The first jazz record ever recorded was by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917, and of course they were white because racism always rears its ugly head to hold black people back. When rock and roll exploded into human consciousness during the early 1950′s, black musicians like Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Smokey Robinson pioneered the way, but a white DJ named Alan Freed is believed to have coined the term “rock and roll”. The first real rock and roll record was “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, written by Jesse Stone who was black and recorded by Big Joe Turner who was also black but it wasn’t a hit. The vast majority of jazz and rock bands recorded songs written by songwriters who were not performers, with occasional exceptions like Duke Ellington and Buddy Holly. All time.

Paul is angelic in his pink suit with a white laced shirt. John is enigmatic peering out from the background.

The qualities which do make both Paul and John the best songwriters in history go beyond writing the greatest number of catchy classic songs. John and Paul’s melodies soared, floated, cascaded, dived and peaked with true dynamics, naturally following the syllabic lyric patterns – but not always. In the beginning, their lyrics were simple and their songs were simple love songs.

Average songwriters achieve the catchy quality by repeating a phrase endlessly or by beating a chorus to death. John and Paul found countless ways to be memorable without ever overly repeating something. Combining John, Paul and George created the best harmony vocals the world has ever experienced. John had a knack of placing a unique low harmony line underneath Paul’s high melody line so as to form a second melody which created unusual harmony effects. George is underrated as a lead guitarist by people with average or below average musical knowledge or ability, but most guitarists (including Eric Clapton) know better. George continually developed new guitar sounds for each Beatles song. John and Paul are also excellent guitarists and both recorded great leads as well as innovative rhythm tracks. The exact same thing can be said about John and Paul’s keyboard playing. Ringo mastered the art of drum sounds. Ringo invented a new style of slow drum playing, epitomized on A Day in the Life and Strawberry Fields Forever. John said many times, “Ringo has the best back beat in the business” and the successful studio drummers understand why John was correct.