The Beatles with Strings

Great Moments in Vinyl plays The Beatles with Strings

January 20, 2019 • City Winery Chicago • Chicago, IL

Featuring Phil Angotti on lead vocals and guitar with Joe Camarillo on drums and vocals, Jim Ryan on keyboards and vocals, William Lindsey Cochran on bass, storytelling, and kitchen timer, plus our string quartet: Philip Roach, Gerle Tumurbaatar, Myra Hinrichs, and Kyle Besetzny.

Some of the best loved Beatles songs are songs that they themselves never got to perform live. They began as a four-piece band, but their creative vision expanded in the studio to include instruments that took them beyond the basic format of rock and roll. With the assistance of their innovative producer, George Martin, they added a string quartet to “Yesterday” and dispensed with the band entirely on “Eleanor Rigby.” They used the sound of violins to good effect on the politically savvy “Piggies” and the mind-blowing “A Day in the Life.” Then, producer Phil Spector put his touch on songs such as “The Long and Winding Road” and “Across the Universe” by adding a full orchestra. It wasn’t only the words and melodies that put The Beatles in a class by themselves, it was their memorable arrangements, too.

For their first Sunday Brunch performance at City Winery, Great Moments in Vinyl presents The Beatles with Strings, an assortment of songs that feature strings from throughout the band’s career. And as always at a Great Moments in Vinyl show, you’ll be drawn into the music with stories about the songs and the musicians who created them.