I knew when I knocked The Beatles I would hear from this guy! Check out the response of a guy who subscribes to the Beatle Fan newsletter:
Art,
Let me start by saying I love you very much and you are a great rocker and I am also a huge Led Zep fan. That being said, I do not Tweet, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blog (except of course reading yours) or even have a cell phone. However, you have challenged me out of the shadows to respond because I do "Beatle" and it's high time you did or understood why.
I had a similar argument about this in the early 70's when a friend in the neighborhood was trying to tell us Beatle fans how much bigger and better Elton John (who wasn't the Gay Elton yet) was than John Lennon or the Beatles. Well yea, maybe at that moment of `73 or `74 whatever it was he was; but that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road stuff sure did sound and seem a lot like that Sgt. Pepper album....hmm....
Then there was the time I think in 1980 or so when I got in a "discussion" with a guy because he said Jimi Hendrix was a better guitar player than John Lennon. The argument shouldn't even exist; it's irrelevant. Some people just do not get it. Yea, and I guess we can argue that Jimmy Page was a better guitar player than Elvis. Again, well, duh! But you just don't get it.....this is not a comparison of a song to a song or a guitar picker to a guitar picker. It is monumental in it's scope.
When I was a boy about 6 years old I had a grey collarless suit...can you believe, I'm walking around Ruston, LA in 1964-65 going to my catholic church with a Beatles suit right off the back of Meet the Beatles...in 68 or so, my brother and I got Nehru shirts courtesy of my relatives in New York...you should have seen me at the Louisiana Tech games in Ruston wearing that Nehru shirt ....The point is that the Fabs weren't just a rock n roll band; they influenced a whole generation of style, culture, fashion, hair, kids, music, band, guitar players, the list goes on and on.
You have to look at it in context of the times, though. Since you were not there to experience it first hand, you have to go back and understand the crap that was on the radio of the moment, the straight-laced, black and white ways of the times, the escalating war, the Kennedy tragedy, etc. The Beatles blew it wide open with I want to hold your hand, because compare it to what was out. Look at the rest of the Ed Sullivan show from that night and see what there was....
Getting to the music...though, The Beatles were not schooled, chart reading musicians like Jimmy Page, but those 4 guys out there not knowing how to play except for what they heard on old Sun records sure could play. Go listen to the Beatles "Roll Over Beethoven" and compare it to the original by Chuck Berry. In America the Beatles only existed from 64-70, and look at the monumental catalog they put out. You may call it English show tunes, but it defined the `60's and introduced the album concept and rock as art. Before Sgt. Pepper everything was black and white, and then it was like we landed in OZ and everything went to color. Anyway I'm getting tired and feel like I'm beginning to "Ramble On"...so.., I love you very much, Led Zep rules and please go study and learn to Beatle!
You probably don't get the whole "poet of a generation" thing either. But we can talk about Bob another day!
Michael
P.S. I love you!
Michael, you have given me perspective. I think it's the same thing as when I go back and listen to a Elvis CD. I could say he doesn't have Kelly Clarkson's range (first-ever American Idol winner), but that wouldn't even be close to the point! When I listen to Elvis I consider the times and everything that had gone before. What that guy was doing was totally against the grain, and after that, it WAS the grain! Has been ever since!
By the way, though, Jimmy Page wasn't schooled, except from jamming with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton because they were the only guys they could find in London that played guitar at all. Later on from doing studio work he said he picked up how to read a little by necessity, but said sheet music still reminded him of "crows on telephone wires" and intimidated him.
On your Sgt. Pepper point, there's a video going around the Internet of Robert Plant and Roger Daltrey hanging out backstage together sometime this decade, and Robert Plant is recounting how he used to make something like $5 an hour at the airport. Roger Daltrey says, "That must've been before you started singing?" and Plant says, "Oh, no, I had a band then," and then adds, "That was the year Sgt. Pepper's came out." Robert Plant marks his life by when that record came out!
As I've posted more recently, I'm looking into getting these albums now. Maybe I'll finally get your perspective.
I'm pretty sure Bob Dylan just really, truly blows, though.
P.S. I love you, too! |
Ditto for some of the great Blues guitarists who remained to be 'rediscovered' periodically by various rockers down through the years. But only old men argue about them any more. Really old men too.
And Jazz? Perhaps 1:100 people can talk knowledgeably about Jazz & the history that goes back to the dawn of recorded sound. It's barely still playing on the radio. The Beatles? Yeah. Muzak now. Ditto for some of Zep.
Where the hell do I go to argue this crap except for obscure outposts hidden on the Net? mop tops indeed. Moppets! Cheers, 'VJ'
To most people this stuff isn't vital to their sense of being, they just know what song they like on the radio. I found I could talk to a 50-ish British woman about the Britain of the 1960's almost as though I was there, but only because I had recently read a book about the Who. Knowing about Mods, Rockers, Teddy Boys and skiffle strikes me as important history, though its nonsense to everyone else.
And yes, the stuff Michael and I love most is on its way to the Perry Como stations. Not long ago I heard a contemporary song fade away to Aerosmith's 1973 "Dream On." It was too easy to envision "Dream On" on a tiny AM station playing the Stardust oldies format like WBHF is doing. "Hey, gang, Ludlow Porch here. Remember hula hoops? I sure do. And now here's Led Zeppelin with...'Stairway to Heaven.'"