In late 2015, music producer Rick Beato on a lark posted a Facebook video of his 8-year-old son Dylan demonstrating “perfect pitch” by easily identifying solo notes, paired notes and chords. Much to Beato’s astonishment, it went viral, drawing more than 20 million views.
Playing off that video, Beato briefly dabbled in Facebook livestreaming, but an intern, Rhett Shull, suggested he start a YouTube channel instead. Beato’s knowledge, enthusiasm and pure love for music quickly shone through and his videos took off.
Six years later, the 60-year-old Stone Mountain resident has attracted nearly 3.3 million YouTube subscribers, more than a half-billion total views and enough income that he never has to produce another song again.
Beato’s 1,100-plus videos to date range from what makes a song great (e.g., “All the Small Things” by Blink-182, Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”) to top 20 countdowns of, say, the best rock anthems or strangest guitar solos.
“I’m like the luckiest guy in the world,” Beato (pronounced Bee-AH-Toe) said recently in his studio. “I get to talk about anything I want.”
In the past month, he honored Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, who died Nov. 30, by playing some of his favorites written and sung by her including “Songbird.” He riffed off a story viewers had sent him called “The Death of the Key Change” by spending nine minutes showing examples of key changes within famous songs such as Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” and Jackson 5′s “I’ll Be There.” He critiqued the most recent Top 10 pop songs by the likes of Bad Bunny and Sam Smith.
“His stuff is so engaging,” said Steve Craig, former morning host at 97.1/The River who has known Beato for more than a quarter-century since Beato’s days as a musician and producer. “They’re always in my YouTube feed. I start watching and 30 minutes later, I’ve seen three or four in a row.” His favorite video is Beato’s breakdown of the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
Beato’s popularity has also enabled him to interview his musical heroes, such as Queen’s Brian May, Peter Frampton, Joe Satriani and Pat Matheny.
Sting’s publicist reached out to Beato after Beato posted a video called “Why Sting is Uncopyable,” where he explained his own love for the man’s music. “He actually knows the purpose of every note,” Beato said on the video. They talked for an hour and he got to pick Sting’s brain over how he wrote particular songs.
“I can’t believe I’ve gotten interviews with people like this,” Beato said. “I combine my music knowledge and fandom together. I want to learn what they know. I want to learn what they do. That’s really exciting to me.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Beato grew up in upstate New York in a musical family. Tape players were everywhere. His dad played jazz, his mom, classical and folk. He was playing the cello at age 7, then played classical bass. He taught himself to play guitar at age 13, learning hundreds of songs by ear, from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin.
He was part of multiple rock bands in high school. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and taught jazz studies for five years at Ithaca College. He switched gears at age 30 and signed with Polygram Publishing in 1992 to write music.
Beato moved to Atlanta in 1994 and joined a band called Billionaire. “We were like Led Zeppelin but way weirder,” he said. It didn’t quite take, so he pivoted to music producing.
Credit: INSTAGRAM
Credit: INSTAGRAM
Over the years, Beato produced hit albums for bands like Needtobreathe, Parmalee and Shinedown. He co-wrote the No. 1 country hit “Carolina” for Parmalee in 2013. Over nearly 20 years, he estimates he worked on 750 different projects.
“At the time, a lot of people thought he was this impatient guy who thinks he could do everything better than everybody else,” said Greg Lee, a longtime Atlanta musician who is part of Yacht Rock Revue. “But what we’ve learned is he can do everything better than everybody else. When Sting is excited to talk to you, that says something.”
Beato said he was burnt out producing music by the mid-2010s. Once he could monetize his popular YouTube channel, he moved exclusively to producing videos.
“This,” Beato said, “is way more fun. Producing was a 100-hour-a-week job. I took the skills I gained through thousands of music producing sessions to make videos.”
Beato, who is married with three kids whose names evoke rock legends (Dylan, Lennon and Layla, referencing the Eric Clapton song), works out of his own fully appointed music studio — with 60 guitars (including his own signature $1,999 Gibson guitar with proceeds to given to charity) and high-end recording equipment. He only shoots videos outside of his own studio when he visits big-name musicians.
Often wearing his signature denim shirt, he records about three videos a week. Most seem simple, with graphics added to illustrate chords and songs he’s referencing.
“But you can’t phone this in,” Beato said. “Every video takes a ton of work. Some videos blow up and you don’t know why.” His countdown videos tend to draw the most views.
“Top 20 Acoustic Guitar Intros of All Time,” which he recorded in 2019, is his most popular video to date with 17.4 million views. (No. 1 guitar intro in his opinion: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”) He plays the intros himself on an acoustic guitar.
His fan base includes both musicians and random fans, some famous. “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe sought Beato out earlier this year for his podcast. “I found my docent, I found my guide into the bottomless well of music online,” Rowe told Beato.
Brené Brown, a professor known for her TED talks on vulnerability and shame, sang his praises on another podcast. Chris Hardwick, the stand-up comic, liked his videos so much, he recently invited him to talk about the music on “The Walking Dead” on his talk show “Talking Dead,” Beato’s first ever appearance on television.
Hardwick, on “Talking Dead,” said they became friends after he discovered Beato’s video channel. “As a guitar student and music student, I’ve learned so much from you and your channel,” he said to Beato.
And Beato, describing the experience sandwiched between two “Walking Dead” actresses, noted, “It’s remarkable to see a highly produced television show. It’s really incredible.”
Fans love how tightly brisk Beato’s non-interview videos feel, many of which clock in at eight to 15 minutes.
While editing the “Walking Dead” TV appearance video with his assistant Billy Jones, Beato was quite exacting in terms of what he felt worked. “It’s too red,” he said at one point.
He cut a short clip referencing a composer because it felt repetitive. “Boom!” he exclaimed triumphantly after deleting an eight-second clip. “Right to the scene!”
On top of ad revenue from the videos, he also sells books, online educational courses about music theory and ear training and monthly Beato Club subscriptions.
Because he often plays music from the original artists in his videos, he’s had videos taken down and has been required to sometimes give ad money over to the songwriters. He has testified in Congress about fair use. “I’m doing fair use videos for the most part,” he said. “I feel a responsibility to help people that don’t have the platform I do. You can’t teach music without giving examples.”
Still, over time, he realized his channel’s purpose has shifted.
“My channel is now really a music appreciation channel more than a music teaching channel,” he said.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
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