Who was the fifth Beatle?

[WordMan]

A couple of observations:

• The Beatles’ family was big - there were a lot of people in it and riding on its coattails and engaged as they gained momentum.

• I found The Beatles by Spitz to provide a lot of insight and details to how different key players contributed - from Best (and his mom - Best got the gig because his mom ran a club the Beatles wanted to play in) to Murray the K.

• I think George Martin brought studio craft, music production craft and songcraft to the Beatles. All critical, but he was not part of the Family the way Epstein was. I tend to give Lennon and McCartney most of the credit for the creativity that marks their work - doing the string arrangements or a harpsichord fill or requiring tight intros and endings all contribute to the polish that marks their tracks. But to my knowledge it was Paul who insisted on boosting the bass in the mix (Emerick describes how they did in his book) - which, to me, is one of the key sound shifts that mark the Beatles’ sound as fresh to this day and was pretty innovative in the early 60’s…

• Brian Epstein was central to the Beatles family. He yearned and pained and strove on their behalf - getting them the demo that introduced them to George Martin after so many rejections, etc. You could argue that the Beatles’ deteriorating relationships and breakup was inevitable given the huge burden of fame they faced and the drugs, but Epstein’s death and the attempts to fill his role was the clear precipitator of much of the squabbling that led to the end. Granted, he wasn’t the best businessman himself, so even if there weren’t drugs and trouble, it is unclear how long he could’ve kept “The Beatles” going, but his death clearly was a turning point. And let’s not get started about his crush on John and how he put John and Cyn up - he was involved in the boys’ lives in a way that Martin never was. Mal and Neil are clearly part of the family, too, but were less directly responsible for The Beatles’ fame vs. Epstein…

Gotta go with Epstein.

[JKilez]

@drastic_quench

Billy Preston.

This was my first reaction as well.

[digs]

I was going to go with George Martin, but I’m thinking that this is a lot more complicated than I’d thought… we’d better stick with Four Beatles (Who Got A Lot Of Help).
It’s like asking who the Sixth Kebbekus was… most critics would go with Willie, putting Bob and Dave tied for seventh, and Lynchie eighth, but they’re underestimating The Infamous Neil. [/obscure wauwatosa reference]

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

BTW I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the joke answers!

Looking at the book version of Anthology, it’s clear that Stu fit in with the band much more cohesively than Pete ever did; I was especially surprised to see him doing backup vocals with the others in Hamburg. I suspect that had he wanted to remain a Beatle, and hadn’t died, they would have willingly kept him in the band for the full ride. I don’t like to put too much importance on things like hair and general appearance, but it’s startling when you look at the later pictures; he’s up on stage with the others and they’re all sporting the shortly to be famous Beatle haircut; you say to yourself, Aha! another Beatle!, because he has a look of total Beatle-ness about him. Musically, I’m sure he couldn’t have kept up with Paul, but they did respect his intellect and he was inspirational in a number of ways. If not with stellar bass guitar playing, he probably would have been able to justify his remaining in the band in other ways; ideas for songs, lyrics, etc.

[Sir_Prize]

If we stick to people who got on stage and played as part of the Beatles after the fab four became a sensation then it would be Jimmy Nicol.

[Sam_Stone]

George Martin. His influence was far greater than just that of producer. He also played on some of the tracks, he arranged a bunch of the music, and produced all but one of the albums.

Some of his influences are significant. John and Paul wanted to record “Please Please Me” as a slow ballad. It was George Martin that convinced them to pick up the tempo and make it an upbeat pop song.

Martin convinced Paul to add a string quartet to “Yesterday”, and Martin arranged the string part. He scored the strings to ‘Eleanor Rigby’.

That weird, fast-sounding piano in “In My Life”? Not only was the part written by Martin, but he also played it. I believe he did that without any input at all from the Beatles - he was doing the mixes for the song, thought something was missing, and sat down and wrote the part and added it - the boys loved it when they heard it.

In “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, John knew he wanted ‘some kind of circus music’, so he simply told Martin to come up with something, and Martin wrote it all.

For “I am the Walrus”, Martin wrote and arranged the parts for the strings and brass, and they are not only very strange and unique, but they are a significant contribution to the sound of that song.

“Strawberry Fields” sounds the way it does because Martin took two different takes with very different styles, and mixed them together, matching the speed of the takes as he went to blend them in.

And off-record, Martin was a huge influence on the growth of the Beatles, teaching them the various orchestral instruments, giving them ideas for how to put their songs together, teaching them all the various studio tricks available, etc. He was an enthusiastic participant in their later musical experimentation, bringing classical training and experience to the table.

If you read “BeatleSongs”, which is an annotated song-by-song description of how their songs were written, you’ll see how important Martin’s influence was.
Definitely the 5th Beatle. No one else had as much influence on their music. No one else is even close.

[Zebra]

@tdn

I was looking at that link just before I posted this. This thread is more IMHO than factual.

Personally, I’d go with George Martin.

George Martin all the way.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

Speaking of George Martin, does anyone know if he was the one who usually transcribed their songs into musical notation? IIRC none of the Beatles could read or write music, but like all popular music in those days (and maybe still), printed sheet music and songbooks of their music was published in piano-vocal arrangements augmented by guitar chords.

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

Speaking of George Martin, does anyone know if he was the one who usually transcribed their songs into musical notation? IIRC none of the Beatles could read or write music, but like all popular music in those days (and maybe still), printed sheet music and songbooks of their music was published in piano-vocal arrangements augmented by guitar chords.

Martin sometimes wrote out parts for the studio musicians who played on Beatle records, but no, it wasn’t his job to notate the Beatles’ music for copyright purposes or for publication. That sort of thing is generally done by anonymous publishing company drones.

[WordMan]

@Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew

Martin sometimes wrote out parts for the studio musicians who played on Beatle records, but no, it wasn’t his job to notate the Beatles’ music for copyright purposes or for publication. That sort of thing is generally done by anonymous publishing company drones.

So, **Biffy **- you haven’t weighed in on the OP. The vast majority of posters go with George Martin because of his musical contributions; I attempted to argue for Brian Epstein because of his career/business/“family” contributions…where do you tend to come down?

[ianzin]

George Martin gets my vote. He made a massive contribution to the sound and to the enduring brilliance.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@WordMan

• I found The Beatles by Spitz to provide a lot of insight and details to how different key players contributed - from Best (and his mom - Best got the gig because his mom ran a club the Beatles wanted to play in) to Murray the K.

This doesn’t make sense; they were due to leave for within a few days and desperately needed a drummer, so they got Pete. According to Pete’s memoir, they did play one or two dates at the Jacaranda before heading to Germany, but that was it. They’d already been playing at The Casbah for some time, at least since before they started calling themselves The Beatles. That takes us back to late 1959-'60. Why would they decide to invite Pete into the group, six months later, just to ingratiate themselves with Mrs. Best?

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@WordMan

So, **Biffy **- you haven’t weighed in on the OP. The vast majority of posters go with George Martin because of his musical contributions; I attempted to argue for Brian Epstein because of his career/business/“family” contributions…where do you tend to come down?

I have to go with the majority. Epstein really fumbled the ball quite a lot of the time; I’m inclined to think that the Beatles enjoyed their incredible success in spite of his efforts as much as because of them.

[Indistinguishable]

@njtt

By the way, IMHO the fact that Wikipedia has a quite extensive page on this topic does not reflect particularly well on the encyclopedia.

'Cause as we all know, the less information an encyclopedia provides, the better.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew

I have to go with the majority. Epstein really fumbled the ball quite a lot of the time; I’m inclined to think that the Beatles enjoyed their incredible success in spite of his efforts as much as because of them.

Can’t say I agree with this. In those days a band needed someone in the Establishment who believed in them. I don’t see how the Beatles would have gotten their contract in 1962, without someone who was willing to put on a suit and tie and go around to all the record companies in their behalf. The Beatles themselves certainly weren’t going to do that. Also his cleaning up of their image and making them stick to a program, and behave more professionally onstage was essential for them to move ahead with their with career. Moreover, he did get them more gigs for more money, and got them started with the BBC even before the change of drummer. And Ringo already had a good gig with Rory Storme. If the Beatles had just been marking time the way they’d been before Brian came aboard, Ringo probably would have gone with Kingsize Taylor, who was also looking for a drummer in August '62, thereby missing what Lennon called “his awful destiny”.

[Ms_Boods]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

This doesn’t make sense; they were due to leave for within a few days and desperately needed a drummer, so they got Pete. According to Pete’s memoir, they did play one or two dates at the Jacaranda before heading to Germany, but that was it. They’d already been playing at The Casbah for some time, at least since before they started calling themselves The Beatles. That takes us back to late 1959-'60. Why would they decide to invite Pete into the group, six months later, just to ingratiate themselves with Mrs. Best?

I’ve been to the Casbah a few times, and know Rory Best, Pete’s brother, who gives wonderful tours of the old place (being a listed building, I believe it’s the only '60s era club that hasn’t been altered since it was last used.) Mrs Best got the Beatles to help her clear out the basement of the family home, tidy it up, paint it, and in return they got to be the house band.

So if you go, you can see the stripey ceiling Paul painted, the ‘Aztec’ ceiling John painted (as well as carving his name in one wall), the silver silhouette of John his then-girlfriend Cynthia painted on one wall, and the silver stars all five Beatles painted on the ceiling of one section of the club.

According to Rory, it’s in the Casbah where John convinced Stu to join the band.

I have loads of pictures of the place, but none uploaded at the moment; if you go to the wikipedia page on the Casbah Coffee Club, there’s a mislabelled photo of one of the side rooms (the caption says it’s where the live music was held, but it’s actually one of the side rooms; in fact it’s the room with Paul’s stripey ceiling.) The main music room is much bigger, is painted black, and decorated with big, silver-painted spiderwebs!

[Clothahump]

Pete Bestis the only person I have ever heard referred to as the 5th Beatle.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@njtt

By the way, IMHO the fact that Wikipedia has a quite extensive page on this topic does not reflect particularly well on the encyclopedia.

Not necessarily. Obviously the idea of a “fifth Beatle” means something to a lot of people, so there’s nothing wrong with an article that attempts to explore this idea. OTOH it isn’t clear that said article should be more than a short paragraph or so with links to the possible candidates’ articles.

I mean, next you’ll be saying there shouldn’t be an article on the Middle Stooge!

[Short_Guy_1]

@cmkeller

Apu.

I came here to say that.

That is all.

[WordMan]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

This doesn’t make sense; they were due to leave for within a few days and desperately needed a drummer, so they got Pete. According to Pete’s memoir, they did play one or two dates at the Jacaranda before heading to Germany, but that was it. They’d already been playing at The Casbah for some time, at least since before they started calling themselves The Beatles. That takes us back to late 1959-'60. Why would they decide to invite Pete into the group, six months later, just to ingratiate themselves with Mrs. Best?

I am sure I am bungling up what I read - basically, there is a clear sense that Pete wasn’t really one of the Lads, if you will, but they kept with him for a variety of reasons - but between targeting Ringo and Martin’s comments about Best at the demo, it was done…

Can’t say I agree with this. In those days a band needed someone in the Establishment who believed in them. I don’t see how the Beatles would have gotten their contract in 1962, without someone who was willing to put on a suit and tie and go around to all the record companies in their behalf. The Beatles themselves certainly weren’t going to do that. Also his cleaning up of their image and making them stick to a program, and behave more professionally onstage was essential for them to move ahead with their with career. Moreover, he did get them more gigs for more money, and got them started with the BBC even before the change of drummer. And Ringo already had a good gig with Rory Storme. If the Beatles had just been marking time the way they’d been before Brian came aboard, Ringo probably would have gone with Kingsize Taylor, who was also looking for a drummer in August '62, thereby missing what Lennon called “his awful destiny”.

That’s basically my point, too - I don’t want to diminish George Martin’s contributions, which may have come across in my first post. He clearly brough musical craft and polish and some ideas to their sound. But Epstein was a critical player who was a big part of their transition from local phenom, to country, to the US and world…