Paul v.s. George on Lead Guitar | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I am a BEATLES FAN! I love all the Beatles but George is my favorite for mostly things that are not music related. 

My biggest gripe with ‘PAUL’ fans is that he is always put on a pedestal as if it should have been Paul McCartney and The Beatles. Isn’t that right!

Paul plays better Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keyboards and best singer. I’m willing to give him his due. I do feel he is a great musician. Just remember, that they were all very talented in their own way and that is what made them the greatest band in history. 

One thing that’s always struck me as funny about Paul’s lead guitar style is how choppy, spontaneous and deliberately “messy” it sounds coming from a man who’s a notorious note-by-note perfectionist. The Maybe I’m Amazed solo is the only one I can think of where it’s obvious he worked out the melody beforehand, whereas his other solos are kind of all over the place.

RunForYourLife said
Relax, this isn’t a thread about who was the “better” guitarist.

In 1965/1966, Paul played the lead guitar parts on…

– The Night Before (Doubled w/ George)

– Another Girl

– Ticket To Ride

– Drive My Car (Into and Solo)

– Taxman (Solo)

– It’s rumored he also plays lead on Paperback Writer .

 

My question is, to what extent was this the band “allowing” Paul to flex his chops as a friendly gesture v.s. impatience with George? (I’m not suggesting George was incompetent, but this was the time period where he was sort of “struggling” with breaking from his rockabilly roots and finding his own style)

Geoff Emerick seemed to imply that, at least on Taxman , Paul played because George was having trouble with the solo and the band had grown impatient. I’ve also heard that Paul’s playing on Drive My Car was the result of similar circumstances.

A musician’s style owes a great deal to their ego.  It pretty safe to say that, in a band comprised of such formidable egos, George was likely the least.  This may have had a substantial influence on how long he took to construct his parts, how careful he was with them or even when he would have been satisfied with his contribution.  And, in light of who he needed to satisfy (and their respective egos), he may even have been willing to relinquish the responsibility.

On the b side, those same competing egos may have been impatient, unwilling to wait until he had figured everything out.  Perhaps it allowed them to be dismissive of his skill, presuming they could do it just as well themselves.  McCartney certainly wasn’t lacking for ego, and his own skill and musicianship allowed him to back that up.

Harrison was always a patient and careful guitarist.

Just a thought.

DrBeatle said

Inner Light said
I agree with the commercial aspect of McCartney’s songs. He definitely wrote songs that would fit that genre. Harrison and Lennon wrote songs they wanted to write and weren’t focused on whether or not they would become hits or not. An artist needs to express their thoughts and feelings when writing compositions. I know in the beginning, they had a formula they used which turned out a lot of hits but as time progressed, the songs became more sophisticated and everything changed on how they wrote. They wrote for themselves and not just trying to pump out a hit song. McCartney has always been the showman of the Beatles and of course Ringo has become more of a showman over the years also. A talent is in the eyes of the beholder. Personally, I will take an artist that writes and speaks from their heart over anyone who just writes songs to sell it and play the game of commercialism. Regarding P versus G on guitar, again it’s all an individual taste. I would say they each have their talents and one must accept that in making their decision.

I disagree. John is on record many times in stating that he and Paul always had a rivalry as to who was going to get the A-side, and he fought tooth and nail for his side, win or lose, throughout their career (see: I Am The Walrus vs. Hello Goodbye , Revolution vs. Hey Jude , Day Tripper vs. We Can Work It Out , etc)

I agree that Lennon & McCartney would compete with each other for the A sides of records but Lennon was not focused on just writing a hit record. McCartney loves the limelight and attention where as Lennon was more ‘this is what I have to offer like it or not’ but he didn’t like to lose either. I think his competitiveness started to wear off towards the end of the 60’s. He became more focused on his personal life and Yoko.

RunForYourLife said

PeterWeatherby said
Just a couple of quick comments on the OP.

Paul was and is a much more “polished” musician than the others – not necessarily better, but more polished, with more of an eye towards a total commercial package. You can see in a lot of his work that he had very specific ideas about how his songs should go, beginning to end, soup to nuts, from the drum fills to the guitar solos. Compare that to John and George, who more frequently had bare-bones ideas, and left it to the others to fill in their respective areas of expertise.

You can see this at work in the infamous on-screen argument between George and Paul in the “Let it Be” film. And what’s it all about? George is adding his guitar bits here and there, but it doesn’t fit with Paul’s overall vision for the song, so he’s telling George to do it differently. Some would say Paul was being too controlling and bossy. Some would say Paul had every right to dictate how his songs should come out in the end.

Peter Carlin in his book “Paul McCartney : A Life” notes how this continued to be an issue into the “Wings” era. Henry McCullough was hired to be the lead guitarist, but he came from a blues background, where improvisation is valued, and Paul wanted nothing to do with that. He would either tell McCullough exactly how the solo should go, or McCullough would play something free-style during one take, and Paul would want it played exactly the same way on the next take.

As was noted, it was as early as the Help ! sessions that Paul started overdubbing his own lead guitar work and leaving George’s takes on the editing room floor. I don’t think this was a “band decision,” I think it was a Paul decision, made after-hours when everyone else had gone home. And given George’s very non-confrontational personality, I don’t think it’s something he would have challenged Paul with right away, even if it irritated him. In fact, I’m reminded of an out-take of “The Anthology” videos, where George and Paul are listening to the Abbey Road medley with George Martin, and they’re trying to figure out who’s playing bass on the first take of “You Never Give Me Your Money .” Harrison makes a rather snide remark that Paul was basically playing everything in those days, and when Martin points out that Paul was playing piano and therefore couldn’t be playing bass at the same time, Harrison quips, “He was very keen.”

I don’t think it was a matter of George not being technically proficient enough to play something Paul wanted, I think it was a matter of Paul deciding it would be faster to just play something himself than try to communicate exactly what he was hearing in his head, or potentially insult George by dictating a note-for-note solo to him.

As for Paul being a bass player and not a lead guitarist, remember that he got his start playing guitar, not bass. He picked up the bass because The Beatles needed a bass player and no one else wanted to do it, but if you listen to how he plays bass, he plays it like a lead guitarist.

You’ve all got a lot of good comments here, but I am specifically responding to this one as it more specifically addresses the question in my OP, in regards to which solos were “given” to Paul v.s. which he played on for other reasons (“Taxman ” probably being the most well known, or even infamous example of the latter).

The only reason I called George’s technical proficiency into question was a result of reading Geoff Emerick’s “Here, There And Everywhere ” in which he portrays George as “fumbling” solos multiple times, including the “Taxman ” solo (though it was an intriguing read, I couldn’t help but feel, not only the obvious bias towards Macca, but against the other three, George in particular). A lot of that surprised me (perhaps to the point of suspicion), particularly that George had troubles with something like “I’ll Follow The Sun “, when on the rest of that album his rockabilly picking is on fire (if it is true, I’d chalk it up to George struggling to find his own unique style, rather than any supposed incompetence on his part)

I agree. Emerick had a problem with George. I get so tired of hearing about George not being technically proficient on the guitar. Emerick was definitely pro Paul so I would take what he say’s with a grain of salt. There is an interview with Ken Scott where he talks about this. I just could’nt find the interview again on youtube.