Rank the Beatles solely upon their play of their instruments.

buddha_david · February 10, 2014, 6:58pm

Musicianship only, correct?

#1 = George, by a mile. Not the greatest guitar player ever (esp. if you’re aware that Eric Clapton secretly added some lead solos, such as WMGGW) but compared to the rest of the Beatles, he’s head and shoulders above the rest.

#2, 3 = Paul & Ringo - competent musicians, gave their sound a proper backbone. (Ringo is definitely underrated in that regard.)

#4 = John - halfway decent guitar player. Brilliant in all other regards, however.

Marley23 · February 10, 2014, 7:03pm

Clapton’s work on While My Guitar Gently Weeps isn’t a secret, and it’s the only Beatles song he played on.

pulykamell · February 10, 2014, 7:08pm

I find it hard to argue against Paul, Ringo, George, John, so let’s go with that.

Maserschmidt · February 10, 2014, 7:59pm

Same here.

buddha_david · February 10, 2014, 8:05pm

Well, he’s uncredited on the White Album, and I seem to recall he may have played on other songs, but I’m just a casual Beatles fan so you probably know better than me.

StusBlues · February 10, 2014, 8:14pm

Well said. I wouldn’t rate McCartney as highly as you do, mostly because I get a little cognitive dissonance when I think of McCartney’s later work where he essentially abandoned the bass. (How many great instrumentalists stop playing on their own albums like that? Can you see Clapton out there just doing some crooning?) Nevertheless, I’m in the minority. I’d probably rank them about the same way you do, with some wiggle room if you give Harrison extra points for sitar.

njtt:

I do not see how there can be any serious argument that Paul was far and away the best technical musician in the band. He more or less created modern rock bass playing, and although many other bass players who were his equal or even or his superior soon followed in his footsteps (certainly some who rocked harder, though very few, if any, with his stylistic range) he always remained up there in the first rank. What is more, he was no slouch on other instruments too. As good a drummer and guitarist as you would find holding down those slots full time in many decent enough bands, and a competent pianist too.

For my money Ringo is number two. Never flashy and out to impress, but always tasteful and steady as a rock. Ringo’s drumming is great because you don’t really notice it. It stays modestly in the background, giving every song exactly what it it needs. Not a virtuoso drummer, but the right drummer for the song-based band that they were.

George was sort of unlucky in this regard. In The Beatles early days he was at the forefront of rock guitar, blazing a new trail just like like Paul was doing on the bass, although even then George sometimes seemed to be striving for something a little beyond what his fingers could quite manage to pull off. He improved a lot, too, I think, over the short lifetime of The Beatles. The George of 1969 could have made what the George of 1964 struggled with, sound effortless. The trouble was, though, that over that same period standards in rock guitar playing just exploded, leaving poor George in the dust. He knew very well that he was not in the same league as people like Hendrix and Clapton and Beck (not that virtuoso guitarists of that sort would ever have been a good fit for The Beatles). Despite being at the forefront of his profession at the beginning of his career, despite always being able to supply what the songs needed (although only occasionally being able to give more than that), and despite his improvement as a player, by the time the band broke up he looked like a pretty mediocre guitarist.

John was the heart and soul of The Beatles. Without him we would never have heard of George or Ringo, and Paul would probably be known only a purveyor of trite pop and/or schmaltz: less than what he achieved with Wings. (Mind you, without Paul we would probably never have heard of John either.) At his best, John was a wonderful singer and a brilliant, highly original songwriter (not that he was always at his best, by any means), but as an instrumentalist he was nothing to write home about at all: just a reasonably competent rhythm guitarist who would not have stood out in many much lesser bands.

Of course, nobody (except maybe some bassists) really listens to The Beatles for their technical instrumental prowess. That was never really what they were about.

standingwave · February 10, 2014, 8:21pm

This was my order as well. FWIW, John was my favorite Beatle overall, however.

WordMan · February 10, 2014, 9:00pm

IIRC, he cited a few times where George either just froze in the studio, or couldn’t lay down a decent track so it was done by Paul, Clapton, etc.

Marley23 · February 10, 2014, 9:43pm

You’re right that he wasn’t credited on the White Album. Word got out, though. And yes, that’s the only track he played on. There are other songs Paul played lead guitar on - sometimes because George wanted to focus on his singing (Taxman) or because a couple of the Beatles were recording without the rest of the band.

The_Peyote_Coyote · February 10, 2014, 10:17pm

1.) Paul – a very good musician technically. He’s even written oratorios and other classical compositions.
2.) Ringo – I agree with everything that’s been said in this thread. A very underrated musician.
3.) George – a good guitarist and a very underrated songwriter. However, Mr. Harrison could never do the things Hendrix, Clapton, Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, and others did.
4.) John – a very good singer and even better as a songwriter, but I don’t think he’s that great as a guitarist.

JKellyMap · February 11, 2014, 1:07am

Perhaps, but I got the from reading his terrific book “Here, There, and Everywhere.” There are about five moments in the book where he describes how George just couldn’t handle a short solo or a lick, requiring multiple genes and sometimes a helping hand from someone else (sometimes John or George Martin, but usually Paul).

He does credit George for improving with time.

JKellyMap · February 11, 2014, 1:24am

Multiple TAKES, not genes. (Weird autocorrection. No polyploidy intended!)

Gary_T · February 11, 2014, 5:19am

Paul started as a guitar player, and took up he bass because someone had to do it when they lost Stu Sutcliffe. I would say returned to guitar rather than abandoned the bass.

Exapno_Mapcase · February 11, 2014, 6:04pm

George needs to be remembered. George Martin, that is. Not only did he play on a million tracks, usually adding some fascinating music that bumped up the whole song, but he kept magically producing the sound that the Beatles were looking for. And he did so even when they couldn’t articulate what the hell that was.

Like John and Paul, George Martin and the Beatles were greater than either could ever be on their own.

Ranger_Jeff · February 11, 2014, 7:22pm

Yeah, you’re right. I miscounted. I’ve used that form for an Eb (particularly in “And I Love Her”, but never for a D.

Octarine · February 11, 2014, 8:59pm

I’m going to go with the Paul-Ringo-George-John school of thought. The song “Hey Bulldog” is a fine song when you’re not paying attention to the bass, but when you listen closely, it’s incredible. With Ringo, I feel as though he’s close to Paul’s level instrumentally, but as I have absolutely no experience with the drums, it’s hard for me to judge. Ringo actually had tuberculosis as a child, and in the hospital they handed out basic instruments to the children to stimulate their minds. He got the drumsticks and would spend all day, every day, for months, tapping them on the cabinet next to his bed.

I remember reading about how he viewed himself as their ‘musical translator’ - they’d tell him they wanted it to sound more ‘Bach-like’ and he’d add in different harmonies, string newspaper between piano strings to make it sound like a harpsichord, and so on. Also, he played most of the really complex piano parts - Lovely Rita, In My Life, etc.

Nars_Glinley · February 12, 2014, 2:54am

If you’re going to include George Martin, you might as well throw in Billy Preston and I’d revise my OP and put him first.

Charlie_Wayne · February 12, 2014, 9:41am

I think you are terribly mistaken about George.

If you see the documentary, “George Harrison Living in the Material World”, I believe all 3 of the other Beatles made it abundantly clear that George was the best guitar player in the band. This doc made it clear that John originally played a guitar with 5 strings and never realized it was supposed to use 6 strings untlll one of the other guys showed him.

At any rate, check it out for yourself and see what you think.

njtt · February 12, 2014, 11:02am

Well, the thing is that as lead guitarist George certainly should have been the best guitar player in the band, otherwise he should not have been in that slot. I don’t think anyone is doubting that he could play lead guitar better than any of the other Beatles could. (Although even there, Paul was a good enough guitarist that it is at least conceivable that he might have turned out better than George if he had put his full focus on developing his lead guitar skills.) When we are comparing people playing different instruments (or instrumental roles), though, the question really has to be how do they rank amongst other people playing the same instrument, and we find, for instance, that Paul ranks fairly highly compared to other bassists, Ringo middling to high amongst drummers, and John fairly low amongst rhythm guitarists (he does not come close to Keith Richards, for instance). George ranked pretty high amongst lead guitarists when he started out, but there wasn’t much competition then (his only real, high profile competition in Britain, then, was probably Hank Marvin). However, by the time The Beatles broke up he ranked fairly low amongst professional lead guitarists. He just did not keep up with developments in his field. Also, I think even in George’s earlier days there are signs that he is sometimes struggling to get his instrument to do what he wants (and what the song needs), whereas Paul and Ringo never seem to be struggling with their instruments in this way. Sure, George could still play lead guitar a lot better than Ringo, and Ringo could play drums a lot better than George, but so what? That in itself does not tell you anything about who was the better musician.