Category Archives: Beatles Related

McCartney and McCartney II Finally Arrive

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I’ve been very patiently awaiting the arrival (from Amazon in the US) of my copies of “McCartney” and “McCartney II“.

I’d ordered the Deluxe hard back book versions of both titles, along with the 2 LP set (got to have the vinyl!), and the Special Edition CD packs as well. (I had already purchased locally the single CD versions which are only being released in certain markets).

These were all ordered online on May 24th. They were officially released on June 14th, and then had to make the LONG journey via the postal service down under to Australia. I didn’t receive them until last week – on July 12th. That’s almost a two month wait….

As they they were very heavy, I got a notification in the mailbox that had to collect them from the local Post Office. I’ve got to admit when I saw the box my heart sank. As you can see below it was pretty bashed around. On that two month journey it had clearly been thrown around and had frequently been at the bottom of piles of other packages. Postal workers obviously don’t have much regard for “Fragile” and “Handle With Care” stickers. I was particularly  worried about the two LP sets in there. They are the most fragile. Could they have survived intact?

With great trepidation I opened up the box, expecting the worst. Inside there was just a minimal amount of padding:

Thank goodness Amazon had individually sealed the LPs in their own special LP mailers and this really helped. There were two of them, essentially sitting in their own protection at the bottom of the box. The strong cardboard mailers had done a great job of protecting the most fragile of the contents. Thanks Amazon!

These sealed cardboard mailers are great and had clearly been individually pre-packed in bulk by Amazon for the McCartney re-issues. They both had special stickers with the contents on the outside:

All the other precious contents had miraculously survived too:

I actually think that the heat shrinking Amazon uses also plays a big part in protecting CD’s and LPs – especially when they’re being thrown around in transit. The two limited edition Deluxe hardback book versions are sealed and have a sheet inside the shrink wrap detailing the contents:

So, I now have a complete set of the new McCartney releases. Safely, but only just, delivered half way around the world.

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.

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

“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”.

The McCartney Family Talk About “Life in Photographs”

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Paul McCartney has just posted a new YouTube clip of him and daughters Mary and Stella talking about the book and exhibition project “Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs“:

The music used in the clip is Linda’s “Love’s Full Glory” from the album “Wide Prairie” (1998).

Hear and See McCartney’s “Blue Sway”

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One of the previously unreleased songs from the “McCartney II” sessions that will feature on the forthcoming re-issue of the album has popped up on YouTube.

Its an unlikely pairing between Paul McCartney and a US surf film-maker of some renown named Jack McCoy. McCartney’s smooth and stylish song “Blue Sway” accompanies an intriguing video clip of McCoy’s innovative underwater photography, utilising a camera attached to a jet ski. Have a look and listen for yourself – the way the images and music mesh is quite unique and compelling:

The song is credited on the reissue CD as “Blue Sway (With Richard Niles Orchestration)”.

The text accompanying the clip says:

“Written nearly 20 years ago, McCartney’s never-before released song, “Blue Sway,” is available for the first time on the bonus audio disc of the special edition of “McCartney II”. The music video created by McCoy is also featured on the bonus DVD included in the set.

Using a high powered underwater jet ski, the filmmaker found that he was able to travel behind a wave, creating underwater images that have never been seen before.

Over the past couple of years, McCoy set out to capture footage for his surf film, “A Deeper Shade of Blue“. During the editing process, McCoy put one of his surfing sequences to a song off McCartney’s “The Fireman” album. A mutual friend, Chris Thomas, saw the footage while visiting McCoy in Australia, and when he returned to the UK he gave McCartney a copy of the sequence.

“Paul was pretty stoked with what I’d created. He immediately thought my images might be suitable to go with his unreleased song “Blue Sway”.” said McCoy.

McCoy spent the next six weeks creating the music video, while also working full days on making “A Deeper Shade of Blue”. McCoy compiled and edited footage that he filmed off Tahiti’s Teahupoo reef to create what became the “Blue Sway” video.

“When I saw Jack McCoy’s underwater surfing footage put to the soundtrack of “Blue Sway” I was blown away,” said McCartney.

“Blue Sway” won ‘Best Music Video’ at NYC BE FILM Short Festival this past May, and the video will be featured as part of Surfrider Foundation’s summer PSA campaign. Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches.

The film clip is dedicated to Linda McCartney.

There is also a “Making of Blue Sway” video clip:

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.

Another (Brief) Chance to See Paul in Rio Live

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Paul McCartney’s concert in Rio last Sunday, 22nd May, was broadcast live over the internet by Terra in Latin America. They have kindly loaned his site the tapes so that anyone who was not lucky enough to watch it live will still get the chance to see the show – but only for a very limited time.

The videos are only up on Paul’s site until midnight on Friday, 26 May so make sure you have a look.

Its worth seeing just for “Hey Jude”, where the Brazilian fans came prepared for the song with their own home-made signs, as Paul himself points out:

“Whilst doing ‘Hey Jude’ when I handed over to the audience to sing the ‘na na na na’s’ suddenly the audience produced these signs. It was such a visual thing. It was very emotional because the fans had gone to all that trouble. They could have just come to the show and watched it but they all communicated before hand to make the special moment happen. They connected with each other, then connected with us and the entire crew. Everyone felt connected. It was very exciting and emotional to see that people care so much.”