Category Archives: Beatles Music

George Harrison Film Premiere, DVD, Book and CD Announced

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Today on georgeharrison.com comes the formal announcement and official details of the Martin Scorsese film “George Harrison: Living in the Material World“.  Here’s an extract from the press release:

“George Harrison: Living in the Material World” focuses the imaginative and inspired eye of one of cinema’s most pre-eminent filmmakers on one of the world’s most influential men. The film takes viewers on the musical and spiritual voyage that was George Harrison’s life, much of it told in his own words. The result is deeply moving and touches each viewer in unique and individual ways.

Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese traces Harrison’s life from his musical beginnings in Liverpool through his life as a musician, a seeker, a philanthropist, and filmmaker. Scorsese weaves together interviews with Harrison and his closest friends, performances, home movies, and photographs. Much of the material in the film has never been seen (or heard) before. The result is a rare glimpse into the mind and soul of one of the most talented artists of his generation and a profoundly intimate and affecting work of cinema.

The film includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, George Martin, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty, Phil Spector, Ringo Starr and Jackie Stewart. They speak honestly and frankly about George’s many talents and contradictions.

The film was produced by Scorsese, Olivia Harrison and Nigel Sinclair. Margaret Bodde served as the film’s executive producer and the film was edited by David Tedeschi (who previously worked with Scorsese, Bodde and Sinclair on the Grammy Award-winning “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” and with Scorsese and Bodde on the Rolling Stone concert film “Shine A Light”).

Scorsese comments, “Like so many millions of people, I first came to know George through the music, which was the soundtrack of our world. The Beatles’ music, those beautifully lyrical guitar breaks and solos, those unforgettable songs of George’s, like “I Me Mine” or “If I Needed Someone,” and the images, in magazines, on album covers, the TV appearances, the newsreel footage, the Richard Lester movies; and then there was the world after the Beatles, when George and his music seemed to open up and flower. I will never forget the first time I heard All Things Must Pass, the overwhelming feeling of taking in all that glorious music for the first time. It was like walking into a cathedral. George was making spiritually awake music – we all heard and felt it – and I think that was the reason that he came to occupy a very special place in our lives. So when I was offered the chance to make this picture, I jumped at it. Spending time with Olivia, interviewing so many of George’s closest friends, reviewing all that footage, some of it never seen before, and listening to all of that magnificent music – it was a joy, and an experience I’ll always treasure.”

Olivia Harrison notes, “Martin Scorsese’s intuition towards George was evident the first time we met to discuss this project. He sensed what George was about: his music, his strong beliefs, his art, his place in the Beatles story, and his extraordinary life afterwards. Marty’s wonderful film has found all of that and more.”

“This film was an extraordinary journey for all involved and it has been a sheer pleasure working with Martin Scorsese and Olivia Harrison to bring the amazing story and legacy of George Harrison to life,” adds Sinclair.

“George Harrison: Living in the Material World” will be released in the UK on 10th October in three editions – DVD, Blu-ray and DVD Double play (DVD/ BD combi pack), and a beautifully packaged DVD / Blu-Ray Deluxe Edition, which includes an exclusive CD of previously unheard tracks from George Harrison, and a book of photography to accompany the film.

In the United States HBO has acquired the TV broadcast rights to Scorsese’s film, which will debut in two parts — on October 5 and October 6, 2011.

In late September, Abrams Books will publish Olivia Harrison’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World“, a personal archive of photographs, letters, diaries, and memorabilia from George’s life that reveals the arc of his life, from his guitar-obsessed boyhood in Liverpool, to the astonishment of the Beatles years, to his days as an independent musician and bohemian squire. The book release is intended to coincide with the release of Scorsese’s film.

Lennon Legend Book

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After a long time searching, I’ve finally got hold of a second-hand copy of Lennon Legend – An Illustrated Life of John Lennon, a book by James Henke (and designer Katie LeClerq) which first came out back in 2003. This is one of those books that you can literally delve in and out of at will because as well as lots of text and photos about the life and times of John Lennon it also has a broad selection of replica memorabilia scattered throughout its pages. These are tucked away in little holders and pockets. For example hand-written lyric sheets like this one for ‘In My Life’ from the Rubber Soul album of 1965:

In this regard, this book is very similar to Treasures of the Beatles, which we wrote about here. However, this book is of higher quality in it’s attention to detail.

Lennon Legend traces John’s life from the early days in Liverpool and has reproductions of a little school magazine he produced (called “The Daily Howl” from 1950) and a Christmas, 1955 report card from Quarry Bank High School when Lennon was aged 15 years and 2 months old:

You may be able to make out above that in English J. W.Lennon is “….capable of good work and has done quite well”, in Geography “…he is undoubtedly trying harder in his new form. Hope he keeps it up”, but in French John’s results are disappointing: “He is so fond of obtaining a cheap laugh in class that he has little time left for serious contribution.”  John’s headmaster notes (in red) “The best report he has had for a long time. I hope this means that he has turned over a new leaf.”

As the Beatles become better known the memorabilia in the book reflects their journey. There’s a little Cavern Club membership booklet from 1964, which contains this advice to patrons: “IMPORTANT Handbags, coats, shoes, hats, umbrellas etc. must NOT be left lying around the Club UNDER SEATS, in the toilets….or anywhere where you cannot look after them. Your property is your responsibility. USE THE CLOAKROOMS!“:

You get a set of miniature movie posters for A Hard Day’s Night, and a replica of an original ticket to the film’s Royal World Premiere at the London Pavilion:

Moving on to when John and Yoko were in the thick of their peace campaign (combined with art “events”), on one page of the book in a small pocket there’s a small card tag (below). In July, 1968 one of these was attached to a helium-filled balloon (and there were 365 of them), and released into the skies over London to promote John’s first art exhibition called You Are Here:

In a similar vein is a replica sheet – a typed Declaration from 1973 (note the date of April 1st) of the establishment by John and Yoko of an imaginary country called Nutopia:

Along with the Declaration you get a miniature Nutopian national flag – which is simply an all-white piece of cloth with no colours or emblems…

Lennon Legend also comes with a CD containing 60 minutes of interviews and music. Here’s one of the interviews. John is on radio station WNEW on September 28, 1974. (WNEW was an AM station located in New York, but changed its call sign to WBBR in 1992). In this extract he’s talking about the Beatles:

The CD also contains a live version of the song ‘Imagine’, recorded on the long-running US daytime TV talk show hosted by Mike Douglas. John and Yoko co-hosted the show for a week in February 1972. You can listen to that version of ‘Imagine’ here:

The book takes the Lennon history up to Double Fantasy, and of course his tragic murder.

This is just a small taste of the content inside. Lennon Legend – An Illustrated Life of John Lennon by James Henke comes in a hard cardboard slipcase and was published by Chronicle Books in 2003.

See also: “Treasures of the Beatles” here and here.

“Maybe I’m Amazed” Cover Winner Announced

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A little while back I posted on a competition being run on the Paul McCartney official site calling on fans to submit their own YouTube versions of the classic “Maybe I’m Amazed” from the “McCartney” album, Paul’s first solo effort from 1970.

Today they have announced the winner:

“The Winner of the ‘Maybe I’m Amazed Covers’ Competition is ‘Troubleclief’ who with his beautiful classical guitar version of the song, received a remarkable 1492 likes for his video.

We were all astounded at the quality of all of the entries but felt that ‘Troubleclief’s’ entry stood out from the rest in the way that he made the song his own and yet retained the essence of the original. We would like to give a a huge congratulations to ‘Troubleclief’ for capturing our attention and winning the competition.”

Pretty nice playing. View the second place video by clicking here (seriously? Can’t say it does it for me…), and third place by clicking here.  Seems the McCartney people really like solo guitar if these three versions are anything to go by….

I still like the rendition by a singer named Katrice Gavino.

To watch all the videos click here.

The Beatles Collection – 25 Singles

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We recently came into possession of a UK pressing of the Beatles box set called “The Beatles Collection”, their twenty-five British singles at the time, released by World Records and EMI in 1978. The singles are all encased in a black, textured cardboard box:

It was compiled and sold by World Records, EMI’s mail order division. It was never commercially released to stores – the only way you could get it was through ordering it via World Records.

The earlier titles are pressed on the EMI/Parlophone label while the later discs are on the Apple Records label.

Each single is in a picture sleeve – which are all green on one side but have a Beatles picture on the other. There aren’t different pictures for each and every single, but four main pictures are used multiple times, relating to the Beatles era in which the single comes from:

There are however different photographs used for the three additional discs in this set: one for “Back in the USSR/Twist and Shout”, one for “Yesterday/  Have Known Better”, and the “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends/A Day in the Life” getting its own, unique picture sleeve:

Also included is a four-page booklet detailing the history of the group:

There’s also an additional, one sided sheet stating that the set now includes the addition of the “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” disc, indicating that previous boxes came without this particular record:

The “Beatles Singles Collection” (UK – 1978 – World Records/EMI, 25 Original 45 RPM Records box set) comprises all the Beatles singles 1962-1978:

1. Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You (Parlophone/October 5, 1962)
2. Please Please Me / Ask Me Why
3. From Me To You / Thank You Girl
4. She Loves You / I’ll Get You
5. I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy
6. Can’t Buy Me Love / You Can’t Do That
7. A Hard Day’s Night / Things We Said Today
8. I Feel Fine / She’s A Woman
9. Ticket To Ride / Yes It Is
10. Help / I’m Down
11. Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out
12. Paperback Writer / Rain
13. Eleanor Rigby / Yellow Submarine
14. Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane
15. All You Need Is Love / Baby You’re A Rich Man
16. Hello Goodbye / I Am The Walrus
17. Lady Madonna / The Inner Light
18. Hey Jude /Revolution
19. Get Back / Don’t Let Me Down
20. The Ballad Of John And Yoko / Old Brown Shoe
21. Something / Come Together
22. Let It Be / You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
23. Yesterday / I Should Have Known Better
24. Back In The USSR / Twist And Shout
25. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Finally, you get a “World Records Guarantee” of quality:

McCartney and McCartney II – Labels

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For those of us who love record labels – spotting and collecting different variations – with yesterday’s reissue of the two McCartney solo “debuts” the lovely Chained and Perfumed blog site has posted some interesting varieties of “McCartney” and “McCartney II“:

McCartney on Apple. 1970.

McCartney on Capitol. 1970.

A rare and unusual Brazilian edition of McCartney in mono from the Chained and Perfumed collection.  Nice.

The new McCartney Hear Music reissue. 2011. Released just last week on vinyl and CD. This label is from the second disc of the two-disc LP set which contains some rare and previously unreleased stuff.

McCartney II. Side 2 of U.S. edition. 1980. (I have a variation of this label below with the MPL logo in different spot).

McCartney II. Side 2 of the Japanese edition.

So, Chained and Perfumed inspired me to have a look in my own collection and I found some additional variations:

McCartney. Australian pressing. 1970.

McCartney. Singaporean pressing. 1970.

McCartney II. US pressing. 1980. This is included as its a variation on the one above. The MPL logo placement is different.

McCartney II. Singaporean pressing. 1980. These pressings were made in Singapore but also sent to Hong Kong and Malaysia.

McCartney II. An original Australian pressing with the orange Parlophone label. 1980.

McCartney II. Unusual Australian green/blue Parlophone label from a re-issue – probably in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s.

Well, that’s it from my collection. If anyone has any other additions please email a photo and I’ll put them up on the site.   beatlesblogger@gmail.com

UPDATE:  Some other labels are beginning to come in. Thanks to Paco who writes: “Here are mine. They are Spanish editions with the translation of the titles. All generic EMI Odeon labels (nothing too exciting :-)”.

McCartney (above) – The Spanish edition with translations of the titles of each song.

Ditto for McCartney II.

Above is the “Fame” budget label re-issue, this time for the Spanish market. Nice. Have a look here for more on budget Beatles releases.

Thanks to Paco for sending these through. If you’d like to add to the collection of McCartney and McCartney II labels from around the world take a photograph or scan and email them to: beatlesblogger@gmail.com

Previously Unseen Beatles Photographs

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The fine art auctioneers Christie’s in New York will next month auction some pretty impressive and previously unseen Beatles photographs from 1964.

They come from a collection of photos of the group shot by photographer Mike Mitchell. At age 18 he was at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C. for the Beatle’s first US concert, two days after their historic Ed Sullivan appearance.

Christie’s is calling the event “The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell“. Their website says it’s:

“….a sale comprised of nearly 50 lots of unpublished and never-before-seen photographs of the Beatles’ first hysteria-inducing visits to America in 1964. Shot in black and white by photographer Mike Mitchell when he was just 18 years old, the images have been filed away for nearly fifty years. The complete rediscovered collection is expected to realize in the region of $100,000.

Over eight thousand fans packed into the Washington Coliseum on February 11th, 1964 and they were treated to the Beatles at their very best. The Washington Coliseum was not only their first American concert but also by far the largest venue in which the Beatles had ever played. Its unique setup – it was often used for boxing matches – meant that the Beatles were surrounded on all sides by an adoring, cheering audience. The Beatles were clearly delighted and having a great time on stage, sharing all of the enthusiasm of the crowd. Here they were, performing in America, the land of their musical heroes and cultural icons, the home of Elvis and Chuck Berry – who’s “Roll Over Beethoven” was chosen by the Beatles to begin the show – and Little Richard, who’s “Long Tall Sally” was chosen to end it. The concert given at the Washington Coliseum was part of a defining moment in the Beatles’ career, and it remains both an important event and a notable place in their story. And Mike Mitchell was there to capture it.”

Yahoo has quite a nice photo gallery here. There’s an absolute ripper shot of Ringo in full flight and absolutley enjoying himself:

“Here Comes the Sun” Google Doodle Style

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To mark what would have been Les Paul’s 95th birthday, last week Google designed one of those nifty little Google Doodles for their search homepage (see above). You can actually play it and record what you create.

PCMag Creative Director Chris Phillips is a clever person. He’s recorded himself picking the Beatles “Here Comes the Sun”. Just click on the Play button here. Cute.

You can find out how to do it here.

Les Paul and Paul McCartney

You might also remember the John Lennon 70th birthday tribute Google Doodle tribute from last year which when you clicked on it featured an animation and an extract from “Imagine”.

Paul McCartney On His Cloud Computing Archive

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This is a video (posted earlier this month on June 2) on Paul McCartney’s MPL Music Publishing site detailing further the big project announced last year that he would be digitising his entire, extensive personal archive. Its a little bit commercial in its plugs for the HP computer group who are working with the McCartney team, but its interesting and sounds like they are making good progress on what must be an enormous task.

They’ve posted two different versions of the clip – this one is a shorter version but has some different speakers and information:

John Lennon – Vinyl Box Set from 1981

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This week I managed to secure a still sealed copy of the 1981, 8-LP box set simply called “John Lennon”. Mine is the one in the silver box with the now famous Bob Gruen photo of John (taken in New York) on the front cover:

This is the Australian release of this set, put out by EMI.

The box contains:

1. “Live Peace In Toronto”;  2. “Plastic Ono Band”;  3. “Imagine”; 4. “Sometime In New York City”;  5 . “Mind Games”;  6. “Walls And Bridges”;  7. “Rock ‘N’ Roll”;  and  8. “Shaved Fish”:

The set came out just a year after John Lennon’s death and followed the success of other Beatles box sets. It was released in several countries using very similar packaging. The set was first released in Britain, and was later sold in Japan, Germany, and of course Australia – with the catalogue number JLB8:

Mitch McGeary and William McCoy write (on their Beatles Rarities and Box Sets website) that all the LPs were issued on the Apple label and packaged in their original covers: “Included in the UK and other sets was a twenty-page, black-and-white booklet, “The Liverpool Echo’s Tribute To John Lennon,” which was loaded with pictures and song lyrics. The albums were encased in a silver box that had a color photo of John on the front. The set’s title and facsimile of John’s autograph were also embossed on the front of the box while the LP and song titles were printed on the back”.

EMI in Italy also issued a Lennon compilation and it is unique. Its called the “John Lennon Anthology” and consisted of all the albums in the British/Australian edition, but omitted the “best of” album “Shaved Fish”. Instead the box had three singles made up of tracks not found on any of the other seven LPs. Unlike the silver box versions these discs came in a blue, pizza-style box reminiscent of the “Live Peace in Toronto” cover:

Apparently only 1,000 copies were made of this one, making it quite a collectable item.

Beatles “Anthology” Sets Now on iTunes

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The Beatles and iTunes have today announced that the three, boxed set “Anthology” series will be available for electronic download exclusively on iTunes from June 14.

The “Anthology” Volumes 1 – 3 (each originally released in 1995 and 1996 as three double CD sets) will be available for download separately. There will be an iTunes-exclusive “Anthology Box Set” with all 155 tracks from the three volumes combined, and there will also be an exclusive new 23-track “Anthology Highlights” collection of standout tracks from all three albums.

“Anthology” songs will also be available for individual download.

All tracks have been digitally remastered by the team of engineers at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios who were responsible for the remastering of all the Beatles original UK studio albums in 2009. The result, says the publicity, is “…the highest fidelity the catalogue has seen since its original release”.  Sadly for collectors though there will be no physical CD’s or vinyl released. EMI Music has confirmed this with Steve Marinucci at Beatles Examiner.

A special “Anthology” video introduction and a “Meet The Beatles” radio show are available for free streaming at iTunes.com/TheBeatles starting today.

The “Meet The Beatles” radio show on the iTunes page has a 2 minute teaser, then three separate parts totaling just over 50 minutes. This is actually a cut-down version of a much longer three-part radio special called “Here, There and Everywhere” which was made for the launch of the Beatles Remastered catalogue in December 2009. It’s narrated by Paul Gambaccini and written and produced by Beatles historian Kevin Howlett.