Beatles Relevance (1 Viewer)

[Samuel Des]

But honestly, I wouldn't say that Sly was influenced by the Beatles! I'm a big Sly fan, btw.
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You would be wrong, then. Sly was influenced by the Beatles just like the Beatles were influenced by Chuck Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Motown.

Just saying I'm wrong isn't good enough. I have yet to encounter an African American rhythm influenced by white AOR. I saw Her Standing There is a perversion of a blues progression. It seems silly to say the reverse when one clearly precedes the other. Would you really say that the typical em-am7-bm7 blues progression is a mutant strain of the early-Beatles 1-4-5?

EDIT - It occurred to me that you might be referring to Sly's use of the Rhodes. But that isn't a Beatles idea. Billy Preston brought that sound to Let It Be from his tour with Ray Charles.

And please, let's stay away from quoting the canonically correct litany of influences as proof of argument. As is tirelessly reiterated above, archetypal sources are already embedded in the music. Saying "Chuck Berry" as evidence of influence is moot.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Sly & the Family Stone were not a straight R&B band. There was a strong rock element to their sound that made it different than what was going on in Memphis, New York, or Detroit. Sgt. Pepper's influence on the whole Bay area scene was not lost on Sly, and the evidence is all available on wax. The Beatles took a lot from the likes of the Isley's and early Motown (most obviously, but not exclusively evidenced by their covers of songs like Twist and Shout and You Really Got a Hold on Me), and Sly took it back, kept what he liked (especially the unconventional song structures), mixed it with his other influences, and added his own thing. That's one of the reasons he had more crossover success with rock audiences than a lot of R&B artists of the late 60s.

Denying the influence the Beatles had on Sly would be comparable to denying the cross-influence between country music and the Stax and Atlantic R&B artists popular at the time. It was by no means the whole thing, but it was definitely part of it.

Regards,

 

[Samuel Des]

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Denying the influence the Beatles had on Sly would be comparable to denying the cross-influence between country music and the Stax and Atlantic R&B artists popular at the time.

Well, I'm not denying musical-crossing, so to speak. But I certainly don't think that saying that there is less influence from the Beatles to African American rythms is a mistake of such catastrophic proportions. I don't hear Stax charts on Merle Haggard records. But I do hear them on Exile on Main Street.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I have yet to encounter an African American rhythm influenced by white AOR.

disco

 

[Samuel Des]

disco

And where would disco have come from? And was disco strictly white AOR? Would you say that funk played a major role here? The influence the Bee Gees have exerted on James Brown and on down is lost on me.

 

[Mike Broadman]

You asked how African-American rhythms were influenced by AOR, right?

Disco is applying a "white" rock style to black American music and was played by both black and white musicians. That is, black musicians took white AOR and applied to funk/R&B. The white rock sound also helped shape George Clinton's music, someone who is very much associated with black music.

White music shaping black goes back before recorded music as well. Country and blues used to be two sides of the same coin with each shaping the other.

 

[Samuel Des]

Disco is applying a "white" rock style to black American music and was played by both black and white musicians.

I'm not sure I agree with this, though I wouldn't say that you were wrong or right. Who influences whom in this equation? Isn't the "harder" sound in this kind of music essentially from the aggressive beats of James Brown -- and not from "white rock styles"?

Or maybe the idea isn't who influences whom. Rather, who shares with whom. It seems folly to puruse this further.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Zen Butler: I completely, utterly, and totally agree with you! It must be remembered that serious music operates on such a broader, vaster, and more intricate canvas than even the greatest popular music--even though much serious music is influenced by popular and folk material (Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 anyone?). By that yardstick, I am fully prepared to say that Beethoven's later quartets, all his piano sonatas, and all the symphonies starting with No. 3 in E-flat major (Eroica) cannot be touched by even the most ambitious artist in popular music.

(BTW, the term "classical music" is so quaint when referring to serious music, to everything from Palestrina's Madrigals to the most raucous, atonal work of, say, Krystof Penderecki.)

However, this is best saved for another thread. Want to start one, Zen? I'd love to participate!

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I think we are getting mired in a semantic misunderstanding. My understanding of "influence" is no more or less than "have an effect". If Samuel thought that by influence I meant "was the root source", then I can see from where he is coming.
BTW, Merle Haggard was Bakersfield country. Very little R&B connection there. The connection becomes more obvious when you shift over to Tennessee. The point where late 60s country and R&B come together are on all of those ballads like William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water" or most anything written by Dan Penn. Heck even some of the slower stuff written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter (think "When Something is Wrong with My Baby", for instance) could have been performed as a straight country ballad. Gram Parson's made a habit of recording a lot of these types of songs.
For latter-day Memphis, think of Al Green doing Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times".
Of course, the common thread they both shared is a large debt to the blues, but there was definitely some cross pollination going on.
Regards,

 

[Mike Broadman]

serious music is influenced by popular and folk material (Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 anyone?).

Nitpick: The New World symphony didn't really take from folk music. It was basically Dvorak's interpretation of the American "feel."
Bartok or Kodaly might have been a better example.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Mike, should Zen start that thread, I look forward to seeing you there!

 

[Samuel Des]

.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Sam, I gotta say, we veered off on such a tangent that I got lost. Here's my understanding if the general, extremely generel interaction of Western and African musical idioms interracting in the US:
African music tends to focus on rhythm. Some tribal African music is just percussion. Black American music kept some of this tradition and became expressed as shuffle beats and swing (after being carried down and interpreted via blues, country, folk, and gospel).
Western music tends to be very simply rhythmically. Traditional composers express themselves harmonically and melodically.
With American jazz and popular music, the white musicians took much from black rhythmic ideas. In jazz especially, black artists got their harmonic and melodic methods from European music.
In short, black culture tends to shape American music down bottom, while white music works up top. With all sorts of various exceptions and variations, of course.
Jack: reports of my understanding of classical and orchestral music have been greatly exaggerated. :b
It just so happens that I recently acquired a couple of version of Dvorak's 9th on high res. I read liner notes.
Edit: Sam's post I was responding to has dissappeared. Now I don't know if I should erase mine, too. Agh, this internet thing is confusing.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Who decides what's "relevant" in regards to music?? Anything anyone listens to, even one person, even if the listener and the player are the same person, is relevant. Discussing "relevance" in regards to art is ridiculous.

NP: King's X: "Manic Moonlight"

 

[Samuel Des]

Mike - No need to delete your post. I just thought better of what I had said. Sorry for th confusion.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Discussing "relevance" in regards to art is ridiculous.

It does not seem "ridiculous" to me to discuss "relevance" and art, particularly when you are discussing art that has a cultural in addition to a personal impact.

Regards,

 

[Chuck L]

Phillip said-
Who decides what's "relevant" in regards to music?? Anything anyone listens to, even one person, even if the listener and the player are the same person, is relevant. Discussing "relevance" in regards to art is ridiculous.


This sort of goes with what I was trying to express in my post. Though it makes me cringe, in another twenty years, the teens that are growing up now are going to consider Britney as a influence....the Beatles, though they will still have impacted music, will not have the impact on their culture.

It is basically the same with most of way people prefer the music that they grew up with. The parent's of the 60's children hated the music and wanted their kids to listen to the music of the 40's and 50's because that is what they deemed impactful. In the 70's, it was the 60's. In the 80's the 70's...you get my meaning.

But of course that is always the way it will be. Just think...in 30 years, we will be N'Sync on the oldies stations. Scary shit for the future.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

In that music would exist today in a rather different state were it not for them, I'd say that the Beatles are *fairly* relevant. The influence is all-encompassing, so it's tough even to see it, especially for those raised on a diet of modern pablum. And, while one can claim the subject matter is dated, the genius of the music itself is what holds up and, I suspect, always will.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Yes, Jack--may I call you Jack?--you are correct.

As for relevance, relevance determines whether we can call something art--to some extent.

And as Jack pointed out above, The Beatles's relevance is so all-encompassing it's sometimes difficult to see.

At one time in the sping of 1964, eighty percent of all records sold in the United States were by The Beatles. That was, in effect, a thermonuclear explosion in the world of popular music. It's aftershocks are still being felt today.

Pundits at the time were noting that "rock'n'roll" had been pretty much dead until The Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion revived it in a dramatic new way. The Tin Pan Alley concept of the professional tunesmith providing standard material for performers to record was basically demolished by the advent of The Beatles--and then that Zimmerman guy.

This is one of the band's chief influences that lasts unto this day. It cannot be overestimated.

 

[andrew markworthy]

It doesn't matter whether teens today like Beatles music, or whether contemporary bands cite them as an influence. The fact is that The Beatles, like e.g. Duke Ellington or Cole Porter before them changed popular music to the extent that without them today's popular music would be radically different. There are precious few other artists who could claim that.

Arguably the only bands since then which have exercised an appreciable musical influence are the New York Dolls (harbingers of punk and new wave) and Kraftwerk (practically all electro dance music stems from their work in one way or another). [Note I'm not saying you have to like these artists - only that they were major influences].