Beatles without Ringo and George

Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles

 

During the Beatlemania years, Ringo was arguably the most popular member of the band and the star of “A Hard Day’s Night.” And it was George who was introducing new sounds to the band - like the sitar. Things would have been very different without George and Ringo.

It’s possible they would have been just as successful without George and Ringo, but they wouldn’t have been The Beatles.

 

…actually, he was. By a very long mile

 

Just as successful? Nope.

 

You can't be the most successful band in history, by a considerable distance, if half of the band are just passengers.

 

What if that guitarist had been........Paul McCartney? After all, he didn't want to switch to playing bass. The "other" guy might have been more amenable to it than George. No McCartney baselines!!! The horror!!!

 

I have to scratch my head when I read posts like the one you quoted. Not only was he the best drummer in the band, many thought, including John, Paul and George, that he was the best drummer in Liverpool at the time.

Paul, when he filled in behind the drums, did his best to "sound" like Ringo. That says a lot.

 

Next...

 

Well I’d agree with you here, except The Beatles did enter separate apartments interconnected by one big room. I think I saw it in a film.

 

No. They were a unit. That was a huge part of their success, and a huge part of their appeal. All four contributed to their sound in huge ways. Ringo was always spot on. George offered offbeat songs that added interest and took some weight off of John and Paul. And all four played in service to the song, not for themselves.

 

Agreed, with the proviso that Macca’s bass lines could sometimes be mightily difficult to replicate (I know - I’ve tried). Less was usually more with Paul, but every mow and then his bass playing could make my jaw drop. It still can.

 

So who led and who followed or did it vary, Paul or Ringo?

or did the studio and recording fanciness cause this to be a moot point.

 

I don’t think either led as such. To my ears, they just locked in every time. As for “recording fanciness”, remember the technical limitations The Beatles worked around for most of their recording career. If they were anything less than mega-tight, it’d be more than obvious on their records. As it is, I believe the opposite to be true.

 

I'm thinking that if George and Ringo were not members of The Beatles, Paul would have played guitar.
He and John would have been augmented with Jaco Pastorius and Neil Peart.
Now THAT my friends would have been THE GROUP OF ALL-TIME.*

*Taken from the book Fictitious Versions Of The Beatles With Musicians With A Penchant For Overplaying.
Martin V. Fishmen, Siegel & Shuster, 1991.

 

Maybe. We can never know.

 

amazing how Ringo's loping and Paul's perfectionism meshed so often

 

Yah I totally agree. My best friend and bass player for my band was a very, very skilled and gifted player and would sometimes go on and on about how incredible Paul's basslines were. I learned a few later on in life when I went through a period of recording Beatles songs in my home studio and giving a go at the "one man playing all the instruments" thing. I was shocked at how great some of them were in terms of pure melodicism.

Not incredibly difficult, but incredibly inspired and unique with an incredibly strong sense of gorgeous countermelodies to go along so seamlessly with the main melody that even with songs I know intimately, I wasn't fully aware of how GOOD the basslines were until learning them.

 

i will argue Paul is "up there" for great bassists, plus he composed and sang roughly half the songs as well

 

I can’t imagine Jaco and Peart limiting their respective musical visions and potential by playing with a couple of technically not-the-greatest guitar players.

 

they came along later, in the wake of the huge wave that the Beatles created

was Joni Mitchell an all time greatest guitarist?

 

I did assume we were stepping outside the limits of space-time if considering Jaco and Neil Peart possible Beatles members.

I’ve honestly never been into Joni enough to evaluate her guitar playing fairly. I trust those who are more familiar and assert her greatness in that area.

 

Ummm, since all the music was being written/sung by Lennon/McCartney, it's a no brainer that they would have been just as great as they are. We all know that Paul brought some great guitar work to even some of George's songs. Paul also does some pretty good drumming on Back In The USSR. And dont get me going on Ringo's singing.

No brainer, but I'm glad that we do have George & Ringo on tape, as they were pretty darn good in their own right!

 

Paul is a great multi-instrumentalist who can play decent guitar and drum parts, but he was hardly likely to do that on every recording, and certainly not during live performances, he's not an octopus.

 

U2..... was successful with one of the worst rhythm sections to make a huge $$