I'm not the Beatles' biggest fan, but I want to see this doc

[Superman]

The two of you have seen the most tedious, boring and dysfunctional part. To see the part where the songs and relationships and skill and talent finally gel and succeed, you need to watch the next two segments. Bill Preston, appearing in Segment 2, is key.

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Watched episode one last night also and agree with (almost) all of what you wrote. Yoko’s presence wasn’t bothersome to me as it’s simply history. I was surprised by Paul’s apparent dominance in creating the music and directing its evolution. At least in the film, John’s role wasn’t nearly as important, but you never really saw who wrote the lyrics, etc.

And George was a much stronger personality and influence than I realized. Three truly amazing talents. And Ringo. Never got that one. A mediocre drummer at best with minimal contribution to the magic...at least in this project. Looking forward to the next segment.

It is generally accepted that in the later years Paul pretty much ran the Beatles. His eye was always on the bottom line. He was always pushing for more product. Musically, at first, Paul usually came up with the beginnings of songs, demonstrated them to John who somehow came up with the middle with Paul returning to the endings. It truly was a collaboration.

Ringo was, interestingly enough, the first to tire of the bickering and the first to actually walk out of the Beatles (some say more than once). There was some sort of chemistry between Paul and Ringo. IMO, I think it had to do with making money. Artistically, Paul wanted the songs to be as simple as possible, hence Ringo’s drumming and percussion. I can see Ringo saying, ‘Yeah, OK boss.’ To any of the other three.

I have not seen the film, yet.

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

And Ringo. Never got that one. A mediocre drummer at best with minimal contribution to the magic...at least in this project. Looking forward to the next segment.

mediocre??

[herr_oberst]

Mediocre drummers can't play "Day in The Life".

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by stevej37

mediocre??

Yes, mediocre. I'm not a musician, but to my untrained ear, it just sounds like the same simple drum sequence is being played over & over throughout the song. Maybe someone more experienced in percussion can explain why this would be a difficult piece to play.

All that aside, Ringo was considered to be one of the better drummers in the Liverpool music scene while playing with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, who usually had top billing in all the local clubs. It was thought to be a good move for the Beatles when he replaced Pete Best, whom Brian Epstein didn't think was good enough to record with the band.

[billybek]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

...Three truly amazing talents. And Ringo. Never got that one. A mediocre drummer at best with minimal contribution to the magic...at least in this project. Looking forward to the next segment.

I am not a huge Beatles fan either but I disagree with your statement. I think that Ringo shows that he is a huge part of the band in this documentary. Ringo shows up every day ready to work with who ever else bothers to show. Solid team member.
Given that he wasn't the most creative of the bunch, Ringo did what Paul and John wanted and needed him to do. Solid and predictable percussion.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by billybek

I think that Ringo shows that he is a huge part of the band in this documentary.

I think that "huge" might be a bit generous here. Ringo's contribution to the band was his ability to always provide a rock-steady beat in the rhythm section. His personality blended easily with the others, and he could always be counted on to be there when needed. He would even try being a mediator at times when disagreements arose among the other three.

[Crowbob]

There is video out there of a non-plussed Paul demonstrating to Ringo on Ringo’s kit exactly what and how he wanted him to play.

He says, ‘Do it like this...’ or something similar.

Also, and I can’t think of the song, Ringo is rolling around the drums from the large tom to the small tom to the snare, pretty much the opposite of current convention in pop music. He was roundly exalted as an innovative hero for that little ditty. In an interview years later he just laughed. ‘The only reason I did it was because I couldn’t go the other way around.’

During the recording of Hey Jude (which I think was done in one take-not sure) Ringo is absent allegedly having a smoke somewhere* and returned to sound studio, squeezed his way behind Paul who was on the piano well into the song, sat at his kit, hit his cue and joined in perfectly.



*Some say he was actually taking a dump because The Boys routinely smoked during recording sessions.

[Superman]

Among musician, and for reasons I only barely understand, the "fast gun" is highly regarded. As if the contest is for the most notes per second. Speed being the goal.

Others, like myself, admire other things more than speed. Like taste. Creativity/imagination. Clever use of music theory and the relationships of notes in the scale. And, for drummers.....METER. Ringo was a human metronome. His degree of timing accuracy could be characterized as "perfection." And finally, in all musicians and especially drummers, I appreciate judiciousness. It is important for my fellow musicians (and I) to leave empty spaces for others to work within. Especially drummers. Drummers can, and sometimes do, create this wall-of-sound miasma that can virtually prevent all the other instruments from being heard or at least from being effective in contributing to the song. Makes the song sound like poop.

So yeah....some folks say Ringo was not a very good drummer. He was judicious, not overpowering. Same with Paul, who some bassists consider to be mediocre. They want others to think they can do oh so much better on bass than Paul did. Criticizing a man who was arguably the most effective musician of the Twentieth Century, in order to score points. Hmmmm..... This tells me they have not actually learned Paul's bass lines, which by and large were brilliant.

[ramonesfreak]

Ringo?

I am a musician and I would kill to have him in my band. He has his own style and he is very talented.

Is he Max Roach? no. He is a rock and roll drummer that new, just like Charlie Watts did, how to play the right thing for the song and he did so with a style all his own, again like Charlie. Some of this comes from being left handed but using a kit set up for a right handed drummer

[Superman]

Even if "fast gun" is the measure, consider this bass line which of course Paul plays while singing lead. Any bass player who can do this is skilled, in my view:

[ramonesfreak]

Fast gun? as a musician (guitar) I place little value on that unless we are talking about Doc Watson or Tony Rice or Norman Blake along with a lot of the nashville country pickers or Johnny Ramone because his intention was to be fast

But, some people just enjoy flashy, fast technical musicians and thats fine too

to me, execution of ideas and emotion (feel) is generally more important to me than speed

[Superman]

We are in complete agreement.

[ramonesfreak]

there's a few places in paper back writer where paul comes up with a really cool riff, especially for those times. good stuff. always thought his bass skills were top notch

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by ramonesfreak

Fast gun? as a musician (guitar) I place little value on that unless we are talking about Doc Watson or Tony Rice or Norman Blake along with a lot of the nashville country pickers or Johnny Ramone because his intention was to be fast

But, some people just enjoy flashy, fast technical musicians and thats fine too

to me, execution of ideas and emotion (feel) is generally more important to me than speed

I would take someone like David Gilmore, Mark Knopfler et al over someone that plays fast just to play fast. It is like a salsa that is hot just to be hot but provides no flavor.

Same with drummers. Neil Peart had talent in spades but there are some that i think are under rated like Sean Kinney that have a lot going on in the drums, but they don't overpower the song. Or Ringo, just because it sounds simple doesn't mean you aren't good. Ringo does appear to be able to just fit in when he hears the music.

[Crowbob]

Ringo was bemused by the whole thing, especially the later years.

At the height of Beatlemania, a star-struck british infobabe with a microphone asked Ringo if he was a Mod or a Rocker.

Without missing a beat, per usual, he said, 'I'm a mocker', completely confusing the poor girl.

[TimBer]

I'm about half-way through it. My takeaways so far:
1. Lennon has a great sense of humor and comes across as very likeable.
2. Everyone is smoking all the time.
3. The video quality is excellent for something shot in '69.
4. Lennon repeatedly saying "And now your hosts for this evening, the Rolling Stones," at all sorts of random times reminds me or "These pretzels are making me thirsty."
5. At times I forget that they are the Beatles - one of the most important bands in pop culture at the time - and not some random group working their way through a recording session.

[Crowbob]

I heard Paul is putting together some kind of autobigraphical opera using only the Beatles catalogue. I heard he's having trouble getting permission from whomever owns some of it.

Michael Jackson outbid him for a big chunk of it a few years back. I don't know if he (Paul) ever got it back. It went for $40M which was allotta money back then.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

At the height of Beatlemania, a star-struck british infobabe with a microphone asked Ringo if he was a Mod or a Rocker.
Without missing a beat, per usual, he said, 'I'm a mocker', completely confusing the poor girl.

That was in a scene from the film, 'A Hard Day's Night'

Originally Posted by Crowbob

Michael Jackson outbid him for a big chunk of it a few years back. I don't know if he (Paul) ever got it back.

Thankfully, Paul owns most of the catalog now.

[Chocaholic]

Watched the end of it last night. Many details surprised me. I had been under the impression that the bobbies (cops) shut them down but that was not the case. All four ultimately stood on the roof and listened.

Lennon was more of a light-hearted guy than I’d imagined. Managed to have a good time all the time. Or his writing genius was downplayed in the film…at least as compared to Paul. I’m guessing there was much serious work on his part, but it wasn’t evident.

Not sure how much of what we saw was posturing for the cameras or real insight into their collaboration.

Don’t let me down…has been stuck in my head ever since. Really enjoyed seeing that part of Beatles history. I had no idea that the entire process was filmed.