Rick Beato
Richard John Beato (/biˈɑːtoʊ/ bee-AH-toh; born April 24, 1962[2]) is an American YouTube personality, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and educator. Since the early 1980s, he has worked variously as a musician, songwriter, audio engineer, and record producer; he has lectured on music at several universities.
Beato owns and operates Black Dog Sound Studios in Stone Mountain, which is in a suburb of Atlanta; he has produced for and worked with bands such as Needtobreathe, Parmalee, and Shinedown in the studio.[3] He is known for his YouTube channel on which he covers different aspects of rock, jazz, blues, techno, rap, and popular music as well as interviews with well-known musicians and producers.
Early life and education
Beato was born into a large family in Fairport, New York, a suburb 9 miles (14 km) east of Rochester. He is the sixth of seven children; he has two sisters and four brothers. His family life was highly musical; at an early age he was introduced to the rock music of the 1960s by his older sisters. His mother's siblings and father were musicians and music teachers; there was always music of many different eras and genres playing in the house. He started playing cello at seven; at 13 he switched to the double bass and at 14 he started playing guitar. He initially learned to play guitar by ear training himself; after several years he began formal training from a neighbor who owned a local music store.[4]
After graduating from Fairport High School in 1980, he studied at Ithaca College obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in classical bass. He earned a master's degree in jazz guitar studies from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1987.[5][6][4]
YouTube career
A YouTube video of Dylan, his eldest child who has perfect pitch and can identify individual notes within complex chords after just one hearing,[18][19] received three million views, causing Beato to parlay this social-media fame into a full-fledged YouTube channel.[20] As of February 2024, the YouTube channel has 3.98 million subscribers.[21]
One series on Beato's channel is called What Makes This Song Great?, in which he deconstructs and discusses the elements of popular songs. The videos in the series regularly get over one million views.[22] He posts videos on music theory and production techniques, song lists like "Top 20 Acoustic Guitar Intros", and interviews with artists, producers, and other music industry professionals.
Several of Beato's YouTube videos, including the ones with Radiohead and Fleetwood Mac, were issued take-down notices because of copyright claims. In July 2020, he testified on YouTube about his experiences before a United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary reviewing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and considering limitations and exceptions such as fair use.[23][24]
In February 2023, Beato released an extensive interview video with Keith Jarrett, made at Jarrett's home and home studio after Jarrett suffered two strokes. The interview received nearly half a million views in its first few days on YouTube and was praised by journalist and radio veteran Bill King.[25]
In November 2023, Beato testified before a U.S. Senate A.I. Insight forum on transparency, intellectual property and copyright. In his testimony, he proposed licensing policy for musical datasets similar to the music licensing used for films or public performances.[26]