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Watched a Martin Scorcese directed film about George Harrison, a member of a popular beat combo of the Sixties called the Beatles, last night.

Good watch. Part 1 should be on the iplayer. Part 2 is on the Beeb tonight.

Cheers
D

Saw it,but i think the timewatch on the beatles tonight on bbc 2 is better. Enjoyed it though.They were and are the greatest band of all time imo.

Back in the 60s Georege Harrison would have been my favourite of the Beatles, but im a Stones man myself a Kent group who met at Dartford Station and are still doing the rounds !wink!

Can you actually say why The Beatles were the greatest band of all time? They were utterly crap as a live act, harldy toured and wrote plenty of crap -Yellow Submarine anyone? I love Abbey Road and Sgt Pepper but in the grand scheme of things many other bands are equally great.

Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Eagles, Beach Boys, The Who, Deep Purple, U2, The Smiths etc etc etc are alternatives.

Its hard to agree with they wrote a lot of crap? You pointed to one song "Yellow Submarine" as being crap. A song which went to Number 1 in both the UK and the US. Not bad for a crap song? And it was written as a comedy song, not to be taken too seriously and as a suitable vehicle for Ringo to sing. It was only released as a single as "Revolver" was a much deeper album. With more meaning and was meant to be listened to as a whole. "Yellow Submarine" slipped easily off the album and on to an A-Side.

Music is definitely all about opinions and everyone's entitled to theirs, but the Beatles virtually invented music as we know. Did you know it was the Beatles and their sound engineers that invented ADT which is a standard recorded practice in every studio in the world. Geoff Emerick's dampening techniques on Ringo's drums still have producers and engineers trying to recreate that sound. They were one of the 1st bands who could fill out an album of all their own material. And along with Bob Dylan for a time were the only acts who could do such. They wrote at an incredible rate. From 1963-1966 they released 7 albums and 13 singles with 6 of them featuring A's & B sides that were not featured on any album and 2 of them featuring B sides not on any album along with 12 EP's and 1 of them featuring 4 songs not featured on any album. Of the 13 singles released 12 of them were Number 1. And all 7 albums were Number 1 in the album chart. No mean feat for any band. They were also the first band to record a resulting video for a single as they could no longer tour, the video being Paperback Writer and a seperate video for its B-Side Rain.

Who said they were utterly crap as a live act. Its known by many that they were one of the most exciting and thrilling live acts of the era. Most documentary evidence points to them being particularly strong from their Hamburg era right through until 1963. After that the reason their concerts weren't great and the eventual reason they stopped touring was because at all their concert there was one 'continuous' screaming noise from beginning to end. The screaming from the fans got so bad that the band couldn't hear themselves play. And the 3 frontmen couldn't hear Ringo's drumming and he could no longer do 'fills' as the group couldn't hear and the song would collapse. He had to continuously hold down the beat. This was even after VOX had made a special amp specifically for the Beatles of the biggest wattage available. The 50 Watt amp!! They were also the 1st live act to start playing stadiums, playing to 70,000 fans at Shea Stadium. I don't know how you can say they hardly toured when they played live almost every night from 1960 - 1966. Six years of solid touring and from 1962 - 1966 virtually the only days they had off from touring was spent in the studio creating brand new sounds and techniques for their records, such as 'dropping in' on the piano on She's A Woman. The fade-in on "Eight Day's A Week", the first ever use of a sitar on a pop record on "Norwegian Wood". The groundbreaking first used of controlled 'feedback' on "I Feel Fine". In between doing all this they also wrote a hit single for "The Rolling Stones" and made 2 films in "A Hard Days Night" and "Help!"

Specifically the album The Beatles (The White Album) for me is the greatest piece of work they released. A groundbreaking double album with 30 original newly composed songs by all 4 members and featuring no singles. That is virtually unheard of and will never be matched. This followed by "Rubber Soul" then "Revolver" are total works of art. "A Hard Days Night" is a classic early album, featuring many innovations and the only album made up of solely Lennon/McCartney songs. Also Abbey Road, the studio techniques, the production and the songs are particularly strong. And "The Big One" the long medley is impressive. Sgt Pepper is quite rightly lauded but its not their strongest album, it has a few weaker songs on it than say Revolver or Rubber Soul, but it works best when listened to as a whole. And it surpasses Revolver in feeling and in form! Magical Mystery Tour was released in the UK as a double EP. And featured some stunning tracks, particularly "I Am The Walrus". In America they added the singles and B-Sides and turned it into an album which it is its most common incarnation these days. As an album it stands as the pinnacle of the psychedelic movement. Also if anyone knows about the "Get Back" debacle, to get an album out of it as strong as "Let It Be" especially as the group was imploding quite rightly shows off their genius. Not forgetting that "With The Beatles" is probably the best 'pure' pop album ever released in the history of music. Not to mention that their first album "Please Please Me" was recorded in a single afternoon. Find me a band that can do that now. Most of them take 4 years between releases.

Couple that up with the fact they had 3 of the Greatest Songwriters ever in Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. With Lennon being one of the greatest lyricists to ever pick up a pen. McCartney surely the greatest melodist in the history of popular music and the 3rd writer seen as weaker or the junior of the other two, Harrison wrote, "If I Needed Someone", "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "Blue Jay Way", "The Inner Light", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Long Long Long", "Here Comes The Sun" and what Frank Sinatra described as "The Greatest Love Song Of All Time" in 'Something'. As well as McCartney being one of the finest multi-instrumentalists in music, one of the top 3 Bass players of all time. Lennon and McCartney having 2 of the greatest rock n' roll voices outside of America. And Harrison's studied, penetrating lead work of the early 60's being a study for any learner guitarist. Coupled with Starr's eccentric fills, fantastic time keeping and extraordinary studio techniques in drumming. He is the modest man who invented modern pop/rock drumming. Though is seen as the butt of jokes by many. Ask any accomplished drummer and they will tell you how good Starr was. Looking at all that its not hard to see why they were a special group.

After releasing 13 Albums, 13 EP's and 22 singles in just 7 years lest we not forget that when they split up in 1970 all 4 members released an album, with Harrison releasing a triple album "All Things Must Pass" which went to Number One in both the UK and US and Lennon releasing "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" which also achieved Number One status, McCartney releasing "McCartney" which got to Number 2 in the UK and Number 1 in the US and Starr released "Sentimental Journey" which got to a respectful Number 7 in the UK chart. With Lennon also releasing "Instant Karma" as a single which got to Number 3 and Harrison releasing "My Sweet Lord" a UK and US number 1 all in the same year as releasing "Let It Be" which went to Number 1 in both the UK and US album charts and Let It Be as a single which went to Number 2 in the UK and Number 1 in the US plus a US released only single of "The Long and Winding Road" which also went to Number 1 in the US. I can hardly think of another single band who have done this or could ever hope to match this achievement.

I am thoroughly astounded at your assessment of this great group. Without whom, where would music be today. Yes you mentioned some other fine groups but to even mention "The Eagles", "AC/DC" and "U2" in the same breath as The Beatles is a crime. And this is someone who has every single AC/DC album and has seen them 3 times and i have every U2 album and have saw them once. They don't even belong anywhere near The Beatles. Bono could only wish he had as much talent as Lennon had in his little (albeit arrogant!) finger!

I agree completely. The Beatles music will live forever.

Cheers
D

I think you can forgive them a few songs like yellow submarine & octopus's garden etc considering the song writing output of the 2 legends.

Easy to take songs you've heard a 100 times for granted

Infact not listening to radio i cant recall the last time i ever heard a beatles song

I asked my mother why they didnt have any beatles records in their collection eons ago to which i received an answer they died in the car from over exposure to the sun travelling from party to party over time.

Kind of puts the Beatles into perspective


Lets not forget George and his investing in worthwhile projects

"HandMade Films was formed by former Beatle George Harrison and business partner Denis O'Brien in 1978 to finance the Monty Python film Life of Brian"

The only thing worse than a "The Beatles invented music fan" is an MG cars fan....what about soul, jazz, classical and blues??

Just watched the second part of this documentary on the iplayer.

Loved the story about Harrison turning up at Tom Petty's house with a car bootful of ukeleles and insisting on teaching Petty how to play one.

Apparently Harrison was a regular attendee at the annual George Formby convention at the Blackpool Winter Gardens. I

Brilliant piece of work by Scorcese to produce this balanced, warts and all portrait of an apparently exceptional bloke.

Cheers
D

George, the quiet one. He was also apparently Paul's lackey and was ordered around by him and largely did as he was told. I heard it was Ringo who was the first to jump ship, he got so fed up with everything that he went on holiday and was not sure whether he would ever go back. He did, but with much less enthusiasm, and the band's day were then numbered. I'm surprised it wasn't George who was the first to quit.