If you need any convincing to make this a regular download, have a listen to Episode 11.
It’s a great example of how interesting this podcast is. The two look into the instruments that the Beatles used on stage and in the studio – and how these directly impacted the sound and their creative push to always try new ways of making music. Buskin interviews Andy Babiuk, author of Beatles Gear (and the newly-published Rolling Stones Gear), but also talks with his co-host Rodriguez, delving into their own extensive knowledge and understanding of the music. Great stuff.
It is episodes like this that make it well worth subscribing to this podcast – which comes out roughly once a month:See also our post on Beatles 101, Richard Buskin’s latest book.
There was a big car boot sale just around the corner from us this last weekend, and we were able to find quite a few nice additions to the collection. One vendor just had boxes and boxes of CD’s, 7″ vinyl 45’s and 12″ LP’s on their stall – and so quite a bit of our Saturday morning was spent trawling….
It was time well spent though as it turned up a few gems.
First up was a Australian vinyl single taken from the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album Double Fantasy. ‘Watching the Wheels’ was the third single from this LP (the first two were ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ and ‘Woman’). We didn’t have a copy of ‘Watching the Wheels” so this was a good find.
Next was another 7″ single we didn’t have – Badfinger’s ‘Come and Get It’ on the Apple label. It dates from 1969 and is a Paul McCartney composition written for the band, and it makes an appearance on the soundtrack for the film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. This is an Australian pressing. There’s a lot of writing on the label – but still…..
Further hunting through the boxes revealed another Apple single – this time from George Harrison. It’s an Australian copy of ‘My Sweet Lord’ b/w ‘Isn’t It A Pity’. In Australia this was a double A side as both titles have green Apple labels:
Our good luck continued in the multiple boxes at this car boot sale. Next out were two singles – a US copy of McCartney’s ‘Coming Up’, and ‘Say Say Say’ with Michael Jackson – both on the Columbia label, then a division of CBS. In the late 70’s/early 80’s McCartney was briefly (six years) on the Columbia label for his releases in America. He’d temporarily turned his back on Capitol Records, enticed by one of the most lucrative recording contracts around at the time, a deal which included as a sweetener the ownership of Frank Music, a CBS owned publishing company consisting (amongst other things) of Frank Loesser’s songs (think of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, etc.). Frank Music is now of course folded into McCartney’s highly successful MPL Music Publishing business.
The two singles we found came out on the Parlophone label in Australia, so it’s good to have these US versions:
The final 45 we discovered was Billy J. Kramer’s ‘From a Window’ – which sadly is kind of beat up, but worth having because it is a song from 1964 written specifically for Kramer (and his band the Dakotas) by John Lennon and Paul McCartney:
The last purchase of the day was a bit of a find. It’s Jools Holland’s 2001 CD Small World Big Band, which is an important one to have in the collection because it contains George Harrison singing and playing on his last ever recording. George passed away just two months after this recording. He does a song called ‘Horse to the Water’, co-composed with his son Dhani.
Holland’s CD is sub-titled “….his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and friends”, that’s because for each track he invites various stars to join him for a track each. These include the likes of Sting; Paul Weller; Dr John; Mark Knopfler; Van Morrison; Steve Winwood; and Eric Clapton, amongst many others. To quote two of the poignant reviewers on Amazon:
“For me, the big reason to buy this CD was the George Harrison contribution, ‘Horse to the Water’. It is a GREAT song, and a brilliant Harrison song at that. George sounds weak, and I am not sure if Clapton has stepped in on some of the guitar parts, but what a brilliant and fun piece of music, worthy to be held in the highest esteem among its author’s ouvre. IT is reason enough to buy the CD.”
And this one:
“I purchased this CD for one reason. I had seen the DVD Concert for George and loved it. Among the best offerings on the DVD was the Sam Brown/Jools Holland rendition of ‘Horse to the Water’ by George. Except for the words, I would never have guessed that it was a Harrison song. It was too R&B. So I was curious to see how he handled it. Well, he does not have the powerhouse voice of Sam Brown, but I was in fact really surprised at how well he did, helped greatly by the superb backup band. I would not have recognised his voice. I am sure his throat cancer was behind that.”
We love it when you’re browsing a bookshop and discover some Beatle titles you weren’t previously aware of – and that they are at hugely discounted prices….
That’s what happened this week when we found two new Beatle books. We also took delivery (via The Book Depository online store) of a brand new Beatle book – but more on that one later.
The first book we found at the bargain basement store was The Unreleased Beatles by Richie Unterberger. This book dates back to 2009, and it contains a wealth of material about the band and the many sought-after rarities and non-official gems which remain in the Beatle vaults. Unterberger has documented the incredible breadth of music the band recorded but didn’t release, as well as film footage of the group that hasn’t been made commercially available. He examines a huge array of material, including unreleased studio outtakes, BBC radio recordings from 1962-1965, live concert performances, home demo recordings, fan club Christmas recordings, and other informal demos done outside of EMI’s studios. The unreleased gems encompass the Beatles entire career, from a recording the Quarrymen made on July 6, 1957, right up to outtakes from the final sessions of Let It Be in 1970:
The Unreleased Beatles includes a general overview of Beatle bootlegs, their songs recorded by other artists in the 1960s, never-recorded material, and contains more than 100 photos.
Beatles Examiner conducted a Q&A session with Richie Unterberger about the book when it was first released, and Amazon has a “Look Inside” feature if you’d like to see more.
Also – Glass Onion reports that an updated and fully revised Kindle version of this book has just been released. Worth checking out if you like electronic books.
The second bargain book find was Give Peace A Chance, a hardback book dedicated to the eight-day long bed-in for peace mounted by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal, Canada in May/June of 1969:
Compiled by journalist Joan Athey, and based around a fantastic series of photographs taken by Gerry Deiter during the course of the bed-in, Give Peace a Chance presents as a wonderful chronicle of just what happened in their suite on the 17th floor of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Photographer Deiter was on assignment for Life magazine and had extraordinary access because Lennon and Ono asked him to stay by their bedside for the duration of the event. As it turned out his photographs were never actually published in Life. He tucked away the negatives soon after John and Yoko vacated the famous Room 1742 – the place where the song ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was recorded – and so they are being seen in all their glory, many for the first time here.
There really are some amazing photos and recollections from all sorts of people in this book. It is well worth the A$4.99 we paid for it!One page amongst many which caught our attention was the one below – taken at the very end of the eight days with hotel employees cleaning up the suite after the John and Yoko entourage had moved on:I really like this book. It captures an historic moment in time in a remarkable way.
For a couple of further unique insights into the Montreal John and Yoko peace bed-ins see also I Met the Walrus by Jerry Levitan, and Give Me A Chance by Gail Renard.
The final book added to the collection this week is a 2014 publication called Meet the Beatles from Souvenir Press in the UK.
And here’s the rear cover:
The Wogblog first alerted us to this one. In this the 50th anniversary year of the the Beatles,Meet the Beatlesis a hardback publication which faithfully reproduces a magazine originally issued in the hey-day of the Beatles first flush of success in 1963. No need for us to go into too much detail here as Wogblog has covered it pretty well in his post.
At paulmccartney.com there’s a further free, previously unreleased track which has been made available for download. That makes three so far….we’re heading towards the makings of an EP.
In November 1974 Paul and Wings were in the process of recording the album that came to be known as Venus and Mars. As with all recording sessions there are songs and different versions of tracks that don’t make the final release.
The exclusive Venus and Mars outtake track now available is a previously unreleased and unheard version of the song ‘Rock Show’. Listen to it below:
I think you can hear why this version was passed over in favour of the one that eventually made it to the LP, but it’s still great to hear how the song went through the process of being more finely crafted.
As part of the continuing publicity push for the Archive Series re-issues this week of Venus and Mars and Wings At The Speed of Sound, Paul McCartney has made available another exclusive bonus track.
It’s a Wings track called ‘Love My Baby’ and is taken from the One Hand Clapping film:
Like the extended and remastered version of the song ‘Letting Go’ (released last week), ‘Love My Baby’ is not on the forthcoming re-issues of Venus and Mars or At the Speed of Sound, but is only being made available as a free download from paulmccartney.com
It’s short and cute. Sounds like Paul is playing a toy piano – long before that became fashionable!
One Hand Clapping was filmed in Studio 2 at Abbey Road in late summer of 1974. The documentary captures Paul playing numbers from Band on the Run with Wings.
He’s said of the film: “It’s nice to see that one re-surfacing. It was made by a friend of mine, David Litchfield; he produced a little magazine that was funky (Ritz, co-edited with David Bailey). We decided that he would shoot a very simple piece, on video. We would just go into Abbey Road and play basically what we had rehearsed. So we went in there and it was very simply filmed, absolute basic stuff, and I think its charm now is that there’s no pretence. It is what it is. We just called it One Hand Clapping, for absolutely no reason.”
An image of The Beatles forms the centrepiece for all this year’s advertising for the 2014 British Film Festival. The festival will be held in Australia between November 5 – 26.
That’s because the film A Hard Day’s Night is to be shown at big screen cinemas right across the country as part of the festival activities:
The long rich history of British cinema is represented in the festival’s ‘Six From The 60s’ retrospective, with six standout films from the era including a digitally restored, 50th anniversary print of Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night – a day in the life of The Beatles at the height of Beatlemania.
Paul McCartney has today made available an exclusive, extended and remastered version of the song ‘Letting Go’. The song won’t be on the forthcoming re-issue of Venus and Mars (out next week), but is only available as a free download from paulmccartney.com
Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound are the latest additions to the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. Both albums will be reissued on CD, vinyl and digital, including previously unreleased material, on November 3 (UK), and November 4 (US).
Another trip to the NSW Central Coast, and some time available to check out a couple of the local opportunity shops (or “op shops”) there – like The Salvation Army and the St Vincent de Paul (or “Vinnies” as this chain is more commonly known in Australia – they are similar to Goodwill in the US).
It’s usually a long-shot to look for Beatle items in these places as they tend to be pretty well picked over already. But you never know…..
This time around we did come away with two small finds. First, at the Salvation Army store, was a cassette of A Collection of Beatles Oldies but Goldies:
This one is on Axis, which was EMI’s budget label in Australia. We don’t even have a cassette player anymore – but for just 50c how could we leave this little gem from the past just sitting on the shelf?
Then, from the same store, a 3-track CD single of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ by Band Aid 20. This was released in 2004 and is the twentieth anniversary fundraising re-make of the 1984 song which kicked off the whole Live Aid charity phenomenon. The CD features Paul McCartney on bass:
As you can see in the official video from the time, Sir Paul is obviously having a good time providing the bass line for this remake of the famous song.
BTW, Paul McCartney, U2’s Bono, Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, and Sarah Dallin and Keren Woodward (from Bananarama) are the only artists to have appeared on both the 1984 recording and on this one from 2004.
The CD single features the 2004 recording, the original from 1984, and a version taken from the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium on July 13, 1985.
For collectors and completists there are not one, but three new Beatle and Beatle-related 7″ vinyl singles on the way.
The first two are from Paul McCartney and Wings.
In association with the Best Buy electronics supermarket chain in the USA, two 7″ vinyl singles – one taken from Venus and Mars, and one from Wings at the Speed of Sound – will be released on November 4 as limited bonus items with the purchase of the forthcoming re-issues of these two titles:
From the description on the stickers (i.e. “DETAILS INSIDE”), it looks like there will be a coupon included to redeem these special vinyl singles after initial purchase, though we’re not sure about this.
Also, based on a tiny image on the Best Buy site, it looks like the singles will come in picture sleeves which re-create the original artwork:The third 7″ vinyl item will be released on November 28 as part of the Record Store Day “Black Friday” celebrations at independent record stores. It’s a limited pressing of the Beatles EP Long Tall Sally (originally released in the UK in 1964):
Songs on the EP are: “Long Tall Sally”; “I Call Your Name”; “Matchbox” and “Slow Down”.
We here at beatlesblogger have just discovered that a fantastic Australian theatrical production about the life and times of John Lennon has just hit New York.
John Waters is one of Australia’s most respected and talented actors. He and his musical director Stewart D’Arrietta have been performing and perfecting their stage presentation about John Lennon since the early 1990’s. Over that time it has been rested, revived and revised many times – and at each new outing the show has always been met with great critical and audience acclaim here. Waters and D’Arrietta have been on the road throughout 2014, playing Lennon in cities and towns across Australia – so it’s great to see that the pair have now made it to the Big Apple after all these years. Tickets are reportedly selling well, and the show is getting some good media coverage in the city.
In Australia the show is known as Looking Through a Glass Onion – John Lennon in Word and Music,so it’s interesting to note the slight name change for the US premiere and also that John Waters is billed as John R. Waters for American audiences. We guess that’s so he’s not confused with the well-known US writer and film director of the same name.
Lennon: Through a Glass Onion is playing now at the Union Square Theatre in New York. It has a good run with performances booked through to February next year.
For a taste of how Glass Onion works on stage have a look at this YouTube video from 2010:
There’s a dedicated website for the New York Union Square Theatre shows with more details on the production, and there’s also a Facebook presence.
And in news just in: In celebration of John Lennon’s 74th birthday, Lennon: Through a Glass Onion hosted an audience sing along after the show with “Give Peace A Chance”:
Performances take place now through February 28 at Union Square Theatre, 100 East 17th Street, New York, NY 10003.
For a special limited time discount code offer to Beatles Blog readers click here.
See also our post on Beatles 101, Richard Buskin’s latest book.
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