Your correct... There's nobody there.

[Mellow Yellow]

On the Anthology DVD set, they never explain how the beatles got more talented musically. The basslines more complex (see paperback writer and hey bulldog). At the same time they stopped preforming. This info, coupled with the lack of any music notes on the staff on George Martin's COA, makes me wonder. What if the beatles decided to pull a Monkee's and stop playing their instruments on their albums? It would make sense, I just dont see how drugs make you go from skiffle to such complex things as the beatles did. Maybe they had a little help from their friends?

[beatlies]

Songs were being ghostwritten for the Beatles, most likely both during and after JPM, some of them obvious plagiarisms from older songs by other performers, e.g. "Let It Be" from "Let It Be Me" and part of "Hey Jude" from the musical Oliver!'s "I'd Do Anything."

[eyesbleed]

I've never thought much about this for several reasons.

They were very good early on, the marathon performin' they had to do in Germany durin' the early days really broke them in, but good. There are some pretty complex bass lines etc in a lot of the 64-65 songs also.
They probably did get better... that happens when you've been playin' for a while, but the later music isn't technically better so much as it's just different.

My old band started out simple hard punk-rock with 3 novices & 1 classically trained guitarist..... well the guys got bored with hard punk rather quickly so we steered towards more experimental stuff & more complex new-wavey stuff. Our novice bass player got considerably better very quickly..... & we didn't have all day to work our craft... we had to go to day jobs every day.

Some songs were ghost written... it's well known that 2-3 songs from Help! were ghost written... & I'm pretty sure they didn't write Let It Be or Hey Jude.

The drugs are a non-issue. If the drugs had an immediate effect on the music, then Help would've been much more psychedelic!
With the exception of Tomorrow never Knows, the music stayed pretty much the same until it had to change in order to maintain the illusion.

Help from their friends? Who knows who's playin' those bass lines from Sgt.P on. If Bill needed more time to get the hang of that bass guitar, they could've very easily brought in session players.
Brian Wilson was using session players 100% of the time for the recording of Pet Sounds & the ill-fated SMILE. That practice is pretty common.

[lili]

Thank you for sharing your experiences & expertise, eyesbleed. I'm not too sure if I agree about songs being ghostwritten while Paul was still alive. I have a feeling that once Paul started writing his own songs, he was too proud to have other people write songs for him. The same with John. Maybe John worked with others to write Hey Jude & Let it Be. Still, I think that he had a hand in the creative process. When Paul died, John was left a basketcase for quite awhile.

[Paul Bearer]

beatlies said:

Songs were being ghostwritten for the Beatles, most likely both during and after JPM, some of them obvious plagiarisms from older songs by other performers, e.g. "Let It Be" from "Let It Be Me" and part of "Hey Jude" from the musical Oliver!'s "I'd Do Anything."

I disagree. With one or two exceptions, for the most part they wrote their own songs.

If they used ghostwriters, then Paul's death would have had no relevance to their muscial quality. "Paul's" songs simply should not have changed in style. The absence of JPM's geniune talent is noticeable and a real loss.

[lili]

Skirmisher, I couldn't have said it better myself. What HE said ;D

[beatlies]

skirmisher said:

beatlies said:

Songs were being ghostwritten for the Beatles, most likely both during and after JPM, some of them obvious plagiarisms from older songs by other performers, e.g. "Let It Be" from "Let It Be Me" and part of "Hey Jude" from the musical Oliver!'s "I'd Do Anything."

I disagree. With one or two exceptions, for the most part they wrote their own songs.

If they used ghostwriters, then Paul's death would have had no relevance to their muscial quality. "Paul's" songs simply should not have changed in style. The absence of JPM's geniune talent is noticeable and a real loss.

Is it really? Most people I know would say their music got better in 1967-1970 ! This is not to downplay the horror of what happened to JPM.

[Jai Guru Deva]

The Beatles had more number #1 hits, not to mention some of the great songs they gave away before 1967, then afterword. Hypothetically speaking, if today's producer was handed fresh new lyrics of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Something", no doubt he'd pick "Something" because it would play better in our time. At it's time, though, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was considered genius. But then a song like "And I Love Her" would play very well today. I don't think the quality of their music was any better after 1966, rather they adapted with the times.

[Paul Bearer]

It was more sophisticated musically, but don't forget, JPM's leftover songs were "adapted", and they managed to string them out right until the final album. And John continued to write songs as well.

[lili]

Skirmisher that's very true. They did their best to use up Paul's material. They worked his songs into every album from Sgt. Pepper onwards.

[Paul Bearer]

And it now appears the Bee Gees may have contributed to some of The Beatles final works and/or Faul's solo works.

[lili]

That could very well be. They were already recording hits in the 1960's.

I Started a Joke, recorded 1968:

I started a joke, which started the whole world crying,
But I didnt see that the joke was on me, oh no.

I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing,
Oh, if Id only seen that the joke was on me.

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes,
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that Id said.

Til I finally died, which started the whole world living,
Oh, if Id only seen that the joke was on me.

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes,
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that Id said.

til I finally died, which started the whole world living,
Oh, if Id only seen that the joke was one me.

The Bee Gee's Biography:

Often decried as purveyors of cheesy pop and later in the 70's, naff, glitterball disco, the Bee Gees - Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb, were far more talented than they were given credit for. But the overriding image of hair, gleaming dentures and medallions remains, largely due to late DJ Kenny Everett's caricature of the brothers on his TV show. But Shaun Ryder and Noel Gallagher are fans and Ryder says: "If you think Staying Alive is cheesy, just listen to the lyrics. They're hardcore man!" Er, quite!

Quite simply the Bee Gees are one of the five biggest groups in pop history and THE most successful sibling act in the history of pop. Yes, even bigger than Oasis! In their 42 years together they have released 28 albums, selling more than 110m copies. Like the Gallaghers, the Brothers Gibb grew up in Manchester where, after skirmishes with the police and general tearaway stuff, the family emigrated to Australia in 1958 where their father Hugh thought a new start would help tame his scally sons. The music- loving brothers soon formed a harmony trio and started playing gigs in Brisbane. They were soon signed to the Australian label Festival Records and released a series of singles. While their single Spicks And Specks was topping the Australian charts, the brothers were already on their way to London for an audition with music impressario Robert Stigwood who would come to exert great influence on their career. This led to a contract with Polydor Records and the release of the brothers' first UK single, New York Mining Disaster, 1941. The single's evocative, intriguing lyrics and close harmonies gave the Bee Gees a UK hit. Their follow up single, the stark, beautiful To Love Somebody failed to reach the Top 40 but would become one of the Bee Gees most covered songs - Recorded by Nina Simone, Janis Joplin and The Animals.

The assured songs on their debut album, 1967%u2019s The Bee Gees First, drew comparisons with the Beatles, made even more remarkable by the fact that boys were not even out of their teens. By October 1967 the Bee Gees had scored their first UK No.1 with Massachusetts which also showcased their skills as arrangers. Trying to catch the psychedelic zeitgeist trail blazed by The Beatles and The Stones, the brothers%u2019 next album, Odessa, was out of kilter with their passion for close harmonies and pure pop. However chart success was again round the corner with the release of the UK No.1 ballad I've Gotta Get A Message To You, a song about the last hours of a condemned prisoner. The Bee Gees would end the 60's as one of the most accomplished acts in pop but fame and success led to bickering and external pressures. Maurice Gibb married pop star Lulu and the boys became subsumed in the whirl of celebrity. Dissent saw Robin Gibb embark on a solo career with little success.

After reuniting with Robin Gibb in late 1970 the band went on to have two major hits with Lonely Days and the US No.1, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. But by 1973 the band's appeal had shrunk to an all time low and even saw them playing cabaret at the Batley Variety club in Yorkshire! They soon switched from Polydor Records to Robert Stigwood's new label, RSO for a more American sound with the album, Life In A Tin Can.

Stigwood teamed them up with famed Muscle Shoals R&B producer Arif Mardin and a noticeable R&B and soul influence began to exert itself on the brothers%u2019 work, most noticeably on the 1975 album. Mr. Natural. The Gibbs had now relocated to Miami to work with Mardin and had begun to soak up the souflful style of the dance-obssessed city. 1975 single Jive Talkin shot to the top of the US charts and gave them a Top 10 hit in Britain. The resulting album, 1975's Main Course, was also a transatlantic hit. The Bee Gees had managed to reinvent themselves with a more soulful sound and the falsetto vocals that would now become their trademark. Their next flurry of singles were perfectly placed to take advantage of the burgeoning dance scene in America. Nights On Broadway would become a hit for Candi Staton while follow up single, You Should Be Dancing was a dancefloor favourite. The resulting album, Children Of The World quickly went Platinum.

The trio's new-found fame as kings of the disco was consolidated in spectacular fashion with the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta. The album sold over 30m copies and remains the best selling soundtrack album to date. In the US the band achieved a run of three No.1 singles with How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive and Night Fever while the Gibb penned tunes If I Can't Have You and More Than A Woman were also hits for Yvonne Elliman and Tavares respectively. They were now officially, Lords of the dance. A further collaboration on the Robert Stigwood produced flick Grease, gave Franki Valli a US No.1 with the Gibb penned title track.
But 1978's Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band, a film and album of the same name, provided a career blip. The film, co-starring the Gibbs with Peter Frampton, was poorly received by critics but 1979's Spirits Having Flow album restored the group to the top of the charts with a further three chart topping US singles - Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Love You Inside Out. However, the band were now involved in a multi-million pound lawsuit with Stigwood. As the matter was settled out of court, the brothers contributed to another film soundtrack, Stayin' Alive, but also turned their attentions to individual production and songwriting work. Barry would achieve the greatest solo success, duetting with Barbra Streisand on the chart topping Guilty and penning the hits Heartbreaker for Dionne Warwick and Islands In The Stream for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. In the mid 80s Barry also penned Diana Ross' comeback single, the chart topping, Motown referencing, Chain Reaction.

The band eventually reunited in 1987 for their hugely successful comeback album, ESP, scoring a No.1 single with You Win Again, which gave the band their fifth UK No.1 and proved to the critics their inexhaustible knack for reinventing themselves. But tragedy hit the following year when their younger brother Andy died of a drugs overdose. As a mark of respect they declined to attend an Ivor Novello Awards ceremony where they were honoured for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.

They were again recognised for their achievements at the 1997 Brit Awards with an Outstanding Contribution gong. That year's Still Waters album proved a commercial sucess while in 2000, they returned with This Is Where I Came In, an album and biographical video of the same name. They were rewarded with CBE's in 2002's New Year's Honours List but at the start of 2003 they were again hit by tragedy when Maurice Gibb died. He suffered a heart attack during emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage. He was just 53 years of age. Barry and Robin subsequently announced they would cease to perform as the Bee Gees but to this day, medallions and gleaming teeth aside, the Bee Gees work presents one of the richest in the history of popular music.

[LOVELYRITA]

I don't think ghostwriter would have been the answer, because a ghost writer would have had the same sound throughout the entire Beatle era.

You have to remember when the Beatles first came out, music was basically at that time basic instrumentation. Drummer, bassist and guitar. Some groups had a piano or a sax. But the sound was what I call "box" there was a basic rythm and not really going from one plane to another.

The Beatles early work was more simple, because it was a more simple time. As they became more solid, they grew together as a unit and wrote more complex songs rather than just "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah" It was more reflective of their lives and their point of view of life. The solemnity of Revolver and Rubber Soul reflected a more soulful and serious side of the Beatles rather than cutesy "bubblegum" that was going on at the time.

Being that the death of JPM came near the end of 1966, with 1967 and all that was going on in the Beatle's personally because of JPM's death and the process of replacing him had to be something that we can only imagine and contemplate. The times they were changing and being into the drug culture and eastern mysticism, the Beatles became a different group because they learned more than most people do in an entire lifetime.

So the change of the music reflected in the changes in their lives, in the culture as well as the technology in the recording studio with experimentation with sounds, instruments and overdubbing, as well as on the Lennoneque clues and such, it would seem as if there was a different group, and in many ways, it was a different group. Plus the stuff that Bill brought into their sound, good, bad or otherwise, would show a different sound. And if there were different "replacements" such as Dino, Neil or Denny, their styles would have been added I'm sure.

You have to remember that we're talking about a group of young men who, for the most part, started together in their teens in the 1950's. With the changes through life, certainly one gets better instrumentally. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone sold their soul to get better musically. I won't touch that one. But a group that tight, John, George and JPM, you will grow as a unit.

[Doc]

lovelyrita said:

I don't think ghostwriter would have been the answer, because a ghost writer would have had the same sound throughout the entire Beatle era.

You have to remember when the Beatles first came out, music was basically at that time basic instrumentation. Drummer, bassist and guitar. Some groups had a piano or a sax. But the sound was what I call "box" there was a basic rythm and not really going from one plane to another.

The Beatles early work was more simple, because it was a more simple time. As they became more solid, they grew together as a unit and wrote more complex songs rather than just "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah" It was more reflective of their lives and their point of view of life. The solemnity of Revolver and Rubber Soul reflected a more soulful and serious side of the Beatles rather than cutesy "bubblegum" that was going on at the time.

Being that the death of JPM came near the end of 1966, with 1967 and all that was going on in the Beatle's personally because of JPM's death and the process of replacing him had to be something that we can only imagine and contemplate. The times they were changing and being into the drug culture and eastern mysticism, the Beatles became a different group because they learned more than most people do in an entire lifetime.

So the change of the music reflected in the changes in their lives, in the culture as well as the technology in the recording studio with experimentation with sounds, instruments and overdubbing, as well as on the Lennoneque clues and such, it would seem as if there was a different group, and in many ways, it was a different group. Plus the stuff that Bill brought into their sound, good, bad or otherwise, would show a different sound. And if there were different "replacements" such as Dino, Neil or Denny, their styles would have been added I'm sure.

You have to remember that we're talking about a group of young men who, for the most part, started together in their teens in the 1950's. With the changes through life, certainly one gets better instrumentally. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone sold their soul to get better musically. I won't touch that one. But a group that tight, John, George and JPM, you will grow as a unit.

A post that is brilliant and perfect in every way.

Now, as far as selling one's soul to become a great musician?

There is only one route to great musicianship (aside from starting with "natural ability"), IMO.

And that route is the practice room.

So, unless there was a practice room in the cornfield nearby to that famous crossroads that Robert Johnson sang about------well, they say he went away for 6 months and came back playing his fingers off. But what did he do for six months?

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

[lili]

I agree totally, Doc. That was a truly great post, Rita.
Bravo ! [img src="http://galeon.hispavista.com/akostuff/img/Good-Post[1].gif"]

[LOVELYRITA]

I agree, practice, practice, practice is what perfects one's performance. And when a person has a natural gift, it's all the more something to behold. Like those child prodigies who can play Mozart and they are only 5 years old. Most "normal" children are considered good if they can play one finger the "Barney the Purple Dinosaur" theme song on the toy piano.

As for the "training session in the cornfield" we're still waiting for James Earl Jones to return...remember "Field of Dreams"..? Hey, maybe somewhere out near a cornfield someone built a stadium where the "undead" rock stars who have gone beyond and perform. Remember, if you build it, they will come...

The "Crossroads" lies at Route 66 and Highway to Hell. Remember, turn left at the Dewesbury Road, but instead of heading to Kookamonga, you head to Nowhereland. Follow the Sun and you'll find the "Cornfield of Rock Dreams". You'll find a guy named "Bubba" who forfeited his corn crop in order to build his stadium where the departed Rock stars Rock On.

Maybe Robert Johnson just had too much to drink when he was telling his story. It sounds more interesting to tell something like that selling one's soul, over a whiskey rather than just saying he spent alot of time playing....Folklore....

You know that alot of these fables are just that fables...Something to add color and sell some more records. We hear alot of information and without documentation, or from reliable sources, we are just furthering the fluff.