George as a guitarist is an interesting discussion.
On one hand he could produce sublime results like the solo in “Something”. Or the Ramirez nylon string solo on “Till There Was You”.
On the other, he deferred to letting McCartney and Clapton play the solos on two of his most famous Beatles era compositions “Taxman” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” respectively.
The book by recording engineer Geoff Emerick was very dismissive and critical of George and portrayed him as inept and sullenly defensive.
I find it odd that George Martin and Paul McCartney would accept some of George’s solos. Those two were always demanding, if not excellence, but at least competence. And some of the middle period guitar work by George was weird and clumsy sounding. Two examples:
Th true test is to try and reproduce their music with a four piece band currently. This would include the harmonies, as well as doing a live performance.
How good does a band have to be to play Beatles music?
No argument on “All You Need Is Love,” but “The Night Before” is played by McCartney.
I read Emerick’s book and it supports other observers who noted that George took a lot longer to arrive at ideas in the studio, whereas Paul tended to know what worked more or less off the bat. I think there got to be a point where, as much as he might have wanted to, Paul simply couldn’t drop in every guitar part; he had to give George the opportunity to pull his weight, however long it took him in the end.
Yes, you are correct. Although Lennon said that it was McCartney and Harrison playing in parallel octaves. Probably more McCartney’s ideas since it was his song… who knows.
Wow, I’d forgotten about that one. I listened to that intro and found myself wondering what happened. It’s like George’s lead just sort of … died. It almost sounds like a recording/engineering mistake, like his lead bit inadvertently got cut off in the middle.
I’ll confess that I was never all that impressed with George’s guitar playing. Some of my favorite Beatles tunes are George songs, but they’re favorites because of the song, not his guitar work. His solos on a lot of the band’s early material just seemed uninspired, and he played a lot of “cliche” licks.
I always thought the most “soulful” lead guitar work on a Beatles song was on “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. And wasn’t that John?
The mix in that video is way off. The strings take over the solo halfway through, so it makes sense that his lead would stop. Actually, I think it stops too late rather than too early; that last note by itself really shouldn’t be there. Perhaps that was the mistake, not cutting it off early enough.
I love the Beatles and grew up singing to their records long before Karaoke became a fad in American bars (probably long before it became a thing in Japanese bars, too). So I heartily agree with the many responders who have disagreed with the OP.
Nevertheless, as a tiny little bit of a counter-argument, I’ll paraphrase a Trivial Pursuit question I got long ago:
Q: Who said, “Having played with better, I look back and realize [the Beatles] weren’t very good.”
A: George Harrison
I don’t have a clue about technical stuff concerning music, but can say that I’ve always loved the Beatles and their music and as time goes by it only increases. Also, I’m very happy to see people in here say that Ringo was/is a fine drummer. I enjoy watching YT vids and too many people slam him basically saying he’s a joke as a drummer. But it’s funny because I’ll post saying if that’s true, then please name one song where Ringo screwed up, and they never have an answer to the question. I just think Ringo and the other Beatles were absolutely flat-out amazing, though back in them days there were a number of others that were great as well. Truly this planet has been blessed to have had so very many proficiently gifted music makers!
There is an excellent film about George. In case you’ve never seen it, here is a link:
This is the best film I have ever seen about The Beatles and especially about George. It was directed by Martin Scorcese and was rated 8.2 on IMDB.
I think 8.2 is just about the highest rating I’ve ever seen on IMDB except for maybe a couple of other films.
As far as my saying upthread that IMHO, George was the best musician of the four and was even better than all the others put together, I was clearly carried away when I said that and it was clearly not true.
So, excuse me if I was carried away with my tremendous respect and love for George.
However, I’d like to relate to you one episode from that film.
George tells the story of how he first met John. Paul was friends with George and Paul got John to agree to meet George and hear him play. They needed a good guitarist at that time and Paul thought George was a great guitar player.
Anyway, one night George went together with Paul and they met John on a double decker bus. They chose to meet that way because in the middle of the night in Liverpool, those busses were usually empty and George could play for John without anyone bothering them.
George tells us that when he met John that night, John had a guitar with four strings. George asked John and Paul what the heck was up with that and apparently, John thought that was the way guitars were supposed to be played - with four strings. John’s guitar was out of tune and George tuned it for him. Then George played his guitar and John was knocked out and immediately invited George to join the band.
Paul told most of this story and to hear him tell it, John really didn’t know hardly anything about guitars or reading music and George took the lead when it came to playing guitar and learning how to read music.
So, I came away from that small segment of the film with the understanding that when it came to guitars, George was clearly the best musician. But when it came to writing songs, I’m guessing that no one could hold a candle to Lennon and McCartney.
Anyway, I hope that any of you who enjoy The Beatles will find that movie and watch it. It’s a great documentary of the early years but it is also so much more than that. It presents George in a wonderful light.
It shows how he developed his spirituality and how he made so many friends and shone - even in death. His second wife appears to be a wonderful woman. Patti Boyd appears to be a very young girl and she was so young that she never really could have developed any serious spiritual nature.
I’m sorry I forget the name of George’s second wife. But she was a real angel (at least IMHO) and I hope that any of you who are interested will watch that film and get to know George and his wives and all his friends.
His musical abilities may have been great. But, IMHO, the most important aspect of George was the way in which he developed his character from some kid in Liverpool to a wonderful man who was loved and respected by a huge number of the leading citizens in Britain in the latter half of the 20th century.
They were a singing group with drums and guitars and things. They were miles ahead of all the other 60s groups in their singing. Mick Jagger is mostly out of tune and tries to sing some off notes just to be bluesy. I actually like Keith’s singing. As a teen, he sang at the Queen’s coronation.
The Beatles were competent and the timing was on the nose, Ringo and all. The drums were arranged perfectly, with coaching from Paul and Martin. The bass playing, melodic, was also revolutionary.Starting from Rubber Soul.
There are 4 recorded versions of “Love Me Do” floating around.
A demo done for George Martin with Best on drums you can hear on “Anthology 1”.
B. A stereo from “Please Please Me” with either White or Starr on drums
III. A mono remix of B.
4th. The single version with either Starr or White on drums.
I don’t remember whether B/III or 4th was recorded first, but whichever was first had White on drums and Starr on tambourine, and the latter recording had Starr on drums (from a recalled interview with Starr where he said something like “I listened to White and said ‘I can do that too.’”)
It’s fairly obvious to me from listening to version 1 that Best had basically two 2 rhythms that he could play and none of them really fit into the middle 8 of the song; he’s struggling and even I can hear it. So, maybe to the guitarists Best had to go because he wouldn’t change his hair style or his popularity threatened Macca or Lennon, but to Martin, Best just didn’t have the chops and Starr had them.
I think it’s more accurate to say George was the most interested in being a guitarist, rather than that he was the best musician. Paul and John both picked up the guitar as a backing instrument. Learning to play well for the sake of playing well didn’t interest them; they wanted to be rock and roll singers and so they needed to play guitar. George had no real ambitions to front a band. He wanted to play his guitar. But by all accounts, learning it was a much more arduous problem for him than it was for Paul (John didn’t seem to care much either way).
Regarding John’s four-string guitar, he was taught to play by his mother, who only knew how to play the banjo. So she retuned his guitar to banjo tuning and taught him banjo chords. John himself always credited Paul with teaching him proper guitar tuning and chord positions,not George.
Oh, John’s mother, Julia, played tenor (4-string) banjo and first taught John to play. So when John got a guitar, he strung and tuned it as a tenor banjo and played it that way. It wasn’t great, but it was good enough for the Skiffle music the Quarrymen were playing. And yeah, I read he’d take it to the local music shop to get it tuned. I guess what with playing with Paul and then George, he learned to play it in standard 6-string guitar tuning.
Which, now that I think of it, might explain the barre D (254232) you’ll see John playing in “A Hard Day’s Night”.
‘YMMV’ is saying, “there is no ‘right’ answer, this is fundamentally a matter of opinion.”
‘IMHO’ says, “this is my opinion,” but it can be used in discussing issues where definitive arguments could possibly be made as to which opinion is more correct, as well as those issues that are strictly a matter of differing opinion and taste.
Look, as for George: he was a great musician, period. As for his guitar work, I listen for his taste a lot more than his execution, but as a piece of the overall synergy that was The Beatles, his role is unquestioned.
I continue to find the overarching concept of “Were The Beatles decent musicians?” just a WTF idea. I get that their musicianship doesn’t get featured front and center, and there’s a bit of narrative that John was a wild innocent on guitar, and George was a hack and Ringo couldn’t play - :smack: