CAIRO - Televisions! Where would we be without them? I guess we would be someplace where there are no televisions! The other day there was a very interesting movie on television and I believe that “interesting” is the right word I didn't like it but I do like the original songs it was based on. Yes the entire movie was based on tracks originally recorded by the Beatles. One of the two surviving Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney, is going to be 69 four days from now, so I guess it is appropriate to talk about this phenomenally successful band. By the way, I hope I could write a very special article on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' debut official release, but this will be on 5th October 2012. Let me tell you about that movie which was named after the Beatles song “Across the Universe”. The plot itself mixes British citizens with American ones as a symbol of the Beatles musical invasion of America in the 1960s. The film featured hippy girls and guys, musicians, war, riots, etc. Needless to say, countless songs were performed because this is a musical and seriously, if it had its own soundtrack I probably might have liked it. However, one of the most disappointing things was the output of the songs used in the film naturally most of them were hugely successful when they were made by the Beatles and one can't help but compare the cover versions performed in the movie to the original masterpieces. I really doubt that anyone would prefer the latter ones. Even the role played by Bono, the singer of U2, didn't help. Joe Cocker also appeared but I never liked him anyway. However, this motion picture was commercially successful upon its release in 2007. The movie makers tried to come up with a psychedelic musical but I don't think it appealed to as many people as expected. Well, that wasn't the first musical motion picture based on Beatles classics performed by other artists. In 1978 a disaster called “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released. Named after the Beatles 1967 album, the film's leading roles were played by rocker Peter Frampton and three brothers who were at the peak of their success at the time with their own songs. In real life, these three brothers competed even with the Beatles. The latter's producer, Sir George Martin, said that he never heard anyone, who could sing in such harmony like this trio, known to the world as the Bee Gees. The brothers admitted later that they shouldn't have taken part in that film. By all means it was a very bad movie and even the contributions of exceptionally talented acts like Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Earth, Wind & Fire and Billy Preston didn't save the day. Since we've mentioned two hard rock icons, I would like to ask you a question don't you think that Alice Cooper looks like Aerosmith's singer Steven Tyler, who looks a bit like the Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger? Well, Steven and Mick have the same kind of “lip attitude” �" they do weird stuff with their lips while singing. It seemed scary to me when I was young but now I find it funny. As I was saying, “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” was a very disappointing movie, especially at a time when the whole world was amazed by the work of the Bee Gees in the previous year Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb provided six songs for the record breaking soundtrack to the movie “Saturday Night Fever”, which made a star out of one John Travolta. Two of these numbers were previously released “Jive Talkin'” taken from the 1975 album “Main Course” and “You Should Be Dancing”, which was included on the 1976 album “Children of the World”. Funnily enough “Jive Talkin'” was inspired by a bridge! Seriously, on their way to a recording studio they used to cross that bridge and every time they did, their car made a sound that inspired the song's guitar intro. Just like the Bee Gees' masterpiece “I Started A Joke” was inspired by an airplane's jet engine! I guess artistic creativity has no limits. I think I mentioned the album “Main Course”, which featured a very special song called “Nights on Broadway”. I don't just mean that it is just a superb one, but it also has a special significance in the career of the Bee Gees it was the first time for them to use their falsetto (false voice) singing technique to produce the very high notes they got famous for. They were not aware at the time that they could sing using that extended vocal range but they did and excelled in it. What about the remaining four “Saturday Night Fever” tracks? They were just average Bee Gees ones. Of course I'm kidding! By the way, even what might be average from the Bee Gees is without a doubt a masterpiece. Anyway, these four tracks were the anthem of survival “Stayin' Alive”, the ultimate love song “How Deep Is Your Love?”, the disco epic “Night Fever” and “More than a Woman”, which was also covered on the same album by American band Tavares. Does that increase the number of songs written by the Bee Gees for this soundtrack to seven? No, actually eight numbers, because Yvonne Elliman's “If I Can't Have You” was also written by the brothers Gibb. How come they wrote eight tracks? Simply because the movie producer was Robert Stigwood, who was also their manager and he told them that he was working on that little film and asked them to contribute songs to it. They were working on a new album at the time and some of the songs were already written so they decided to give them to Robert. Of course nothing could have been more suitable even if they had written them especially for the movie. So the question now is why did they cover the Beatles songs and also star in that movie along with Peter Frampton? The answer is simple Robert Stigwood was the producer of this flop as well. I wanted to tell you about another movie based on hits by another legendary band but I only have enough space to write the following… Send me your calculators to: [email protected]
