Most other artist were watching the Beatles closely at the time, when they Beatles would do something, other bands would emulate it and put their own flavor on it. That is what people need to understand, we got a lot of great music in the 60s from a lot of bands and artist that were influenced by the Beatles.
McCartney Blames Lennon
- Thread starter Althetuna
- Start date
That's the same thing for any time period. Black musicians set the way for people like Elvis, Johnny Cash etc. It's all influence. The Beatles were amazing and started a wave but they get too much credit imo.
Joining late here, so it's probably been mentioned that is is really old / re-hashed news.
I assume since Let It Be reissue and the Disney movie of the album restoration is right close, there is some hype associated to get attention & sales.
Lennon did announce he wanted out in Sept '69:
www.beatlesbible.com
.
I assume since Let It Be reissue and the Disney movie of the album restoration is right close, there is some hype associated to get attention & sales.
Lennon did announce he wanted out in Sept '69:
John Lennon reveals he is leaving The Beatles
Although the previous week John Lennon had decided to leave The Beatles, Allen Klein persuaded him to keep quiet in public. Nonetheless, on 20 September 1969 Lennon chose to tell the rest of the group. Klein was in the process of renegotiating a new contract for the group with EMI/Capitol, and...
www.beatlesbible.com
I understand the exhaustion for Beatles attention. I just wanted to add some important milestones even for those who don't like the group - as brought up in Marc Lewishon's book:
1. Before the band broke open big in America, the top 40 radio play in late 1963 hardly had many (any) songs with electric guitars by a group writing their own material. Check out Billboard Charts from Aug '63 - Jan 1964.
2. No band / artist from England made any splash in America before the Beatles started the invasion. After the Ed Sullivan show, every Record Label wanted to issue British groups, with electric guitars, to the US record buyers.
Seeing the statement above that declares the Beatles received "too much credit" because of their liberal borrowing from black musicians, essentially repackaging their sound for white audiences, is pretty funny coming from you. In another post earlier in this thread you said, "Like I said they're a great band I just don't know if they can compete with the Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, and Van Halen, etc."
Umm, pretty sure the first few Led Zeppelin albums consist entirely of blues covers, covers in everything but name with way more liberal borrowing than John and Paul ever did, and songs stylistically very much part of that canon. Page and Plant were involved in several lawsuits about this over the years, and many of their songs had their writing credits changed and/or they had to pay settlements to the original artist.
I don't think your take is stupid -- far from it, there is a very large kernel of truth there about how black musicians influenced white musicians when black musicians in the 1950s and 1960s could not garner mainstream acceptance or popularity because of both formal and informal segregation. The Beatles were just one of the least guilty bands about doing this... not sure they even have any straight blues covers in their catalog, and they do not have many 12-bar songs to their name... while Led Zeppelin (way more blues covers/in everything but name covers) and and some of the other 60s/70s hard rock bands are the most guilty of repackaging the blues.
Not saying you shouldn't like LZ. I like them just fine if a tad derivative. I just think if the "borrows too much from unsung black musicians" is your problem, well, you might want to look at your bands.
A slight quibble with your first point: Chuck Berry and James Brown both had crossover hits with their own songs. Berry played an electric guitar and Brown had electric guitars in his band.
Little Stevie Wonder was playing piano and harmonica and writing music. There were other piano playing hit makers, but your overall point is right: after Buddy Holly died in ‘59, singer-songwriter-guitarists weren’t prominent in the U.S. until the Beatles started the invasion. (Yeah, I know, Buddy didn’t play much; but he played more than Elvis had!)
Of course they all influence each other that's my entire point. McCartney was once quoted for his advice to other musicians. He said listen to lots of music. They listened to thousands of songs to find their way. People want to say the Beatles changed everything, ok but that ignores everyone before them and their influences. It gets tired.Seeing the statement above that declares the Beatles received "too much credit" because of their liberal borrowing from black musicians, essentially repackaging their sound for white audiences, is pretty funny coming from you. In another post earlier in this thread you said, "Like I said they're a great band I just don't know if they can compete with the Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, and Van Halen, etc."
Umm, pretty sure the first few Led Zeppelin albums consist entirely of blues covers, covers in everything but name with way more liberal borrowing than John and Paul ever did, and songs stylistically very much part of that canon. Page and Plant were involved in several lawsuits about this over the years, and many of their songs had their writing credits changed and/or they had to pay settlements to the original artist.
I don't think your take is stupid -- far from it, there is a very large kernel of truth there about how black musicians influenced white musicians when black musicians in the 1950s and 1960s could not garner mainstream acceptance or popularity because of both formal and informal segregation. The Beatles were just one of the least guilty bands about doing this... not sure they even have any straight blues covers in their catalog, and they do not have many 12-bar songs to their name... while Led Zeppelin (way more blues covers/in everything but name covers) and and some of the other 60s/70s hard rock bands are the most guilty of repackaging the blues.
Not saying you shouldn't like LZ. I like them just fine if a tad derivative. I just think if the "borrows too much from unsung black musicians" is your problem, well, you might want to look at your bands.
Their popularity also sparked the industry towards what it is today, and it's not great for creative nurturing.
Last edited:
You're right it is a complex system. One still and forever evolving.
But there's one node basically every bit of popular music flows back to in that system.
And that's those four guys from Liverpool.
But, but, but… the Beatles were clearly influenced by Buddy Holly and Tin Pan Alley among so many others. And the notion that “every bit of popular music flows back to… four guys from Liverpool” is so insane!
Sure the Beatles had outsized influence, but so did so many others prior to them, and some of their contemporaneous along side of them. Alan Freed was more than a decade ahead of the Beatles. Motown didn’t flow from the Beatles. Memphis didn’t. New Orleans, Philly and NJ/NYC didn’t. The Caribbean didn’t. I don’t think its fair to say that their British contemporaries who grew up in that market with them “flowed from them” before they engaged in the British Invasion that so influenced the vast, new American teen market over the next decade. They and their contemporaries did cement the guitar-centric singing and playing band format into the the road ahead. (With saxophones and pianos lurking around many pop hits.)
As Alan Freed said, “Rock n’ roll is a river of music which has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, ragtime, cowboy songs, countr songs, folk songs. All have contributed greatly to the big beat.”
Hail, Hail Rock n’ Roll!
All this Beatles talk got me curious about the solo stuff.
Listening to McCartney which was his first solo work. The reviews were absolutely awful and I'm really not a huge fan of his solo stuff, but so far I don't hate it.
Maybe I'm Amazed is the only radio friendly song, but it isn't horrible for what it is. Very low production.
Listening to McCartney which was his first solo work. The reviews were absolutely awful and I'm really not a huge fan of his solo stuff, but so far I don't hate it.
Maybe I'm Amazed is the only radio friendly song, but it isn't horrible for what it is. Very low production.
Ok, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Duke Ellington, Beethoven, Bach, Motown. On and on.
I once had a music professor make an argument that Wagner is the most important musician of the past 250 years. Notice I said "musician," not "composer," but yes, over all other composers of the past 2.5 centuries and then over all of the popular musicians of the past century or so for two simple reasons.
(1.) Wagner was the first composer to fully integrate leitmotif into his works. That is, musical cues can have thematic, character, and plot associations. Music can integrate with other levels of drama, not just "stand on its own" like it did with classical composers. Much of the music we hear nowadays is based around some type of leitmotif, ranging from videogames to film scores to rock and popular music. It's just everywhere.
(2.) Wagner deepened and darkened the sound of the orchestra. This is true in how he scored things and in adding new tenor and bass instruments to its sound as well as more percussion. This presaged everything that happened with music in both "high culture" and "low culture" ever since the late 1800s.
So forget John, Paul, and George, how about we give Richard Wagner some credit?!?
Last edited:
The Beatles changed popular music as we know it. Acknowledge it or play ignorant--your choice.
And it wasn't just their playing electric guitars; it was their making guitars front and center--and loud. And it wasn't just from a singer and his back up. It was from a band. The genesis of what we now think of as rock and roll. When Lennon, McCartney, and and Harrison hit the thunderous opening chords to I Wanna Hold Your Hand, with multiple and interesting chord changes to follow in early '64, anyone who didn't have a tin ear took notice. Any they just got better, and almost every new album was a revelation and an inspiration to musicians.
Also when it comes to Led Zeppelin you're talking about the greatest rhythm section probably of all time. To make my point Ringo Starr probably couldn't even count the polymetric time signatures that drummers play in today. Bonham is why that stuff exists popularly. Sure jazz drummers have been doing it for ages but it never continued into pop culture past just the fringe edges of society and the high level of jazz like Duke Ellington et al were writing. Jimmy Page was great but he was really sloppy and without Bonham and Jones that band isn't what it was and music isn't where it is today. Greatest popular culture drummer of all time and there's serious competition.Seeing the statement above that declares the Beatles received "too much credit" because of their liberal borrowing from black musicians, essentially repackaging their sound for white audiences, is pretty funny coming from you. In another post earlier in this thread you said, "Like I said they're a great band I just don't know if they can compete with the Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, and Van Halen, etc."
Umm, pretty sure the first few Led Zeppelin albums consist entirely of blues covers, covers in everything but name with way more liberal borrowing than John and Paul ever did, and songs stylistically very much part of that canon. Page and Plant were involved in several lawsuits about this over the years, and many of their songs had their writing credits changed and/or they had to pay settlements to the original artist.
I don't think your take is stupid -- far from it, there is a very large kernel of truth there about how black musicians influenced white musicians when black musicians in the 1950s and 1960s could not garner mainstream acceptance or popularity because of both formal and informal segregation. The Beatles were just one of the least guilty bands about doing this... not sure they even have any straight blues covers in their catalog, and they do not have many 12-bar songs to their name... while Led Zeppelin (way more blues covers/in everything but name covers) and and some of the other 60s/70s hard rock bands are the most guilty of repackaging the blues.
Not saying you shouldn't like LZ. I like them just fine if a tad derivative. I just think if the "borrows too much from unsung black musicians" is your problem, well, you might want to look at your bands.
I wouldn't disagree for a moment that Jones and Bonham are two of the most influential figures in the history of their instruments. They certainly are. They make for a great cover band!
Now by popular demand! A list of some of the songs Zep stole from other artists:
- "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" - A folk song by Anne Bredon, this was originally credited as "traditional, arranged by Jimmy Page," then "words and music by Jimmy Page," and then, following legal action, "Bredon/Page/Plant."
- "Black Mountain Side" - uncredited version of a traditional folk tune previously recorded by Bert Jansch.
- "Bring It On Home" - the first section is an uncredited cover of the Willie Dixon tune (as performed by the imposter Sonny Boy Williamson).
- "Communication Breakdown" - apparently derived from Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown."
- "Custard Pie" - uncredited cover of Bukka White's "Shake 'Em On Down," with lyrics from Sleepy John Estes's "Drop Down Daddy."
- "Dazed And Confused" - uncredited cover of the Jake Holmes song (see The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes).
- "Hats Off To (Roy) Harper" - uncredited version of Bukka White's "Shake 'Em On Down."
- "How Many More Times" - Part one is an uncredited cover of the Howlin' Wolf song (available on numerous compilations). Part two is an uncredited cover of Albert King's "The Hunter."
- "In My Time Of Dying" - uncredited cover of the traditional song (as heard on Bob Dylan's debut).
- "The Lemon Song" - uncredited cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" - Wolf's publisher sued Zeppelin in the early 70s and settled out of court.
- "Moby ****" - written and first recorded by Sleepy John Estes under the title "The Girl I Love," and later covered by Bobby Parker.
- "Nobody's Fault But Mine" - uncredited cover of the Blind Willie Johnson blues.
- "Since I've Been Lovin' You" - lyrics are the same as Moby Grape's "Never," though the music isn't similar.
- "Stairway To Heaven" - the main guitar line is apparently from "Taurus" by Spirit.
- "White Summer" - uncredited cover of Davey Graham's "She Moved Through The Fair."
- "Whole Lotta Love" - lyrics are from the Willie Dixon blues "You Need Love."
http://www.warr.org/zep.html
The Beatles were a bit more than a cover band.
