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Which is better, the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, and why?
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Famed producer Glyn Johns, who had worked with both bands, says Dylan asked him to sound them about in 1969 about a collaboration.
From The Guardian (Australian Edition). This article is more than 5 years old.
Bob Dylan intended to record an album with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, according to the legendary producer Glyn Johns, who says the singer asked him to contact the bands about a possible collaboration in 1969.
“I had it all figured out,” Johns explains in his new memoir, Sound Man. “We would pool the best material from Mick and Keith, Paul and John, Bob and George, and then select the best rhythm section from the two bands to suit whichever songs we were cutting.”
The idea came direct from Dylan, whom Johns had met a New York airport., Rolling Stone reports The singer-songwriter explained that he had admired Johns’s work on the Stones albums Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, and asked about his recent Beatles sessions. “He said he had this idea to make a record with the Beatles and the Stones,” Johns recalled. “And he asked me if I would find out whether the others would be interested.”
Many of the potential participants seemed to love the idea: “Keith [Richards] and George [Harrison] thought it was fantastic,” Johns said, “since they were both huge Dylan fans.” He also contends that Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman were “amicable … as long as everyone else was interested”. The problem was with the influential remaining three: “John [Lennon] didn’t say a flat no, but he wasn’t that interested [and] Paul [McCartney] and Mick [Jagger] both said absolutely not.”
With that, Dylan’s dream seems to have died. Johns went on to produce his 1984 concert album Real Live, and of course Dylan and Harrison worked together in the Traveling Wilburys. More recently, McCartney suggested that Dylan call him to set up a collaboration. “Hey Bob, what’s happening? Where’s the party?” he said. Dylan has since contributed to a Paul McCartney tribute album, covering Things We Said Today for The Art of McCartney.
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It seems Howard there was definitely mutual admiration and respect between the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Also when the Beatles arrived on the scene in America, Bob Dylan epitomized the American music psyche and they knew they had a great deal to learn from Bob Dylan in order to crack the American music world. They had immediate impact in America with their early Beatles hits like She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Twist And Shout etc, but they knew Bob Dylan’s music style goes deep, and if the Beatles were going be the best in America, they needed some Dylan influence. They mutually idolized each other, the Beatles and Bob in the 60s.
In hind sight in that 2007 interview, it’s pretty clear, after all that was said and done, Dylan looked up to the Beatles when he said those words about Paul McCartney. “I’m in awe of McCartney. He’s about the only one that I am in awe of..He’s just so damn effortless. I just wish he’d quit [laughs]. ” If that doesn’t suggest Bob’s admiration of the Beatles as “his better”, I don’t know what does.
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Oh Howard & Jung… Your respectful music knowledge jabs between you both on this ongoing topic…. Quite entertaining to read, Thankyou….
Because I don’t know technicalities of music, etc in terms of song structures, etc, or not a much afan of Dylan’s vocals…. Lol… And as far as Beatles in depth music technicalities, etc go… Kinda goes over my head, not that it is boring, just rather not put forth any further input on something I know not much of, whereas Howard, Jung, Tomas, others who are far more musically inclined in the aspects and technicalities know more what they speak of and can support their arguments effectively/respectfully… making for interesting, entertaining reads… Thankyou, a chuckle a day keeps the feeling down blues away and at bay…. ???
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Thanks Jacki! I think as we delve into our music passion and opinions, you are a pillar of reason, and glad you bring us all back to reality! 🙂
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Thankyou Jung…. Though I will and can quite stubbornly stand ground firmly on things I truly stand for and know of, but try and do so eloquently diplomatically like, as much as possible… When it sees fit to??
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Once again Jung, you are misrepresenting Dylan. It’s a long stretch to deduce from your comment that “In hind sight in that 2007 interview, it’s pretty clear, after all that was said and done, Dylan looked up to the Beatles when he said those words about Paul McCartney” to suggest Bob’s admiration of the Beatles as “his better”.
The Beatles (and the Stones) also looked up to Dylan, but this doesn’t mean they considered him to be their “better”. Just the same as Dylan looking up to the Beatles, doesn’t mean he considered them to be his “better”. This is especially when you consider the 2007 interview was a long way into McCartney’s solo career.
On the same note, McCartney’s admiration for some of Brian Wilson’s work in the mid sixties, doesn’t mean he considered him to be his “better”, and vice versa.
Your preference for hyperbole doesn’t enhance the debate.
Jacki, thank you for your contribution. However, unlike others in this club, my technological knowledge of music is negligible. Unfortunately I am not musically gifted, but I do appreciate the music of others, especially the MLT and music of the sixties and seventies.
I am a fan of “Love and Peace”, but not at the expense of “Truth and Justice”.
In my humble opinion, it can be very interesting and enlightening to use the terms “greatest” and “best” for the sake of debate, but I think we need to be wary of the overuse of superlatives and definitive labels with topics that can be very subjective and fluid. Projecting our emotions onto others isn’t universal proof of anything.
Having said that, you can probably deduce that I do enjoy the debate. I must thank The MLT who are the catalyst to our sharing views and love of music in this wonderful club they have created for us to enjoy. May this club grow and prosper in 2020!
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When Dylan said McCartney was the only one he was in awe of, that is clear and obvious to me Howard, but for argument sake I will leave it here as open to interpretation.
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No one’s questioning that Dylan said that McCartney was the only one he was in awe of, that is clear and obvious to everyone. However, as far as I’m aware, he’s never said he was in awe of the Beatles. He obviously admired (and may even have been in awe of them), but he has never suggested that they or anyone else were his better, including the Rolling Stones who he considered to be “the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be.”
Even this doesn’t mean he considered them to be better than himself. Dylan has never been a “Rock and Roll” band. He’s always been a solo performer with various backing bands. Maybe he didn’t consider The Beatles to be a “Rock and Roll” band either.
I know you’re a passionate Beatles fan Jung, and that’s great, so am I. I’m also a passionate Stones and Dylan fan. I’m comfortable in accepting that the three of them, for me at least, were the best in their respective fields of music.
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What were the Beatles like live?
Alex Deaton, studied Recess & Nap Time at Twin Beach Elementary.
“In the 1970s, George Harrison tired of all the Beatles reunion questions. In answer on one occasion, George said: If you want to see a Beatles concert, just go see Paul McCartney. It’s the same thing.
I don’t know how sincere George’s remark was, but, I take him at his word.
And, having never seen a Beatles concert, I can only say: I saw Wings Over America at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium in 1976 and it was the best concert EVER!
Paul was amazing. His band was amazing. It was, as the song promised, a Rock Show.
After so much and so little time (was the concert three minutes? Three days? Months? Time was no longer woking. It took the night off to watch Paul) the band did their finale, they said, Thank you, and left the stage. The audience was going crazy. The band came back out for an encore. Encored. Left. Audience was going crazy. Came back out. Encore. Left. Audience crazy. A bit of a wait this time. Came out. Encore. Left. Crazy. Waited much longer. Came out. Encore. Left. They turned up the house lights (the You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here lights). No one left. Waited. Waited. The house lights went down. He came back out and did another. Next-day in the paper, Paul was quoted saying, “They were going potty out there.”
We were. He was the BEST.”
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Why did John Lennon never visit England again after the early 1970s, or did he in the secret?
”John Lennon, together with his wife Yoko Ono, left England for New York in August 31, 1971 to escape the anger and bitterness brought about by The Beatles breakup.
He was never ever able to visit England again even in secret although he wanted to for he missed Liverpool and London – this was according to Joe Flannery, lifelong friend of Beatles manager Brian Epstein and who handled the bookings of the band during the Beatlemania days, in his book “Standing in the Wings: The Beatles, Brian Epstein and Me”.
John Lennon was afraid that if he left the U.S. he would never be allowed in again. (This happened to another British national who was then living and working in the US – the great Charlie Chaplin)
This was a possibility because U.S. President Richard Nixon had already attempted to have him deported following the anti-war sentiment expressed in his songs “Give Peace a Chance” and “Merry Xmas (War is Over)”.
In 1973 he was ordered to leave the U.S. within 60 days but the deportation order was overturned in 1975 following Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal.
Although after 1975 Nixon was no longer in office Lennon still believed, and with good reason, that he continued to carry power and connection to influential people who could do things against him. Lennon even thought Nixon wanted him dead.
Shortly before Lennon was murdered in December 8, 1980, Joe Flannery wrote that he had a conversation with Lennon who regretted that he had become too political for this became the reason why he couldn’t visit England. He loved reminiscing about Liverpool and about London and was dreaming of returning home in a “blaze of glory” but then it was never meant to be.”
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If the Beatles couldn’t read music, how did they write down the songs and notes they composed for them to remember and for others to play?
Alex Johnston. BA Honours in music theory, tech and musicology.“They didn’t write them down at all. They remembered them.
In their early years, Lennon and McCartney wrote songs together and one of their rules was that if they wrote a song but then couldn’t remember how it went, they’d junk it. Since they were trying to write songs that were catchy, this rule worked very well. They wrote words down and changed them on the page, and they might scribble guitar chord names above the words, but as far as the tunes and guitar parts were concerned, they just remembered them.
Later, when their songs were going to be published, they were transcribed by other people. George Martin was writing down the melody of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, which is in G, and in the line ‘And I’ve been working like a dog’, he couldn’t figure out what note Lennon was singing; I would characterise it as an untempered F. Martin asked Lennon if it was E or F, and Lennon replied ‘Yeah, one of those.’ He went with F:
Later, they recorded themselves on tape recorders. A bootleg called It’s Not Too Bad contains Lennon’s demo recordings of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, from him poking around on a guitar in a Spanish hotel room when it was barely a song, all the way to the final mixes.
For instrumental parts played by others, Martin wrote arrangements.
The Beatles couldn’t read or write music, not in the 60s at any rate. They might have done well to learn, but they got by pretty well without that particular set of skills.“
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Did George Harrison compose the guitar solos he played for The Beatles or did John and Paul tell him what exactly to play?
Harold Philip Benson Harold Philip Benson, Classically trained pianist. In pop/rock band
“It varied. In the early years, like on “I Saw Her Standing There”, George would ad lib the breaks in the song during the studio takes of the song. Even live, he’d pick whatever guitar break came to him when they performed this song. In later years, Paul would ‘hear’ in his head the breaks he wanted on songs Paul wrote, at least, and probably he’d get George to play the breaks as he (Paul) wanted them. This is an example of why George got impatient with “The Beatles” as years went by. George had other reasons too, but that’s another story. Then there’s the now famous story of how George tried over and over again to play a good break on his “Taxman” song but could not do it. Paul and George Martin got impatient, so Paul grabbed a guitar and quickly did a break for the song which was used.”
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Excellent Angelo. I haven’t seen that video before. Thanks for sharing. Definitely a valuable insight into Ringo’s uniqueness as a drummer and his amazing contribution to the Beatles’ sound.
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This has been one of the busiest Christmas seasons for me. So I’m a bit out of the loop. Out of curiosity, I went to take a look at the Billboard 200 (top albums). Unsurprisingly it’s mostly Christmas albums.
Now I think this is anecdotal as the charts are completely manipulated these days, but:
- The Beatles have 4 albums charting: Abbey Road (at #29), 1 (charting for 400 weeks), Sgt. Pepper, White Album. Plus a John Lennon compilation and McCartney II also charting.
- Frank Sinatra charting with 3 albums, including a Christmas album. Drake also with 3 albums (totally manipulated IMHO).
- With 2 albums: Elvis, Queen, Eagles, and several more.
The Rolling Stones apparently are taking a break, they’re not charting at all right now.
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Nice to see you back Tomás, and in fine form as usual. You’ve been missed.
Let’s get things in perspective. First, just two things up front. As you state, this is a Christmas chart and secondly, The Rolling Stones never produced a Christmas album, for good reasons. One, they didn’t need to and two, they would have lost a lot of fans if they became that desperate.
You can hardly call this chart a Rock ‘n’ Roll chart. How do you explain the following rippers, with so many ahead of Abbey Road?
1 Steady Fine Line Harry Styles.
9 Frozen II Soundtrack
13 A Charlie Brown Christmas (Soundtrack) Vince Guaraldi Trio
16 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Burl Ives
18 The Classic Christmas Album Perry Como
23 Classic Christmas Album Andy Williams
42 Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. Soundtrack,
79 How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Soundtrack) Boris Karloff / Thurl Ravenscroft
By the way, ”Norman Fucking Rockwell!” Lana Del Rey, comes in at 112. How do you explain that one? Never heard of it myself.
I’m glad Club members don’t judge MLT albums by where they appear on the Billboard chart. We have discussed the relative merits of commercial success against critical success before, and you can have one without the other.
It is also unfortunate that Mona and Lisa had to delay the release of their much anticipated third originals album (expected in 2019), to satisfy fans’ demands for a Christmas album! Yes, the fans rule sometimes. Just another unfortunate symptom of commercial realities in a capitalist system where artistic merit and preference can be submerged.
On the subject of popularity vs art, I have a great example from 1969, but will leave it for another post. Nice to see you agitating so strongly for the Beatles Tomás. That’s not a bad thing to do You know. It’s also nice to see you re-entering the Club Forum, even if it was to quote from Billboard! I’m sure you have way more important things to do and I look forward to your next contribution.
By the way, don’t worry about the Stones, they’ll be back when the usual festive season hysteria has finished. I spent the last month looking after six rescue animals while their foster owners were catching up with family in New Zealand, as they do every year.
It’s very rewarding looking after rescue animals. Lots of fun and very relaxing. They help you take away any focus you may have on your own issues and as long as their basic needs are met, shelter, food, regular exercise and an occasional cuddle, they give more than they receive. I can recommend it to anyone who has the time and opportunity like me. You get free rent and the owners get house security and their pets looked after.
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