abbey Road; here are The Beatles trying to find their recording feet whilst auditioning with Pete Best on Love Me Do;  

Genius meets Genius!

A Collection of Beatles Jokes and Spoofs

Anthropologists in the year 3126 discover various artefacts which allow them to piece together who The Beatles were, who their members were and what they achieved historically. Gives you a whole new respect for Anthropologists and Ed Sullivan. Enjoy;

Best 10 Remastered Tracks (2010)

Remasters Series (1)

As part of reviewing the Remasters (YouTube playlist here), I am going to pick the ten tracks I think benefit most from Remastering; lets call them the most interesting rather than the absolute best. I might enter into the Mono v Stereo debate but I am a stereo boy, having been given a Philips Stereo Player and Sgt Peppers for my 16th birthday, but there are some discussions out there. I will try and pick one track per album, which might mean more than ten tracks but… So do we start with 1-2-3-4, or Boys (which benefitted from the Capitol Remasters), the larynx-busting first take of Twist and Shout, or Please Please Me itself as it is less known in the US and still disputed as being The Beatles first UK number 1. No, it is I Saw Her Standing There as we have a good Mono Remaster video; at last the Beatles live show! 1-2-3-4;

My Beatles/2009 Mashup

Suddenly it is end of year poll reflection time again, and the UK Sunday newspaper The Observer has today recommended The Beatles Stereo box set as the box set of the year, obviously. So, what I intend to do here is mashup my favourite ten tracks from the Remasters with my favourite ten tracks from 2009. As you DJs out there know it doesn’t quite work like that as you need to go with the Flow, so this isn’t quite my 10 /10 selection but I think it works as a mix; so lets start with a wake up call! GOOD MORNING! Good Morning, Beatles Fans…