Putin Us On

Just before the start of the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump, a longtime friend, confidante and sucker of Vladimir Putin, said that Putin's effort to impose a pax Russiana on Ukraine by amassing troops along Ukraine's borders with Russia and Belarus was an act of "genius."  When the fighting broke out and numerous cities were mercilessly bombed by the Russian army, Trump spoke with a great deal of rue, saying that Putin had "changed."  In fact, he hadn't.

In fairness to Trump (I . . . can't believe I just wrote that!), he's not the only one to realize that Putin is not the nice guy he was once thought to be.  When Putin was democratically elected to succeed Boris Yeltsin as president of post-Soviet Russia in 2000, he came across as a young, dynamic, Westernized leader who would bring Russia into the twenty-first century.  He welcomed free-market capitalism and Western popular culture.  And he put on quite a charm offensive.  He took George Walker Bush for a ride in his classic Volga sedan when our forty-third President held a summit with him, and Bush later said he believe he "saw his soul" by looking into his eyes.  At a concert, Putin took to the stage and sang "Blueberry Hill" - in English - to the delight of an audience that included Western movie stars such as Gerard Depardieu, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.  He even got to meet Paul McCartney (below) when the former Beatle played Red Square in Moscow in May 2003.  He told Macca that he enjoyed listening to the Beatles because their music "was very popular, like a breath of fresh air, a window into the outside world."  At the concert, Putin took his seat just like any other Beatles fan.

Yes, many Westerners actually liked this guy.

He fooled everyone.  Everyone, that is, except Balts, Poles, Baltic-Americans, Polish-Americans, and Mitt Romney.  It was Romney, after all, who said back in 2012 that Putin was the greatest threat to world peace while running or President against incumbent Barack Obama.  Democrats laughed - just as they laughed at Ronald Reagan's Russophobic statements in the early eighties (except for Democrats with last names like Jonaitis or Malinowski).  Who has the last laugh now?  Well, Romney, who's suddenly being talked about as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate if the GOP comes to its senses and stops waiting for Trump.  Romney is also one of President Biden's strongest supporters on the Ukraine crisis from the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate.

Putin proved that P.T. Barnum was right, but if Trump ends up still supporting Putin after all of this, he'll only prove that, once in awhile you'll get a sucker dumb enough to fall for the same scam a second time.  Ironically, Trump is counting on his supporters to be stupid enough to fall for his scam . . . a third time.

And as to how Paul McCartney could have fallen for Putin's shtick . . . well, Macca was married to Heather Mills at the time, so you have to take that into account. 

McCartney (1970)

With the Beatles' future uncertain in late 1969 and early 1970, Paul McCartney, eager to continue making music, conceived a solo album on which he played all of the instruments, with basic recording equipment and  low-fidelity sound, as an exercise to keep himself active.  By the time he released the LP in the spring of 1970, it had become his declaration of independence from the Beatles.  It was an inauspicious one at that.

McCartney has its charms as a home-made album, especially in marked contrast to the polish and perfection that defined Abbey Road, and it's as rough-hewn as Let It Be was intended to be - maybe more so.  But there's little on the album that stands up to repeated listening.  Paul was more interested in getting something out for the sake of itself, and it shows in the casual approach he took not necessarily to arranging the songs but in writing them.  A song like "Man We Was Lonely" is a fragment that expresses an idea more suitable for a single verse, and the premise of "That Would Be Something" is more suitable for a single lyric.  Other songs fare better because of their simplicity. "Junk," a paean to the flotsam and jetsam of life that had been a candidate for a Beatles record, is a quaint and plaintive number, and "Every Night" - which Phoebe Snow covered masterfully - is a fine folk-style ballad.  And both are prime examples of Paul's gift for melody.  But mostly, McCartney is little more than pleasant, something that doesn't leave you much to ponder as soon as one track ends and another begins.  For example, another song originally conceived for the Beatles - "Teddy Boy" - is a story of a mother-son relationship that doesn't give us any reason to care for Paul's protagonists.

McCartney does have a warm, fuzzy down-home feeling, and it was packaged with family photos to drive the point home that his wife Linda and their two little girls inspired that feeling - the better to show that Paul was happier now than he had been when with the Beatles.  But Paul confuses happiness with complacency, and the result is rather wanting; there are five instrumentals here, mostly ad-libbed, and they're so forgettable you can't remember how they sounded as soon as you've heard them.  The one song that stands out, of course, is "Maybe I'm Amazed," an urgent ballad that recalled Paul's best work with the Beatles and is a harbinger of his best solo work going forward.  If only there had been more of that here.

But then, such urgency wasn't the objective; Paul simply wanted to make a record that didn't sweat the details.  The takeaway, though, is that, as McCartney was recorded with a shrug, that's precisely the best way to respond to it. In retrospect, McCartney isn't a farewell to the Beatles or a blueprint for a solo career that would include a new band in the form of Wings.  It just . . . is.       

Music Video Of the Week - November 27, 2020

"Coming Up" by Paul McCartney  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - August 14, 2020

"Hope of Deliverance" by Paul McCartney  Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - April 17, 2020

"Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney  (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 . . .    

Christmas Music Video Of the Week - December 27, 2019

"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Paul and Linda McCartney - Ram (1971)

Paul McCartney's second post-Beatles album is a bridge between his homemade McCartney LP and Wings.  Note that Ram is credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, which indicates that his better half did more than just sing on it.  In fact, she co-wrote some of the songs.  Also, original Wings drummer Denny Seiwell plays on every song here.  But while Ram returned Paul to the late-Beatles-style professionalism that had been lacking with his debut solo album, the style couldn't overcome the lack of substance.

I'll come right out and say it: Despite some fine music and immaculate production values, most of the songs on Ram are somewhat slight, and many of them don't even pretend to make sense. This isn't Linda's fault, either, since a couple of the most nonsensical tunes on Ram are by Paul alone.  His singing is also erratic, with a good deal of yelping and shouting in between some tracks with fine vocal work.  So we get rather silly numbers like the raucous "Monkberry Moon Delight," presumably about an exotic dessert, the forced rocker "Smile Away," about being able to smell someone a mile away, and "3 Legs," which is about . . . uh, I don't know what that's supposed to be about, and I'm not sure Paul knows either.  And then there's the forgettable "Ram On," which Paul feels a need to reprise. 

And sometimes you wish Paul were singing nonsense when the words are intelligible - like the opening cut, "Too Many People," a nasty swipe at John Lennon that prompted - nay, demanded - Lennon's own swipe at Paul, "How Do You Sleep?"  But Paul is more charming and endearing elsewhere on Ram, as on the folk-tinged shuffle "Heart Of the Country," celebrating the joys of rural life.  He's also quite sly on "Dear Boy," a rather pointed critique of Linda's previous husband for letting her go.  This is one of the songs Linda co-wrote.  (Intrigue!)  And Ram does have two very good songs that show what Paul can do when he's firing on all cylinders, such as the perky rockabilly tune "Eat at Home," which makes good use of his influence from Buddy Holly, and the closing cut, "The Back Seat of My Car," a gorgeously orchestrated song with elements of straight rock that compliments (and complements) Brian Wilson's genius.   These two songs were released as singles in, respectively, continental Europe and Britain.

But what was the song released as a 45 in the U.S.?  The utterly preposterous and incomprehensible "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," which, as Ram's American single, is pure cheese. "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is representative of Ram; it has carefully arranged music, it incoherently changes style and tempo, and the lyrics seem to be assembled more for how they sound together than for anything resembling meaning.  And when they do mean something, they don't mean much.

The late Beatles author Nicholas Schaffner summed up Ram better than I ever could by comparing it to a hollow chocolate Easter egg; he famously declared that it's tasty, if maybe a little too sickly sweet, but it crumbles when you try to sink your teeth into it.  If that's your taste, go ahead and indulge, but if you prefer the sonic equivalent of a Hershey's Special Dark bar, stick with Abbey Road.

(This is my last record review for 2019; I'll be back with more in the New Year.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm gonna rain. ;-) ) 

Christmas Music Video Of the Week - December 22, 2017

"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Christmas Music Video Of the Week - December 16, 2016

"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)  

Review - 'The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years'

It has been said - I'm sure - that the last thing we need is another Beatles documentary.  Ron Howard's new movie looking at the concert-tour era of the Beatles' career blows that nonsense out of the water.

Eight Days a Week isn't just one of the best movie about the Beatles ever made - it's the first and only movie to focus on their years as a live band and how the excitement they generated was key to spreading Beatlemania from Britain to America and the world beyond.  New insights from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and archival reminiscences from John Lennon and George Harrison  illustrate how thrilling it was for the band to play live in their early days and invigorating it was to take the world by storm.

As Eight Days a Week progresses into 1965 and 1966, the ennui of touring shows as the Beatles were continuing to advance musically in the recording studio.  Their concerts - rare footage of which offers some astonishing samples of how pervasive and engrossing Beatlemania was - evolved from exciting musical performances to what Lennon called "tribal rituals"; indeed, some of the live music included here is ragged and sloppy.  Eight Days a Week also puts the viewer in the center of the action, with photos and dizzying footage of the group taking the stage, traveling long distances on planes, and dealing with the press.  There are some eye-opening anecdotes, too, like when the Beatles forced racial integration of the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville as a condition for performing there.   Philadelphia TV newsman Larry Kane, one of the many figures interviewed for the movie, traveled with the Beatles and covered them on their 1964 North American tour for the Miami radio station he was working for at the time; his specific memories and documentation of his time with the group are especially revealing.  Even the familiar stories of the Beatles' time on the road, particularly the controversy over John Lennon's statement of the Beatles becoming more popular than Jesus, are seen from a fresh perspective and give a picture of how grueling the road was for the group.  (Also worthy are comments from fans and observers such as Elvis Costello, Whoopi Goldberg, and Malcolm Gladwell.)

Fifty years after their last stadium concert at San Francisco, Eight Days a Week makes clear why the Beatles had to end their concert career, and how rock and roll benefited from their decision to do so; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road couldn't have existed had they continued touring.  Howard's documentary, which ends with a clip of the Beatles in their last public performance from January 1969 on the Apple rooftop for Let It Be, ultimately succeeds in its main purpose; it brings Beatlemania as it played out in the mid-sixties back to life.  You had to be there, but if you weren't, this is the best (and only) way to experience it. 

(Note: During its theatrical run, Eight Days a Week is followed by a remastered, re-edited version of the film of Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert.  It's an astonishing document, showing a confident foursome playing in perfect sync and giving one of their best live shows ever, despite the primitive sound system and the screaming fans. It is more than worth the price of admission.)         

The New Mrs. McCartney

But everyone knows her as Nancy. ;-) :-D

Yes, Paul McCartney, once the only Beatle who only married once, became the only Beatle married thrice - that's three times - when he married his American girlfriend Nancy Shevell in London on this day - what would have been John Lennon's seventy-first birthday.  They married at Old Maryleborne Town Hall in London, the same place where Paul wed Linda in 1969.

Nancy Shevell McCartney is independently wealthy - she's an heiress to a trucking company in New Jersey - and although that's not as glamorous as being the daughter and sister of two high-powered New York lawyers, as Linda McCartney was, it's obvious that she's not marrying Sir Paul for his money, like, er, the last one did.  (She's also a board member of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York.) Paul's children - all by Linda - must approve of his bride this time, as his fashion designer daughter Stella designed Nancy's wedding dress.

I can't believe we're still talking about Beatle weddings in 2011.  But then there are a lot of things people are still talking about these days that I thought we'd put behind us.         

Take A Sad Song And Make It Better

The biggest entertainment story of the past week was clearly that of Paul McCartney receiving the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize For Popular Song on Tuesday. At the White House the following night, President Barack Obama lauded Sir Paul for his great talent and, along with his fellow Beatles (you know their names, I needn't repeat them), changing popular music overnight. Obama also noted that Paul had written or co-written more than two hundred songs that had made the charts and stayed on them for a cumulative total of over 32 years, a statistic that astonished Macca himself.

Paul entertained the Obamas and their guests with a performance that included, obviously, "Michelle," as well as three other Beatles songs, "Eleanor Rigby," "Let It Be," and the crowd-pleasing "Hey Jude." Guests such as Stevie Wonder, Faith Hill, Elvis Costello, and Emmylou Harris joined him.

Paul McCartney is the first non-American to win the Gershwin Prize. That's not going to sit well with the Tea Party crowd. Forty years after the Fab Four broke up, Beatlemania has been replaced in the United States by xenophobia. :-O

The Beatles On CD . . . Again

When the Beatles' catalog was first issued on compact disc in 1987 - seems like a long time ago, huh? - EMI righted a wrong that had long gone uncorrected, restoring the Beatles's first seven albums to the way they had been issued in the United Kingdom (Capitol in the United States padded them out to ten titles). Paradoxically, the Beatles were among the last artistes from the vinyl age to be reissued on CD. And although posthumous releases of previously unreleased Beatles material in the nineties and two thousand zeroes made the most out of the format (especially the Anthology series), the original catalog was never remastered with the most advanced technology, making the audio quality of the 1987 issues seem stale.

Until now. Apple Corps has announced that on September 9, 2009, the entire Beatles catalog will finally be remastered for a new generation of fans. The CDs will be packaged with the artwork from the original U.K. releases (plus the Capitol-compiled Magical Mystery Tour album, which gathered all of the tracks from 1967 outside Sgt. Pepper), along with new liner notes to complement original album notes, rare photos (there are Beatles photos we haven't seen yet?), and, for a limited time, embedded documentary films about each of the original albums. The Past Masters CDs, which gathered the 33 nonalbum tracks the Beatles recorded, will be merged into one.

The albums were remastered by of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London over four yeas, using the latest recording technology and 1960s vintage studio equipment to maintain the sound of the original releases to ensure the highest fidelity possible. All fourteen albums will be issued in stereo, hence the first four Beatles albums (Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles for Sale) will be in stereophonic sound for the first time. The stereo releases will be gathered n a box set along with a DVD compiling the miniature documentaries. A second box set will compile the original Beatles mono releases as well, for those who prefer the mono sound of the earlier records (and truth be told, audiophiles prefer the monophonic versions of the first four albums and the earlier singles).

This is the most ambitious issue from Apple since the Anthology series, maybe even since the original Beatles CD issues. A splendid time will indeed be guaranteed for all. :-)

The release date - September 9, 2009 - is appropriate. It's the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of the century.

John Lennon always considered nine a lucky number. :-)