The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Beatles Is Available Now By Clicking Here
"Live At The Star-Club"
(Recorded December 1962; Released April
8th 1977)
Introduction-I
Saw Her Standing There/Roll Over Beethoven/Hippy Hippy Shake/Sweet Little
Sixteen/Lend Me Your Comb/Your Feet's Too Big//Twist and Shout/Mr Moonlight/A
Taste Of Honey/Besame Mucho/Reminiscing/Kansas City-Hey! Hey! Hey!
Hey!//Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees)/To Know Her Is To Love
Her/Little Queenie/Falling In Love Again/Ask Me Why/Be Bop-A-Lula/Hallelujah I
Love Her So//Red Sails In The Sunset/Everybody's Trying To Be My
Baby/Matchbox/Talkin' 'Bout You/Shimmy Like Kate/Long Tall Sally/I Remember You
(American
edition includes the additional songs 'I'm Gonna Sit Down And Cry Over
You''Where Have You Been All My Life?' 'Til' There Was You' and 'Sheila')
"This next song is here by special
request...it's for Hitler!"
How fantastic that this treasure trove should have
survived intact: despite only having one single out in Britain and being far
from household names, a whole hour of one of The Beatles' last performances in
Hamburg was captured on tape for posterity. The fact is this tape only exists
by chance: King Curtis, leader of another promising Merseyside band away from
home in Hamburg, saved up to buy a new tape recorder to record his own band and
asked Star Club stage manager Adrian Barber to oblige in recording him and
whatever other band was on that night. The Beatles just happened to be the
'other' band and are effectively the 'tape testers' for Curtis' set later on
(Lennon reportedly agreed on being taped on behalf of the others to having a
single microphone thrust on stage in return for a case of beer, little thinking
he'd ever it again!) Curtis could have wiped the tape (Tapes were precious in
those days and The Beatles weren't yet big names, with only 'Love Me Do' to
their name at the time). He could have simply taped one song to test his
microphone (as opposed to the hour he seems to have recorded). The microphone
could have malfunctioned. One of The Beatles could have been sick that night.
Any number of reasons could have conspired against this tape surviving long
enough to be useful - and yet here it is, in our hands (sort of).
How ironic, too, that it should be four lads from
the second most bombed city in England during World War Two who find their
sound in the most bombed German city of the same conflict. The Beatles are away
from home, the eldest of them (Ringo) just 22 in a foreign land that, less than
20 years before, was attempting to blow them up. Without the long hours in
Hamburg to up their game The Beatles might have ended up like everybody else,
left behind post-skiffle and never quite tight enough to make the big time.
Goodness knows they'd been turned down by enough managers and venues by 1962
and struggled to even keep hold of a drummer. Yet Hamburg, hard as it was, sad
as it was at times (with the band breaking up after George was deported the
first time in 1960 - he's 19 here and old enough to play legally! - and with
the sad death of Stuart Sutcliffe at just 21), the eight hour shifts really
pushed the band to their limits, forcing them to grow their own identity both
as a band and as individuals and to on the one hand extend songs for several
minutes of improvised jamming and on the other make the setlists eclectic
enough to be able to cover any genre at the drop of a hat. Hamburg made The
Beatles telepathic and without it they wouldn't have had first a single for
Brian Epstein to be sent on a wild goose chase for - or secondly impressed
their manager so much when he did finally track them down. The years at the
Cavern Club were important too of course (sadly only a few rehearsals and one
TV clip exists of the band there so it's impact on history is hard to judge) -
but Hamburg is where the Beatles were 'manufactured', even if back home in
Liverpool is where they were 'sold' (or as Lennon put it 'I was born in
Liverpool, but Hamburg was where I grew up!)' The chance to hear this little
snippet of history - the only tape of The Beatles in the city that made them -
is breath-taking.
There are lots of caveats attached to this tape
though. The sound, as you'd expect from a tiny microphone directly plugged into
a tape reel, used to be appalling until bootleggers devoted hours to cleaning
it up in the 1990s (now it sounds merely awful). The recording is at times so
grotty that, even cleaned up, it’s not worth your while trying to work out
what’s going on past the sound of Star Club patrons and noisy waiters (did they
always make this much noise when they were playing?!) Many of the tracks end suddenly, spliced into the next one as
Barber was too trigger-happy on the 'pause' button, reducing some to a mere 90
seconds. This is also The Beatles not of legend and as seen in 'Backbeat' -
young, hungry and ready to rock - but a band who've spent too many hours on
stage and want to get home (to be honest with two EMI recording sessions under
their belt they've outgrown Hamburg and sound resentful at still having to
play). Several songs sound slurred, suggesting this is the end of the band's
eight hour set when they're badly drunk, not the beginning when they were
(hopefully) sparking on full cylinders. Lennon especially sounds subdued,
perhaps still haunted by the ghost of his friend Stuart Sutcliffe who died just
around the corner a mere eight months before.
What’s most impressive is how wide-ranging the
band’s set list is: even back in 1962 The Beatles chose to play obscure B-sides
rather than the better known songs that might have got them bigger rounds of
applause (and more beer) from the pretty disinterested-sounding audience and
already their arranging skills are making old classics sounds like Beatle tunes
already. However while there are a lot
of songs here that the band will do later, few of these recordings are
definitive and this album is more interesting as an insight into just how
eclectic the band's setlist was back then (including- depending on which of the
many variations of this album you own - nine whole songs The Beatles never
returned to again and which are all detailed below in our 'non-album' section).
The ones that work best are the ones that we know The Beatles knew well:
powerhouses like 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'I Saw Her Standing There'. Note the lack of Lennon/McCartney originals in the set-list too
(just 'Standing' and 'Ask Me Why', with perhaps the German crowd much more
receptive to songs they vaguely knew, even if they were being sung in a foreign
language). Practically all the cover songs are in truth much better played in
their BBC Session variety. However there are many surprises well worth
listening out for The ones of most
interest are songs the band won't return to for years yet and which will be
changed beyond all recognition, long after the Hamburg arrangements were
forgotten: 'Kansas City' 'Mr Moonlight' (with the delightful Lennonism 'Here I
am on my nose, waiting for you please...'), 'Long Tall Sally' 'Matchbox' (with
Lennon on lead!)and 'Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby' (which is the one track
here that improves the album version, mainly because Lennon gets the tricky
stop-start passages spot-on here) - the only time either 'recorded' this song
as 'The Beatles'. 'Twist and Shout', about three
months away from being one of the most famous songs on the planet courtesy of
'Please Please Me' is prefaced here by a
brief extract from Bo Diddleys' 'Roadrunner'. Oh and there's a cover of Gene
Vincent's 'Be Bop-A-Lula' 12 and 27 years earlier, respectively, than the more
famous Lennon and McCartney solo cover versions! Even the rest are fascinating
if you're as big a Beatlenut as I am just for the slightly different nuances -
a different guitar solo here, a missing harmony part there. This tape is also
interesting for what's not here: either side of the band's one and only release
at this point, 'Love Me Do' - did Barber's trigger-happy fingers fail to record
them? Or had The Beatles already moved on to other things?
The Star Club Tapes have always attracted a lot of
criticism from fans and are far from The Beatles at their best. One of the
songs here ('Fallin' In Love Again') even features The Beatles providing
backing not for Tony Sheridan or Helen Shapiro but for the Star Club waiter
Fred Fascher, the 1962 equivalent of Adele putting a karaoke section in her
act. But if treated in the right spirit, rather than a 'new' Beatles release,
that's just part of the fun. Sure, it’ll never stop the people who saw The Who
live laughing at The Beatles’ stage antics but, hey, if even the great Who had
started out playing dingy German clubs with no original songs in their material
they wouldn’t have sounded better than this.
and yet - I say again - how fabulous that this exists, a golden
opportunity to hear The Beatles 'at play' as it were - the only time they
weren't singing for an audience bigger than the amount of people in the room.
Of course it's no substitute for the records or even The BBC Sessions, but it's
better than nothing and by golly - despite all the circumstances working
against them - The Beatles still sound amazing. Even at less than their peak you
can still hear why they made such an impact on Astrid and Klaus and all the
rest and why The Beatles made such an impact with their 'new, improved' sound
when they got back home to the Cavern Club. One other revelation is Ringo's
drumming: he may have only been in the band four months but he's already nailed
the band's loud and heavy sound, his playing well suited to a live arena with
echoey walls compared to the later outdoor concerts or the accuracy he needs at
Abbey Road. Lousy as the sound may be, this could be Ringo's greatest ever
Beatle album with Starr keeping things simple yet fluent throughout.
Which has raised an interesting point. When this
album was first released (semi-officially) in 1977 it came with the bold
statement on the back sleeve that it was taped during the band's 'Spring 1962'
and so therefore featured Pete Best on drums. So different is the drumming that
many fans accepted that (and Best went higher up in their estimation as a
result). However it turns out that this was a 'ruse' to get around the fact
that EMI had The Beatles under exclusive contract from the date of their first
session in August 1962: any other recording made automatically belonged to
them. Lennon, of course, had given his agreement (either forgetting or assuming
the tape wouldn't count for anything in the long run) but there was no contract
Curtis could produce. The show was actually taped the night of New Year's Eve
1962 (when the band had already recorded twice at Abbey Road) which might
account for the rather drunk atmosphere in the room (the band also mention 'new
years' at one point in their conversation, which rather gives the game away!)
You can understand, then, why The Beatles have
fought so many times repeatedly to block this tape - not least the fact that,
legally, EMI ow it (or at least the rights do what they like with it, including
sticking it in a vault). Curtis, realising this, first got in touch with Brian
Epstein in 1964 to discuss turning it into an album: while the band were
thrilled that it existed (they'd forgotten all about it) they were horrified at
the state of the recording and Brian only offered him £20 for the tapes (not a
lot even in 1964). No one quite knows what happened then: Curtis says that he
'forgot' about the tapes (unlikely given how big The Beatles were), while the
band's pre-Brian manager Allan Williams claims that Curtis went ahead trying to
make a record anyway, only for the publishing plant to go bust and taking the
tapes with it (he and Curtis reportedly broke in to 'steal' them back!) In 1973
Curtis tried again, meeting up with George and Ringo to discuss a £5000 deal:
again the timing was wrong (ongoing Apple court cases meant neither Beatles had
much money spare). Having been patient for so long Curtis then bowed to the inevitable:
he got in touch with Paul Murphy, head of minor label Lingasong, who agreed
that despite the legal minefield ahead of them The Beatles name would sell
enough records to hopefully pay for any court case. The album appeared in 1977
- The Beatles duly sued and blocked it. Pickwick Records re-issued it (with a
slightly different track listing plus the song 'Hully Gully', actually from a
quite different Hamburg performance by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers
featuring a young Frank Allen before he was a Searcher) in 1979 - The Beatles
sued again. In 1985 it was a 'pure' bootleg (ie not released on a legal label)
where it was called 'The Beatles v The Third Reich' in a cover that mimicked
'The Beatles v The Four Seasons'. This one was harder to stop. Giant label Sony
then surprisingly got in on the act, releasing the album in 1991 (the fullest
one yet, with all 33 songs recorded rather than 25 or 29 as per the other
versions), withdrawing the set in 1992 under legal pressure (The Beatles won
again but the court case dragged on for six years this time). To date the set
has never been re-issued, although it's found its natural home on 'Youtube',
where collectors have had fun passing it on under a variety of funny names to
escape the legal wrath of Apple. Most of the Beatles still hate these
recordings with a passion – one of George Harrison’s last non-musical act in
the public eye was to appear in court demanding it’s removal when another label
tried to revive it on CD in the 1990s – but Lennon in private is said to have
been rather pleased (indeed, the rumour is still strong that Lennon ‘leaked’
his copy in order to see it get a ‘proper’ release!) None of the sets are counted as 'canon', but they're still
important - and popular, the 1977 release reaching as high as #111 in the
American Billboard chart - and seem unlikely to ever go away. For better or for
worse, these tapes are very much a part of The Beatles story and look set to
remain so for a long time to come. Short on finesse but high on energy and power
and with a little dose of the magic that touched most everything else they did,
I'd say on balance it's for the better.
"Introducing...The Beatles"
(Vee
Jay, January 10th 1964)
(Note: after a court-case a second
version replaced 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You' with 'Please Please Me' and
'Ask Me Why'. This running order was also used on a third version re-titled
'Songs, Pictures and Stories of The Fabulous Beatles' circa October 1964)
I Saw Her Standing There/Misery/Anna (Go To
Him)/Chains/ Boys/Love Me Do//P.S. I Love You/Baby It's You/Do You Want To Know
A Secret?/A Taste Of Honey/There's A Place/Twist and Shout
"One-Two-Three-Four!...Or
not!"
Figuring that The Beatles craze was only a
peculiarly British phenomena and that, like every other popular band who tried,
the fab four would die a death in the United States, Capitol - owners of EMI -
passed on releasing the first four Beatles singles. Undeterred, Transglobal (a
branch of EMI that tried to place singles internationally) offered the Beatles'
singles (starting with 'Please Please Me') to smaller companies. Vee-Jay, a
label best known for signing Frank Ifield in the States and whose one big name
success had been The Four Seasons, agreed. The single duly came out and at #116
in Billboard with little promotion Capitol began to think they'd made a bad
decision. The single was popular for Vee-Jay to buy the rights to the band's
first album 'Please Please Me' and it was originally planned for release in the
States under the new name 'Introducing The Beatles' (minus both sides of the
'Please Please Me' single) as early as July 1963 (just four months after the UK
version - which is quick going by 1960s standards).
However, Vee-Jay had an awful year in 1963: a
series of bad investments and growing debt meant that the label abandoned all
of their 'smaller' acts to concentrate on their big cash-cows - and ironically
enough The Beatles were one of the bands that were left to rust in a vault
somewhere. Vee-Jay passed on singles three and four ('From Me To You' and 'She
Loves You') which were released by the Swann label. However, The Beatles got
bigger and bigger and American teenagers kept radio-ing in requests and talking
about the new swell English group their cousins had told them about, creating a
swell of noise even before the 'Ed Sullivan' shows in february. Capitol did the
sensible thing and made sure they had the rights to the band's most recent
single 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' (out in November 1963) and when that hit
number one bought up the rights to second album 'With The Beatles', which
Capitol quickly set about re-issuing as 'Meet The Beatles!' with new packaging
and a smaller track listing. However Capitol were beaten to the market place by
Vee-Jay, who'd had this album ready to go for five months and thus became the
first ever Beatles album in the States by a mere ten days.
At first Vee-Jay couldn't believe their luck: The
Beatles had fallen into their lap at a very cheap price and 'Introducing The
Beatles' sold enough copies to solve most of their debt problems at once. Then
came the problems: Capitol claimed that Vee-Jay had 'failed' to report
royalties on the sales of the earlier singles (which owing to their financial
difficulties they'd overlooked) and that the rights to at least the 'Please
Please Me' single reverted back to them. More complications came a week after
release and all because of the 'one-off deal' John and Paul had struck with EMI
over the release of 'Love Me Do' and 'P S I Love You' (published by Beechwood
rather than the company created especially for them by Epstein 'Northern
Songs'). Beechwood were owned by EMI and although they had 'passed' the release
of the two songs back in 1963 when nobody wanted to know, they claimed that the
songs had 'not yet been published' and so rights had reverted back to EMI.
Solving the first problem, but hitting a stumbling block over the first,
Vee-Jay simply re-issued the album again under the same name with 'Love Me Do'
and 'P S I Love You' substituted for 'Please Please Me' and 'Ask Me Why' (this
is the copy most American will have bought, although even in the week before
the injunction this album sold an impressive 80,000 copies). Eventually a deal
was struck: Vee-Jay had full rights to the 'Please Please Me' album and both
sides of the 'Please Please Me' single but only until October 1964 when rights
would revert back to Capitol. Vee-Jay had to work fast to make the most profit
from this album and so re-issued this album as many times as they could - under
a whole variety of new names and under increasingly desperate 'false' measures.
We'll be telling you about the 'weirdest' of those two later but for now all
you need to know is that a third, straight re-issue of this album was entitled
'Songs, Pictures and Stories of The Fabulous Beatles' and was identical in
track listing so hasn't been discussed here (it even has 'Introducing The
Beatles' still stamped on the label of most copies!)
Music-wise you know what you're getting: in either
version it's the 10 songs recorded on the same day (February 11th 1963) plus
both sides of either the first or second single (depending which copy you have
- it's usually 'Please Please Me' and 'Ask Me Why' on the CDs). Without the
resources to 'meddle' with the originals as much as Capitol did, there's less
to tell you about mix-wise than usual, although it is worth noting that the
Vee-Jay engineer assumed that Paul's 'one-two-three' count-in on 'I saw Her
Standing There' had been left in 'by mistake' and took it out for the first
pressing of this album! The packaging is a rather austere and old-fashioned picture
of The Beatles in brown suits, taken so early on in the band's career that Ringo hasn't
quite grown his Beatle wig yet!
"Meet The Beatles"
(Capitol,
January 20th 1964)
I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing
There/This Boy/It Won't Be Long/All I've Got To Do/All My Loving//Don't Bother
Me/Little Child/Til' There Was You/Hold Me Tight/I Wanna Be Your Man/Not A
Second Time
"Oh
yeah I'll tell you something I think you'll understand when I tell you
something - you're gonna love this band!..."
Like Veejay but with more
material to choose from, the Capitol (American owners of EMI) American Beatles
album series are very different depending where you live and what your age is.
To American show grew up with them these are how The Beatles 'should' sound -
and considering that these albums contain nothing that isn't on a European
Beatles album somewhere the tears of joy and relief when these American
editions were finally released on CD for the first time in 2014. To Europeans these are bastard children
from some alternate universe that The Beatles never intended and just sound odd
without the familiar running orders and packagings fans cal home. What's more,
they're simply not value for money: Capitol albums tended to be 11 songs long
and mixed up songs from all sorts of albums, singles and EPs - some tracks not
finding a home for months in America, although in contrast three songs from
'revolver' were issued on American-only album 'Yesterday and Today' first.
We'll be giving you a brief run down here of exactly what is available on which
American LP, where it comes from and whether any songs were remixed, as well as
if Capitol's random song selections throws up anything good.
'Meet The Beatles' was number
one for a full 11 weeks in America, issued on January 20th in a media blitz and
getting an added boost from the band's 'Ed Sullivan' appearances across
February that year. More by luck than design, all six of the songs The Beatles
sang on that first show are on this record might account for the album's continued
popularity (Rolling Stone magazine placed it at #59 on their list of the
greatest albums ever). As the cover implies, this is really a shortened version
of second British album 'With The Beatles'
with both sides of the 'I want To Hold Your Hand' single added and 'I
saw Her Standing There', the opening track of 'Please Please Me' added. With
most of the Motown covers from 'With' removed this gives the album a nicely
rocky feel and - apart from 'Til' There Was You' - makes it an all-original
Lennon/McCartney/Harrison album (rumour has it Capitol were worried that
American fans might object if they included too many covers done first by
American bands and singers - as a result this is a very 'English' sounding
record). There are no alternate mixes used here for once. Like the other
early Capitol albums, it was re-issued on CD in 2004 as part of the 'Capitol
Albums Volume One' set and separately in 2014.
"Jolly
What! The Beatles and Frank Ifield Live On Stage!"
(Veejay,
February 26th 1964)
Please Please Me/Anytime*/Lovesick Blues*/I'm
Smiling Now*/Nobody's Darling*/From Me To You//I Remember You*/Ask Me Why/Thank
You Girl/The Wayward Wind*/Unchained Melody*/I Listen To My Heart*
* = Frank Ifield performances with no Beatles
connection
"It's
not live, two-thirds of it isn't by The Beatles and it's just so not
funny!"
Jolly, erm, what?! This
American-only compilation album is wrong on so many levels. Full marks to
record label Vee-Jay for agreeing to release the first two Beatles singles in
the USA ('Love Me Do' and 'Please Please Me') before Capitol US realised they
might be worth licensing properly. However minus several million marks for
skimming just four short songs out to a whole LP. The mistakes in this title
just keep on going: first of all, crooner Frank Ifield is Australian, not
English. Secondly all of these recordings were made in the studio - none of
them were live. Thirdly neither were exactly 'England Greatest Recording Stars'
- The Beatles had only had two #1 hits by the time this album came out. Finally
- and most importantly - VeeJay had access to many far more suitable acts to
pair the Beatles with. What about Macca's idol Little Richard? Or the East
coast Beach Boys 'The Four Seasons' (actually that's what Vee-Jay do next when
they realise what a 'hit' they had on their hands!)Even Gladys Knight and the
Pips would have been better!
Even so, I have a soft spot
for Veejay. Capitol hadn't wanted to know until this smaller label turned The
Beatles into American superstars and they deserved to cash in on their success
more than their bitter rivals. While tacky, there's a tongue-in-cheek vibe
about their packaging that's very Beatles (the 'Jolly what!' bit of the title
is coming from a cartoon of a typical English Edwardian figure but with a Beatle
wig - as if saying 'ha ha this is what you thought the English were all about!') However this is still a
shameless money-grabbing rip-off, done in such a hurry that no one seemed to
check the liner notes (which proudly state that 'it is with a great deal of
pride and pleasure that this copulation has been presented!')
"The Beatles' Second Album"
(Capitol,
April 10th 1964)
Roll Over Beethoven/Thank You Girl/You Really Got A
Hold On Me/Devil In Her Heart/Money (That's What I Want)/You Can't Do
That//Long Tall Sally/I Call Your Name/Please Me Postman/I'll Get You/She Loves
You
"If
she got a dime the music will never stop!..."
Capitol's second Beatles album
mops up the remaining songs from 'With The Beatles' with a few 'sneak previews'
of that summer's 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Long Tall Sally' Ep, represented
here by 'You can't Do That', 'Long Tall Sally' and 'I call Your Name'
respectively. All those doubts about American being put off by re-recording of
'their' music seem to have been forgotten: this record starts with Chuck Berry
('Roll Over Beethoven' working really as an album opener) and ends in Motown
with 'Please Mr Postman' bar the two sides of the hit single Capitol rejected
back at the end of 1963 but have now shame-facedly had to buy back from
Vee-Jay. This album became another number one hit and The Beatles became the
first band in history to freplace themselves at the top of the US charts!
The album is of most interest
to collectors because the Capitol engineers decided that the British mixes were
too 'dry'. Wanting something close to the funkier 'live' sound of the 'Ed
Sullivan' recordings they remixed the entire album, adding lots of echo to
everything. This is less awful than it sounds - the 'echoed' 'oh oh oh' finale
to 'I'll Get You' is rather effective and this puts the Motown covers on the
album back closer to the sound of the original sources. 'Thankyou Girl'
mysteriously adds an extra three-note harmonica riff on the fade not heard in
Britain! (George Martin must have taken it out for the original record!)The
cowbell on 'I Call Your Name' also appears marginally earlier - although not
quite from the beginning as some sites state. The running order is one of
Capitol's more successful grab-bag track listings too, with a sublime merge
from 'Money' into 'You Can't Do That!' The cover is less successful. Rather
than nick the ones from 'Long Tall Sally' or 'Please Please Me' the American
use their favourite 'collage' approach, with lots of tiny cut-up pictures of
the band (mainly stills from Ed Sullivan) which must have disappointed many a
fan who wanted to gaze into a large picture of Paul McCartney's eyes...Rock and
pop heavy, with less ballads this time,
'Second Album' is arguably the best American-only album till the 'additions' on
'Magical Mystery Tour' three years later! Like the other early Capitol albums,
it was re-issued on CD in 2004 as part of the 'Capitol Albums Volume One' set
and separately in 2014.
"Long Tall Sally"
(E.P. EMI, June 19th 1964)
Long Tall Sally/I Call Your Name/Slow Down/Matchbox
Making the 'Hard Day's Night' film understandably
caused chaos with the pattern of working The Beatles had used across 1963, when
added to the same amount of single releases and a similar amount of touring
responsibilities. By June 1964 there hadn't been new product since 'Can't Buy
Me Love' in March and no album since 'With The Beatles' the previous November.
Fearful that their cash cow might die on them without new product to push, EMI
got the Beatles to interrupt their planned sessions for 'A Hard Day's Night'
side two to record a quick bashed-out four track EP (the 'halfway house'
between a single and an EP, which cost a middling amount of money between the
two - sadly this 1960s concept only lasted until the end of the decade before
being revived in the 'CD single' age when anything less than four songs was
considered 'stingy'). The Beatles had already released four EPs by this time
(including 1963's 'Twist and Shout', the best-selling E.P. ever - and since the
art form has died out it seems unlikely ever to be beaten!) but they all came
at more or less the same time as the albums and didn't feature unreleased
recordings (actually the two EPs are the most palatable way to hear next album
'Beatles For Sale' with the worst of the cover songs absent!)
Unwilling to give away anything good that they
needed for the higher profile 'A Hard Day's Night' record, The Beatles seem to
have treated these reached sessions (one day apiece in March and June 1964) as
a kind of glorified 'radio session', reaching back to their 'Hamburg' past for
some cover songs they could knock off quickly and one Lennon song ('I Call Your
Name') that it's author considered a 'failure' (however he also considered it
better than a mere 'B side' - which is how Billy J Kramer treated it when the
Beatle gave it to him to record!) Few fans would ever claim 'Long Tall Sally'
as being amongst the best works The Beatles ever made, but it's a nice chance
to hear the band purely as a rock and roll covers act (on three of the songs at
least!) and it's an interesting stepping stone between the more Motowny sound
of 'With The Beatles' and the harder-edged-with-folk-overtones 'A Hard Day's
Night'.
[102] 'Long Tall Sally' was to Paul what 'Twist and Shout' was to John:
a party-piece that was rather a good replica of Little Richard's screaming
original and was a fan favourite, much requested by McCartney watchers at the
Cavern. In fact, it's odd that such a popular song in the Beatles' stage act
wasn't dusted down before this, either as an album track or on a radio session
(was Macca too shy about aping one of his idols? Not that this prevented him
doing Little Richard's lesser known 'Ooh! My Soul' for the BBC). The result
isn't quite as tight (and therefore not quite as powerful) as 'Twist and Shout'
and Paul garbles his lines near the end ('Long Tall Sally she's....built for
speed'), while George is clearly struggling to come up with a guitar part on a
song that was originally based around a piano. However after several months
working hard on 'A Hard Day's Night' you can hear The Beatles having a whole
lot of fun just letting rip. This hard-hitting arrangement, kept together with
some tight drumming from Ringo, dispenses with the camp of Richard's original
and turns it more into a party song ('Have some fun tonight!'; legend has it
that the lyrics are a form of gay code, like those of Richard's other best
known song 'Tutti Frutti'). It's one of the better Beatle cover re-arrangements
although it's less sophisticated than many Beatle interpretations of other people's
work.
[103] 'I Call Your Name' isn't one of Lennon's greatest ever songs (it
runs out of things to say past the title and how his lover's name gives the
narrator succour in troubled times). However it is a key song in his
development as a writer. On the one hand this is the first time any Western
band anywhere tapped into the musical genre that will later be known as
'reggae' (though Paul became a bigger fan of it in time) and to their credit
The Beatles pull this sound off better than most other bands (our website is
full of bad white AAA reggae pastiches, from The Beach Boys to 10cc). The other
is how Lennon cleverly compensates for this new sound by also making this track
sound like archetypal Beatles: Ringo gets his cowbell out again (the Beatles
sound of 1964, what 'oohs' and 'yeah yeahs' are to 1963 and what mellotrons are
to 1967) and John and George's meshed Rickenbackers recreate the sound of 'You
Can't Do That' (already released on the B-side of 'Can't Buy Me Love')but with
a more typically Beatles joy and exuberance (Ian McDonalds speculates that the
song was diverted from 'A Hard Day's Night' to this EP deliberately to hide how
similar the two songs are). Lennon may have disliked the song but there's no
sign of that in his double-tracked vocal which treats the lyrics as if they're
the most important thing in the world. The result is another strong performance
and arrangement of what in other hands would have been a rather weak song.
[104] 'Slow Down' is a fiery Larry Williams song, taped - like other
Williams covers 'Bad Boy' and 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' - on the composer's birthday.
(Were The Beatles simply looking around for songs to cover that day when the
news came on the radio?) Without the 'message' of 'Bad Boy' or the great hook
of 'Lizzy', 'Slow Down' is arguably the weakest of the three and you can tell
The Beatles have revived it in a hurry: they never quite sound in control
throughout, with an over-heavy sloppy recording closer to something The Kinks
or The Who might have done (Lennon even messes up the lyrics double-tracking
the last verse: he should be singing 'now you've got a boyfriend and no time
for me' but his 'other self' sings 'Now you've got a boyfriend, diamond ring' -
was a verse of the original cut, leaving John unsure where he was? However The
Beatles were always great tryers and they do their utmost to rescue this song:
aware that everyone else is sticking religiously to the song's main riff
(over-emphasised by having George Martin on piano play it as well as George and
Paul), George Harrison goes all-out in his solo which is one of his most
bonkers yet, simply refusing to hit the same notes as the riff however weirdly
that makes him play (this also fits the song 'theme' about the narrator's girl
refusing to slow down in a relationship). Lennon, too, is on terrific vocal
form, sounding like musical sandpaper throughout. The result is a chaotic but
fun three minutes from a band clearly in a hurry.
Finally, it seems odd to us now that Ringo should
get a vocal on the EP when even George doesn't get one (perhaps to make up for
it, Ringo doesn't get any on the 'A Hard Day's Night' album). However this EP
was the first 'planned' release since The Beatles 'cracked' America that
February and Ringo was always the most popular Beatle in the states. [105] 'Matchbox' is the first of
three Carl Perkins covers recorded by The Beatles that year and in opposition
to how most Perkins songs work feature a great riff but lousy incomprehensible
lyrics (usually the words are {Perkins' strong point). Ringo struggles on a
song that isn't a natural fit (the other Beatles often played it and knew it
well, but only as Pete Best's token vocal - you sense this tough, gruff voice
would have suited him better than Ringo's deadpan sourpuss style). You'd think
that the band would have given this to George to sing (given that he was the
biggest fan and knew his songs well), especially considering that Carl Perkins
was invited to the sessions after hooking up with the band at the end of their
American tour. This sloppy mess, with Ringo way out of his depth on a lyric
best described as incomprehensible ('I'm sitting here wondering will a matchbox
hold all my clothes?' is how the line should run, though Ringo doesn't sing it
that way!) , seems like a slap in the face to someone they admired (why didn't
the band revive their other classy Perkins cover 'Lend Me Your Comb' for the
occasion? The band had played it on radio in 1963 so it wouldn't have taken up
much rehearsal time. It was also considered a 'Beatles' song during their
pre-fame days, one of the sacred songs a Liverpool band was considered to have
made their 'own' and so wouldn't be touched by other bands, one of the 'big
three' of their early songs alongside 'Twist and Shout' and 'Some Other Guy').
In truth these made-in-a-hurry covers are dragging The Beatles reputation down
slightly - if only the band could release a full album of originals? That would
be nice...
(United
Artists, June 24th 1964)
A Hard Day's Night/Tell Me Why/I'll Cry Instead/I
Should Have Known Better (Instrumental)*/I'm Happy Just To Dance With You/And I
Love Her//I Should Have Known Better/If I Fell/And I Love Her/Ringo's Theme (This
Boy)*/Can't Buy Me Love/A Hard Day's Night (Instrumental)*
* = non-Beatles incidental music
"I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I Should have known better than
to buy an album like you, with so many instrumental tunes..."
More legal shenanigans for you
now: United Artists were so unconvinced that a Beatles film would do well at
the box-office that they agreed to make one on the grounds that not only would
it be shot quickly and cheaply (in black-and-white in other words), but that
the soundtrack record would be published solely on their label in America,
without any involvement from Capitol. This bizarre arrangement meant that yet
another Beatles album got chopped to pieces the other side of the Atlantic,
with only eight songs (the seven made for the film, plus 'I'll Cry Instead'
which was planned and some reports say shot for inclusion but dropped to make
the final edit) to choose from plus four pieces of George Martin incidental
music from the film which range from the sublime ('This Boy' - the bit that
plays when a drunk Ringo - as he's since admitted wanders disconsolately down
the towpath and meets the young boy, which improves on the original)to the
ridiculous (the title track is pure James Bond and rather misses the excitement
and energy of the film). These four songs are now very rare outside America
(although they're not as rare as they once were after being re-issued on CD for
the first time in 2014)but not really worth your time searching for: George
Martin sounds a little overwhelmed by the responsibility of staying true to the
Beatles and his classical pals to be honest, ending up pleasing neither. At
least United Artists paid more attention to Martin's mixes than their Capitol
counterparts however as there are no noticeable differences anywhere. The
cover, too, is nearly what it should be, only instead of four rows of 20
Beatles poses there are now just four, shot from the eyes up (it's a measure of
how recognisable the band are that you can still tell whose who from 'half a
Beatles': clockwise from top left they are Paul, John, Ringo and George).
"Something New"
(Capitol, July 20th 1964 )
I'll Cry Instead/Things We Said Today/Any Time At
All/When I Get Home/Slow Down/Matchbox//Tell Me Why/And I Love Her/I'm Happy
Just To Dance With You/If I Fell/Komm Gib Mer Deine Hand
"I've
got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet because the Capitol
Beatles albums are incomplete..."
Capitol album number three and
from here-on in things get silly. Capitol have access to the entire second side
of the 'A Hard Day's Night' LP and duly choose five songs from the six
available ('I'll Be Back' is the one that's missing). However this album also
replicates 'If I Fell' 'I'm Happy Just To dance With You' and 'And I Love Her' -
all of which had been released just one month before on the United Artists'
version of 'A Hard Day's Night'. Confused? It gets worse! In addition Capitol
release two - but not all four - songs from the recently released 'Long Tall
Sally' EP in Britain (the Americans never really did EPs: it seems that unlike
Europe, where people had a bit of money but not much, Americans were either
rich or broke!) Oh and just in case that line-up was looking too 'normal', one
(but not both) of the 'German language' songs the Beatles recorded at the
beginning of the year. Goodness what any teenager who hadn't quite caught on to
The Beatles until this album made of it: this is the worst hodge-podge in
Capitol's Beatle history, veering from rock and roll covers to hit singles to
obscure album tracks to 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' in German in quick
succession.
Perhaps understandably, this
album was beaten to the top spot by the United Artists version of 'A Hard Day's
Night' and became the first Beatle Capitol album not to make #1 in America.
This is also the second cover to feature a still from the 'Ed Sullivan' shows,
although full-size this time and taken from an unusual angle to the left of the
stage and apparently shot from a balcony. Once again Capitol were careless with
the mixes and there are a few minor differences compared to the EMI sets: a
different musical bridge during 'Any Time At All' (with a louder guitar part),
'When I Get Home' (which places a different emphasis on Lennon's double-tracked
voices) plus 'And I Love Her' (which features Paul single-tracked for much more
of the song). Like the other early Capitol albums, it was re-issued on CD in
2004 as part of the 'Capitol Albums Volume One' set and separately in 2014.
"Hear The Beatles Tell All!"
(Veejay, 'Mid' 1964)
Impressions Of America/The Group's Name, Hairstyle
and History/Reaction To Their American Success/Formation/Early Recordings Early
Success/Beatles On British Radio/Huge Success/The Crowds, The Reactions/Threat
Of Injury From Fans/The Future? Writing Maybe!/Educational Background and
Liverpool/In Closing//Ringo - Throat Woes? Paul? Pete Best?/Paul - Staying
Where? Fan Mail? Jane Asher?/John - His
Book? The Film? A Baby? Leaving The Beatles?/George - His Parents?/Patti
Boyd?/Paul - Addresses and Fishing/John - Favourite Part In Film? Ad Libbing?
New Film? Moving?/Paul - Dad's Racehorse? Favourite Bits In The Film?/Ringo -
Maureen? Sightseeing? Audiences?/George - Disneyland? Film Favourites?/Ringo -
Goodbye L.A.!
"Goodnight
America - thanks for the bread!"
Vee-Jay weren't going to let a cash-cow like The
Beatles pass through their fingers so when the rights to the band's first 16
songs expired and reverted back to Capitol, they went on the war-path. Spoken
word is harder to copyright than music so that's where Vee Jay turned next,
hiring someone named Jim Steck to interview all four of the band during a brief
trip to Los Angeles in August 1964. Poor Jim isn't really a journalist (he
was simply someone handy and even drove
The Beatles away from a gig one night - much to Lennon's chagrin, 'well good
luck to you!' at one point) but he copes well and asks more sensible questions
than some actual American journalists of the day. Then it's a chap called Dave
Hull's turn on side two, who doesn't fare quite so well but then his
conversations are snatched chats rather than a 'proper' interview. Lennon is on
particularly bright form and gets a whole side to himself (lasting some twelve
minutes), while all four get brief snatched conversations on the album's second
side (lasting eleven in all).
Along the way we learn a few interesting nuggets we
didn't know before as well as the usual sorts of things. For instance, this is
Lennon on his expectation of success on the band's first American tour (which
is rather different to his 'it was inevitable' tone of his solo years!): 'We
didn't think we stood a chance, we didn't imagine it at all, we didn't bother,
when we came over the first time we only came to buy LPs!' Lennon on screaming
audiences: 'If they want to pay their money they can scream - we scream back at
them anyway, only with guitars!' And on the band's background: 'Liverpool
wasn't too different from this, but then again this is a bit of a dump! Most
American seem to think we all came out of the slums, but only Ringo did. Well,
he doesn't care - he probably had more fun there!' Ringo on Paul: 'Paul
McCartney's quite nice - once you get to know him!' Ringo on his relationship
with Maureen Cox, later his wife: 'Everyone went they were un-chaperoned
ho-ho-ho, but we were chaperoned. There was nothing kinky going on!' John on rumours of a second child:
'Cynthia's not having a baby and I don't think I'm having a baby either!'
The record was rush-released less than a month
later with minimal packaging resembling a tabloid newspaper (with such
ridiculous 'headlines' as 'Hear The Beatles tell all! Does Paul lives with The
Ashers?' (yes), 'Is John having another baby?' (no), The truth about the talk
that John is leaving The Beatles (he isn't!), 'How The Beatle Haircut Came
About', 'Why John Gives Out The
Addresses Of The Rolling Stones' (as a joke - a mutual friend accidentally gave
out The Beatles' real' addresses and they were swamped - this is a witty form
of revenge!),'Ringo talks about his throat operation', 'Facts about Paul's race
horse' ('promised' to him by a fan but never sent!), 'George Talks About The Paddi Boyd' (I think
someone misunderstood that one!) and - my favourite - 'The Day They Fished From
The Hotel Window' ) Along with the 'flip your wig' game, this is perhaps the
greatest souvenir we have of the days when The Beatles were the biggest
phenomenon on the planet and kick-started a legacy that lasts to this day
(although I doubt they'll never made a 'flip your wig' game for One Direction!)
All in all this is one of the better 'official'
interview discs with The Beatles around and a good insight into the period -
although as ever Vee-Jay do their best to ruin things when they're onto a good
thing by adding lots of 'linking' passages featuring a most peculiar mix of
tubular bells, bongos and some sudden drumming from session musician Hal
Blaine. As ever Capitol are waiting in the wings for a bigger, bolder, longer
album with a far bigger budget designed to swamp this one - although just as 'Introducing'
was made with a lot more care and concern than 'Meet The Beatles', so I prefer
this record to the double-disc 'Beatles Story' coming up soon...Sadly this
record is now quite rare and has never been released on CD, although the vinyl
was re-issued in 1981.
"The Beatles vs The Four
Seasons"
(Vee
Jay, 'October' 1964)
LP 1: I Saw Her Standing There/Misery/Anna (Go To
Him)/Chains/ Boys/Love Me Do//P.S. I Love You/Baby It's You/Do You Want To Know
A Secret?/A Taste Of Honey/There's A Place/Twist and Shout
LP 2: Sherry/I've Cried Before/Marlena/Soon (I'll
Be Home Again)/Ain't That A Shame/Walk Like A Man//Connie-O/Big Girls Don't
Cry/Starmaker/Candy Girl/Silver Wings/Peanuts!
"Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise
not to tell? Ok *whisper*, this is the same record you bought a month ago - and
a couple of months before that..."
Getting increasingly desperate
- and with the tracks they had licensed growing older with every passing week -
Vee Jay made one last gasp at the big time: a double album headlined 'The
international Battle Of The Century!' where each side 'deliver their greatest
vocal punches!' The cover fooled a few people into buying it (was this some
international cross-over no one had told them about?) but it was, of course, a
gimmick like the 'Frank Ifield' album all over again. Thankfully this one is
less of a con as at least the two bands are compatible (loosely) and each band
get their own 'full' albums, although in The Beatles' case it's a fourth
straight re-issue for the 'Introducing The Beatles' record within 10 months.
Surely no self-respecting teenager was without this record? The result? Well,
considering that the 'Four Seasons' set is a best-of ('The Golden Hits Of The
Four Seasons'), albeit one that misses out many of their best songs: sadly
their masterpiece 'Rag Doll' wasn't released until the end of the year) and The
Beatles is just the first LP meddled with the contest isn't a fair fight: it's
as if The Beatles' boxer was forced to fight with a hand behind his back. Then
again The Beatles still deliver at least a few of the 'knock-out punches'
promised on the record sleeve. Oh well, at least the sets came with limited
edition posters of both bands: one of the earliest to feature the fab four
(be-suited Beatles standing or sitting round the same chair back in the really
early days before Ringo grew his 'Beatle' cut!)
"The Beatles' Story"
(Capitol,
November 23rd 1964)
On Stage With The Beatles/How Beatlemania
Began/Beatlemania In Action/The Man Behind The Beatles - Brian Epstein/John
Lennon/Who's A Millionaire?//Beatles Will Be Beatles/The Man Behind The Music -
George Martin/George Harrison//A Hard Day's Night - Their First Movie/Paul
McCartney/Sneaky Haircuts and More About Paul//The Beatles Look At Life/Victims
Of Beatlemania/Beatles Medley/Ringo Starr/Liverpool And All The World
"It
started in Liverpool, England, a sound of feeling and emotion, and swept up the
youth of the world. And while adults in many foreign speaking languages looked
on in awe, four young boys from a poor British seaport slum-town, their
hairstyle a harmless defiance of convention, their musical style brash, earned
renowned which they had never dreamed or and perhaps never really wanted. The
Beatles had even picked a name which defied and challenged acceptance. Their
very success ironically seems to defeat their 'I-don't-care' philosophy. But
through it all, confused at times, perhaps a little frightened at times, they
clinged to their identity and grown closer to one other."
Quite. As you can see from this opening, Capitol
did what Vee-Jay had done so simply and casually on 'Hear The Beatles Tell All'
and re-did it rather pompously, inevitably missing the point thanks to the
narrator's bemused vocal expression and a script that doesn't ask 'who' 'when'
or 'how' so much as 'why???' This should, by, tights have been better. The
album's much quoted line is 'are they a band big on hair but short on talent?'
Interestingly no one involved actually gives a straight reply. This record was
put together by Gary Usher and Roger Christian, two leading DJs of their day
who are well known to Beach Boy aficionados as separate writing partners for
Brian Wilson. However while Gary ('In My Room') Usher clearly understood the
darker side of the teenage mind and Roger ('Little Deuce Coupe') Christian
clearly understood the excitement of buying a new car, both seems to have lost
the plot here. Narrator John Babcock is uncomfortable 'old school' too: the
equivalent today of getting Mary Berry to do a documentary about 'One Direction'
(or that really odd interview I keep thinking I must have dreamt where Joanna
Lumley gets a snatched five minutes with Will I Am).
The result is, at times, hilarious. All four
Beatles have their biographies told, patronisingly ('John Lennon is a
determined 23-year-old whose face gives the impression of an angry-young
man...he says we have our differences like any other human beings!') At times
the narrator's paraphrashing of Beatle words sounds deeply wrong ('I thought
school was a total joke, said John, but I'd hate any fan to act like I did!' A
later comment has John supposedly saying 'My love was in Liverpool. She and I
met one day and suddenly we fell in love. And like all good husbands I wanted
my family to have financial security!' - erm, no, I don't think so!) At one
stage we also get introduced to 'Paul' before George starts talking... remember
this is the biggest band on the planet and the group who more than anyone else
are paying Capitol's wages! Oh and when George is finally introduced we're told
he has a 'deadpan expression that would make the Sphinx jealous' and is 'the
blasé Beatle'. Not on most of the photographs I've seen he doesn't - he was
probably trying to say anything rude to the dumb interviewer! Interestingly,
though, the script captures his meditative phase a full two years before most
people caught on, telling us that George prefers to 'have a bit of peace and
quite, sitting around in your slippers, watching the telly - that's the life!'
Even when this script is right everything is told
in a very over-dramatic way that makes The Beatles sound like 'Eastenders'
('For The Beatles at that time no 10 Matthew Street - home to the popular
Liverpool Club The Cavern - must have seemed as far away as no 10 Downing
Street ')('After Ringo joined, Lady Luck could be considered Beatle number
Five, guiding Brian Epstein towards them!' - we won't mention the fact these
events are in the wrong order!) (Ever since birth Paul has
been....left-handed!'), a world away from the almost shoulder-shrugging of the
band's own later documentary 'Anthology' ('We were just a band that got very
big, that's all is Lennon's opening line). Oh and apparently all of John's
family are 'musically inclined', which must have come as a shock to his Aunt
Mimi!
Luckily there are some upsides to this album: some
genuine interview snippets including a great bit where John and George are
asked about the rumour they are millionaires ('No, not even Brian's one!' quips
John before an interviewer asks where all their money goes. 'To her majesty -
she's a millionaire!' adds a quick-thinking George). The fact that this is a
double LP, running to some 50 odd minutes, also offers the chance to focus on
some topics not often covered at the time (Brian Epstein and George Martin both
gets their own biographies too, not always accurate ones!) Occasionally the set
is illuminating too: there's a particularly interesting quote from Paul that
reads thus: 'When you're about 11 you start to think what's going to happen to
you. I've often thought about it. My plan was to carry on playing the clubs
until I reached the ripe old age of 25. Then I'd go to John's art college and
hang around there for a couple of years. I never dreamt about being discovered
or anything like that. I always thought it was just something you read about.'
Sadly this is immediately followed by a typically cringe-worthy piece about the
band getting 'sneaky haircuts' at the barbers, the juxtaposition of which
rather sums this album up!
The one
thing the documentary does get right over virtually every other tabloid cash-in
of the day is what hard work it was to get to 'Love Me Do', with the script
ripping into the idea of the band as 'an overnight success'. The other place
where 'The Beatles Story' improves on 'Hear The Beatles Tell All' is Capitol's
access to real genuine Beatle recordings rather than the rather odd percussion
used to 'link' that record - although frustratingly all too often Beatle songs
are cut short for some gormless orchestral interpretation of a Beatle hit.
Until 1977, this was the only official place where you could hear The Beatles
'live', with extracts of the 'Hollywood Bowl' 1964 show intermingled with the
jumble of sound (the original plan had been to release a 'live album' but even
Capitol didn't think it would sell at the time; 13 years and with financial
restraints they'll change their mind and release it anyway...
The Beatles are, today, studied in schools (if only
they'd been on my curriculum I'd have got straight As! Well that and detention
for writing too much!) 'The Beatles Story' sounds like a school project, a lot
of fact and fiction intermingled with a rather high-brow sneer that badly
misses the point. Like 'Hear The Beatles Tell All', though, it's a marvellous
time capsule of a time when Beatlemania was genuinely shocking and had never
been seen before and parents were a little bit scared and confused (at one
point The Beatles are reported as saying 'we're from a new generation and so
are our fans' - the narrator takes in a big in-take of breath right there that
says everything). Admittedly I've felt that about at least the last 30 musical
crazes (Justin Bieber where did you go?!), but the chance to hear all this
unfolding for the first time in real time is great for 'us' musical historians to
learn just how The Beatles were treated in their early days (largely as
Martians from another planet it seems). So big were The Beatles that even this
pricey double-album monstrosity rose all the way to #7 in the US charts (the
first of their albums not to make #1 barring the Tony Sheridan re-issues!) This
record was finally re-issued on CD in 2014 as part of the mammoth box set 'The
US Albums' and still hasn't had its own separate release in 50 years!
"Live
At The Hollywood Bowl"
(Apple, Recorded August 1964 and August
1965; Released May 1977)
Twist and
Shout/She's A Woman/Dizzy Miss Lizzy/Ticket To Ride/Can't Buy Me Love/Things We
Said Today/Roll Over Beethoven/Boys/A Hard Day's Night/Help!/All My Loving/She
Loves You/Long Tall Sally
"You make me dizzy when you rock and
roll!"
When I tell people that an official Beatles album
that made the top ten is still unreleased on CD they either think I'm
monkeynuts or lying. But the truth is exactly that: 'The Beatles Live At The
Hollywood Bowl', an amalgamation of two concerts taped at the principality in
1964 and 1965, was the first ever posthumous release of new Beatles product and
caused a huge stir. Like the Hamburg tapes, the result is endlessly fascinating
-a chance to hear what the band sounded like live - but not exactly easy listening
even by live 1960s standards (even with a lot of hard work mixing the screams
down low there are still times they overwhelm the recording!) Most people were
disappointed when this album came out, expecting some killer rock in the style
of the Stones' 'Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!' or even Macca's recent 'Wings Over
America' (a huge hit that probably played a part in 'inspiring' this album). In
truth what they got was closer to earlier recordings like The Stones' 'Got Live
If You Want It!' or The Kinks' 'Kelvin Hall' gig: tapes that weren't originally
intended for release and were so badly recorded that nobody in 1977 quite knew
what to do with them.
That was certainly the case in 1974 when George
Martin was asked in an interview in 1974 whether there were any decent live
recordings in the vaults. ‘Ooh gosh no’, he’s meant to have replied, ‘there is
one tape reel but it’s so horribly recorded and the Beatles play so badly we
couldn’t possibly release it’. Three years later he was doing just that, at
EMI’s request, remixing the album to take out some of the louder screams and
sticking two concerts haphazardly together (both shows sound much better when
heard complete I have to say, as they are on bootleg). For my money, they
should have just released the latter recordings, which are genuinely thrilling
with The Beatles still stretching their palette with complex and fairly rare
(in as much as any released Beatles track is rare) material such as ‘She’s A
Woman’ 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' and ‘I’m Down’ (the three highlights of the set,
along with a surprisingly rocky 'Boys' from 1964 that knocks spots off the
record and with Ringo turned into a heavy metaller!) The 1964 set-list just
can’t compete, being a series of rather rushed and poor quality recordings of
singles we’ve heard hundreds of times over and over, especially after
'Anthology One' although even this set has 'historical value' and a cracking
rare live version of 'Things We Said Today' (with George filling in for Paul's
double-tracking!)
The music is, of course, excellent even if it's all
a little bit 'covers heavy' and none of the versions here understandably live
up to the records given all the hysteria going on up front. Lennon is on great
form, especially in 1965, while the band's harmonies and backing are surprisingly
tight given the circumstances (this is one live album we know wasn't 'doctored'
later in the studio, unlike 'Wings Over America', or a Beatles reunion would
have made this record bigger news). Sadly the Beatles aren't that chatty at
this gig (not by their standards anyway) and there's only one great Lennon
witticisms to report, a much-quoted introduction to 'Baby's In Black' : 'We'd
like to do another number because that's what we're here for, while Paul
fiddles with his amplifier...I hope you can hear me, I'd be awfully
disappointed if you couldn't! We'd like to do another one from one of our LPs,
long players, albums, records...It's a slow number and a waltz for all of you
under ten...Some people play fast waltzes and some people play slow waltzes but
we're going to play a slow one!' However the version of 'Baby's In Black' they
play is anything but slow, being patently faster than the studio on 'Beatles
For Sale' (and that was pretty darn fast for a waltz! Note, too, the moment
when Lennon gets temporarily lost in the middle of 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' and ends
up busking 'Love me ...till the end of time' instead of '...And I wish you were
mine!' (well saved there John!) What we do get though is a well-drilled band
who clearly know their setlist well (both the August 23rd 1964 and 29th August
1965 gig come relatively near to the end of each run of American shows).
Alas, like pretty much every Beatles re-issue/new
release of the 1970s the artwork and packaging is dire – the sleeve-notes get
some of the dates wrong and the distorted coloured tickets are far too tacky
for a release of this importance. Also the track listing is exceedingly random
- if EMI really had to release both concerts in one set (there are a few
replicas, not that this bothers fans like me much) then why not put the '1964'
show on one side and '1965' on the other? The sudden jolt of hearing 'Help!' in
between 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'All My Loving' for instance is just silly.
Amazingly, despite all the fuss we have every few Beatles when the band/label
start on a re-issue frenzy (2009’s remastered set and rockband game, 2004’s
‘Love’ 1995-6’s ‘Anthology’ and 1993’s ‘Live At The BBC’) the only official
Beatles concert still remains absent from our shelves. Strange, especially
considering that it was John and George who objected to its release the first
time around – and sadly neither Beatle is around to protest anymore. 'Live at
The Hollywood Bowl' isn't pretty, but it is pretty darn interesting: after all,
this was millions of screaming fans heard the greatest band on the planet and
it's the next best thing to going back in time and experiencing it all for
yourself.
(Capitol,
March 22nd 1965)
Love Me Do/Twist and Shout/Anna (Go To
Him)/Chains/Boys/Ask Me Why//Please Please Me/P.S. I Love You/Baby, It's You/A
Taste Of Honey/Do You Want To Know A Secret?
"I
can't break away from these chains!"
The rights to the Beatles'
first 16 recordings reverted back to Capitol in late 1964 after the result of a
court case over whether Vee-Jay's rights to them had lapsed or not. Capitol
duly followed with a re-issue of eleven of these songs in March 1965 (i.e. in
between 'Beatles For Sale' and 'Help!') These recordings must have seemed very
rushed and unsophisticated by 1965 standards (seven of them were recorded on
the same day after all). That and the fact that 'Introducing The Beatles' had
featured all of these songs bar two just 14 months meant that, by Capitol
Beatle standards, this album was a flop and the poorest selling of their
releases (peaking at #43). While the lack of 'I Saw Her Standing There' makes
sense (Capitol pushed their luck and included it on the first album, even
though it was a gray area whether they were allowed it) but 'Misery' and
'There's A Place' were hard done by, appearing only on a single later in the
year and not finding an album release in America until their version of 'Rarities'
in 1980. Capitol spent very little time promoting the album (there was only a
three month gap before 'Beatles VI' is out!) but they did at least take the
time to give this record some of the best packaging of the 1960s in America,
using the rear sleeve of the UK 'Beatles For Sale' as the main cover (you know
the one I mean, The Beatles in front of some twigs - no I don't know why
either!) The album was later re-issued on CD as part of the box set 'Capitol
Albums Volume Two', where this album belongs in terms of chronological ordering
but not the dates of the Beatles recordings.
"Beatles VI"
(Capitol,
June 14th 1965)
Kansas City-Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!/Eight Days A
Week/You Like Me Too Much/Bad Boy/I Don't Want To Spoil The Party/Words Of
Love//What You're Doing/Yes It Is/Dizzy Miss Lizzy/Tell Me What You See/Every
Little Thing
"Though
tonight Capitol's made me sad, I still love them..."
Of all The Beatles albums made for the American
market 'Beatles VI' (Capitol clearly weren't counting 'The Early Beatles' or
the United Artists or Vee-Jay releases) is the most...different. On the one
hand Capitol use up the half a dozen songs they had leftover from 'Beatles For
Sale' (an album released a full seven months earlier!) On the other they have
obtained 'sneak previews' of three songs from 'Help!' a month before the
British: 'You Like Me Too Much' 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' and 'Tell Me What You See'.
They also choose to use recent B-side 'Yes It Is' but not the A-side 'Ticket To
Ride'. Finally and most notably, this record includes 'Bad Boy', a Larry
Williams recorded especially for the American market the same day as 'Lizzy'
and which won't be released in Britain for another 18 months (on 'A Collection
Of Oldies But Goldies'). In truth its all a bit of a mess, with songs covering
the space of about nine months all jumbled up together. Even the cover seems
rather 'out of sequence' - a mainly be-suited Beatles fooling around with a
microphone stand. However the new hodge-podge element does have the unintended
effect of making 'Beatles VI' The Beatles' one and only folk-rock album, with
the pedal steel of 'Yes It Is', the sorrow of 'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party'
and the honky tonk charm of 'You Like Me Too Much' sounding impressively
'together' on the same LP. Of course, this being Capitol, all these relative
ballads are surrounded by three of the heaviest rockers the Beatles ever
covered ('Kansas City' 'Bad Boy' and 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy'). A Capitol offence?
Bizarrely, 'Beatles VI' hangs together about the best of any of the Beatles'
American off-spring and is often cited as the band's influential LP by
Americans looking to start a band (The Byrds, for one). This album was
re-issued on CD as part of the 'Capitol Albums Volume Two' box set and -
finally - on its own right in 2014.
"
(Capitol,
December 3rd 1965)
I've Just Seen A Face/Norwegian Wood/You Won't See
Me/Think For Yourself/The Word/Michelle//It's Only Love/Girl/I'm Looking
Through You/In My Life/Wait/Run For Your Life
"I
thought I knew you...what did I know? You don't sound different but you have
changed, I'm looking through you - you're not the same!"
The American edition of 'Rubber
Soul' really changed the sound. When the CDs of the British albums finally came
out in the States in the late 1980s this was the album that most surprised fans
who'd seen this as the band's 'folk rock statement', an attempt to swing back
the way of The Byrds (the biggest new band of 1965). The British version, of
course, is far more eclectic with some relatively heavy rockers like 'Drive My
Car' 'What Goes On' 'Nowhere Man' and (interestingly given that it's the most
Byrds-like song The Beatles ever did) 'If I Needed Someone' are missing (though
'Think For Yourself, the 'heaviest' song on the album, is still here,
suggesting this is accident not design - well, of course, it's Capitol!) and
have been substituted by two of the gentler songs still left over from 'Help!':
'I've Just Seen A face' and 'It's Only Love'. This version of the album is
rather palatable actually, sounding less 'instantly wrong' than some of
Capitol's earlier LPs with 'Face' and 'Wood' making for a particularly
interesting blend. While the packaging and album title is identical to the
British version (wow two records in a row - what is going on?!), Capitol are still
messing around with the mixes. 'I'm Looking Through You' includes a 'false
start' most beloved by bootleggers that was 'accidentally' left on and 'The
Word' sounds rather different too (Lennon's been playing around with his
double-tracking again!) Plastic 'Rubber Soul' man? Actually no - this is one of
America's brighter ideas! Once again this album was originally issued on CD in
2009 as part of 'Capitol Albums Volume Two' and in its own write in 2014.
"Yesterday and Today"
(Capitol,
June 20th 1966)
Drive My Car/I'm Only Sleeping/Nowhere Man/Dr
Robert/ Yesterday/Act Naturally//And Your Bird Can Sing/If I Needed Someone/We
Can Work It Out/What Goes On/Day Tripper
"You
don't get me! You don't get...me!"
Ah yes, 'Yesterday and Today', the American-only recording
destined to be forever remembered as 'that one with the hideous butcher's
sleeve'. Beatle friend Robert Whittaker was as keen as the fab four were to
push the borders of taste and came up with a sniping comment on the
commercialism of Western society. Funnily enough The Beatles had been thinking
just the same thing (what a shame 'Taxman' - recorded by now but not released
till the next American LP - isn't here because it would make the link
complete). Whittaker lined The Beatles up in a typically happy-go-lucky
portrait and gave them the usual 'nonsense' props to play around with: only in
this case it was slabs of meat and doll's heads. Deciding belatedly it made for
a worthy 'comment' on the Vietnam War, it can be seen in retrospect as the
moment The Beatles became 'properly political - from now on there's no holding
them back, Lennon especially. At the time though this was just one of many
Beatle photo-shoots; legend has it was Paul who phoned up Capitol and told them
if they had to put a new album out then they ought to do it with a picture from
this shoot. Not one to upset a Beatle, they agreed (even though the Beatles
themselves didn't all agree - George, about to become a Vegetarian after
discovering the Indian way of life a few months earlier, thought it was
'stupid', although his smile at the back of the shoot looks genuine to me).
Capitol weren't ready for the outcry this caused: fans sent LPs back, disc
jockeys moaned on air and some shops refused to stock the album. Trying to calm
something of a storm in a teacup (it's only one photograph and the 'meat'
wasn't human), Capitol tried to recall as many albums as they could and shot
another more innocuous sleeve of The Beatles playing around with a packing case
(not quite the 'trip' they meant on 'Day Tripper!') They simply pasted this new
version over the old one on first pressings although not many were actually
returned and/or stopped at the presses in time. That's why you sometimes hear
collectors talk about 'steaming' off covers to see if there's anything
underneath (although in most cases there's just a tatty grey bit of cardboard)
and why collectors of all things Beatles pay such astronomical prices for the
rare pleasure of owning a copy.
With all that going on in the background, the
actual musical content of 'Yesterday and Today' tends to get rather
over-looked. A weird mixture of songs left over from 'Help!' ('Yesterday 'Act
Naturally' and 'What Goes On') 'Rubber Soul' (Drive My Car' 'Nowhere Man' and
'If I Needed Someone') the last single ('Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out')
and a 'preview' of three songs from 'Revolver', quite a coup as these songs
won't be released in the rest of the world for another two months (Capitol came
up with a funny selection from the near-completed album and picked 'I'm Only
Sleeping' 'Dr Robert' plus 'And Your Bird Can Sing' - 'She Said She Said' is the only song still
to be taped for the album and not yet available, recorded a single day after
this album's release). The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that these
are all Lennon's songs, making him by far the dominant force across this album.
Like 'Beatles VI' and the American 'Rubber Soul', the result works rather
better than it ought to, offering a rather harder edged album than expected,
bookended by two songs about 'trips' both geographical and metaphysical. The
title too is a rather clever one for such a hodge-podge of a collection. This
record was re-released - with the Butcher's Sleeve for the first time - on CD
in 2014. After years of similarly outrageous album sleeves by rap stars, Robbie
Williams, Madonna et al it didn't cause anything like as much fuss, but as ever
it was a Beatles album that paved the way.
"Revolver"
(Capitol,
December 3rd 1965)
Taxman/Eleanor Rigby/Love You To/Here
There and Everywhere/Yellow Submarine/She Said She Said//Good Day Sunshine/For
No One/I Want To Tell You/Got To Get You Into My Life/Tomorrow Never Knows
"The
day breaks, your mind aches..."
Capitol's last exclusive American album is a
straight reduction of the classic 'Revolver', issued with the Christmas market
in mind with the three songs already released six months earlier on 'Yesterday
and Today' missing. This all makes for a decidedly Paul-heavy record (five lead
vocals out of eleven, with three for George John two and Ringo one!)that makes
for an even more 'extreme' sounding album than the original (unusually Lennon's
songs 'soften' the extreme changes between hard rockers like 'Taxman' and 'She
Said She Said' and the string-fest 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'For No One'). Otherwise
Capitol seem to have restricted themselves to leaving this record more or less
alone at last, with every song present and correct in its proper order. Yippee!
From next record 'Sgt Peppers' onwards, the Capitol series will follow the UK
EMI editions to the letter - albeit with an 'album' version creation of the
double EP set 'Magical Mystery Tour' now accepted as 'canon' by most of the
world's Beatles collectors. This 'American' version of 'Revolver' is currently
only available in the 'US Album's box
set, which is just as well really - it would be a bit daft to release a
'smaller' version of the identical-looking UK version that has three extra
tracks!
"A
Collection Of Oldies...But Goldies!"
(EMI, November 9th 1966)
She Loves
You/From Me To You/We Can Work It Out/Help!/ Michelle/Yesterday/I Feel
Fine/Yellow Submarine//Can't Buy Me Love/Bad Boy/Day Tripper/A Hard Day's
Night/Ticket To Ride/Paperback Writer/Eleanor Rigby/I Want To Hold Your Hand
"When I
was younger, so much younger than today..."
As 1966 wore on it became increasingly clear that The Beatles -
having only just delivered an album in August - wouldn't have time to deliver
another one in time for the festive market. This was a bit of a problem: while
EMI had several great bands The Beatles were their big stars and the boost EMI
experienced every Yuletide helped them greatly throughout the coming year. A
compromise was sought: the first Beatles full-LP compilation. What we got was,
inevitably, a bit of a cop-out as most compilations are: The Beatles took
little interest in it and only one new shot of the band (gathered around a
teapot backstage in Japan on their last tour, as shot by old friend Robert
Whittaker) was used. The title too is a little suspect: both band a producer
referred to this project internally as 'Oldies but mouldies!' and 'Old Hat' to
reflect their distaste of releasing old material.
However, there are many plusses in this record's favour. By now
some of the band's early singles were getting worn out and had been deleted so
this was a welcome opportunity for many older fans to buy their old records
again but this time in album format. Also the album is more generous than it
needed to be: there are a grand total of 16 songs here - admittedly most are
quite short but for 1966 this is generous stuff and made the Capitol
11-tracks-and-that's-your-lot releases look positively scrooge-like. The album
packaging, too, is fitting in an odd kind of a way: artwork by David Christian
cashing in on the fact that Swinging London was that year the coolest place on
the planet and Carnaby Street it's centre, with a well dressed hip young dude
lounging in front of a record player that represents the 'now', while the dark
embers of the 1950s (embodied by an 'old'-style car and ballroom dancing -
don't be silly that can't be back in style in the present day, it must be a
mass hallucination or something)fade into the distance behind him. The result
is the single most psychedelic image in the band’s catalogue and surely the
unsung inspiration for the similarly lurid ‘Yellow Submarine’ film - to modern
eyes it might look dated (yeah and current fashions don't?!) but at the time
this was groovy stuff, man. This is all incredibly
forward-looking for a record company out to make money with a cheap best-of and
shows how much EMI really did care about the band and it's fans (compare it to
best-ofs for other bands of the same period - nearly all caught in typically
1950s boring poses - and the difference is striking).
Considering that this record only had late 1962-late 1966
recordings to choose from, musically it's not bad at all: like hearing 'Past
Masters Volume One' 20 years early but with a few B sides and EP songs missing
and replaced by key album tracks like 'Michelle' and 'Yesterday'. The key song
for collectors, though, was 'Bad Boy' - a Larry Williams cover taped in a hurry
the same day as 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' six months previous, one of his other
Beatles covers but somehow left off the 'Help!' LP. It's a raucous, rebellious
1950s style stroll that had already been released in America the year before
(on 'Beatles VI') and in truth doesn't really fit this more laidback
collection. However, it's a nice bonus for fans who were inevitably going to
buy this record in their droves anyway - in fact so many fans did that this
record made it all the way to #3 i the charts, not bad considering that 'The
Sound Of Music' was selling bucketloads that Christmas at #1 and 'Revolver' was
still holding firm at #2. Perhaps feeling that this set had been superseded by
both 'One' and 'Past Masters', this compilation has never been re-issued on CD
and is in fact currently the only official 1960s Beatle product not to be!
"Hey Jude"
(Capitol,
February 26th 1970)
Can't Buy Me Love/I Should Have Known
Better/Paperback Writer/Rain/Lady Madonna/Revolution//Hey Jude/Old Brown
Shoe/Don't Let Me Down/The Ballad Of John and Yoko
"The
way things are going they're gonna crucify me!"
After leaving the British releases alone for three
whole years, Capitol squeezed one last Beatle LP onto the market three months
before 'Let It Be' and like that album is a sort of sombre encore. Well,
actually, that might be doing the label a disservice: after agreeing to release
every Beatles album 'properly' (which for perhaps the only time in history
means the 'British' way), they were quite content to simply follow EMI's lead.
It was Apple manager Allen Klein - by now at the highpoint of his relationship
with John, George and Ringo but in an all-out war with Paul - who pushed for
this album to come out (presumably to get an extra share of the royalties while
he still controlled the band's income). The result still 'feels' like a
Capitol-made project though: At 32 minutes it's barely worth getting to change
the record over halfway through, the packaging is minimal and everything seems
to be done with the least amount of fuss.
The only new feature for most fans is the album
sleeve. The picture was shot during the very last Beatles photo session shot
back in August 1969 and rather fittingly all four Beatles are wearing black
(Paul's new wife Linda was on hand to film it, suggesting that he at least had
an inkling it would be the last time all four were pictured together; not the
'other' picture taken at the same sessions which is propped up over the doorway
of Lennon's Tittenhurst house as The Beatles uncomfortably pose in front of
it). Initially titled a rather ironic 'The Beatles Again' (which would have
been an awful name for a final LP), Allen Klein had second thoughts and decided
to name this album after the biggest hit - now two years old - but so late in
the day that first pressings of the album still have 'The Beatles Again'
pressed into the vinyl! (The cover, meanwhile, made no mention of the title or
the band - which is odd, given that they'd have sold more copies that way and
The Beatles' appearance changed so rapidly back in 1970 that an awful ot of
fans would have been caught out!)
As expected, this record neatly rounds up a number
of Beatles songs that still hadn't appeared on an album as of 1970: 'Paperback
Writer' and 'Rain' which for some reason were left off the American version of
'Revolver' (and in turn not added to 'Magical Mystery Tour'), both sides of the
singles 'Lady Madonna' 'Hey Jude' and 'The Ballad Of John and Yoko'.
Interestingly B-side 'Don't Let Me Down' is here but not the A-side 'Get Back'
- did Capitol already know they'd be getting the 'full' album of 'Let It Be' in
a few months (and that this great Lennon song wouldn't be on it but Paul's hit would?)That
accounts for all but a couple of real oddities from 'A Hard Day's Night', whose
rights had reverted back to Capitol after years of being with film backers
United Artists (frankly I'm surprised there aren't more of them here to beef up
a rather lame ten song album - all the other Capitol albums featured eleven
tracks, the least they figured they could get away with while paying less
royalties per records than the UK). This makes for a bumpy ride: even the
pioneering 'Rain' sounds like a lost relic against this rather gloomy last
batch of songs, never mind the innocent charm of 'Can't Buy Me Love'. 'John and
Yoko' is also a rather uncomfortable place to end: not so much a celebration of
The Beatles as a condemnation of the events that pulled the band apart (the
title track, surely, is made for a rousing finale?) By the way, why the heck
was 'The Inner Light' (B-side of 'Lady Madonna' Passed over? Americans who hadn't bought the single would have to wait
until their version of 'Rarities' in 1979 before they got to hear this
beautiful song properly!
The running order is as chaotic as all the other
American albums, although I have to say that 'Lady Madonna' into 'Revolution'
works rather well. I'm not so sure about the starkness of 'Old Brown Shoe' breaking
the hypnotic ending of 'Hey Jude', mind you, or the 'realness' of 'Don't Let Me
Down' hitting the 'archness of 'The
Ballad Of John and Yoko', but believe it or not there are worse disasters on
these records. Finally released on CD for the first time in 2014 as part of the
'US Albums' box set (it still hasn't been released as a single CD yet!), 'Hey
Jude' is a bit of a mixed release and as much of a bittersweet finale as 'Let
It Be', as much of a cash-in as all the others. The Beatles and their American
fans, as usual, deserved better.
"The
Beatles 1962-66" (The Red Album)
(Apple, May 1973)
Love Me
Do/Please Please Me/From Me To You/She Loves You/I Want To Hold Your Hand/All
My Loving/Can't Buy Me Love/A Hard Day's Night/And I Love Her/Eight Days A
Week/I Feel Fine/Ticket To Ride/Yesterday/Help!/You've Got To Hide Your Love
Away/We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper/Drive My Car/Norwegian Wood/Nowhere
Man/Michelle/In My Life/Girl/Paperback Writer/Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine
"I want to hold your hand!"
Apple weren't intending to release a Beatles
compilation quite so soon after the break-up: that would have been thought
cheap and crass, unworthy of a band everybody seemed to own everything by
anyway. But as will so often happen in the rest of this book, fate wasn't in
Apple or EMI's hands, but in the bootleggers: a four-disc set titled 'Alpha/Omega'.
While given minimal packaging and with every song, rather weirdly, given in
'alphabetical' rather than 'chronological' order (thus starting with 'Act
Naturally' and running through to 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away', with the
additional bonus of solo tracks 'Bangladesh' 'Maybe I'm Amazed' and 'Uncle
Albert - interestingly nothing by John or Ringo) the set was very popular,
especially with the 'second generation' of fans (the younger brothers and
sisters of those who grew up in the 1960s) eager to experience the band for
themselves but unable to afford complete sets in one go. Apple simply had to
follow suit and came up with two double LP (now double CD despite the fact that
this first set could easily have fitted onto a single disc!) compilations that
featured every hit single along with key B-sides and album tracks.
While officially titled 'The Beatles: 1962-66' and
dividing the band's career between their pre and post 'Revolver' hiatus, fans
will forever know these sets as the 'red' and 'blue' albums, thanks to their
bright colours (interesting given that till now Beatles colours tended to be
'yellow' submarines and 'white' albums). We can - and will - quibble with the
track listing (in this case why is there nothing from the band's first two albums,
why only two songs from the brilliant 'Revolver' - without even 'Taxman' or
'Tomorrow Never Knows' and where the heck has 'Rain' gone?!) but by and large
these sets are about 75% of the way to getting things right and were done with
far more care than EMI's later Beatle compilations. Interestingly there isn't
one cover song on this set - not even 'Twist and Shout!' (Rumour is Allen
Klein, still just about hanging on as manager at Apple, only got a share of the
profits from Lennon-McCartney songs and had to be persuaded to use any of
George's, which are all on volume two incidentally). The chance to hear old
friends alongside the occasional song you didn't hear makes for a nice
alternate listening experience for old fans - and new fans, while they might
not get the 'complete' story, still get a nicely 'rounded' picture of what The
Beatles were and what they stood for. Unusually, no rare or unheard mixes were
used in the making of these albums, despite them being rushed out quick to
combat the bootleggers.
Best of all, though, are the two covers: the 'blue'
album shot of the band in 1969 re-creating their cover for 'Please Please Me'
in 1963 makes for the perfect 'before and after' shot and really demonstrate
the speed of the changes as a bearded, casual Beatles try to look as chipper as
their younger, eager, clean-shaven suited selves and against all odds manage
it. In a way it's rather a good thing that the band didn't use this shot for
'Let It Be' after all because it makes for the perfect 'twin package'.
After years of procrastinating EMI finally issued
these two albums on CD in 1993 and got lots of flack for making them
effectively two pricey 'double' sets of four discs, even though with a tiny bit
of altering these albums could easily have fitted onto two discs (with just one
song that has to go - sorry 'Octopuses Garden', it was nice knowing you...)
Amazingly the exact same thing happened again in 2010 when these sets were
re-mastered: you'd have thought EMI would have made enough money from The Beatles
by now...
"The
Beatles 1967-70" (The Blue Album)
(Apple, May 1973)
Strawberry
Fields Forever/Penny Lane/Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band/With A Little
Help From My Friends/Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds/A Day In The Life/All You
Need Is Love/I Am The Walrus/Hello, Goodbye/The Fool On The Hill/Magical
Mystery Tour/Lady Madonna/Hey Jude/Revolution/Back In The USSR/While My Guitar
Gently Weeps/Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da/Get Back/Don't Let Me Down/The Ballad Of John
And Yoko/Old Brown Shoe/Here Comes The Sun/Come Together/Something/Octopuses'
Garden/Let It Be/Across The Universe/The Long And Winding Road
"I'd love to turn you on"
More of the same, only a wilder and bumpier ride.
'Strawberry Fields' is an interesting place to start - even the other side of
that single 'Penny lane' would be a more obvious choice - and throughout
there's the sense that the second half of the Beatles' career is still up in
the air. While every hit single of the band's is present and correct, the other
songs make for a rather odd mixture: hurrah for including the not that obvious
'A Day In The Life' 'I Am The Walrus' 'Fool On The Hill' and 'While Mu Guitar
Gently Weeps', but why fill up precious space with 'Octopuses' Garden' 'Across
The Universe' 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' and 'Magical Mystery Tour'?
Oh and while we're at it (and because we ended up
writing too much for the 'Red' album and not enough on this one!) let's play a
few guessing games to show you just how uneven these sets are. Guess when
George gets his first vocal? Yep, that's right: 1968 and 'While My Guitar
Gently Weeps'. Which Beatle is the worst represented? No, not Ringo, but George
with three vocals to his partner's four. Which Beatles project is the best
represented in terms of tracks per album? Sgt Peppers? The White Album? Abbey
Road? Nope: 'Magical Mystery Tour', the supposed 'failure' and traditionally
the second-lowest charting Beatles LP (after 'Yellow Submarine') both times
these albums came out on CD. Where have Apple decided to put 'Let It Be' in
their chronological ordering system? Umm, both sides of 'Abbey Road', just to
be on the safe side!
Ah well, the packaging is still terrific and this
'Blue' set offers even more of a sign to newcomer fans about the madcap journey
about to come if they get into The Beatles full-time, complete with
cul-de-sacs, mistakes and moments of sheer genius along the way. No wonder
these two compilations are so well-loved: though a long way from perfect,
they're still among the best single purchases money can buy.
"A
Toot and A Snore"
(Unreleased, March 28th 1974)
A Toot and A
Snore/Bluesy Jam/Studio Talk/Lucille/ Nightmares/Stand By Me x 3/Medley:
Cupid/Chain Gang/Take This Hammer
"Don't suggest anything made before about 1963
otherwise we won't know it!"
We said in our review of the 'Star Club' tapes
that, rough and unlistenable as they were, it was almost enough that they
simply existed. The same is true but more so of this unofficial bootleg from
1974, when Paul dropped into the sessions for Harry Nilsson's album 'Pussycats'
(produced by John) and someone had the frame of mind to hit 'record'. This was
a major event - though the pair had been in contact since the split (usually by
postcard - all four loved sending each other weird and wonderful postcards,
with Ringo later collecting his into a book 'Postcards From The Boys'), but
this was the first time they'd been face to face since 1970. Paul is nearly
inaudible and Lennon is in full 'this is my territory' mode, but even so this
half hour bootleg is quite something: the last recording of John and Paul
together. In a way we've come full circle: this is a slow and lazy set of rock
standards jammed on by two men not for any audience but simply for the
enjoyment of playing old songs, without any idea of its importance or of
history looking over their shoulders while they play. At times it's worse than
the 'Let It Be' session tapes, with endless pauses while everyone tries to work
out the sound (Lennon is fussy about how his voice sounds even on a jamming session,
eerily repeating that the sound in his ears is 'dead...Dead...DEAD!!!' and
keeps stopping the playing to ask for more echo or for a better monitor mix in
his headphones). At one point Macca is grooving away nicely behind the drums
(set up for Ringo to play, although sadly he didn't turn up till the day after
- when he asked 'whose been messing up me drums?' the next morning and hearing
about his famous visitor he's meant to have quipped 'that figures - Paul was
always doing that!'), but no one has thought to place a microphone near him so
all you get at times is Lennon shouting and McCartney whispering.
In a way, though, I'm glad it ended like this, with
Lennon quipping 'let's not look so serious - it's not as if we're getting
paid!' (the end recording-wise at least - Paul continued to visit John up to
1980 but nobody taped those meetings), just two friends having fun with no
interest in anything except the numbers they're playing. The song choices
include 'Stand By Me', Lennon being busy rehearsing Ben E King's classic song
for his first go at the 'Rock and Roll' album in this period and - the bootleg
highlight - the band's old war horse 'Lucille', with Lennon attempting Little
Richard's screaming vocal while Paul joins in behind. Stevie Wonder is present
too, banging out a repetitive keyboard lick, with Jesse Ed Davis on guitar,
Harry Nilsson on vocals, Rolling Stone Bobby Keyes on saxophone and Linda
McCartney on organ. Alas the session soon collapses in a sea of apathy and
drugs (the title of the bootleg comes from Lennon's opening suggestion to
Stevie that he might like to try a sniff of his latest acquisition of cocaine!)
and a bit like that Hamburg night in 1962 never quite gets going or lives up to
the talent in the room. Unlikely ever to be released officially, 'A Toot and a
Snore' may be wretched, but it's a special kind of wretched: a moment in
history that shouldn't have been preserved and yet miraculously was, although
those present weren't to know this day was anything special.
'Please Please Me' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-92-beatles.html
'With The Beatles' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-1-beatles-with-beatles-1963.html
'A Hard Day's Night' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-2-beatles-hard-days-night-1964.html
'Beatles For Sale' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/beatles-beatles-for-sale-1964-news.html
'Help!' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-3-beatles-help-1965.html
A now complete list of Beatles links
available at this website:
'Please Please Me' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-92-beatles.html
'With The Beatles' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-1-beatles-with-beatles-1963.html
'A Hard Day's Night' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-2-beatles-hard-days-night-1964.html
'Beatles For Sale' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/beatles-beatles-for-sale-1964-news.html
'Help!' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-3-beatles-help-1965.html
'Rubber Soul' (1965) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-beatles-rubber-soul-1965-album.html
'Revolver' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-6-beatles-revolver-1966.html
'Revolver' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-6-beatles-revolver-1966.html
'Sgt Pepper's Lonely
Heart's Club Band' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-beatles-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts.html
'Magical Mystery Tour' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/news-views-and-music-issue-45-beatles.html
'The Beatles' aka 'The White Album' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-25-beatles-beatles-aka-white.html
'Magical Mystery Tour' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/news-views-and-music-issue-45-beatles.html
'The Beatles' aka 'The White Album' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-25-beatles-beatles-aka-white.html
'Yellow Submarine' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-beatles-yellow-submarine-1969.html
‘Abbey Road’ (1969) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-beatles-abbey-road-1969.html
'Let It Be' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-130-beatles.html
'Live At The BBC' (1994) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-24-beatles.html
'Christmas Fanclub Flexi-Discs' (1963-69) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/news-views-and-music-issue-85-beatles.html
'Let It Be' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-130-beatles.html
'Live At The BBC' (1994) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-24-beatles.html
'Christmas Fanclub Flexi-Discs' (1963-69) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/news-views-and-music-issue-85-beatles.html
The Best Unreleased Beatles Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/what-we-want-to-see-on-beatles.html
A Complete AAA Guide To The Beatles Cartoons http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/an-aaa-guide-to-beatles-cartoons.html
A Complete AAA Guide To The Beatles Cartoons http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/an-aaa-guide-to-beatles-cartoons.html
The Beatles: Surviving TV Appearances http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-beatles-surviving-tv-appearances.html
A 'Bite' Of Beatles Label 'Apple' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-bite-of-apple.html
The Beatles: Non-Album Songs Part One: 1958-63 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-one.html
The Beatles:
Non-Album Songs Part Two: 1964-67 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-2-1964.html
The Beatles: Non-Album Songs Part Three: 1968-96 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-three.html
The Beatles: Compilations/Live Albums/Rarities Sets
Part One: 1962-74 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-compilations-live-sets-and.html
The Beatles: Compilations/Live Albums/Rarities Sets
Part Two: 1976-2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-beatles-compilations-live-albums.html
Beatles Bonuses: The Songs
John and Paul Gave Away To The World/To Ringo! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/beatle-bonuses-songs-given-awayringos.html
Essay: The Ways In Which The Beatles Changed The World For The Better https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-beatles-essay-ways-fab-four-changed.html
Essay: The Ways In Which The Beatles Changed The World For The Better https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-beatles-essay-ways-fab-four-changed.html
Five Landmark Concerts and
Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/the-beatles-five-landmark-concerts-and.html
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