Now. Then. Later.

I stopped paying attention to the Grammys when it became apparent that the musical crimes of white males - prog, metal, Pat Boone, Michael Bolton, yacht rock, etc., etc., etc. - finally caught up with any musician with pale skin and a Y chromosome, leading to my fellow honkies being shut out of the big Grammy awards . . . Record of the Year, Album of the Year, whatever.  And this year, Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar dominated the big awards.  (Who won Record of the Year and Album of the Year, you ask?  Ahh, I don't give a twit.)  But the Best Rock Performance Grammy winner of 2025 definitely raised my eyebrows.

It went to the Beatles for their last single, "Now and Then," from 2023.

This made quite an impression on me.  Hey, why fib?  "Now and Then" is a pretty nice song, even if it's more of a ballad, a song that has more in common with a Neil Diamond MOR tune than with a Neil Young rocker.  And Paul McCartney's use of artificial intelligence to finish a song that was culled from John Lennon's vast accumulation of demos of songs in various states of completion (an accumulation that, thanks to AI, might one day produce a few new John Lennon solo albums), which was slated for the Beatles' 1996 Anthology 3 compilation but shelved because George Harrison had a problem with how it sounded at the time, was certainly a worthy innovation.  But let's be honest.  The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences actually selected a Beatles song that was recorded and mixed piecemeal over a 45-year time frame over more contemporary rock performances from current artistes who are struggling to be heard as rock and rollers in a hip-hop/R&B world.  And, like the last John Lennon album released in his lifetime - his and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy, the 1982 Album of the Year Grammy recipient - "Now and Then" is a good record that nonetheless would not have won a Grammy on its own merit if the insect (as Bernie Taupin called him) who murdered Lennon had been fatally run over by a speeding taxi on Central Park West in Manhattan on the afternoon of December 8, 1980, before he had the chance to commit his evil deed.  In fact, had Lennon lived, "Now and Then" likely would never have become a Beatles song.

Or, in other words, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences would rather celebrate rock's past than even acknowledge rock's present.

It's bad enough that today's rock bands should consider themselves lucky if they can acquire a recording contract.  Now they can't even win an award if a band that broke up more than half century before is their competition.  Or Beyoncé, who won a Rock Performance Grammy awhile back and just won the Best Country Album Grammy, so desirous is she to be represented in every musical form except classical music.  (Maybe Ringo Starr's recently released country album will win next year.)   Such hapless bands would include TV On The Radio or the Alabama Shakes, both black rock bands, as much as Dirty Honey or Greta Van Fleet, so the turn away from rock is not completely racial.  It's mostly aesthetic.  Guitar music just isn't as cool as it used to be, if indeed it is still cool at all, though part of the reason for that is that it's associated with honkies.  And quite frankly, that's the fault of white male rock fans and radio programmers who wouldn't accept black rock artistes as rockers back in the seventies.  

And so, as long as electric-guitar groups are perceived to be on the way out - a phenomenon Decca Records' Dick Rowe predicted in 1962 when he rejected the Beatles for a recording contract, making him far ahead of his time - the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences will continue to stress rock and roll's history because rock and roll is history.

As I write this, Beatles fans on social media are celebrating today's anniversary (the 61st) of the fabulous foursome's first performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."  That's because there's nothing current in rock to celebrate.  It's not about now . . . it's about then.

Sgt. Biden's Lonely Hearts Club

Let's play make-believe.  Pretend you're an artists-and-repertoire agent at Capitol Records.  It's the summer of 1967.   The Beatles' latest album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been out for a month and it's a huge sales . . . flop.  (I told you, this is make-believe.).  You're under pressure to drop the Beatles from the label despite all of their major artistic and commercial successes beforehand, and there are complaints that the Fabs have gotten long in the tooth and that maybe what Capitol needs is a new artist in their place.  However, many of the Beatles' fans, hearing that the band might be dropped, write letters to Capitol demanding that they remain on the label.  Meanwhile, Capitol has the opportunity to poach an up-and-coming guitarist/singer, Jimi Hendrix, from Reprise after the failure of his latest single despite his well-received performance at the Monterey Pop Festival.  At the same time, Capitol has the opportunity to pick up another act from a minor label - the Peppermint Trolley Company. Capitol can sign either act to replace the Beatles - but not both. Despite a great deal of support for Hendrix, because his sound appeals to the rock audience - the strongest part of the label's customer base - there is also lot of support for the Peppermint Trolley Company, because some label insiders feel that Capitol needs a sunshine pop group to compete with Spanky and Our Gang at Mercury Records for middle-of-the-road record buyers. Or, the label can take another chance on the Beatles, who have indicated that they'll break up if they're dropped from their label in America. With Brian Wilson already causing problems for Capitol with the aborted recording sessions for the Beach Boys' Smile, the wrong decision could destroy the record company. It's your decision to make, and you don't know what to do. 

Well, except for the names and a few other changes, if you talk about the Democrats, it's the same situation.  Despite his past successes, President Biden is tanking right now and the Democratic Party is under pressure to drop him.  The party can either keep Biden at the top of the ticket or choose between two alternatives - Kamala Harris, who appeals to the party's black and/or female base, or an unknown generic candidate - say, a young governor - that many Democrats feel is what they need to compete with MAGA for middle-of-the-road independent voters.  All three choices carry risks, but without knowing what the future holds, there's at least a 67 percent chance of success, as there are two out of three paths that will lead to a Democratic victory in November.  But one of those choices is the wrong choice, and, bearing in mind that the down-ballot elections are threatened, if the Democrats make that choice, the party - and the country - will be destroyed.  But no one knows which door is the dreaded Door Number Three.  

I believe you already know what I think.  I'm convinced that naming a Josh Shapiro or a Wes Moore as the Democratic presidential nominee instead of Biden or Harris would be the political equivalent of Capitol dropping the Beatles and eschewing Jimi Hendrix for the Peppermint Trolley Company.

The Peppermint Trolley Company, by the way, was a real group.  They were the group that sang the theme song for "The Brady Bunch" in the opening titles for that sitcom's first season, only to be dropped thereafter when it became apparent that sunshine pop was a passing fancy.

Just like Josh Shapiro.

Music Video Of the Week - July 12, 2024

"I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" by the Beatles (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - February 9, 2024

"I Want To Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Now, Then and Later

Anyone who remembers the Beatles' Anthology CD releases of the mid-nineties also remembers the thrill and excitement of waiting to hear two new Beatles singles - "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" - as part of the accompanying TV documentary that aired on ABC in America in 1995.  So what if the two new songs had clichés as titles?  They were two new Beatles songs, made with overdubbing and remixing from two unfinished John Lennon cassette demos from his retirement years in Manhattan.  Despite the passage of time and the worry that that band's legacy would be cheapened, and despite jokes that Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were planning to make a record out of another unfinished Lennon recording called "Yoko and I Can't Come To the Phone Right Now" ( 😃 ), the two new songs not disappoint.  Ringo, after hearing one of the new songs in finished form, famously said, "It sounds like the bloody Beatles!"

Because "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" were the Beatles, and they satisfied the desires of Beatles fans - many of whom were too young to have experienced the Fab Four firsthand and had to settle for the record business cramming Duran Duran down their throats in the 1980s - who wished there could be new Beatles product.  "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love," appearing on the Anthology albums, complemented the three double-CD compilations of alternate-take and unreleased-song tracks as well.

"But wait!" we all said collectively.  Two new songs for three new double-album releases of previously unissued session tapes?  That doesn't add up!"  No, it didn't.  While Anthology 1 kicked off with "Free as a Bird" and Anthology 2 started with "Real Love," Anthology 3 began with . . . a beginning.  That is, "A Beginning," a short orchestral introduction composed by George Martin as a possible item for Ringo's White Album song "Don't Pass Me By" but then discarded.  Why not a third new Beatles song?

Well, as we all know now, there was a third unfinished John Lennon song intended to start the third Anthology collection . . . "Now and Then." The three surviving Beatles had begun work on it in 1995, but John's voice was so weak that George didn't think it was worth completing, lest the group put out inferior product and fail to provide value for money (already a quaint notion in 1995, but the Fabs were old-school), and so the song was shelved.  If one member of the group objected to an idea, the group did not go forward with it.

But as artificial intelligence technology has improved, Paul thought it would be possible to strengthen John's vocal on "Now and Then" by having AI simulate his voice from the original cassette demo and add more fullness and timbre to it.  Ringo was game, and so the intended Anthology 3 bonus track was completed.  (Note: This song has been referred to before by the title "I Don't Want To Lose You," but the verse that includes that lyric was edited out of the final product.)

Given the way AI has taken over the Internet and has been used to create dangerous deep fakes that include a video of Hillary Clinton endorsing Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign (what next, a rom-com feature pairing Helen Mirren and Dan Aykroyd?), I was skeptical about how "Now and Then" would turn out.  Having now listened to it, though, I can say that it turned out beautifully.  The song is wonderfully arranged around John's somber piano, with Ringo's steady drums keeping a perfect beat and Paul's and George's guitars adding rich treble to what is essentially a folk-rock ballad in the style of Rubber Soul.   And John's vocals?  Well, I heard the "Now and Then" demo, and I don't think his vocal was that weak, but the AI certainly makes him sound more polished and professional.  The use of AI is so subtle - subtlety being a Beatles trademark - that you can't tell how or where the AI technology enhanced it . . . though to Paul and to Giles Martin, who produced "Now and Then" together, it must stick out like a sore thumb, just like the edit joining two entirely different arrangements of "Strawberry Fields Forever" did to Giles' father George.  "Now and Then" itself is rather poignant as a song, showing John in conflict about he's nothing without Yoko but still wanting enough freedom to stand on his own.

"Now and Then" is appearing on an album, by the way.  To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original release of the Beatles' 1962-1966 Red and 1967-1970 Blue compilations, Apple is releasing new versions of both albums with expanded track lists on CD and vinyl, adding more songs (including a few covers) to both collections, turning the two double albums into triple albums, at least on the vinyl edition, were the additional songs will comprise bonus LPs.  So the Beatles' first greatest-hits compilations will now be the equivalent of a sextuple album, with "Now and Then" appearing as the final track on CD edition of the Blue Album and as the lead track on a bonus record of the Blue Album's added songs on the vinyl edition.  (Would you believe that the songs added to the Red Album do not include "If I Fell," even though it was an American single that got airplay on AM radio,  and also do not include "Do You Want To Know a Secret?", a number-two hit single in the States? Incomprehensible.) 

As the final "new" song from the Beatles, "Now and Then" represents the last hurrah for the group - and, along with the Rolling Stones' new Hackney Diamonds album, the last hurrah for rock and roll.  Rock has had a great deal of trouble producing acts with anything resembling staying power in the past four decades, and even in the 1970s - a decade that saw the debuts of the Eagles, Steely Dan, Jackson Browne, the Doobie Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Rush, Tom Petty and Elvis Costello and also saw the peaks of artists that debuted at the end of the sixties, such as Elton John and Led Zeppelin - the Stones and the solo Beatles seemed to dominate the rock scene like no seventies artist (except Elton John) could.  Also, rock had to contend with the disco craze in the seventies.  And while rock survived the seventies better than Gloria Gaynor's career, its decline in the 1980s, despite a few strong albums and artists, was hard to overlook and impossible to comprehend.  That decline - paused briefly by the early-nineties grunge revolt - continued in 1995, the year the first product from of the Beatles' Anthology project came out and the year after Kurt Cobain's death, and it continues to this very day.  But that's a topic for another blog post.  Suffice it to say that it seems sadly appropriate that the Beatles and the Stones, who rescued rock and roll from the dead after it seemingly perished with Buddy Holly and his traveling companions, are now ready to give the form last rites now. 😢

Here is the official video for "Now and Then," created by Get Back director Peter Jackson.  This isn't a Music Video Of the Week; this is the music video of the year. 😊    

 

Music Video Of the Week - April 21, 2023

"From Me To You" by the Beatles  Go to the link in the (upper-right-hand corner.) 

Music Video Of the Week - January 6, 2023

"Revolution" by the Beatles  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)  

The Beatles - Get Back (1969, 2021)

(This is a special record review.)

Peter Jackson's Disney + documentary on the Beatles' January 1969 Get Back sessions changed a lot of minds on how those sessions played out - we now know they were not the dismal, despondent affair that the Beatles themselves remembered them to be.  But no amount of historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight can change my verdict on the original attempt producer Glyn Johns made at making an album out of the sessions.  It's still a mess.

Johns, who engineered the original Get Back sessions that led to the Let It Be album that Phil Spector ultimately wrought, tried to make an LP out of the sessions in the spring of 1969 and concentrated on playing up the Beatles' rough edges - "warts and all," as it were.  He hoped to capture the relaxed nature of the sessions and preserve the feel of the original recordings, which were mostly recorded live, with as few overdubs and edits as possible.  Having circulated for decades as a bootleg, Johns' Get Back album has always been revered by Beatles fans who were displeased with Spector's efforts, but in actuality, there's little to recommend of it.  I have the bootleg, and EMI and Apple have made the original Get Back LP available in the new Let It Be box set and on YouTube, professionally remixed for the digital age.  Even after hearing the new remix of Get Back, though, I still don't get why so many Beatles fans prefer it to Let It Be.

The sound quality is the best asset of the Johns album; Johns went the extra mile to get an authentic, rootsy sound that is mostly lacking from Spector's Let It Be.  My big problem with Get Back is the choice of takes of the songs.  While Spector used more of the takes from the rooftop performance of January 30, 1969 and from the studio performance of the following day, Johns opted for earlier, unformed takes from earlier in the sessions.  Earlier recordings of "Dig a Pony" and "I've Got a Feeling" thus sound as unprofessional and sloppy as you might imagine, with flubbed lyrics and unnecessary improvisations.  An earlier recording of "Two Of Us" struggles with a slightly lower tempo and some disconcerting hesitation, and after hearing a longer, fuller version of "Dig It" here, I'm ever more grateful that Spector kept his remix to fifty seconds.  And while Johns' remix of the "The Long And Winding Road" - using the same take Spector used - is free of a Mantovani-style orchestra (this mix also appeared on Anthology 3), the better performance of this song remains the one seen in the original Let It Be movie (which made its debut on disc on Let It Be . . . Naked).      

Johns' inclusion of tune-ups, false starts and studio banter are just as distracting as those on Spector's Let It Be - more so, in fact, because Johns uses more of them.  It gets to be a distraction that diminishes even the better musical performances.  The takes Johns includes throws in some cross-talking, most annoyingly notable with John Lennon's disparagingly improvised square-dance lyric in Paul McCartney's "Teddy Boy," a song that didn't even make the final cut in either the Let It Be movie or on the album.  (And for good reason: It's not one of Paul's best.  It ended up on his first solo LP.)  A medley of an improvised instrumental with a brief cover of the  Drifters' "Save the Last Dance For Me" piques interest, but its over so quickly that you're left wondering why the Beatles couldn't follow though on a promising idea. 

Among the highlights of Get Back is its only rooftop track, "The One After 909," which is a lot more vivid than Spector's remix of the same take.  Johns also excelled with his mix of George Harrison's "For You Blue," as it uses the original vocal track and not the one George overdubbed later.  You can really hear "the warmth and freshness of a live performance" here that Spector's LP promised but rarely delivered.  But the ragged, demo-style quality of Get Back is tiresome and makes it sound like the Beatles didn't care what got put out in their name.  Except that they did; the Beatles rejected this album twice, even after Johns revised it by adding okay but undistinguished remixes of "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine." 

No, Get Back is not the great lost treasure of the Beatles' January 1969 sessions.  It means well as an album that tries to present the Beatles in a more intimate and relaxed setting, but it doesn't do well in presenting the best elements of their music.  Spector doesn't get off the hook, though; Let It Be may be more presentable, but it suffers from its own deficiencies.  As for Get Back, Johns may have produced an album closer to the Beatles' original "live" idea and with a greater sense of consistency, but it depicts the Beatles not as a band rediscovering their roots but as a lackadaisical rock group going through the motions.  Inadvertently, it depicts Glyn Johns as a lackadaisical producer doing the same.

"The Beatles: Get Back" - Review

Back in July, I expressed regret that Peter Jackson's docu-series The Beatles: Get Back would be streaming on Disney +, meaning  I would have to pay to subscribe to Disney + in order to see it.  Well, I did just that - and I got a special introductory offer from Disney that the company no doubt conceived to lure potential long-term subscribers who wanted to see The Beatles: Get Back.  Two dollars for the first month.  And I saw all three episodes over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

So what did I think of it? I liked it a lot. 

That's hardly a professional review, so let me elaborate.  The Get Back docu-series, using unreleased footage from the original Let It Be documentary directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, shows a band still very much together and eager to overcome the bad vibes that took over the making of the White Album, as they set out in January 1969 to rehearse new songs for a planned live performance on television - either with or without a live audience, and either in London or in some exotic locale like an ancient Roman amphitheater in Libya that was under consideration.  (Such a show would have taken place before Qaddafi took over the country later that year.)  This time the vibes were much more positive, and the Beatles are shown working diligently on new material at Twickenham Film Studios and sorting out which songs to play and which to leave for later.  We are surprisingly treated to material that most of us didn't even know existed - songs that were partially or completely written but never properly recorded - like "Commonwealth," a Lennon-McCartney satire on the effort by the British government to get immigrants from former British colonies to go back home.  In between, they get along like they did in the moptop years, and Peter Sellers (at Twickenham to attend a casting session for The Magic Christian, which also featured Ringo Starr) stops by to join in on the levity.

George Harrison's sudden walkout on January 10 is far less dramatic than originally thought.  Despite Beatles docudramas showing George getting pissed off and slamming his guitar case shut before storming out, George announced his departure quietly, with no hysterics, and walked out just as nonchalantly.  His discussions with Paul McCartney in the previous days over arrangements show that he was frustrated and felt underappreciated, and an audio recording of Paul and John Lennon discussing George's departure show that they clearly loved the guy and wanted to give him the space he needed to keep him from leaving the band.  George, who had misgivings over a live show on TV, returned after the Beatles decided to instead record an album of live studio performances complemented by an outdoor gig in London, the specifics of which were to be determined.

The Apple Studios segments of The Beatles: Get Back put those sessions in much different context than the Let It Be movie, just as its Twickenham scenes do.  The Beatles and Billy Preston (who joined them for the Apple sessions) run through songs, tell jokes, experiment with arrangements and riffs, and ultimately perform the takes that made it on the 1970 Let It Be album.  (There's also a more complete take of the traditional Liverpool song "Maggie Mae" shown here than the one heard on the Let It Be album, though neither take made the 1970 Let It Be movie.)  Producer George Martin is seen being very much involved in the project, and co-producer engineer Glyn Johns (fresh from having co-produced Family's second album) brims with the eagerness and professionalism that made him the greatest British record producer not named George Martin.  As the series progresses, Lindsay-Hogg gets the band to agree to a concert on the roof of their own Apple building at 3 Savile Row - the January 30 rooftop gig is shown with more depth than in the original movie, where Lindsay-Hogg had to deal with time constraints.  Here, Peter Jackson lets loose, showing familiar scenes from different camera angles, extra performances (the Beatles performed a few songs on the roof more than once) and, interestingly, what happened after the rooftop gig ended.  They're pleased with how it turned out, and they're eager to see the project through with a studio performance of the lighter, more ballad-oriented numbers, which occurred the day after.     

If I have any complaints about The Beatles: Get Back, it's that there are few scenes apart from the rooftop gig in which a full take of a song is presented, and the Apple studio performance session from January 31 is shown in bits and pieces alongside the closing credits of the third episode.  But Jackson's docu-series makes clear three key facts.  First, the Beatles had gotten back to where they once belonged, but fateful business decisions involving pop impresario Allen Klein (with whom John met during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions) took them away from that place. (Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman both attended the Get Back/Let It Be sessions regularly, but their presence was welcomed, with neither one interfering with the Beatles' work.)  Second, the sessions were not "the most miserable sessions on earth," as John remembered them; the memory of the misery stemmed more from the finished product that Phil Spector wrought after two failed attempts at a Get Back album from Glyn Johns than the actual recording sessions.  Third, Michael Lindsay-Hogg proved himself to be a masterful conductor, getting the Beatles to see their project through and orchestrating one of the most compelling and most ambitious projects for a group striving to make a straightforward, live, honest record after having pioneered some of the most complicated and sophisticated recording techniques . . . and getting the Beatles to appreciate the joy of playing music again. Especially when they played up on the roof.

But it also begs this question, which I've asked before: After shooting over sixty hours of footage, the 1970 Let It Be movie was the best Lindsay-Hogg could come up with?  

So yes, I enjoyed The Beatles: Get Back, despite a few quibbles, and I'm glad to know that Glyn Johns is not insane.  He's always remembered these sessions as being productive and cordial, and for many years he was in a minority of one.  Jackson has vindicated him and thankfully refreshed Paul's and Ringo's memories - and made new memories for the rest of us.

*

Oh yeah, the Let It Be LP has been reissued in a "Super Deluxe" package, with a book of Ethan Russell's photographs (just like the original album's 1970 British release), rehearsals, Glyn Johns' original May 1969 Get Back album, and an EP of Johns' remixes of "Across The Universe" and "I Me Mine" intended for his revised January 1970 Get Back album supported by remixes of the original "Get Back" and "Let It Be" singles.  Too expensive for me, and not really worth it for me either; I have a bootleg of Johns' May 1969 Get Back album, and it reinforces my opinion that Spector's album was the more presentable one, though that doesn't let Spector off the hook for his inconsistencies and unnecessary orchestral overdubs.  And, to be honest, one thing Jackson's docu-series cannot revise or change is the quality of some of the songs, songs such as "Dig a Pony" and "For You Blue." Though, I would like to hear Johns' remixes of "Across The Universe" and "I Me Mine" out of curiosity.  (Spector did a good job with both of them, but as they were not recordings from the actual Get Back/Let It Be sessions - they were only included on Let It Be because the Beatles were shown in the original movie rehearsing them at Twickenham - they should have been put out as a non-album single.)  And to be fair, Johns' album probably sounds better professionally remixed.  It's nice to know that anything here that we'd like to hear out of curiosity will likely be up on YouTube in a few months.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Disney + subscription to cancel. 😉

Elton John's Fall 1970 U.S. Tour

Elton John's career, as we have already seen, was expected to end as 1970 dawned, as he and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin had gotten nowhere.  But by the fall, Elton's long rock and roll odyssey was already beginning.

After a few concert dates in the U.S. in September 1970, he returned to England, and as the Beatles were going through a slow-motion split - it would not be until literally the end of 1970, December 31, when Paul McCartney sued to dissolve the band's legal partnership to dissociate himself from Apple manager Allen Klein - America moved on to Elton.  The Black Album continued to sell in appreciable quantities, eventually peaking at number four on the Billboard album chart.  That October, Elton released this third studio LP, Tumbleweed Connection, in England.  It would not be released in the U.S. until January 1971, and Elton's activities in the States that November, when he would resume U.S. concert dates, would certainly be a catalyst for continued chart success.  (Tumbleweed Connection would peak at number five on the Billboard album chart.)

He returned to America to begin another tour, playing a few gigs in Boston in the final three days of October at the Boston Tea Party, one of several small venues he would perform at in the coming weeks.  (Arenas and stadiums would come later.)  Meanwhile, "Your Song" was released as a single a few days before his autumn American tour began, eventually peaking at number eight in the U.S.  From Boston, he would go to play the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, the Painters Wall Music Fair in Baltimore, the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and after a performance at Santa Monica's Civic Auditorium, he'd arrive in the city where, if he could make it there, he could make it anywhere.

Of course, by the time Elton arrived in New York City, he'd already made it everywhere in America; his Fillmore East gig would simply close the sale in the States.  He spent a week in the Big Apple, performing a radio concert there on Tuesday, November 17, for WABC-FM (later WPLJ-FM), which must have seemed rather novel to radio listeners.  (Live radio performances were much more common in Britain in 1970, with American radio stations mostly opting for records.)  Elton wowed his audience with performances of songs from the Black Album and a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" as well as songs from Tumbleweed Connection.  After performing "Burn Down the Mission," he went into into a medley of Elvis Presley's "My Baby Left Me" and the Beatles' "Get Back," an obvious indication of the standard Elton had chosen for himself.  Elton performed under a handicap; he'd cut his hand before going on, and by the time he was done, the keys of the piano he used were all bloodied.

Bootlegs of the radio concert soon circulated, and a 48-minute excerpt of the 80-minute concert would later be released as the album 17-11-70.  In the United States, where it was issued as 11-17-70, it reached number eleven on the Billboard album chart.  Critical opinion was divided, with some reviewers dismissing it as hammy and others finding it to be a fine document of Elton's live-performance abilities.  You can read my opinion of it here.  (A special 2017 two-record reissue of 11-17-70 would feature the full concert.)   

The following Friday and Saturday, November 20 and 21, Elton played the Fillmore East, which had already been witness to another historic pair of shows that year - Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen shows of Easter weekend.  A celebrity attendee of one of the Cocker concerts now showed up backstage after one of Elton's Fillmore East shows.  Bernie Taupin actually failed to recognize the hawk-nosed, bearded guest at first, but the visitor made it clear that he loved Elton's music and Bernie's lyrics.

The following week, the British music magazine Melody Maker ran the following headline: DYLAN DIGS ELTON! 

(Bob Dylan in 1970.)

"When I met Bob Dylan at the Fillmore East," Elton recalled in 2011, "he was standing on the staircase and he tells Bernie, 'Oh, I really like the lyrics to "Ballad of a Well-Known Gun,"' and Bernie [faked a heart attack]. There’s nothing like when your heroes rubber-stamp what you’re doing." 

(And Dylan wasn't the only hero of Elton's that approved of him.  It was also in 1970 that Neil Young came to Elton's apartment and played the entire song list of his then-current LP After the Gold Rush on Elton's piano until three in the morning. "How are you ever going to forget that?" Elton later said.)

On Elton went, playing at colleges in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Glassboro, New Jersey before heading toward the heartland.  He made his mark with performances in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis before making an appearance at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where another Englishman, Winston Churchill, had made his famous Iron Curtain speech.  One could argue that Elton's concert there on December 1 was as equally important as Churchill's appearance, since it demonstrated his appeal in the real America in a state known for being Northern, Southern, and Midwestern all at once.

From there Elton performed three California dates in Anaheim, San Bernardino and, where it all started, Los Angeles - this time in the Royce Hall on the UCLA campus.  With his peers singing his praises (Al Kooper called the Black Album "the ultimate album") and his records skyrocketing to the Top Ten and setting him up for a fantastic period of chart dominance that would price a string of hit singles and seven consecutive albums at number one, it was becoming quite clear what was going on.  The sixties were over, the seventies had arrived, and Elton John was the new hero for the new decade.  Let's all repeat what the late radio personality Bill Drake once said: "As Elvis was to the fifties, and as the Beatles were to the sixties, Elton John was to the seventies."  

I need mention one other thing. The exact U.K. release date of Elton John's self-titled second album was April 10, 1970 - the day after Paul McCartney announced to the world that he was leaving the Beatles. (As noted in an earlier blog post, the Black Album was released in the U.S. in July 1970 - specifically, July 22.) Even though no one could have known it at the time, the Beatles were passing the torch to Elton. As John Lennon would later recall, "I remember hearing Elton John's 'Your Song', heard it in America - it was one of Elton's first big hits -and remember thinking, 'Great, that's the first new thing that's happened since we (The Beatles) happened.' It was a step forward. There was something about his vocal that was an improvement on all of the English vocals until then. I was pleased with it."

And so was everyone else. 😊

Ringo At Eighty

And now, to a real musician . . .

Ringo Starr, the older of the two surviving Beatles, is eighty years old today, and he's still active.  One would have thought he would be retired by now, since he hasn't had a hit single since the early eighties and because he's never been as consistent in his songwriting as the other Beatles.  But he sings better than most people give him credit for, and more importantly, he's the consummate entertainer, always delivering songs with a smile in his voice and a twinkle in his eye.  His own acknowledgment of his ordinariness - "What's a skinny little scruff like me doing in a band like this?", he famously asked when in the Beatles - is what made him a legend.  It's his ability to not take himself to seriously that gave him his longevity.

In previous years, Ringo has celebrated his birthday the same way.  Wherever happens to be, he counts down to twelve o'clock noon and, with those in his company, calls out "Peace and Love," a mantra mantle he inherited from John Lennon.  This time, though, ihanks to COVID-19, he will be having a virtual concert at 8 PM Eastern Tie and be joined by Paul McCartney, along with a little help form his other friends - Joe Walsh, Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr and Sheila E - t oraise money for four causes (Black Lives Matter, The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares and WaterAid). While Ringo probably won't record another album again (thigh he has hinted at an extended player), he may yet still perform with his All-Starr Band (whose lineup consists of whoever happens to be in the room, or these days, on Zoom at the time) when the pandemic is over, which means we could still see him on stage in 2021.  Or 2022.  Let's hope so.  We need him to stick around and stay healthy for as long as he can and keep making us smile.

Rock on, Ringo  Rock on.

'Let It Be' - The Release

May 1970 marked the final rituals of Beatlemania with the release of the group's last project.  On May 8, the album Let It Be was released in the United Kingdom, with its release in the United States coming ten days after.  The British edition came with a book of pictures of the January 1969 sessions from photographer Ethan Russell, "The Beatles Get Back," which was deleted in November 1970; in the U.S., fans only got an inner sleeve with a sampling of Russell's photos. In between the album's U.K. and U.S. release dates, "The Long and Winding Road" was issued as a single in America on May 11, followed by the Let It Be documentary movie receiving its world premiere on May 13 in . . . New York, a clear indicator of how important the U.S. had become to the group's success.   The film would have its British premiere in London a week after.

And as far as America was concerned, the dying embers of the Beatles couldn't have come at a more appropriate time.  May 1970 was also the month of the Kent State massacre in Ohio, which was followed shortly thereafter by the "hard hat riot" of Manhattan construction workers beating up anti-war demonstrators.  A new decade had arrived, and it had driven a stake in the heart of peace and love.  And Let It Be provided little comfort. 

The documentary movie, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was not a huge box-office success.  It's an interesting film, showing the Beatles going through the creative process and performing their songs live, and there are moments of genuine inspiration from their low-key performances of their lighter numbers to their flat-out rocking show on the Apple rooftop, as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono waltzing together.  But there are also moments of sluggish playing, dull conversations, and the occasional argument, such as Paul McCartney lecturing a frustrated George Harrison on how to play a solo as Ringo Starr looks on.  The movie is also rather grainy, having been enlarged from 16-millimeter to 35-millimeter film so it could be shown in theaters, rather than on television as originally planned (it became the third movie the Beatles owed United Artists).  It's also rather short, somewhat mercifully so - though it's 82 minutes in length, fans found the movie to seem longer, and not in a good way.  It was hard for anyone to imagine how Lindsay-Hogg had filmed a month's worth of Beatles rehearsals and recording sessions, yet this was the best footage he could come up with.  In fact, it wasn't, as I will explain here . . . but Lindsay-Hogg's choice of material to lay out the narrative for the Get Back/Let It Be project didn't do anyone any favors.

The bad feeling the Beatles couldn't hide (oh, no) was evident in one scene where Paul, with his back to the camera, tells John how the Beatles have to overcome their nervousness over performing as a live unit again in order to shake off the discontent they've been feeling.  John listens politely but he obviously isn't buying Paul's diagnosis of the situation or the cure for the ennui the group is experiencing.

Commercially, the Let It Be LP was a success - after all, it was a Beatles record - but reactions to it devolved into controversy. 

The liner notes on the back cover were almost self-parody: "This is a new-phase BEATLES album . . . essential to the content of the film, LET IT BE was that they performed live for many of the tracks; in comes the warmth and freshness of a live performance; as reproduced for disc by Phil Spector."

In fact, fans found little warmth or freshness to be had, and many listeners believed that Spector's remixes - I'm just talking about the remixes of the songs he didn't overdub - were the sonic equivalent of warmed-over leftovers.  And they were especially peeved about the Spector's overdubs.  The pop press was especially disdainful, with Rolling Stone's John Mendelson praising the Beatles' music but declaring that Spector had managed to "turn several of the rough gems on the best Beatle album in ages into costume jewelry."  Time magazine punningly dubbed it "the specter of the Beatles," while over in merrie olde England,  Alan Smith of New Musical Express called it "a cardboard tombstone" and a "sad and tatty end to a musical fusion which wiped clean and drew again the face of pop music."  Other verdicts included "the black album" and "the wrong goodbye."

The Beatles' inner circle included its own detractors.  George Martin was mortified when he heard Spector's work, and Glyn Johns, denied the opportunity to have one of his two albums made from the Get Back/Let It Be tapes commercially released, was especially vicious in his assessment (pouring "nothing but scorn and vitriol" on the record, as Beatles author Mark Lewisohn noted).  But Paul McCartney continued to spit the most out of the tent.  Not just about "The Long and Winding Road" and Spector's overall "wall of sound approach," but about the whole package, calling the liner notes "blatant hype" and complaining about photographer Ethan Russell's monograph book for inflating the British LP's retail price by 33 percent.  (He might very well have been bothered by the fact that the book was a limited-edition gimmick to make the fans in Britain buy it before it got deleted.  If you wanted it, you could go and get it, but you had to hurry because it was going to go fast.)  But Spector's overall production techniques remained his biggest issue.

I've already reviewed Let It Be on this blog, so I won't repeat my assessment here.  (Just go to this link to read my original review.)  But I have to confess something; for all of the flaws with Spector's approach, he made a more presentable album than Glyn Johns did.  I have Johns' first attempt at making an album from the Get Back/Let It Be tapes as a bootleg - indeed, that record has circulated as a bootleg for as long as it has existed - and it's rather ragged, sounding somewhat exhausted.  I have to agree with Mark Lewisohn that, had either of Johns' two Get Back albums been issued, most of the critics might have reacted with greater hostility.  (Mendelson, who in fact had heard one of the Glyn Johns compilations before Spector's came out, would have been an exception.)

Spector doesn't get off the hook entirely.  It should be stressed again and again that he should have least made the album consistent and not tried to juxtapose the rough edges of Let It Be (the false starts and all that) with high-gloss touches.  But on balance, he did a decent job with it. And John Lennon certainly agreed.  "He worked like a pig on it," Lennon later said.  "I mean, he'd always wanted to work with the Beatles, and he was given the sh----est load of badly recorded sh-- and with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something out of it." Though, Lennon darned Spector with faint praise: "It wasn't fantastic, but when I heard it, I didn’t puke."

But Paul McCartney would continue to be indisposed by the mere thought of the album, and when he met Michael Lindsay-Hogg by chance on an airline flight in the early 2000s, they discussed reworking the Let It Be movie for a new home-video release and putting out a new companion LP for it.  Although the movie was not re-released,  Paul successfully got Abbey Road technicians Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, and Allan Rouse to concoct what many Beatles fans consider to be the definitive audio document of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions: 2003's Let It Be . . . Naked, which I reviewed in August 2015.  It was the intimate studio record Paul had always wanted, and even Ringo had to admit it was better than what Spector had come up with.  (Though, in all fairness, twenty-first-century technology that no one could have envisioned in 1970 was most likely what made Let It Be . . . Naked possible in the first place.)  

As for the movie . . . not only is it being restored for release for its fiftieth anniversary, but there will be a new movie culled from more than 55 hours of unreleased film and audio from the January 1969 sessions, to be called Get Back, from New Zealandic director Peter Jackson.  It will show the Beatles in a different light than the original Let It Be movie; instead of showing them breaking up, it will show the more lighthearted, laid-back moments of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions where they enjoyed themselves and got along as well as they did in the early days of Beatlemania.  I can't wait to see it. :-) 

On May 20, 1970, fifty years ago today (and, like today, a Wednesday), the Let It Be movie had its British premiere in London.  Thrice before, Beatles fans had gathered for a London premiere of a Beatles movie to catch a glimpse of the fabulous foursome themselves, and this night was no different.  What was different was that none of the Beatles showed up for this premiere.   It seems appropriate that George Harrison and Phil Spector (above), who oversaw the end of the Beatles era in an EMI Abbey Road control room two months earlier, would enter Abbey Road that same day to oversee the beginning of a new era - by beginning work on George's first studio album since the official breakup of the Beatles.

All things must pass away. 

The end.

*

"I didn't leave the Beatles.  The Beatles have left the Beatles - but no one wants to be the one to say the party's over." - Paul McCartney

(Below: A clip of the Beatles with Billy Preston performing "The Long And Winding Road," the Beatles' last American number-one single.)

Music Video Of the Week - May 8, 2020

"The Long And Winding Road" by the Beatles (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

The Beatles - The End

It shouldn't have been a surprise that the Beatles were suddenly no more in the early spring of 1970.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney were spending more time with their wives and found in them partners they needed more than they needed each other.  George Harrison wanted more room for his own songs after being relegated to two per LP with the group.  He increasingly preferred the company of other musicians, as was evident when he joined Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett for their 1969 British and Scandinavian tours.  And the rift between Paul and the other Beatles over their Apple Corps company didn't help.  Much to Paul's chagrin, the other three Beatles had let American pop manager Allen Klein, a man Paul vehemently distrusted, assume the directorship of Apple.

Paul was also getting uncomfortable being the de facto leader of a group that, unlike other rock bands, did not have an acknowledged leader.  But ever since Brian Epstein's death in August 1967, the Beatles had become Paul's group; it was he who had instigated Magical Mystery Tour, Apple, the Get Back/Let It Be project, Abbey Road, and five out of seven singles.  He had managed to keep Ringo, then George, from leaving the group, and more recently at this point he had been trying to keep John from making good on his intentions to leave.  But by now Paul had given up on the foursome being a group once more.

Although Paul never announced that the Beatles were breaking up - he only announced that he was leaving the Beatles - fans knew his departure meant the end of the group.  He had already cut the cord with the others over the release of his debut solo album, the back-cover picture from which is above (showing a disheveled Paul with newborn daughter Mary snuggled in his coat, in a picture taken by wife Linda).  When Paul insisted that his new album McCartney be released ahead of Let It Be, John and George sent Ringo to tell Paul to wait until after Let It Be was out to release his new album.  Paul went into a state of unabated fury and almost literally threw Ringo out of his house, forcing the other three Beatles to let Paul have his way.

In the meantime, Paul tried to have the overdubbed take of "The Long and Winding Road" restored to its original state.  He had approved of the Let It Be album's final mix to facilitate the album's release, but he resented the lush orchestra added to his song, the song that would be the Beatles' last American number-one single.  (The song was not released as a single in Great Britain.)  He would try to get the overdubs removed before Let It Be's release, demanding in a letter dated April 14, 1970 meant for Spector - but addressed to Klein - that the overdubs be removed with an admonition to never do anything like that again, but, because of his distrust for Klein and a communication gap with Klein and Spector, he was unsuccessful. Paul would later explain the situation in an April 22-23, 1970 interview with the London Evening Standard.

The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer Phil Spector was called in by Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks. But a few weeks ago, I was sent a re-mixed version of my song "The Long and Winding Road" with harps, horns, an orchestra, and a women's choir added. No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn't believe it . . ..  To me it was just distasteful. 

When Paul sued in December 1970 to dissolve the group's legal partnership - a case he ultimately won - he even suggested that the overdub on "The Long and Winding Road" was an attempt to destroy his artistic reputation.

Why was "The Long and Winding Road" subjected to so much sumptuousness?  This is only a guess on my part.  Klein was believed to have thought that the song would make an appropriate farewell single in America, and it was ultimately released as such a week before the Let It Be album's American release.  Spector, perhaps aware of Klein's attentions to release the song as a 45 in the U.S., probably believed that a lush agreement was fitting for a song that, ultimately, would reflect the sadness of American fans over the Beatles' breakup.  As to why Spector chose in the first place to use a take that was admittedly flawed - John's bass playing on the take he chose was out of tune and somewhat sluggish - instead of using a take that required little or no embellishment, I have no answer to that question.

McCartney was released on April 17, 1970 along with a press release in the form of a "self-interview," in which Apple staffer and Beatles assistant Peter Brown (not to be confused with Peter Bown, the engineer who had helped Phil Spector assemble the Let It Be album) wrote out a series of questions and for which Paul supplied the answers.  The full interview is here.

Brown (above) would soon be fired from Apple in an ongoing purge by Klein.  Paul McCartney was quick to make clear to everyone that Klein did not represent him "in any way."  Eventually, Peter Brown would put out a tell-all book about the band, "The Love You Make," in 1983.  The three Beatles alive at the time never forgave him for that.

With McCartney in the record stores and the Beatles' breakup official, all that was left was to release Let It Be.

To be continued . . .

The Beatles - The Final Days

The last time all four Beatles were together at EMI Studios at Abbey Road was on August 20, 1969 to finish the Abbey Road album.  But, as we have already seen, there were in 1970 four more Beatles recording sessions with least one or three Beatles in attendance to tie up the loose ends of Let It Be.

On April 1, 1970, Phil Spector oversaw in Abbey Road's cavernous Studio One the very last recording session for a Beatles record before the breakup was made official, which involved overdubbing an orchestra on three of the Let It Be album's songs, all but one of them having actually not been recorded during the January 1969 sessions from which the album was conceived.  This fourth Beatles recording session of 1970 featured one Beatle - Ringo (below, in 1970), who played drums on all three songs along with the orchestra.

Again, the three songs in question were John Lennon's song "Across the Universe," George Harrison's "I Me Mine," and, the only song from the January 1969 tapes involved here,  Paul McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road."  The results were quite telling; the former two songs benefited from Spector's orchestral overdubs, while "The Long and Winding Road" suffered tragically.  The difference was likely due to the fact that the former two songs had been professionally recorded from the start, while "The Long and Winding Road" was recorded live in a makeshift studio and had deliberately been stripped down.  The take of "The Long and Winding Road" that was used, from January 26, 1969, wasn't the best take the Beatles had recorded - the definitive version was probably the one recorded five days after as seen in the Let It Be movie - but it was by no means in need of lavish overdubbing.  Listening to Spector's version of the earlier take and then listening the overdub-free version of that same take, issued in 1996 on Anthology 3, is like looking at a picture of a beautiful woman wearing elaborate makeup and then seeing a picture of the same woman with her plain face; you're more drawn to the natural beauty of the plain version.

Be that as it may, Spector certainly put his stamp on the three songs he overdubbed.  "Across the Universe" was the most successful example; he took the recording used for the remix that had appeared on the World Wildlife Fund charity album and slowed it down to make John's voice sound more natural, omitting the wildlife sound effects from the earlier remix and adding the orchestra and a choir of fourteen vocalists with great subtlety.  His work on "I Me Mine" was also impressive, extending the song's length by 51 seconds and giving the song a greater sense of urgency and drama with the orchestra and choir.  His overdub on "The Long and Winding Road," though, was pure Mantovani, the sort of "beautiful music" associated with doctors' offices and dinner with your grandparents.  Spector didn't arrange these songs himself - he gave that honor to Richard Hewson, who, ironically, arranged the McCartney-produced Mary Hopkin single "Those Were the Days" - but the sonic quality more than lived up to Phil's "wall of sound" technique.

This session presented numerous problems, most of which were Spector's doing.  While most producers map out the way a record will sound only when the basic tracks are recorded, Spector wanted to hear the final product as it was being recorded, which led to him making numerous demands; he failed to grasp that Abbey Road was not equipped for his unorthodox method.  Ringo, using his status as a Beatle, took him aside and calmed him down.  Spector's biggest mistake, however, was to try to pull a fast one by giving the musicians three musical parts when they were only booked for and paid for two.  The con job failed, and the musicians walked out.  Engineer Peter Bown went home, and Spector conceded.  The musicians got their extra payment, and Bown was called back to help finish the session.  Noting that the session happened to be on April Fool's Day, Bown would later say that Spector's deception was "one April Fool's joke which did not come off."

In all, Spector's overdub session cost £1,126 and 5/ - more than twice the cost of recording Please Please Me, the album Let It Be was intended to emulate.  In 2020 American money, that price for the overdubs comes to $21,638.86.

The next day, Spector and Bown remixed the newly overdubbed songs - the seventh and final session for assembling Let It Be - and Spector quickly informed the Beatles that the record was done and awaiting their approval.  John, George, and Ringo approved it.  Though Paul McCartney also approved the album in order to facilitate its scheduled May release, he was disgusted with Spector's work on one song in particular - no prizes for guessing which one - and by now he had had enough.

On April 9, 1970, after having spent the past seven months trying to keep the group together, Paul sent out a press release announcing his departure from the Beatles.

To be continued . . .

The Spector of the Beatles

"I've been Phil Spectored, resurrected." - Paul Simon

*

And so, on March 23, 1970 - coincidentally, at the start of Holy Week - Phil Spector began the thankless job of trying to make a Let It Be album for the Beatles out of the January 1969 Apple Studios tapes.  He worked in Room 4 at EMI Studios at Abbey Road, concentrating on remixing and editing the songs in an effort to make them sound as alive and as fresh as possible and make the record sound whole. 

He seemed to be the appropriate choice for the job. Spector was as much as an artist as the performers he produced records for, and maybe even more so.  He had pioneered the "wall of sound" technique - numerous overdubs of one instrument, tape echo, and heavy reverberation - and his approach to recording led John Lennon and George Harrison to call him a genius.  And this was from two musicians who had worked with a genius - George Martin.  But Spector was also known for his liberal use of orchestration - he envisioned his records as "little symphonies for the kids" - and those who bought records from his clients the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers would certainly agree.  Let It Be, however, was not meant to be anything of the sort - it was meant to be, as Greil Marcus put it, an album meant to "recapture [a] fading sense of combined self," an album that got back to the essence of rock and roll.  Certainly Spector could make a record like that, as he'd already proved he could do so with "Instant Karma!".  Which approach would Spector take here - basic rock and roll or a grand production?  The answer would be both. 

With George Harrison present for most of the sessions, Spector worked with engineer Peter Bown, using an eight-track tape with seven tracks of music and an eighth track that was a "sync pulse" track for the cameras used to make the Let It Be documentary movie.  They spent the first day of work on mixing and editing, mixing two takes of "I've Got a Feeling," one from the studio and another from the Apple rooftop performance (the latter making it onto the Let It Be album), and editing out backing vocals from the rooftop performance of "Dig a Pony" while leaving the false start in.  It should have been apparent from the editing on the latter song that, while the Let It Be album would be sonically better than either of the two Get Back albums compiled by Glyn Johns, it wouldn't be consistent.  Live mistakes and studio banter would be juxtaposed by edits destroying the "live" concept.  But even bigger alterations were planned; on March 23, Spector also reworked "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" for overdubs, and it seemed that he had already decided on an orchestra for the two songs.

It's worth noting again that while "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" were not recorded during the January 1969 sessions, they were included on the Let It Be album only because the Beatles were shown rehearsing them in the Let It Be movie.   If these songs were rehearsed but not properly recorded when the movie was made, perhaps it would have made more sense to release these songs as a separate single accompanying the LP and film.  Spector, of course, would have even grander designs for an overdub of another song that was recorded during the January 1969 sessions.

The rest of the week was devoted to mixing the other songs intended for the record.  March 25 saw a remix of "For You Blue," as well as a remix of "Two Of Us" that brought a crisper sound to the song and is regarded by Beatles author Mark Lewisohn as Spector's best production effort on the Let It Be LP.   The following day, March 26, Spector worked to create entirely new remixes of "Let It Be" itself and "Get Back" that differed noticeably from the single release mixes, the former being extended by eleven seconds and getting a heavier George Harrison guitar solo, highly mixed brass and cellos that, ironically, had been scored by George Martin, and an emphasis on Ringo Starr's hi-hat.  (The former two elements were both overdubs recorded in the Beatles' January 4, 1970 session.)  It was also on this day that Spector began a remix of the third song slated for lavish overdubbing, "The Long and Winding Road" . . .

March 27 was devoted to editing the improvised "Dig It" down to an inexplicable length of fifty seconds.  An improvisation recorded earlier in the January 1969 sessions, known as "Can You Dig It?", had ended with John saying in a falsetto voice, "That was 'Can You Dig It?' by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do 'Hark, the Angels Come'."  Spector took this Goon Show-style banter and tacked it onto the end of his edit of "Dig It" to, somewhat cleverly, introduce "Let It Be," which Paul McCartney had conceived as a hymn.  (For the record, Georgie Wood was an old-time music-hall comedian in England.  As for "Hark, the Angels Come," that's the old-style title of the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," which the Beatles in fact never recorded.)

Finally, after the Easter holiday break, Spector returned to Abbey Road on Easter Monday, March 30 with two recording engineers (Peter Bown not being one of them) and a tape operator to work on the two George Harrison songs, producing a remix of "For You Blue" and concocting an ultimately unreleased sixteen-second loop of the instrumental break in I Me Mine" with sound from the movie overlaid onto it.

Throughout this entire time, Spector displayed the temperament of an artist, exhibiting all sorts of odd behavior.  Bown later remembered him taking a pill every half hour.  Also noteworthy was that Spector had his bodyguard with him, which Bown attributed to the danger of working in American recording studios (I touched on this on this blog back in 2002, when rap turntable operator Jason Mizell of Run-DMC was shot to death in a recording studio); the bodyguard was dismissed before the Let It Be remix sessions ended.  (The fact that Spector shot a woman to death in his own mansion in February 2003 and is now doing time in prison for it suggests that the bodyguard may have been there to protect others from Spector, or at least protect Spector from himself.)

Spector's work on the Let It Be album in the early spring of 1970 was not the only Beatles-related activity going on then at Abbey Road.  Paul McCartney was at the studio complex finishing up his debut solo album, unaware of Spector's presence.  In fact, by all accounts, he was unaware of Spector's project; John, George and Ringo had allowed Phil to go ahead on putting the Let It Be album together without Paul's knowledge, believing that the then-esteemed producer was the best person to make the best of what they felt was a bad situation.  And Paul would be anything but pleased when he heard the final master. Indeed, as March 1970 went out like a lamb, Spector's grandest production job on Let It Be was yet to come.

To be continued . . .    

Early to Middle 1970

And now, back to the story of the Beatles' breakup.

Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - John Lennon wasn't around - spent the first weekend of 1970 working to complete the Let It Be album, at that point still to be called Get Back, holding their last two recording sessions together for 24 years.  On Monday, January 5, Glyn Johns, who had complied a Get Back album (above) in the spring of 1969 that the Beatles had rejected, had another go at it.  The second Get Back album would feature re-edits and remixes of the songs intended for the first Get Back album, and two new songs were added - the newly recorded "I Me Mine" from the Beatles' January 3, 1970 session and a remixed version of "Across the Universe," a song that had just been released a month earlier on comedian Spike Milligan's World Wildlife Fund charity album.  (Due to its preponderance of British recording artists unfamiliar to Americans, that album, No One's Gonna Change Our World - cleverly titled after a variation of the key lyric in "Across the Universe" - was not released in America, though it did include the Bee Gees and the Hollies, as well as Cliff Richard, who would not find success in America until the mid-seventies.)  Both songs were included because rough cuts of the documentary film on the making of the album showed the Beatles playing both songs during the rehearsals before the proper Get Back recording sessions commenced ("Across the Universe" had actually been recorded eleven months before the Get Back sessions). If the songs were to be featured in the movie, they had to be on the LP as well.

This second Get Back album, like the first one, would remain unreleased.  The Beatles couldn't decide whether or not they liked it, and John Lennon balked at the idea of Johns getting a producer's credit, even though he was more involved with the project than George Martin had been.  The album was put on ice once again, and George took advantage of the lull by re-recording his lead vocal on his song "For You Blue" on January 8.  (For those keeping track, this was the third Beatles recording session of 1970 and the first to involve only one Beatle.)  The practice of overdubbing and re-recording had been ruled out at the start of the Get Back project, but it was a necessity to complete the record, the tapes having been so poorly recorded.  Several overdubs, all for the song "Let It Be," had already been recorded up to that point.  But as far as John Lennon was concerned, he would have been happy to let the album go it as it was.

"We let Glyn Johns remix it, we didn't want to know," Lennon later said.  "We just left it to him and said, 'Here, do it.' It's the first time since the first album that we didn't have anything to do with it. None of us could be bothered going in. Everybody was probably thinking, 'Well, I'm not going to work on it.' Nobody could face looking at it . . . I thought it would be great to go out - the [crappy] version - because it would break the Beatles. It would break the myth: 'That's us, with no trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hope. This is what we are like with our trousers off, so would you please end the game now.'"

As of January 1970, the Beatles hadn't officially broken up, and there was an outside chance that they might return to the recording studio, but with John, Paul, and Ringo Starr all working on solo records in one form or another, the prognosis for the group's continuation into the seventies was anything but good.  John, for one, was eager to get his new song "Instant Karma!" out after writing it upon his return from a vacation in Denmark (which caused him to miss the January 3-4, 1970 Beatles sessions), and the Plastic Ono Band concept he'd created was the perfect vehicle for his song about the need to help one another and to get our acts together.  The fact that he wrote this song even as he was separating from Paul, George and Ringo was ironic.

In fact, John cut his new song on the day he wrote it.  He wrote "Instant Karma!" on the morning of January 27, 1970, booked the studio that afternoon, and had the record mixed and finished that night.  It was to be his third single with the Plastic Ono Band, the lineup of which was John, Yoko, and whoever happened to be in the room at the time - this time consisting of of Klaus Voorman on bass, Alan White on drums, George Harrison on guitar and piano, Billy Preston on organ and Beatles assistant Mal Evans on chimes and handclaps.  But there was a new face in the room.  Rather than get George Martin or himself to produce it, John ended up making the record with, at George Harrison's recommendation, the aid of American record producer Phil Spector, who had always wanted to work with the Beatles and hadn't had a hit in half a decade.  The session went so well that John and George thought that Spector might be the one who could make an album out of the Get Back/Let It Be tapes after Glyn Johns, in their view, had come up short.

Indeed, Spector's use of echo and reverberation, as well as the brightness he got out of Lennon's piano and the cold-fish smack of White's drums, was well-received, and the critics' favorable response reportedly got him the job to make what became Let It Be.  But what most likely sealed the deal for Spector was "Instant Karma!"'s chart performance - it reached number three on the Billboard singles chart in America, becoming the first solo Beatle single to go gold there, and it reached number five in Britain, its chart success in the U.K. no doubt helped by John's presentation of the song on the British pop show "Top Of the Pops" (as seen below).  Its happy-go-lucky melody and positive message certainly helped at a time when negativity was running high.  And its success likely convinced John further that he didn't need to believe in Beatles any more.

Meanwhile, "Let It Be," a McCartney power ballad about Paul's late mother, was mixed by George Martin and released as a single on March 6 in Britain and on March 11 in America.  (It was backed with - of all things - John's comedy track "You Know My Name [Look Up the Number].")  From all appearances, the group was still together, but by this point it was mostly a mirage.  Paul was diligently putting together his debut solo album in secret, playing all of the instruments himself. Ringo had spent the fall of 1969 recording tracks for his debut solo album Sentimental Journey, a collection of pre-rock pop standards that Ringo's mother loved to sing at the local pub with her friends, and he completed the record in March, releasing it at the end of the month in Britain and releasing it in America in late April. (As a rocker who put an album of standards, Ringo turned out to be ahead of his time.)  "Let It Be" inevitably reached number one in America and made it to number two in Britain.  (It was the Beatles' last single in their home country.)  Because "Get Back" had already been out for a year, it was thus decided that "Let It Be" should be the title song of the album and film.  Having gotten the job to bring the album to fruition, Phil Spector entered EMI Studios at Abbey Road on Monday, March 23, 1970 to begin the daunting task.

To be continued . . .

Music Video Of the Week - March 6, 2020

"Let It Be" by the Beatles  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Early 1970

I just marked the fiftieth anniversary of the recording of the last song the Beatles (minus John Lennon) would record together before the breakup, George Harrison's "I Me Mine."  At that point, the group was still technically together, and there are some indications that the breakup of the group almost didn't happen.  As the seventies began, Paul McCartney was desperately trying to keep the group together, and Ringo Starr, faced with the prospect of a solo career when he had only written two Beatles songs and could barely sing, would, as he later admitted in his song "Early 1970," much rather "see all three" when he went into town to make records.

The fate of the Beatles hung in the balance in the weeks and months following the release of Abbey Road.  Apple business manager Allen Klein had negotiated a new contract that was favorable to the group with Capitol Records in the U.S. to carry the Apple label.  John had been planning a music festival for the summer of 1970 in Toronto to promote his Year One After Peace concept, an idea to commence a pacifist period for human history as the 198th decade of the Christian calendar was a year away from beginning (on January 1, 1971, but John preferred to make 1970 Year One).  It was rumored that the festival would feature the Beatles themselves, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and practically everyone else - "the biggest music festival in history," Lennon promised.  Lennon had chosen Toronto because of its proximity to the U.S., where he couldn't get in, and because of a successful appearance with Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, and future Yes drummer Alan White under the Plastic Ono Band name at a music festival in September 1969.

Meanwhile, Paul was trying to get the other Beatles interested in resuming concert tours, as the Rolling Stones were doing with their 1969 arena tour of America.  At a pivotal meeting of the group on September 20, 1969, he even made the novel suggestion of renting an ocean liner and having the Beatles perform as the house band on a cruise.

"Well, I think you're daft!"  John exclaimed.  Then he dropped the big one.  "I wasn't going to tell you until we signed the [Capitol] contract, but I want out.  I want a divorce."  John's outburst didn't mean the end of the Beatles - not yet - but he agreed to act like it was business as usual until they signed the new record contract when Klein and Paul, in a rare moment of solidarity (the two couldn't stand each other), convinced John to reconsider, or at least not say anything publicly yet.

On another occasion, John and George confronted Paul and demanded that he agree to their idea for recording Beatles albums going forward. John said he was getting tired of Paul calling all of the shots in the studio and arranging "pre-packaged productions" tailored to Paul's own talents.  Henceforth, John and George said each of the three of them should have four songs per LP, with Ringo getting to add one or two songs if he wanted to.  The plan was a form of what Americans would recognize as "affirmative action," but Paul's response was hardly affirmative or action. Instead, he complained that such a quota system was regimentation more suitable to the military than to a rock and roll band; John and George insisted that this the only way to ensure that everyone got a fair share of time on a Beatles album.

Soon, however, circumstances began to emerge that would put the band's future in grave doubt and ultimately prevent them from ever returning to the recording studio except for work needed to complete Let It Be.  In the fall of 1969, John had come up with a new song that he offered to the group as a new Beatles single; he had contributed only one Beatles single since July 1967.  Paul wasn't sold on the tune - "Cold Turkey," a song about getting off heroin and the pain involved - so John put it out as a Plastic Ono Band single, having played it at the Toronto concert.  It was the first song credited to John Lennon alone, thus ending the twelve-year Lennon-McCartney songwriting collaboration, but the single, released in October 1969, was not a big hit.

At about that time, Paul dropped out of sight for awhile, which led to the rumors that he was dead.  He had, in fact, repaired to his farmhouse in Scotland to plot his course for what would come next.  When he returned to London in December, at the same time John and George were playing at a benefit for UNICEF at the Lyceum Ballroom, he began work on a solo record in his home studio.  With the group on ice, Paul wanted to stay active musically, but he had to find his way as a solo artist after having been part of the Beatles for so long.

Events then moved quickly.  With the Let It Be album - still at this point to be called Get Back - in limbo, Allen Klein and Capitol patched together an LP of ten single tracks that hadn't appeared on a Capitol-issued Beatles album before to provide fresh product for American record stores; the LP's title, The Beatles Again, which would be released in late February 1970, was soon changed to Hey Jude.  Meanwhile, Beatles Monthly,  the group's fan magazine, folded after its December 1969 issue (though it would resume publication in 1976 and would continue for nearly 27 years).  This last issue would fault the Beatles for letting the music be taken over by business and lamented how they were no longer the handsome young lads they used to be, all of them having grown uncultivated beards by then.  The group's seventh and final Christmas disc for their official fan club was also a disappointment, dominated by John Lennon and Yoko Ono's irreverent but irrelevant ramblings and showing no joy or cheer whatsoever.

When Paul George, and Ringo completed their recording sessions for Let It Be on the first weekend of 1970, having taped "I Me Mine" on Saturday, January 3 and overdubs for "Let It Be" on Sunday, January 4, there was still a modicum of hope that the Beatles would stay together, at least outside the confines of the group. But John had already lost interest in the Year One festival he'd been planning and had pulled the plug on it when business issues and logistical concerns - the latter prompted by the Rolling Stones' disaster at Altamont - intervened.  More work was still needed to complete Let It Be.  Paul was reportedly unsure at this time if his break from the group was temporary or permanent.  

To be continued . . .