Then, on January 27, the Monday night after the Grammys, there will be a special Beatles show in Los Angeles at the Convention Center. Right now it’s supposed to entail a lot of different acts playing Beatles songs. Ringo says that so far he and Paul have discussed only the “possibility” of their participation.“It’s not like we’re not going to do it,”.“But it might be cool to have all these other bands doing our stuff, and we’re watching."Knowing Paul and Ringo, though, it might be hard to keep them off the stage.
Her Majesty was the last song to appear on the last Beatles album despite all right minded fans, music historians, social historians and George Martin’s desire born of cognitive dissonance that The End fittingly assumed that honoured role. Hell! Even Paul McCartney probably wishes his poetic diptych concerning the quantity of love had been his last word but Sir Paul would no doubt acknowledge the value of his twee Royalist tribute. Promoting his NEW album [sic] Sir Paul will simultaneously draw upon his Beatle heritage whilst betraying its musical, cultural and historical significance. Is he being ironic when he complies with the bland, populist synopsis of his and the Fabs’ unique place in world history (see this week’s Graham Norton interview if you can bear it) or does he genuinely not comprehend? After all he was not only there at the tangible moment of the zeitgeist change, he was a significant part of the reason for that change. Sir Paul might play down the drugs, the counter-culture, the revolution-in-the-head, but Beatle Paul always claimed to be the avant-garde leader of the group still, apparently, championing the cause for releasing his Zappa-esque ‘Rave happening’ improv piece Carnival of Light from early ’67, heralding the Summer of Love before Sgt Pepper was even recorded!
ReplyDeleteWithout Holly, Dylan, Lennon or McCartney, Pop Stars would not be writing their own material. Hell! There would be no Pop Stars! So for the likes of Norton to compare the amount of No.1s clocked up by Macca with Katy Perry is like contrasting the box office takings of Spielberg with Shakespeare.
That The Beatles appropriated US black music and sold it back to the Yanks is undisputed. That The Chants didn’t do it isn’t necessarily The Beatles’ fault, given the apartheid that formally existed in the US and unofficially in the UK in 1964. Indeed many black artists on both sides of the pond would say that The Beatles helped promote soul, r&b, rock’n’roll but not particularly for selfless or altruistic motives and let’s be clear – Motown, Stax and Atlantic were no slackers in that respect.
The Beatles at the Beeb recordings demonstrate clearly how openly they tributed their influences and the high regard with which these legends of the blues were held. Despite their ‘nice white boy’ image on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles and the consequent British invasion heralded a new age of equality where race was concerned (whilst, at least in Lennon’s case, feminism came later). Let’s be generous and say that Ob-la-di Ob-la-da and Get Back were not intended to be racist but tribute and satire in that order.
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