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[peterbell1]

Just thought I'd try to search to see if Chet Atkins did a version, since I know that he was a big influence on George's early style.
And it turns out he recorded it for his 1960 album Teensville.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teensville_%28Chet_Atkins_album%29

You can listen to it here ....

http://mp3skull.com/mp3/chet_atkins_till_there_was_you.html

There's still no guitar part like George's solo, but it is getting quite close, so you can imagine George learning the Chet Atkins guitar parts and filling in some parts himself to create the lovely solo we hear on With The Beatles. And if you couple that with McCartney knowing the Peggy Lee Latin-influenced version, then it sort of completes the picture of how the song was arranged by the Beatles.

Of course, they were already playing a very good version of the song in early 1962, as can be heard in the Decca audition, and in the Star Club recordings from the end of that year, so the version on With The Beatles had been in their live set for almost two years by the time of the final studio recording.

[Xose]

I didn't know that about the "Gretty Chord", which is a maj7th chord I think...

No, it isn't. It's a F#7(#9), fingered on II fret for TTWY and on the I fret for 'Michelle' (=F7#9...)

...Most of the pages I found about Gretty say he was a country & western performer as well as working in Hessy's. That solo on TTWY is more of a jazz guitar style than C&W...

Correct. But those jazzy chords were part of his vocabulary as well...

...It does seem way too complicated a style for George to be coming up with on his own back in 1962...

I agree...

Xosé

[Xose]

Paul McCartney, talking about 'Michelle':

"...The other interesting point was there’s a very jazzy chord in it: ‘Michelle, ma belle.’ That second chord. That was a chord that was used twice in the Beatles: once to end George’s solo on ‘Till There Was You’ and again when I used it in this. It was a chord shown to us by a jazz guitarist called Jim Gretty who worked behind the counter at Frank Hessey’s where we used to buy our instruments on the never-never in Liverpool. So Jim Gretty showed us this one great ham-fisted jazz chord, bloody hell! George and I learned it off him...”

Source...

Xosé

[Xose]

Xosé

[7 of 13]

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/michellechord.html

[Xose]

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/michellechord.html

Right: same as the one that ends TTWY solo, but a fret lower...

Best!!

Xosé

[peterbell1]

Right: same as the one that ends TTWY solo, but a fret lower...

Best!!

Xosé

Blimey - that chord is difficult to play! I have always played Michelle using a normal C chord followed by an Fm7 (assuming there's a capo on the 5th fret). It's much easier and sounds almost the same.
But you can see Paul quite clearly playing the Gretty chord in this clip...

Paul McCartney - Michelle (Live in Quebec 2008)

I'll have to re-learn the song now!

[Xose]

Blimey - that chord is difficult to play! I have always played Michelle using a normal C chord followed by an Fm7 (assuming there's a capo on the 5th fret). It's much easier and sounds almost the same.
But you can see Paul quite clearly playing the Gretty chord in this clip...

Right...

1ª) Jim Gretty taught the "Gretty chord" to McCartney and Harrison

2ª) TTWY solo includes the "Gretty chord and is totally different of Harrison solo vocabulary at the early days

3ª) Ergo??

Xosé

[peterbell1]

 

Are there any videos of Jim Gretty playing?
Couldn't find any on YouTube, but I did find this, in which the player claims to have been taught this really nice jazzy ragtime song by Gretty (if you click through to YouTube and read the text below the clip it is in there) ...

Mark Singleton- Ragtime guitar piece -appologies unknown title- it may be called Donkey rag?

Gretty has been described as a "country & western" player, but this sort of ragtime style is much more akin to the jazzy chords played in Till There Was You.

Xose, you may well be right with your assumption about Gretty and TTWY, but I doubt we'll ever know for sure!  
Does anyone have Paul McCartney's mobile number? Maybe we can ask him!!  

[Xose]

Nice video... Thank you, peterbell1!!

No: unfortunately, I don't have McCartney's mobile number...

But McCartney was fond on Latin music by those days, and this could be the reason why the Ramírez and the bongós were included on TTWY...

Xosé

[Xose]

...But McCartney was fond on Latin music by those days, and this could be the reason why the Ramírez and the bongós were included on TTWY...

Some sources:

"...In the late ‘50s, Paul McCartney himself included “Bésame Mucho”, a song penned by female Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez, to the Beatles’ repertoire, thus becoming the first Latin song covered by the band. This is undoubtedly one of the most memorable boleros in Latin music, originally very much influenced by the style of Cuban boleros. “Bésame Mucho” was also the first song the Beatles recorded at their first Parlophone recording session on 6 June 1962..."*

“...In the 1940s and the 1950s, Latin music was the mainstream musical current across the US and Europe, with mambo, chachachá and rumba reigning supreme...”**

"...Like ‘Besame Mucho’, aspects of ‘Till There Was You’, and ‘Ask Me Why’, ‘P.S. I Love You’ has a strong Latin character. McCartney might have been thinking on their first two B-sides (‘P.S.’ and ‘Ask’) when he said the Beatles’ early songs ‘weren’t very good because we were trying to find the next beat –the next new sound. New Musical Express... was talking about calypso, and how latin rock was going to be next big thing. The minute we stopped trying to find that new beat the newspapers started saying it was us: and we found we’d discovered the new sound without ever trying...”***

“…It seems that in Hamburg clubs in the 50's the complessi italiani were the main gropus contracted to play, because of the popularity of the style/genre. That means close-harmony singing was obligatory…”****

"...Una cata de los títulos de singles Polydor editados entre 1953 y la salida del primer disco de Sheridan con los Beatles (=finales de octubre del 61), muestra que, después de las canciones ‘típicamente’ alemanas, el siguiente repertorio más abundante es el latino: rumbas, mambos, títulos como ‘Madrid’, ‘Barcelona’, ‘Mallorca’, etc..."*****

Xosé

* http://www.cubanow.net/pages/articulo.php?sec=17&t=2&item=1210

** Sue Steward, “Salsa, cubans, nuyoricans and the global sound”, in Simon Broughton - Mark Ellingham (eds.), World Music. The Rough Guide. Vol 2: Latin and North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, London, Rough Guides, 2000, p. 489

*** Vic Garbarini, "Interview to Paul McCartney" Musician 26 (August 1980), p. 49

**** http://indorock.pmouse.nl/hamburg2.htm

***** Conference given by Xosé at Ramírez guitar shop in Madrid, 9 May 2009

Xosé

[Xose]

Slim Whitman:

"...Paul McCartney saw me in Liverpool and realized that he too could play the guitar left-handed...."

Paul McCartney:

"...We [George Harrison and Paul McCartney] went through the Bert Weedon books and learned D and A together...."

George Harrison:

"...My dad had played a guitar when he was in the Merchant Navy. But when there was no work, he gave up being a seaman and sold it. When I started playing, he said, 'I had a friend who plays,' and somehow he still knew him, and he phoned him up. His name was Len Houghton and he had an off-licence that he lived above. On Thursdays he would be closed, so my dad arranged for me to go down there each week on that night for two or three hours. He'd show me new chords and play songs to me like 'Dinah' and 'Sweet Sue', and Django Reinhardt or Stéphane Grappelli sort of tunes. Songs of the Twenties or Thirties, like 'Whispering'. It was very good of him..."

Poster for Ted King and Len Houghton's band playing during WW2:



Xosé

[peterbell1]

He'd show me new chords and play songs to me like 'Dinah' and 'Sweet Sue', and Django Reinhardt or Stéphane Grappelli sort of tunes. Songs of the Twenties or Thirties, like 'Whispering'. It was very good of him..."

Very interesting.
So even from his early days of learning guitar George was being taught a "jazz" style of playing. It obviously went on to serve him well in the Beatles when it came to doing the non-rock & roll songs like Till There Was You, and this, in turn, will have influenced Lennon & McCartney when it came to writing their own tunes (I'm thinking of early tunes like PS I Love You and Ask Me Why which aren't just the standard 12-bar blues progressions or basic A, D and E chords).
Chet Atkins was cited as another big influence by George - and again this is a guitar player whose style is poles apart from the basic three-chord songs of Buddy Holly, Elvis or Lonnie Donegan which were favoured by Lennon in his early years as a performer.

[Xose]

Hello peterbell1.

...So even from his early days of learning guitar George was being taught a "jazz" style of playing. It obviously went on to serve him well in the Beatles when it came to doing the non-rock & roll songs like Till There Was You, and this, in turn, will have influenced Lennon & McCartney when it came to writing their own tunes (I'm thinking of early tunes like PS I Love You and Ask Me Why which aren't just the standard 12-bar blues progressions or basic A, D and E chords)...

Yes: it looks like this way. But only a thought: IMHO, the Latin feel on songs like TTWY, PSILY or AMW, is more atkin with McCartney suggestions. See my previous post...

Xosé]

[peterbell1]

Hello peterbell1.

Yes: it looks like this way. But only a thought: IMHO, the Latin feel on songs like TTWY, PSILY or AMW, is more atkin with McCartney suggestions. See my previous post...

Xosé]

Oh yeah, I totally agree that Paul was the member of the Beatles who wanted to expand their repertoire to include Latin rhythms and show tunes.
Till There Was You, Taste Of Honey, Red Sails In The Sunset, Besame Mucho etc - all were sung by Paul so he will have been the one to bring them to the group.

But I don't think he would have even tried to cover them in The Beatles if George didn't have the skills to play them. Even by the age of 18 or 19 George could handle latin and jazz chord structures as well as the more basic 12-bar rock n roll songs.

[Xose]

...Oh yeah, I totally agree that Paul was the member of the Beatles who wanted to expand their repertoire to include Latin rhythms and show tunes.
Till There Was You, Taste Of Honey, Red Sails In The Sunset, Besame Mucho etc - all were sung by Paul so he will have been the one to bring them to the group...

Right. And..., why?? He said in 1980*:

"...Beatles’ early songs weren’t very good because we were trying to find the next beat –the next new sound. New Musical Express... was talking about calypso, and how latin rock was going to be next big thing. The minute we stopped trying to find that new beat the newspapers started saying it was us: and we found we’d discovered the new sound without ever trying...”

BTW: has anyone come across with any New Musical Express issues from those early days?? (=I mean: the ones talking about calypso, etc.)

...But I don't think he would have even tried to cover them in The Beatles if George didn't have the skills to play them. Even by the age of 18 or 19 George could handle latin and jazz chord structures as well as the more basic 12-bar rock n roll songs.

Yes: I totally agree. So, we return back to our early topic: why TTWY solo is so different from Harrison solo vocabulary at those early days??

Best!!

Xosé

* Vic Garbarini, "Interview to Paul McCartney" Musician 26 (August 1980), p. 49.

[Bobber]

I'm beginning to think that George did not play that solo on the recording at all, but adopted it later.

[Xose]

I'm beginning to think that George did not play that solo on the recording at all, but adopted it later.

But Harrison DID really play that solo before: Decca audition and Star Club tapes..., didn't he??

Xosé

[Bobber]

Yes he did. You can hear on the Decca Audition that he struggles with the solo's. On a sidenote: Pete's drumming is best described as 'keeping the rhythm'. He adds nothing to the song.

The Decca Auditions - Till There Was You

[Bobber]

So George must have figured out the solo before January 1st, 1962....  By the way, the song was never covered by Paul's favourite American group, Sophie Tucker.