Quoted from Slave Trader

I feel fine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJCzjF7MvpM

Day tripper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs8FJergjas

(Sorry, i'm too untechnical to be able to post them directly here   )

I think he meant 'Watch Your Step', and 'Roadrunner'. But thanks anyway.

Quoted from BlueMeanie

I think he meant 'Watch Your Step', and 'Roadrunner'. But thanks anyway.

Yeah, and the links are to those songs  

what you say, BM, sure Lennon "borrowed" those riffs, right?  

Quoted from alexis

I, who know nothing, do humbly beseech the keeper of the knowledge ... please Mr. Postman!

Here's Love Me Do, recorded on 6th June 1962 at Abbey Road, with Pete Best on drums. You can clearly hear John's inferior harmonica style, compared to the later versions.

Quoted from BlueMeanie

Here's Love Me Do, recorded on 6th June 1962 at Abbey Road, with Pete Best on drums. You can clearly hear John's inferior harmonica style, compared to the later versions.

Thanks, BM for posting!!

You know, mainly because the WHOLE performance on this June 62 clip was so tentative and hesitant compared to later versions, it's a tough call for me to say what the improvement in John's harmonica was due to.  As I recall, it was one of their first days in a professional recording studio, they were full of nerves ... Paul's voice is bad and John's isn't so hot either. I think I remember reading that prior to this session, on stage it was JOHN who sang the "Love Me Do" after the "Pleeeeeeeze", and George Martin made them switch it around for Paul to sing it so that John could get to the harmonica on time for his signature riff. That, plus Pete Best's erratic tempo, makes it hard for me to know if John's harmonica bits, among other things, didn't get better by the next recording session simply because they were more at ease and had practiced the arrangement more!

(I do play harmonica some, but, alas,  not well enough to tell if it's a different technique or not...)

Thanks for starting this thread, Alexis, and for keeping it going, Blue. I love learning about the roots of the Beatles music. That video series about John Lennon's Portable Jukebox is a treasure of insights.

I just watched another episode about the origin of the opening guitar lick on 'I Feel Fine' from 'Watch Your Step,' written by Bobby Parker in 1961. Mr Parker seems so proud to have influenced the Beatles. In the video we also hear John talk a bit about his song writing process at the time.




I also discovered, quite by accident, one more reference to 'I Feel Fine,' in a Hollies Shindig performance of Chuck Berry's, 'Too Much Monkey Business.' During the song, each of the three vocalists takes a verse and when it comes to Graham Nash's second turn, at 1:17, he starts singing the lyrics of 'I Feel Fine.'  It is alive rendition and fun to watch. The drummer doesn't miss a beat, so it was probably planned and rehearsed that way. They obviously thought Chuck Berry had been "borrowed" from yet once again.

I wish I could post YouTube video more cleanly. Help!

They are little tiny baby Hollies! Are they allowed to be that small?

I'm just loving this thread. Very illuminating! Thanks for all the links, folks!

Quoted from alexis

For example, Yoko's screeching is original, but (at least to most westerners) not really familiar-sounding

i don't mean to offend any one, but yoko's screeching sounds like my cat in a blender to me ( hey! i am entitles to my opinion after all )

Sorry, Joost. Thank YOU for starting this thread.

Here is Roy Orbison doing Candy Man in 1986 (w/ backup singers):



It  first came out as the flip side of Crying in July 1961 in the US
and September 1961 in the UK:

http://royorbison.musiccitynetworks.com/index.htm?inc=59&blog_id=768&page_id=4386

Were the Beatles influenced by it on Love Me Do?

Ask Paul:



P.S. Has anyone noticed that it's hard to find photos of the Beatles and Roy Orbison backstage during the May, 1963 UK tour, these days? It used to be easy. What's up with that?

I wish I could ask Paul. Or Roy's heirs.

Quoted from Ligger

I wish I could post YouTube video more cleanly. Help!

YouTube links usually come as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnuvSIwhFQI

Now, all you gotta do is post this link OR, to put the clip on the board straight away, put the combination of letters and numbers that is given behind the 'v='  between these (without the spaces): [ youtube ] and [ /youtube ].
So, in this example, it will look like this in your post (again without the spaces): [ youtube ] bnuvSIwhFQI [ /youtube ]

I have modified all the previous mess(ag)es for you.  

Thanks a lot. You are a gent.

But I am sure it will still take me some time to get it right. Please bear with me.

Quoted from Ligger

Thanks a lot. You are a gent.

But I am sure it will still take me some time to get it right. Please bear with me.

I will. Keep practizing.  

OK, here goes some practice.

In 1956, Elvis performed 'Baby, Let's Play House.'

At about 1:37 you can hear the line that John used on a Rubber Soul Song,
'Run for Your Life.'

Elvis on US TV:



John on an outtake of Run for Your Life, from Rubber Soul where he starts with that line:


The song was originally written and recorded in 1955 by Arthur Gunter:

http://browneyedhandsomeman.blogspot.com/2006/10/night-train-to-nashville-arthur-gunter.html


This is fun.

Well done!  

And then there's the Italian conspiracy concerning Yesterday. I dug this up:

Quoted Text

The Beatles stole the melody of their song Yesterday from an old folksong from Napoli (Italy). Lilli Greco, the Italian musicexpert and composer says so. In a newsbroadcast he played the melody of the song Piccere’ che vene a dicere, dated 1895. The Italian pressoffice Ansa confirmed that the two songs look very much alike. Greco says to have more proof than that. He says he's been to London and spoke with Brian Epstein. According to Greco, Epstein revealed that John and Paul used to love old music from Napoli.

Quoted from Slave Trader

Lennon stole the riff to "I Feel Fine" from Bobby Parker's "watch your step", and the "Day Tripper" riff he brutally took from Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"  

and nobody knew at the time???  

They might have known it, but the Beatles were so big, was anyone going to challenge them? At least openly?

Here's another confession from Paul. I was looking up "Many Years from Now" for another reason, and saw this in the Editorial Reviews: "Paul's heist of the "I Saw Her Standing There" bass line from Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You" (found on Berry's The Chess Box)".

Another Chuck Berry ripoff! I don't own the book so I don't have it here, but I recall Paul confessing to "stealing" his "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" phrase from a friend, whom he later paid (after the recording was made) because he felt it was better to have recompensed the guy outright, rather than have him complain later.