A Beatles Collection
$9.95
Neil’s second album of solo guitar arrangements continues in the style of A Christmas Collection but focuses on the music of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. It didn’t occur to him that including Octopus’s Garden or Don’t Pass Me By would mean all the Beatles could be credited.
Sorry Ringo, but we’re sure he is accustomed to it.
Description
Neil’s Notes
As 1988 turned into 1989, I had just finished my first holiday season where people were buying, listening to, and hopefully enjoying my album A Christmas Collection. Part of this was thanks to some nice folks at Lifedance Distributing who saw fit to help get it into some gift and book stores around the country.
As I thought about making a non-holiday album to follow up, looking at Beatles tunes was a bit of a no-brainer. The hard part was picking enough for just one CD.
Just about every day I would sit down with the guitar and play through about 35 songs, experimenting with different ways of arranging the chords and melodies, and then combining them into medleys.
In early June I went into my friend, Joe Weed’s studio and just started playing, without much of a real plan. I spent about 3 hours on a Friday and another 3 the next day, pretty much improvising around the songs I had been messing with. A few days later we put the songs in order and sent the tape off to be mastered.
Even now, 30-odd years later, I am still very proud of A Beatles Collection.
A Beatles Collection by solo guitarist Neil Hogan is one of the few efforts which generally succeeds in giving the Fab Four a listenable classical air.
Playing just an acoustic steel-stringed guitar, Hogan has arranged a number of Beatles chestnuts into medleys which bring the band’s melodic brilliance into clear focus.
Hogan’s background includes years of studying ragtime, and it’s this experience which makes most of these arrangements succeed.
He keeps a lively bass line moving, at times (like on Penny Lane) with astonishingly complex figures, transforming rock to rags with an energy that keeps the toes tapping.
If you just can’t get enough Beatles, or if you like acoustic guitar music, you’ll find Neil Hogan’s A Beatles Collection worth your while.
Michael Wright, Goldmine