Vintage Tone Masters

Vintage Tone - The Beatles

I don't think many people appreciate just how musical the Beatles really were. Compared to the rest of the rock universe at the time, their musicianship was truly head & shoulders above.

Ringo Starr

I got into a 'discussion' once with a drummer who totally dissed Ringo Starr. His dislike of him was based on nothing more than the fact the Ringo doesn't play super-flashy or pyrotechnically. But he's the master of 'feel'. Listen to 'Birthday', for instance. That song feels like it's rushing headlong into a faster & faster tempo, but it's not. The tempo is as steady as human beings can play. It's just that he's ever-so-slightly ahead of the beat, and gives it that 'pushed' feel. Conversely, 'I'm So Tired' has the totally opposite feel: lethargic, sluggish..but the tempo itself is dead-on and stable. All that 'feel' is completely Ringo-driven. Nobody does that better than he does.

Paul McCartney

Listen to McCartney's bass lines, too. Nothing showy or flashy, they just totally complete the harmonic structure of the song, with a little counterpoint thrown in there for good measure. Other players of those days just kinda hung on the tonic note. McCartney actually led the chord changes along with his very mobile bass lines, which, in the process, contributed a lot to the total harmonic structure of the song.

John Lennon

You can definitely tell a McCartney song from a Lennon song. I never liked a thing Lennon did after the Beatles, and I never much liked the Beatle songs he's solely credited with writing, either. McCartney's melodies have nice wide intervals and 'hooky' rhythms, and a decidedly 'English' lilt to them ("Lovely Rita, Meter Maid", and "64" are great examples of this). Lennon's songs are intervalically narrow and just a little 'dark' for my taste, both melodically and lyrically.

George Harrison

Harrison's guitar playing was also first-rate within that time-frame. Again, not really flashy or blazing fast, just very melodic and with exactly the right feeling for the song. There are some really interesting intricacies in his playing that fit into the song so perfectly that they're not really noticed unless one really 'zones in' on his guitar part when listening to a Beatle song.

Not having really listened to much of the old Beatles' music in quite a few years, I've lately been listening to some of it and have been completely blown away by what they did, lo, those many years ago. Funny, I never really noticed (back then) a lot of what I'm hearing in that music listening to it now. Amazing Vintage Tone Masters!

Gee, wonder who I can 'rediscover' next?