The list for Record Store Day Black Friday 2024 has just been uploaded and there are two Beatle items of interest to collectors, plus one from Dark Horse.
This 7″ single was obviously chosen to tie in with the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’ arrival in the USA, and their subsequent conquering of the US popular music charts. Not to mention the release of the 8LP set The Beatles 1964 US Albums in Mono, as well as the six LPs that will be available individually. The single is limited to 10,000 copies and is cut from the original US version of the master tapes – the same masters used for the albums in that 1964 Mono box set. It is cut by Kevin Reeves in Nashville using an all-analog cutting process and on the same 1970 lathe at the Capitol studios. Read more about it here.
The other Beatle item slated for RSD Black Friday is another of those tiny 3″ vinyl singles designed to play on the similarly tiny Crosley record player.
‘All My Loving’ comes with a Beatle-branded carry case and it too celebrates the 60th anniversary of the group’s 1964 American Tour – and their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that year. With the release of this 3″ record all five of the songs the band played on the show is now complete. The other singles (released for Record Store Day proper earlier this year) were: ‘I Want To Hold Your Had’, ‘Til There Was You’, ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. Like them, this 3” will be housed in a picture sleeve and includes a limited-edition poster.
Hymns of Christmas dates from 1995 and it’s the fIrst time this has been on vinyl.
RSD Black Friday is on November 29. Check out the home page for the full list and any updates (there are often additional titles added as the time gets closer).
Lots of Beatle items come up for auction and on quite a regular basis too. But it’s a little rare to have an entire auction dedicated entirely to Beatle or Beatle-related content.
TracksAuctions.com was established in the UK in 1989 and has developed a worldwide reputation in the field of pop memorabilia. They have over 35 years experience in trading at the highest level in Beatle and rock ‘n roll collectibles.
Their latest auction is a bit of a treasure trove of items. Anyone looking through the extensive list of lots will have a differtent set of highlights that jump out for them. Or maybe these are interest?
Well, here are the standout items for us.
Lot 7. Apple Employee Telephone and Address Book. This would be truly fascinating to flip through. It is a handwritten telephone and address book from the 1970s and contains Beatles addresses and phone numbers including George Harrison, Ringo Starr (Monte Carlo and L.A), and Paul McCartney.
In the photo above you can see an entry for former Apple Records boss, the late Neil Aspinall. Due to the wonders of Google Maps you can go and have look at where he once lived:
It looks like a very nice area, and if you go for a bit of a wander down the street you might notice the house across the road is called Strawberry Fields! Do you think the owners know they live opposite a former residence of a boss of the Beatles empire?
Other influential names in the book include Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Nat Weiss, Robert Stigwood, Tony Barrow, Peter Brown, Ron Kass, Freda Kelly, Tony Palmer, Denis O’Dell, Derek Taylor, Timothy Leary, Victor Spinetti, Peter Sellers, and Eric Idle, along with numerous record companies, recording studios, media outlets, and other businesses frequented by the Fabs.
Lot 9. Various Artists Apple Records Acetate. This is a 12-inch acetate record containing 23 tracks by various artists. The acetate is on the Apple Corps Ltd. 3 Savile Row Custom Recording label. Was this compilation ever planned for release on Apple, or is it just a party disc put together for fun by the engineers at Apple Studios?
Lot 12. Delaney And Bonnie 1969 Apple Records Withdrawn Album. This one was definitely intended for release by Apple on 30th May 1969, but it was withdrawn due to contractual reasons. As such catalogue number SAPCOR 7 has become very rare indeed. What we have here is one of a small number of pre-release copies that were pressed. In his excellent book Those Were The Days – The Beatles And Apple, Stefan Granados says: “Apple had planned to release their album entitled ‘Accept No Substitute’ on 30th May. Copies of the album had been pressed and were waiting for covers when Apple cancelled….The plan may have been scuttled in part by Apple’s reluctance to pay advances but the inconvenient fact that Delaney and Bonnie were under contract to Elektra Records in the United States is likely to have played a more significant role in the non-appearance of a Delaney and Bonnie album on Apple. For the next year or so, lucky visitors to the Apple office would be given copies of the sleeveless Apple pressing of the album. Copies would also be given to any interested Apple staff and artists.“
Lot 41. The Beatles ‘Love Me Do’ A-Label Demonstration Record. Who wouldn’t want a copy of this in their collection. It takes you right back to just before it all began. This is the “demonstration record” sent out to radio stations in the UK heralding an unknown band from Liverpool. An extremely rare Parlophone white and red ‘A-label’ debut single of ‘Love Me Do’/’P.S. I Love You’. The single was released with the catalogue number 45-R 4949 on October 5, 1962. Even McCartney is misspelled as McArtney on both sides!
Lot 43. The Beatles ‘A Hard Day’s Night’/’Things We Said Today’ 78 RPM. Another grail item for many collectors. This an extremely rare 1964, 10-inch, 78rpm pressing from India of The Beatles single, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’/’Things We Said Today’. The record comes in an original Parlophone paper sleeve too.
Lot 114. The Beatles 1968 Mono ‘White Album’ Number 0000012. Yes, it’s a little beat up, but who wouldn’t want a copy of this rare, low numbered UK mono vinyl pressing of The Beatles’ White Album in their collection? It is number 0000012.
Lot 131. Freda Kelly’s Collection of Fan Club Flexi Discs 1963 to 1969. The Beatles UK Christmas flexi discs are collectable at any time. How much more then would be a complete set (all seven discs) from the woman who ran The Beatles Fan Club from1962 to 1972? Freda’s original flexis are housed in a 1960s hardback record case with her handwritten name and address inside.
Added to the value and collectability is that these exact same discs were used by Apple to produce From Then To You, the 1970 UK LP compilation of all the Beatles Fan Club Christmas messages. Freda recalled that when they came to produce the album EMI didn’t have a complete set of tapes, and nobody at Apple owned a complete set of the flexis. She remembers being asked by Peter Brown to take this exact same set down to Savile Row where they were copied in order to produce the Christmas Fan Club album.
Lot 139. The Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney Autographed ‘White Album’. This is a US album sleeve for the 1968 self-titled album The Beatles, aka the White Album. It has the second highest expected sale price in this Tracks auction of between £25,000 – £35,000 (US$33,000 – $47,000 or AUD$48,000 – $68,000). The reason? It is autographed on the gatefold by both John Lennon and Paul McCartney. John has signed in red felt tipped pen and Paul has autographed in black ballpoint pen. The autographs were signed in the USA in the 1970s. Lennon’s autograph dates to circa 1975 and McCartney’s to 1975/1976.
Lot 206. Paul McCartney ‘McCartney’ Album Press Release. This is an original US press release from April 1970. It is on Apple letterhead and is an important document in the history of the band because it became one of the first public signals that The Beatles were no more. Sent out with promo copies of Paul McCartney’s solo LP McCartney, it consists of four sides of questions and answers relating to the recording. The answers McCartney gave to some of the questions were directly responsible for the subsequent “Paul Quits The Beatles” newspaper headlines and a furore over the group splitting up. The final page bears a printed Paul McCartney signature. Also included are three black and white promotional photographs. One of Paul, one of Paul and Linda and one of Paul and his daughter Mary.
Lastly, to the most expensive lot likely in this auction…..
Lot 246. Paul McCartney November 1966 Hand Drawn Stage Designs For The Four Tops London Performance. In November, 1966 the US group The Four Tops were due to play London’s Saville Theatre, then owned by Beatle manager, Brian Epstein. In preparation for the shows he wanted some spectacular backdrops for the stage and commissioned none other than Paul McCartney to come up with the designs. Paul presented his ideas to Epstein and John Lyndon, a NEMS employee and Director of Productions at the Saville. On a large piece of white paper McCartney hand-sketched and annotated 12 images to be considered and one of these was used for the Four Tops first-ever UK performance.
This item is definitely unique and is expected to fetch in the vicinity of £40,000 – £60,000 (US$53,000 – $80,000 or AUD$78,000 – $117,000).
Well, these are some of the standout lots for us. Have a look through the four pages of treasure on the auction site and let us know which are yours. The Beatles Memorabilia Auction starts on September 27 and runs until October 6.
All items sold through TracksAuctions.com have a lifetime guarantee of authenticity and a money-back warranty.
There’s also a very interesting “behind the scenes” video doing the rounds with mastering engineer Kevin Reeves who cut the records at Nashville’s East Iris Studios, and Pat Kraus, Senior VP Recording Studios & Archives at UMG:
And Andrew, over at the very good Parlogram YouTube channel, has made this handy introduction/explainer as to what these latest releases from Apple are all about:
Looks like the The Beatles camp is getting set to announce the vinyl re-issue of six US LP’s from released between January, 1964 and March, 1965 on Capitol and United Artists Records. They are Meet The Beatles, Something New, The Beatles’ Second Album, Beatles ’65, A Hard Days’ Night (Original Soundtrack), and The Early Beatles.
The official website briefly had pages published depicting pack shots of each album, but these have have since been taken down.
As you can see, each album comes with a replica inner sleeve from the time, and a sheet or booklet replicating the original tape box. It’s not yet known if the albums will only be available separately or if there’ll also be a box set containing all six LPs on the cards.
Speaking of those images of the tape boxes, before the pages were taken down each album had this Mastering Note text attached:
These albums were cut for vinyl from the original master tapes using a completely analog signal path and with constant reference to first generation pressings of the original albums. They were made using a Studer A80 master recorder with analog preview & program paths, and an Neumann VMS70 cutting lathe originally installed in Capitol Studios in 1971. This specific all-analog cutting technique allows faithful representation of the full musical range and dynamics present on the original tapes.
So, fully analogue AAA pressings is very welcome news. As to whether they’re the original Capitol Mono or Stereo mixes the images seem to confirm Mono as the albums above all show catalogue numbers starting with the “T” prefix – meaning Mono.
These releases tie in well with the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Beatles conquering America and the rumoured The Beatles: The First U.S. Tour re-issue of the famous Mayles brothers’ film – also expected to be announced soon.
UPDATE: It looks like an image of the box set (to be called The Beatles 1964 US Albums In Mono) has also been leaked. This confirms rumours that the box contains a bonus double disc in the form of The Beatles’ Story:
(click on images to see larger versions)
The discs will be on 180-gram vinyl cut from the original mono master tapes and will have a global release on November 22. They’ll feature faithfully replicated artwork and new four-panel inserts with essays written by American Beatle historian and author Bruce Spizer.
There are not one but two John Lennon and Yoko Ono films set for release shortly.
The first, and the most interesting, is One to One: John & Yoko which has just premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and is getting very good reviews. It is a documentary set in New York in 1972 exploring not only John and Yoko’s new-found love of that city, but also their musical, personal, artistic, social, and political lives – all with a backdrop of that turbulent year in American history. At the film’s core is the One to One charity concert for special needs children, Lennon’s only full-length concert between the final Beatle concert in 1966 and his death. The footage and music from that Madison Square Garden show has been restored with Sean Ono Lennon and his team producing a superb sound remix. This is one to look out for when and if it makes it to Blu-Ray. We can only wish for some sort of soundtrack audio release of the concert as well. For a great article on the film check out The Hollywood Reporter.
The second film, also set in 1972, is another John and Yoko feature-length documentary called Daytime Revolution. This details five crazy days the pair co-hosted the iconic Mike Douglas Show, at the time the most popular show on US daytime TV reaching an audience of 40 million viewers a week. As producers and hosts, Lennon and Ono where allowed to pick their guests including Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale, social activist Jerry Rubin, and political activist and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. They conducted candid Q&A sessions with their studio audience, had conversations about police violence and women’s liberation, mounted conceptual art events, and made one-of-a-kind musical performances, including playing live with Chuck Berry and a poignant rendition of Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.
It looks like Daytime Revolution is set for a theatrical release in the US on John Lennon’s birth date, October 9, so look for it in a cinema near you. It will then be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 26.
And of course September 26 sees the worldwide limited cinema release of One Hand Clapping, the film by David Litchfield documenting Paul McCartney and Wings live at Abbey Road Studios in August, 1974.
One Hand Clapping (and it’s accompanying soundtrack album) captures a moment when Wings had found and defined their sound. The documentary gives an insight into the inner workings of the band as they work and play together in the studio. The film, originally shot on 1970s videotape (code for “It looks pretty awful!”), has been scanned and restored at 4K. The between song dialogue has been de-mixed using Wingnut’s MAL software and the film features a new Dolby Atmos audio mix by Steve Orchard and Giles Martin. Find out if One Hand Clapping is showing near you and order tickets online.
Meanwhile, we’re still awaiting news of any film/music releases in celebration of The Beatles conquering America 60 years ago this year.
Rumor has it (from Ringo at least….) that there is some sort of Beatle film product on the way, possibly based around a re-issue of the Mayles brothers’ excellent backstage documentary The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit. Don’t know if this will be a stand-alone physical release on Blu-Ray, or if it will simply pop up as a streaming-only offer on Disney+ at some stage. Watch this space.
On the book front the next eagerly anticipated release is Mind Games, the companion piece to the audio of Mind Games The Ultimate Mixes. It’s due in shops from September 24. Like the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band The Ultimate Collection and ImagineThe Ultimate Collection remixes which also had separately-sold thick books to accompany them, this book will be far more detailed than the 136 page book included in the 6CD/2 Blu-Ray deluxe box set. That book’s purpose is to unpack the music on those CDs and Blu-Rays. The separate Mind Games book goes much wider, examining not only the creation of the album in greater detail, the times in which was recorded, and what John and Yoko where up to.
Then, in December, comes the much-anticipated The McCartney Legacy, Volume 2 1974-80. This is the follow-up to 2022’s The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1 1964-73, described as the most complete work on the life and work of Paul McCartney ever published.
If authors Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair bring the same level of exhaustive research to Volume 2 that made the first installment such a critical success, then this book will be a must-have. It is released on December 10 and is available for pre-order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
For those of you with deep pockets who want to celebrate the Beatles continued domination of popular music in America in 1964, then Genesis Publications has a high-class book of photographs from the time for you.
Mania Days is described as “…the ultimate photographic record of the Beatles’ tour of the USA, as captured through the lens of the band’s photographer Curt Gunther, with introductory quotes from the Beatles’ press officer, Derek Taylor. Mania Days is a must-have book for Beatles aficionados and anyone interested in the transformative power of music and popular culture. The final 100 copies are now available in a new and updated binding and slipcase, specially designed to commemorate 60 years of The Beatles in the USA and 50 years of Genesis Publications in 2024.”
It has to be said that Mania Days contains some brilliant images capturing Beatlemania in all its crazy glory. Curt Gunther has a good eye and his black and white images are often striking. The only drawback is the £265 price tag. That is $514 Australian or $347 US. Granted, Genesis Beatle books have a tendency to hold or even increase their value, but it’s still a lot for a book! They must be selling them though as there are only 30 copies left, and the even more expensive “Deluxe” edition is listed as sold out on the site.
True to his word that there would be more Mind Games-related product released before the end of the year, Sean Ono Lennon has announced a 3 LP set called Mind Games – The Meditation Mixes. The tracks (out on October 11) will also be available to stream, but there’s no mention of a CD at the present time.
Watch the “unboxing” promo video:
These Mind Games – The Meditation Mixes were produced by Sean Lennon and came out as part of a consciousness-expanding app called Lumenate in the lead-up to the release of the Mind Games Ultimate Mixes box sets.
Sean Lennon: “You might say meditation is the ultimate mind game. These very abstract interpretations will hopefully assist you in exploring your ‘Innerverse’. I was both thrilled and surprised when UMG said they wanted to make a vinyl edition. This part of the Mind Games project evolved spontaneously and feels like it is sprinkled with just the right amount of good vibes and fairy dust. (Effects may vary).”
The meditation mixes will be released on vinyl as a limited edition 3LP set, pressed on 180-gram crystal clear vinyl and packaged in a triple gatefold mirrorboard sleeve. Side B on LP3 will feature nine unique 1.8 second mantras that will play continually in the vinyl’s run out grooves to create infinite loops.
Interestingly, and perhaps very frustrating for those who forked out the big bucks for the Super Deluxe Box Set, these albums are not included in that box. The Meditations set will have to be purchased separately if you want to have absolutely everything associated with this campaign.
Also, people who only collect CDs (and are not interested in vinyl at all) are also upset and already expressing their pain and dismay on some of the Beatle forums that this is vinyl-only in physical form…..
More on the release from the Universal Music Store site:
“Newly, radically re-imagined remixes, created from John Lennon’s classic song, Mind Games, these nine Meditation Mixes create their own space while maintaining firm, authentic roots in John Lennon’s original recording of the song. Each of them have been radically altered, slowed down and extended, ranging from 5 to 10 minutes to over 33 minutes, allowing for the musical soundtrack to wash over the listener and provide a relaxing, immersive, deep listening and meditative experience. Four of these tracks are presented as Binaural versions that each focus on different types of brain waves: Beta, Delta, Gamma and Theta. Named ‘Mind’, ‘Space’, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Love’, these tracks utilise the effect created when the ears hear left and right frequencies which combine to be perceived as a new frequency that can activate different brain patterns for scientifically proven therapeutic effects.
Of the original song, Mind Games, Yoko Ono Lennon said: “John was trying to convey the message that we all play mind games. But if we can play mind games, why not make a positive future with it – to be a positive mind game?”
Produced by Sean Ono Lennon, mixed and engineered by Sam Gannon with additional recording engineered by Scott Holingsworth, the song will now bring a new positive impact in the realm of meditation and mindfulness.”
Here’s a sample:
And the track listing:
LP1 Side A
Mind Games Meditation Mix – MIND (Binaural Gamma Waves 100Hz) (10:02)
Mind Games Meditation Mix – MAGIC (10:58)
LP1 Side B
Mind Games Meditation Mix – SPACE (8Hz Theta Binaural) (5:42)
Mind Games Meditation Mix – SEED (5:59)
Mind Games Meditation Mix – YES (6:03)
LP2 Side A
Mind Games Meditation Mix – SPIRIT (15Hz Beta Binaural) (5:36)
Mind Games Meditation Mix – LOVE ().5Hz Delta Binaural) (12:32)
Here in Australia over the last week or so there’s been a lot of fond reminiscences of the time, sixty years ago now, that The Beatles came to this country.
Australia’s national broadcaster the ABC (kind of like the BBC in the UK) has just played a terrific hour-long documentary on The Music Show that is really worth a listen:
Click on the image above to stream. Or you can listen here:
Greg is a Melbourne-born and based radio presenter, researcher and Beatle historian. He is a co-presenter on Australia’s Let It Be Beatles, the world’s longest-running radio show dedicated to the Beatles, on Melbourne’s WynFM. The show is now in its 31st continuous year, having broadcast over 1,400 episodes. Andy Neill is a UK-based music writer, researcher and historian, born in New Zealand. Alongside several other music biography books, he compiled and annotated Across The Universe: The Beatles on Tour and on Stage (2009) and Looking Through You: Rare and Unseen Photographs from the Beatles Book Monthly Archive (2015).
Their book is amazingly researched with a wealth of photos, memorabilia, stories and information. You can get a taste of what’s inside here.
When We Was Fab – Inside The Beatles Australasian Tour 1964 is published by Woodslane Press.
Want to get your hands on the latest Paul McCartney release? (And no, it is not One Hand Clapping which is due on Friday next week….)
It’s a track from the latest Destiny video game called The Final Shape, which was released earlier this week.
The original soundtrack from the game is also out – and it contains a song co-written by Paul. The track, ‘After All This Time’, is quite symphonic is style and there are no vocals.
‘After All This Time’ is co-written with (amongst others) Michael Salvatori, Skye Lewin, and Martin O’Donnell, and McCartney has collaborated with them before on the original Destiny soundtrack – most notably the closing credits song, ‘Hope For The Future‘.
Back then the creators of the Destiny franchise released the whole soundtrack as an impressive 6 LP set. No such luck this time. Looks like The Final Shape (including the track ‘After All This Time’) is only available as a digital download.
The lead up to the release of John Lennon’sMind Games, the next of his back-catalogue LPs to get the deluxe and super deluxe box set treatment, is proving that this time around they are having some fun with the “mind games” of the title.
There have been quite a few firsts in the marketing, and in what we can expect in the content of the Super Deluxe, Deluxe, 2LP and 2CD sets, released on July 12.
Probably the best summary of the known fun and games to date comes from well-known YouTuber Andrew Dixon. Here’s Andrew with a summary of where we’re at so far:
In the lead up to Record Store Day 2024 Ringo Starr was on the publicity trail for his forthcoming 4-track EP called Crooked Boy. It was being released on Record Store Day as a Limited Edition black and white marble vinyl. Then, later this month, it will come out on normal black vinyl and on CD.
Ringo did a lot of social media in the lead-up, plus a number of interviews for print, radio and podcasts. But the big deal was a personal appearance at the Amoeba Music record store in Hollywood. This was on April 18 where he was joined on stage by Linda Perry, the driving force behind the latest EP. Perry wrote, produced and engineered the new record. She even chose the photo for the front cover of the EP.
On that day, and only in person at the store, Amoeba made available an extremely limited edition 7″ single of one of the songs from the EP called ‘February Sky’. It’s been reported (but not confirmed) that only 500 of these singles were pressed. They come in a picture sleeve and are pressed on a cool red vinyl:
Amoeba must have had a few left over and so the following week they made the remaining stock available online. These sold out in ten minutes. It was US customers only as the store doesn’t ship internationally.
As you can see, some copies on eBay have since sold for as high as US$360…..
Being based in Australia we thought we’d never get a copy for the collection, but thanks to one of our readers – our mate Guy – there will be one winging its way Downunder very soon!
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