.  Would You Like Some Beatles or Some Stones? ! !

 In my recent travels through the “Twittersphere” I was surprised to see that Sir Paul McCartney recently did a duet with Kanye West. Not really all that surprising because McCartney has combined his talents with other artist before. The Shocking part of all this was that some of Kanye’s Twitter followers did not know who this Paul McCartney dude was/is.One even tweeted that McCartney’s career was gonna take off now because of Kanye!!!!!!!!! I found this all pretty unbelievable and sad.Are young “music fans” really so ignorant to music history?

So not only do I know who this Paul dude is I also have a vague recollection of folks by the name of John Lennon,George Harrison,Good Ol’ Ringo and others like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,Bob Dylan,Chuck Berry,Buddy Holley,ELVIS Presley! and others like John Foggerty ,Hendrix,Joplin,Morrison should I go on????  So now I’d like to welcome Jimmy Brewer a young singer/songwriter to Bookroomreviews who was kind enough to write a little something for us.

   A Guest Post by Jimmy Brewer

  Would You Like Some Beatles or Some Stones? ! !

When I was growing up, pop music in the UK didn’t inspire me one bit. It seemed like every week there was a new manufactured boy band or girl band or boy/girl band set to take the charts by storm. Each sounding exactly the same as the previous. I wasn’t interested. From about the age of two all I’d really cared about in life was The Rolling Stones and guitars (You can read my story of how I got into music and The Stones here). Under the stairs housed in the old record player cabinet were several vinyl LPs that excited me infinitely more than Boyzone or the Spice Girls and, to a degree, still define my life today. ! !

My dad owned all the early Stones records – ‘Vol I’, ‘Vol II’, ‘Out Of Our Heads’, ‘Aftermath’ etc along with countless singles. All of which I’d obsessively listen to every day. This was the foundation of how I learnt to play the guitar, desperately trying to sound like Keith Richards on my battered up Argos catalogue nylon string, and later my lovely old nicotine stained Jedson Telecaster copy. There were concert videos too, which I would often skive off school to watch – the 1981 ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ tour, The Steel Wheels Tour, Voodoo Lounge and so on. I was convinced that when I grew up I was going to be Keith Richards. Needless to say, it didn’t quite turn out like that…but in some ways that’s also probably for the best. ! !
Best Sellers in CDs & Vinyl
There was one more LP in that cupboard that shaped my future life as a singer songwriter and probably even sparked my love of songwriting in the first place. It was all dog eared and chewed up round the edges, my mum’s name was written in biro on the back and when you dropped the needle the speakers blared out 40 years worth of static and dust and noise…! ! But through that noise came…! ! ”

It won’t be long yeah….yeah…yeah…yeah…yeah…yeah, It won’t be long yeah….yeah…yeah… yeah…yeah…yeah, It won’t be long yeah…yeah…till I belong to you!”! !

It was an original copy of ‘With The Beatles’ with the black and yellow Parlophone label (not to be confused with the US release ‘Meet The Beatles’). It’s still by far my favorite Beatles album today, and definitely in my top three favourite albums ever. Half an hour of pop music perfection comprised of fourteen two minute pop songs. It still always sounds so fresh and exciting. For me, this record never gets old and when I listen to it I feel like I’m eight years old again discovering it for the first time. ! !

The Stones teach you how to play in a live rock and roll band. They are free, groovy, energetic and improvisatory. The Beatles created music that was full of melody and complex chord changes.It was influenced as much by the music that came before rock and roll as it was by rock and roll itself. They were great composers. This is a broad oversimplification, I know, and I don’t mean for a second that the Stones didn’t write good songs.   They did definitely write songs with the live performance in mind. Likewise the Beatles were also great performers but they did eventually stop playing in public to focus on working in the studio. ! !

So when people ask me “are you Beatles or Stones?” I’m afraid I can’t possibly pick one. I probably wouldn’t play the guitar if it wasn’t for the Stones and I certainly wouldn’t be a songwriter if it wasn’t for the Beatles. It’s a bit like pudding time on Christmas Day – I don’t want to have to choose between Christmas pudding or Grandma’s boozy trifle, I want a bit (a lot) of both! ! ! I recently recorded a cover of ‘Till There Was You’ taken from that album (written by Meredith Wilson) which you can have a listen to here.! ! If you’d like to have a listen to some of my music you can get two free downloads at www.jimmybrewermusic.com! ! ! also a great book on the subject    The Beatles-VS-Stones
! !

And now Mull of Kintrye written by Paul McCartney —- performed by Jimmy Brewer

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Save

Visits: 263