The Beatles on mandolin

[journeybear]

Personally, while I'm all about Rubber Soul and Revolver, my vote for under-appreciated album is the Help! soundtrack (even though side B was all the George Martin orchestral stuff), if for no other reason than my favorite George song and one of my all-time favoite Beatles songs is on there, "I Need You." The groove on that, the lilting melody, the way George uses his volume control on the fills in the verses - it's a brilliantly understated gem, Exhibit A in the three-minute art form known as "pop song."

[ISU Trout Bum]

I've been playing Blackbird on guitar for so many years. Funny, that I've never tried to play it on mandolin.

Hi Santiago:

Do you know, off the top of your head, a place to find the 'dots' or tab for Blackbird? That would be a great song to learn on the mando or zouk!

Thanks in advance.

Best,
Eric

[Miked]

I am thoroughly hooked on the Beatlegras arrangements. I guess they don't play outside their home state much, -- but if they ever do, I'd love to hear them live.

THANKS for the link! These guys are really good! They're playing Bay City, Michigan July 28th. It's on the calendar!

[Amandalyn]

that was great- never saw that video before!

[Jim MacDaniel]

No mando-content, but I just heard Dwight Yoakam cover of "The Last Time" yesterday on the radio -- what a great cover! I liked it almost as much as his cover of The Dead's "Truckin'".

[jefflester]

No mando-content, but I just heard Dwight Yoakam cover of "The Last Time" yesterday on the radio -- what a great cover! I liked it almost as much as his cover of The Dead's "Truckin'".

The Stones' song?

[Jim MacDaniel]

Ooops -- you're right <embarrassed grin>
(but it's still a great cover )

[tree]

Years ago Rosanne Cash did a cover of I Don't Want To Spoil The Party, it was so good it made me learn the song as a duet with my wife (she gets McCartney's impossible high parts). It's been years since I heard Rosanne's version, but in my memory of it I really wish they had let the steel guitar just roll with it, that could've been a sparkling break.

The lads were extraordinary with their chords in those early years. Light years beyond the I, IV, V rut that I got stuck in at that age.

[Paul Kotapish]

Chris and Lorin Rowan (Peter Rowan's brothers) have a band with David Gans (host of the syndicated Dead to the World radio show) called Rubber Souldiers. They specialize in Beatles songs with killer harmonies and extended improv sections--kind of a Grateful Beatles take on the songbook. Lorin plays mandolin on a bunch of their stuff. (Check out the Cafe calendar for March 1.)



I love playing mando on Beatles stuff. I think it sounds particularly good playing a crisp octave doubling of the classic guitar hooks on songs like "Day Tripper," "And Your Bird Can Sing," "Norwegian Wood," etc. Those parts were often doubled (in unison) on the recordings, and the mando/guitar combo can elicit some of that feel playing the songs acoustically.

[Anti]

I would freakin' love it if someone did a mandolin cover of I Feel Fine.
It'd be even cooler if they had tabs so simple folks like me could learn it.
Thats my little beatles mandolin fantasy.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Also check out Peter Mayer's new release, Goodbye, Hello. I don't know if he adds any mando, but his guitar work and vocals is excellent all the way through.

[HddnKat]

THANKS for the link! These guys are really good! They're playing Bay City, Michigan July 28th. It's on the calendar!

PTL for digital album downloads and saving your CC number on Amazon.com - I listened to about 3 clips on their website and I couldn't get over to Amazon fast enough to download their album to my iPod - dang, what a sound!---nothing like a little immediate gratificaiton!

[kazbah_707]

Eric upstream asked for "Blackbird" tabs. Here's what I play on my octave mando, which is actually being worked on right now, so I'll do my best to hack this out on a regular mando. No tabs or dots, but I'll list the chord voicings I use, section by section.

Assuming you know the song reasonably well, you should be able to figure it out from there. I'll list fret positions lo-hi for a standard GDAE tuning, with 0 being an open string and X being a non-struck or damped string.

If I list a note on the bottom G, and an open D adjacent, assume the G is being fretted with my thumb. If you play more classical style, you'll have to adjust.

The chord I have the most difficulty with is the 1-beat 5-5-7-3 inversion of C.

Intro/first line - "Blackbird singing in the dead of night"
0-0-2-3 (G)
2-0-3-3
4-0-5-3
0-0-10-10

"Take these broken wings and learn to"
0-2-3-0 (C) - these chords go by real fast, only 1-beat each
0-5-4-3
2-4-5-2 (D)
X-7-6-5
"Fly"
0-5-7-7
0-5-6-7
0-5-5-7 - these 2 chords go by real fast, only 1-beat each
0-5-7-7
0-5-7-8
0-5-6-8

To be continued......

[kazbah_707]

"You were only waiting for this moment to arrive"
0-5-5-3 (G)
2-2-4-3 (A7)
0-2-3-3 (C)
0-0-2-3 (G)
Turnaround:
5-5-7-3 (C)
0-5-5-3 (G)
2-2-4-3 (A7)
0-2-3-3 (C)
0-0-2-3 (G)
"Blackbird, fly..." mostly 1-beaters
10-12-X-X
9-10-X-X
7-8-X-X
5-7-X-X
3-5-X-X
5-7-X-X
Second pass, almost the same
10-12-X-X
9-10-X-X
7-8-X-X
5-7-X-X
3-5-X-X
2-5-X-X
2-0-5-2 (D)
2-0-3-2 (D7) and back to intro

I'm pretty sure everything else is a variant combination of the above.
Let me know if there are any particular questions.

Alan

[Amandalyn]

Kazbah- would love to hear your version of Blackbird on Octave- can you post an MP3 or video?

also- have you all been over to the Beatles Social group on the cafe?

[kazbah_707]

Hi Teri/Amandalyn,

I don't have a videocam, so it may be a while unfortunately.
My 3-piece is gearing up for public performance, so sometime soon
we'll probably do some recording, but we're not there yet.

When we do, I'll try to find some extra time in the schedule to
do one or two OM takes. Sorry I don't have any right now.

As I said above, as long as you're fairly familiar with how the song goes,
the notes above should enable you to get thru it reasonably easily - although
it's probably not for absolute beginners, unless they're really, really patient.

The 2-note section sounds a little thin on mando alone - I normally play the
song with a guitarist who sings and plays it, so it works fine. The guitar part
is basically also 2-note, but it keeps hitting the G-drone as well. It's workable as
as mando solo piece, but that's not what I really intended.

I have been to the Beatles social group, and originally intended to post this
there, but the question came up again and I had time to answer it here.
My search-fu must be weak, since I signed up for the Beatles group, but
can't always seem to find it when I'm looking for it.

Feel free to cross-post a link if you think people would be interested.

Best...Alan

[Tim C.]

I love the Beatles and I love the mandolin! I've arranged three songs for solo mandolin, Here Comes the Sun, Yesterday and Something - all three are available on CD, download and sheet music with notation and mandolin tablature.

Free audio samples, videos of Yesterday and Sun and a free sample of "Sun" notation/tab to get you started all available at my website: timconnellmusic.com

Thanks, hope you like them!
Tim

[Steven C. Antonelli]

For mandolin ensembles you can't beet Mandolin Cafe regular Bob Margo's arrangement of Beatles tunes. He tackles some of the more complicated later stuff as well and captures all the little nuances of the records.

[fingerstyle2]

Evan Marshall did four Beatles tunes on solo mando on "Mandolin Magic" and two on "The Lone Arranger." Beautiful stuff and worth checking out!

David

https://smile.amazon.com/Mandolin-Ma...shall+mandolin

[crisscross]

I came up with an arrangement for ukulele and tremoloed bowlback for the song that started out as "Scrambled Egg".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9u41mznfuc
The period from 64-66 has my favorite Beatles records: A hard Day's Night, Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver.

[Ranald]

[QUOTE=journeybear;772817]The Beatles get mentioned a good bit hereabouts. Their influence is far-reaching and complex. By all accounts they never used mandolin in the band, and just a bit in their solo careers - Paul on "Dance Tonight", George on "Gone Troppo." Today would have been George's 67th birthday, and far from bemoan his passing, I thought I'd share with you a bit of fun someone shared with me. No MC whatsoever ...


This isn't terribly important, but George would have been older than that. He was a man in his twenties when I saw him on the Ed Sullivan Show, as a boy of eleven, and I'm 65 now. According his his bio in Wikipedia, George is coming up to what would have been his 75th birthday on February 25. Anyway, we all love him, old or older, and it's sad that he died too soon.

[FLATROCK HILL]

Today would have been George's 67th birthday, and far from bemoan his passing, I thought I'd share with you a bit of fun someone shared with me. No MC whatsoever ...

This isn't terribly important, but George would have been older than that. He was a man in his twenties when I saw him on the Ed Sullivan Show, as a boy of eleven, and I'm 65 now. According his his bio in Wikipedia, George is coming up to what would have been his 75th birthday on February 25. Anyway, we all love him, old or older, and it's sad that he died too soon.

You are both right. You are replying to a statement that was made eight years ago.

[Ranald]

You are both right. You are replying to a statement that was made eight years ago.

Oops. Not sure how that happened. I was responding to what was supposed to be today's message.