Beatles guitar solos by John Lennon

Ticket To Ride is another by Paul. Arnie

 

When the Rockband isolations leaked I was quite shocked to find that the guitar in the last verse of When I'm 64 is a 12string electric!!! That makes me think it could have been possibly George on his Rick. John could have done that too though...

Ondra

 

I'm still annoyed that the pickup selector switch noise on "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" was removed on the 2009 remaster.

 

Yeah? I haven't listened to the RB multitracks but it sounds too jazzy on the LP to be done on a 12-string, but I defer to you. John did have a Rick 325 12-string, he rarely used it (Every Little Thing and in the Ticket to Ride video are the only two times off the top of my head I know of) but it's not impossible he could've used it on "64" too.

 

The Johnny Burnette song is "Lonesome Tears In My Eyes" which they used to play.

 

John didn't play lead guitar on Run For Your Life, he plays acoustic rhythm. He plays the riff lead on Yer Blues, but that's George on the high stuff (first mentioned by Parlofax). Ron

 

He did. John overdubbed the lead guitar riff and solo (played on Stratocaster) while George played the slide part.

Ondra

 

Hmm, not so sure. Probbaly plays the rough lead on "Lonesome Tears" but I don't think he's playing on Sweet Little Sixteen (other than the intro). Ron

Semantics perhaps? On Yer Blues John plays the riff and the first solo that is all rhythm.... that's George coming in with the stinging lead and it's NOT a slide. George never played slide on Beatles recording. He learned how to play and tune his guitar for slide from Dalaney Bramlett during the Delaney and Bonnie tour in December 1969. Ron

PS Just watch the Rock and Roll Circus or Live In Toronto videos to see what parts John plays on the song. If he played the stinging part he would have replicated it live... he did not.

PPS George's guitar tone from this era can be heard on Not Guilty that just happened to be finished the day before the session for Yer Blues. Very distinctive... and VERY George. I didn't think John used his Strat post-1965. He pretty much used his Epiphone on the White Album AFAIK.

 

The solo in "Honey Pie" is one of Lennon's best IMO, he totally nailed that jazzy style of playing. Take note of Paul's chuckled "Yeah" when Lennon starts the solo...Paul obviously liked what John was playing.

 

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this already (probably because you're likely to get virtual bricks thrown at you), but if you want to really hear John's lead guitar playing at its best, you need to listen to the Plastic Ono Band album - and not the John Lennon one! On Yoko's early solo albums, John's playing is incredibly inventive and expressionistic. It's like he can let that side of him just take off in a way he couldn't on a lot of the Beatles recordings or even his own solo albums. If I could only choose one track to show off John's guitar playing chops, it'd probably be 'Why'.

 

George remarked in later years that he liked John's solo too... and that's ol' Harrisong on bass. Ron

 

Pretty sure MacDonald and Lewisohn have John playing
RDYL, don't they?

 

Lewisohn makes no mention of it. It's just very unlikely that John would have played lead on the first song recorded for Rubber Soul. He certainly never mentioned it himself. In fact, he rather hated the song and said it was something he dashed off at the end of the album sessions... when in fact it was the first song recorded. Ron

 

Sorry, I was talking about Run For Your Life, not Yer Blues.

On Run For Your Life John overdubbed the lead guitar riff and solo while George was playing the slide (just playing chords sliding from C to D during the riff) simultaneously.

Ondra

 

Where are you getting this information? Lewisohn clearly says that the backing track was recorded live and the overdubs were acoustic guitar, backing vocals and tambourine. No mention of overdubbing the lead guitar riff and no mention that John plays ANY electric guitar on the song at all. Ron

 

I think that it was mentioned in Beatles Monthly Book that John played the solo. It definitely sounds like Lennon to me, kind of simplistic.
To me it always sounded similiar to It's So Hard solo from Imagine, I suspect that is John on lead guitar too.

Ondra

 

It's funny how that song typifies the "granny" music John despised, yet he showed up for that one. It's perfect.

 

I hold the minority opinion that Lennon plays the lead heard at the end of You Never Give Me Your Money----the awkward bits are faded down (out) on the master.

 

Lewisohn also claims there is no organ in You Won't See Me, not true. Claims that maracas has been overdubbed onto the basic track of Dr. Robert, where in fact it was a part of the live basic track.
He claimed that George played the lead guitar on Sgt. Pepper, we know it was Paul.

His claim doesn't make sense at all. He says that "the overdubs were acoustic guitar, backing vocals and tambourine". So what is left to be the live backing track? Drums, bass, electric guitars. OK, but Lennon did not play electric guitar. So what did he play on the backing track? Plus if I'm not mistaken, the Rockband isolation shows that the bass guitar was an overdub onto the backing track.

Ondra

 

Universal and Apple could answer these questions and thousands more if they released the session tapes. Ron

 

This and George Martin's production notes, the excerpts in Recording The Beatles book are excellent. Who plays what and even the exact instrument, priceless!
I wonder how many more of these George Martin has in his archive.

Ondra

 

I just listened to MOGG version of Run For Your Life. It features John's original live vocal, drums, electric guitar(s) and a VERY prominent bass. The backing vocals and acoustic guitar were clearly overdubbed. Now, it's quite possible that George and John DID play electric guitars on the live backing track, but that John is the one answering with the slide part. Or perhaps John plays the lick and George the slide-type part. Regardless, the solo is George. It's quite likely both played Strats and had a similar tone setup, but I don't think John ever displayed that type style while playing lead... not with the Beatles and not during his solo career. Ron

 

I still think it's John...as MacDonald so eloquently puts it in his book, the solo is "piercingly simplistic" and brutal that it's an insult to think it came from George or Paul.

 

If that's the case, it's hands down the worst ****ing solo George ever played.

 

"Go Johnny, go!"