{"id":572,"date":"2007-05-16T23:02:45","date_gmt":"2007-05-17T03:02:45","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-07-18T10:50:11","modified_gmt":"2009-07-18T10:50:11","slug":"once-and-for-all-the-fifth-beatle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/once-and-for-all-the-fifth-beatle\/","title":{"rendered":"Once and for All: The Fifth Beatle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><object type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/onceandforall.swf\" width=\"400\" height=\"275\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/onceandforall.swf\" \/><\/object><\/div>\n<p>As we all know, the End Times are upon us.<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Wd5pq3eezjs?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAnd there are several rock-related issues that require closure.  Up first, Who IS <ins><strong>The Fifth Beatle<\/strong><\/ins>?  This term has been bandied about more than Paris Hilton&#8217;s labia and I for one am more than ready for some closure.  And to my mind there is only ONE logical answer but apparently there are others with &#8220;opinions&#8221; of their own.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Wikipedia does a pretty good job of outlining the &#8220;candidates&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fifth_beatle\" title=\"null\">here<\/a>.  So good in fact that some of this write-up is blatantly plagarized.  There are 25-some odd people mentioned here!  A few make sense: <strong>Stu Sutcliffe<\/strong>, Pete Best.  I would genuinely listen to arguments for these gents.   Although if you&#8217;re going to argue these guys, wouldn&#8217;t &#8211; like &#8211; Pete be the fourth, Stu the fifth, and Ringo the Sixth?  Feel free to Prince Nez me on the chronology here.<\/p>\n<p>But Billy Preston?  <strong>Klaus Voorman<\/strong>?  Phil Spector?!!!  Give me a break!  And who the fuck is <strong>Alf Bicknell<\/strong>?!  Please.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, The Beatles themselves are WRONG on the issue.  Depending on your source, either George and\/or Ringo declared <strong>Murray the K<\/strong> as <ins><strong>The Fifth Beatle<\/strong><\/ins>.  At the Beatles&#8217; 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, George Harrison stated that there were only <em>two<\/em> &#8220;fifth Beatles&#8221;: <strong>Derek Taylor<\/strong> and <strong>Neil Aspinall<\/strong>. That&#8217;s just bad math.  Paul McCartney, in 1997, stated: &#8220;If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was <strong>Brian<\/strong>.&#8221; This statment by Paul precedes Linda&#8217;s death so I&#8217;m more likely to give it credibility.  Anything A.L. though is just pops and buzzes.<\/p>\n<p>To make this issue more imminent is the upcoming film, yup, <strong><ins><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fifthbeatlemovie.com\/\" title=\"null\">The Fifth Beatle<\/a><\/ins><\/strong>, a biopic on the life of Brian Epstein.  Anyone here bi-curious?  <\/p>\n<p>OK, so here&#8217;s the fact:  The only possible <ins><strong>The Fifth Beatle<\/strong><\/ins> can be <strong>George Martin<\/strong>.  George Martin produced nearly all the Beatles&#8217; recordings and wrote the instrumental score for the <em>Yellow Submarine<\/em> soundtrack album, and the string and horn (and even some vocal) arrangements for almost all of their songs (with the famous exception of the Phil Spector re-production <em>Let It Be<\/em>). Martin&#8217;s piano playing also appears on several of their tracks, including &#8220;Misery&#8221; and &#8220;In My Life&#8221;.   <\/p>\n<p>So is this just a rhetorical post or does someone disagree?  If there is dissent here, let&#8217;s hear it and afterwards we&#8217;ll set up a poll and let The People decide.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WARNING:<\/strong> Arguments for Jeff Lynne will be immediately deleted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we all know, the End Times are upon us. And there are several rock-related issues that require closure. Up first, Who IS The Fifth Beatle? This term has been bandied about more than Paris Hilton&#8217;s labia and I for one am more than ready for some closure. And to my mind there is only <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/once-and-for-all-the-fifth-beatle\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[88],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}