Flickgrrl

As far as "the thinking girl's favorite Beatle" is concerned ...

For what it's worth, Harrison was always *my* choice as "the cutest Beatle."

(I was in the middle of working on something concerning Miklos Jancso when I came across your column, Carrie. Is this what we're reduced to? Do we all, sooner or later, become gushers out of the pages of Tiger Beat?)

A Side Note: The last time I got into the "cutest Beatle" conversation -- which is not a frequent occurance, thankyouverymuch -- somebody made the good point that, cuteness be damned, Ringo was the one who *aged* most gracefully.

Great question!

Here are mine:

1.) "The T.A.M.I. Show.": Documentary filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1965, it opens with a full-screen close-up of Diana Ross's lips as she applies lipstick. What follows is a remarkable expression of what might be the last moment of something close to a unified pop music culture, expressed through a wide-ranging choice of performers representing diverse and often underappreciated genres: Girl Groups (Lesley Gore, the Supremes), garage rock (the Barbarians), surf music (Jan & Dean, who also served as emcees), soul (the Miracles, Marvin Gaye), proto-funk (James Brown), Merseybeat (Gerry & the Pacemakers), and straight rock and roll (the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry). At least two performances are definitive: James Brown, who said himself that this was the fastest he ever danced, and the Stones, whose frontman decided to play it straight and stand still after watching Brown's performance (Mick was ssensible enough to realize he couldn't compete with the originator of the moves that formed the basis of his stage act); perhaps as a result, the band's set possessed the simple elegant menace of a stiletto. (Points to the filmmakers for treating Berry with the respect he deserves; compare this with the condescending fatuousness with which the 1950s are treated in "Woodstock," via the asinine Sha Na Na.) It's astonishing to see how much energy, excitement, and optimism there was in popular music at this moment. In that sense, it's an inadvertent, potent political/historical marker, as well, in that it records probably the last moment when Americans felt this way before Vietnam swamped everything.

2.) "Monterey Pop": Hippy is not my thing - I love Pop, and that's one reason why my first choice is ahead of this, a perfect explanation of what replaced Pop. What's surprising about this, then, is how much Pop there was at this point in the hippy world: most artists present short, structured, even catchy songs. Many of the performances are unforgettable; some could fairly be called life-changing. (I for one know my outlook was permanently altered by the Who's rendition, in more than one sense of that word, of "I Can See For Miles," seen by me for the first time when I skipped school in ninth grade to watch this movie on the old UHF station out of Cleveland.) What's most remarkable about this movie, though - even more than the music - are the many fleeting moments caught by D.A. Pennebaker and crew: clothes, morning sunlight on grass, and most of all faces, of audience members, police officers, musicians, promoters, all caught up in this evanescent soap bubble of a historical moment. By "Gimme Shelter," only two years later, it was long gone, but seeing this now I can still understand why people were intoxicated by that moment.

3.) "The Brill Building": One episode of a multi-part history of rock and roll made in England and presented in America on PBS, this does the best job of explaining the greatness and social significance of the most unjustly overlooked and misunderstood period of Pop music, the pre-Beatles 1960s. It's eye-opening in showing how integrated, racially and sexually, the music scene was, both among the performers and the audience, and how sophisticated the music itself was. Gerry Goffin, the lyricist in the great Goffin/King songwriting team, offers an unforgettable one-line music critique when he says, "In the early 1960s, God was a 13-year-old black girl who could sing." (This also goes a long way in explaining why this era is underappreciated by rock critics, very few of whom were ever 13-year-old black girls.) At the end, slo-mo shots of the Beatles landing at JFK in February 1964 are set to the stately, mournful strains of Evie Banks' "Go Now," while the narrator notes that the racially and sexually integrated scene of the Brill Building was undone by the Beatles and the subsequent British Invasion, leading to a much more white- and male-dominated scene. "For those who say the Beatles 'saved' rock and roll," says the narrator, "the question is, 'Saved it from what?'"

4.) "Elvis' '68 Comeback Special" & "This Is Elvis" (1981): Watch Elvis sing "Trouble" at the start of the Comeback Special, then watch him stumble through the lyrics of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" in the posthumous "This Is Elvis" - 'posthumous' in the sense that he very well may have been dead when they filmed this scene. Hard to believe a person could travel such a vast distance. (Listen to "Long Black Limousine" to hear how he got there.) The Comeback Special was made by Steve Binder, who also made "The T.A.M.I. Show."

5.) "Let It Be": Very sad through the first third, when the bandmates seem too exhausted to even hate each other, followed by a prfessional, if pedestrian, in-studio run-through of new songs for British TV, and then ending with the glad rush of their rooftop concert - all the more remarkable for what came before. Melancholy, as are all tombstones, but with a surprisingly pithy epitaph.

6.) "Creedence Clearwater Revival" (1970): A bootleg of a concert documentary made for an Oakland PBS station, easily available on eBay. Fantastic concert footage of what was then the best rock and roll band in the world. A few nice backstage moments, plus a much-appreciated bonus of opening act Booker T & the MGs playing "Time Is Tight." Soemone needs to clear the rights to this, clean up the picture and the sound, and give it a general release.

And I can't believe I forgot...

7.) "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll": The big concert at the end is a little bit of a letdown - Chuck Berry wore out his voice playing an unscheduled out of town show, and the other performers save Etta James don't seem to quite understand the significance of the man whose songs they're singing. But the preparation for the show, focusing on the interplay between Berry and bandleader Keith Richards is indelible in both the mutual respect and competitiveness between the men. There are two common reactions to these scenes: shock on the part of those who've never engaged in an act of creative collaboration ("Omigosh! They're fighting!") and recognition on the part of those who have, who understand this is how the process - balky, mysterious, and thrilling - has always and will always work. In this regard, the movie is one of the best observations of how most good art gets made: by groups of quirky oddballs, who somehow manage to get it together despite it all. Also memorable are the discussions by Berry's fellow black rock and roll pioneers, mostly centering on the various, creative ways they got screwed; the shrewd, incisive comments from Bruce Springsteen and Roy Orbison on Berry's songwriting (as well as Bruce's funny stories about playing in Chuck's back-up band); and the haunting shots of Chuck alone, playing guitar in the abandoned halls of Berryland - still focused, ornery, and in touch with his muse. The rare film bio that does justice to a great American artist.

William --

Great choices! I love the T.A.M.I. Show, which stands for Teenage American Music somethingerother. And, OMG, how could I forget "Hail, Hail, Rock'n'Roll" which reveals Berry as rock's architect and longest-term practitioner.

C

Thanks!

If I remember correctly, it's Teenage Music International - not that I know what that means.

I love how, during the opening song, Jan and Dean's "They're Coming (From All Over the World), by PF Sloan and Steve Barri, the lyrics mention "the Rolling Stones from Liverpool" - you can see the songwriters working on the song, saying, "They're English, right? So they gotta be from Liverpool, right?"

The frustrating thing is you can't buy this in its original form - you have to get it as a stitched together compilation with the lousy follow-up, "The TNT Show." Wich means you have to see Joan Baez sing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" - the horror!

I'd add "Jazz On a Summer's Day," as good a compilation of jazz performers as "Monterey Pop" was of Haight Ashbury, and one of the most beautifully photographed music movies ever.

From my NSFW blog:

Benjamin Smoke
Directed by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen
Robert Dickerson, aka Benjamin Smoke, was an HIV positive indie-rock front man for the band Smoke, based in Atlanta. I saw this documentary at its premiere at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and was blown away, by the music, by Dickerson's gentle flamboyance and indomitability, by the filmmakers' experimental spirit. A must-see.

Except for "Benjamin Smoke" (that e-mail seems so obviously from someone connected with the film)most of the films mentioned here make my list. "The Concert For George" is absolutely magnificent. Billy Preston reduces me to tears everytime I watch him doing "Isn't It A Pity" and it's a pleasure to see Paul McCartney check his ego and just be a part of the band.

Especially moving are the shots that frame Paul, Ringo and George's look-alike son Dhani. Two and a half out of four.

A a quick mention about Ringo Starr. As a rock and roll musician for the last 35 plus years I can tell you this: If the lead singer or guitar player of a band is bad then the audience says the lead singer or guitaristis bad. If the drummer is bad they say the band is bad.

It's important to remember that the myth of Ringo's "flawed" drumming comes from a comment he made himself about not being able to do a "proper" (think military style) drum roll. He was being histypically self-effacing self and it's unfortunate that too many people took him at his word. Logic tells us that, the inclusion of a "Ringo" for comedians and commentators to hang a comic hook on was important to the rise of Beatlemania. It added to the kooky lovable weirdness that they projected at the time.

It's also important to note that Ringo was the drummer for a band that was actually more popular in Liverpool and the North of England than the Beatles were at one point. He already had a fan club and was considered THE drummer in the area. The Beatles, thinking they might not be good enough to play with him, were actually nervous about asking him to join the band and sent Brian Epstein to extend the invitation.

As for the myth of Pete Best being a better drummer, anyone who was around and aware of the music scene in the early sixties can tell you that being British and young and even slightly musical was enough to get you a recording contract-remember the Stones had an easy time getting signed by Decca Records because that label had made the mistake of passing on the Beatles. If you were a singer (or thought to be able to be passed off as one) and you were from Liverpool you were just about gold right out of the box. Add being a legitimate ex-beatle into the mix and you had to be extremely untalented to not make at least a small splash. And imagine the publicity that an already established or up and coming band would have generated by announcing the addtion of a former Beatle to their ranks. None of them were interested though. And even though handlers tried to fit bands around him Pete Best never made the smallest ripple. Not even in a Beatle and music crazed Britain.

No less than Max Weinberg gives him his props as do most musicians and especially his fellow drummers. And when was the last time you thought the drumming on a Beatles' record lacked anything? If ever, I bet it was while listening to "Back In The U.S.S.R" on whihc the drumming is pretty clumsy. That's because it wasn't Ringo but Paul playing drums on that one. Or you didn't pound out a dashboard drum solo during "Abbey Road"?

Finally, once they'd made their initial impact and certainly after they turned to more mature music making (around the time of the album released in the U.S. as "Beatles '65") they could have gotten anyone from Karen Carpenter to Buddy Rich to play with them. They rode the horse what brung 'em. And they weren't wrong.

Okay...it wasn't so quick a mention.

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Does that count?

I have to add for the sake of Ringo, i think he unfairly lost some luster due to live footage from their heyday. The band could not hear themsleves at all, of course (aa big reason why they just stopped performing live), and the only thing Ringo could do to try to keep the band together at all is bash out the most basic of beats. Some people see the footage and assume Ringo was a caveman.

I also want to shout out Metallica's Some Kind of Monster. Amazing, although the music takes a back seat.