[Harp-L] Beatles Harmonica

[Michael Rubin]

Lennon could play a melody.  He could play single notes and double stops
well.  He could play chromatic on Love Me Do (If that was him) well enough
to fool generations of diatonic players.

But I agree, their harp playing abilities are low.

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 11:52 AM <meagher at xxxxx> wrote:

> Different strokes for different folks!
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> IMHO, they are both **trash**. As harmonica players I mean. They’re both
> so talented as to be from another species. But if we’re talkin harmonica…
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> Jagger played a reasonably proficient blues, and deserves some marginal
> credit for extending that limited skillset into adjacent genres, as he did
> in “Might As Well Get Juiced.” On a logarithmic scale, he’s maybe a 5/10.
> At best.
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>
>
> Lennon, to me, is a 3/10, where someone like Alanis Morisette is a 1/10
> and Little Walter is a 10/10. I’m not hearing the technical advancement you
> do, though. He was an EPICALLY good songwriter that used harmonica cleverly
> to advance his (world class) melodies, but I’ve never heard him do anything
> I couldn’t train a newbie to do in six weeks (or less), whereas at least
> Mick is out there bending notes and making blues licks happen.
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>
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> My unpopular opinion is that John Lennon was an incredibly talented
> songwriter and a terrible harmonica player and most efforts to recast that
> are just boomer bullshit whitewashing of their heroes. Mick, at least,
> played the blues, if weakly.
>
>
>
> Have at me!
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>
> Ev, aka The Tree
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> *From:* Michael Rubin <michaelrubinharmonica at xxxxx>
> *Sent:* Monday, September 5, 2022 11:48 AM
> *To:* meagher at xxxxx
> *Cc:* Gary Lehmann <gnarlyheman at xxxxx>; harp-l at xxxxx
> *Subject:* Re: [Harp-L] Beatles Harmonica
>
>
>
> I completely disagree.  Jagger is a poor imitation of blues players,
> Lennon is a fine example of originality in pop music.  IMO Lennon is the
> far more technically advanced player and more important to the progress of
> the instrument.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 10:44 AM <meagher at xxxxx> wrote:
>
> For Stones fans?
>
> It's always a contest.
>
> The Stones always win.
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>
> What was the question?
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Lehmann <gnarlyheman at xxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, September 5, 2022 11:43 AM
> To: Evan Meagher <meagher at xxxxx>
> Cc: harp-l at xxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Beatles Harmonica
>
> Like it’s a contest?
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Sep 5, 2022, at 8:51 AM, Evan Meagher <meagher at xxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Harmonica is one of the places where the Stones kick the tar out of the
> Beatles. Mick won’t make anyone forget about Sonny Boy Williamson but his
> (and before him Brian Jones’) harp playing exceeds that of Lennon by a
> million miles.
> >
> >
> >
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>