With the 10th anniversary of The Beatles/Cirque du Soleil Love album and stage show coming up on July 14, the official BeatleYouTube site has uploaded a “making of” style video for the George Harrison song ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.
It includes a tribute to the late George Martin and information on how elements of the Las Vegas show are being tweaked and updated with fantastic new graphical elements for 2016:
The official Beatles site also has the song in full – complete with the fancy new graphics – all part of the 10th anniversary revamp:
Another instalment in our occasional series on Beatle (or Beatle-related) album covers that have possibly been, well, borrowed as inspiration by others…..(see here, here, here and here).
Check out this 1976 Olivia Newton John cover art:
The cover photo for ONJ’s Come On Over was taken 11 years after this photo:
Read about the origins of this striking George Harrison image here.
And thanks to Darienzo for letting us know that the rear cover image on Paul Anka’s 1974 album Anka also has a very similar photo:
Thanks also go to Tom for sending through this image of Jackson Browne’s LP I’m Alive from 1993:
In the exhibition, which we visited last week, there’s a section on Scorsese’s love of music and the numerous documentaries he’s made over time including The Last Waltz (from 1978 detailing The Band’s last ever concert); No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (his 2005 documentary on Dylan’s early years); and Shine A Light (a 2008 concert film featuring the Rolling Stones live at the Beacon Theatre in New York).
It has been distinctly quite on the purchase history front – not much out there recently that we’ve wanted to add to the collection. That changed last Saturday with a visit to one of Sydney’s biggest record fairs held in the suburb of Glebe, which is very close to the downtown area. The Glebe fair is always a pretty big deal and every year lots of people who love vinyl, books and CDs turn up to crate dig for a couple of hours to their hearts content:
And that’s just some of the crowd. The room is actually about three times bigger than what you can see here. When you first walk in there’s an amazing – some would say daunting and overpowering – number of stalls to check out and make your choices.
We really tried to be disciplined and not go crazy and so walked away with just three vinyl 45’s that, until now, were not in the collection. They’re all Australian pressings, two from John Lennon, and one from George Harrison:
It’s good to have the original Apple Records custom labels for George Harrison’s “Dark Horse”, from 1974. (It’s wife Olivia’s eyes on the B side).
Each of these came in their original Apple paper sleeves too:
Here are some links to previous Glebe record fair visits and what we found: (i) 2012, (ii)2012, (iii) 2012, (iv) 2013, and (v) 2015.
Stumbled across a mint copy of this in our local discount bookstore the other day:
At just A$7.95, who could resist?
This book was originally released in 2011. The text about George is written by Marilyn Fu, who breaks her subject into five main chapter headings: “Remembering George“; “Joining John’s Band“; “Beatlemania“; “And In The End“; and “Liberated“. The book is filled with a selection of great photographs:
I don’t know if your’e into these tribute concert recordings where various musical luminaries are invited to pay their respects by singing favourite songs. I must say they don’t really do a lot for me, but there’s obviously a market out there for them.
To be released on February 26th, 2016, this live tribute will be available in 5 configurations including 2xCD/DVD, 2xCD/Blu-Ray, 3xLP (180 gram), digital, and a store exclusive bundle:
The artist line-up and songs include:
• OLD BROWN SHOE Conan O’Brien
• I ME MINE Britt Daniel (from Spoon)
• BALLAD OF SIR FRANKIE CRISP (LET IT ROLL) Jonathan Bates w. Dhani Harrison
• SOMETHING Norah Jones
• GOT MY MIND SET ON YOU Brandon Flowers (from The Killers)
• IF NOT FOR YOU Heartless Bastards
• BE HERE NOW Ian Asbury (from The Cult)
• WAH-WAH Nick Valensi (from The Strokes)
• IF I NEEDED SOMEONE Jamestown Revival
• ART OF DYING Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
• SAVOY TRUFFLE Dhani Harrison
• FOR YOU BLUE Chase Cohl w. Brian Bell (from Weezer)
• BEWARE OF DARKNESS Ann Wilson (from Heart)
• LET IT DOWN Dhani Harrison
• GIVE ME LOVE (GIVE ME PEACE ON EARTH) Ben Harper
• HERE COMES THE SUN Perry Farrel (from Jane’s Addiction)
• WHAT IS LIFE “Weird Al” Yankovic
• BEHIND THAT LOCKED DOOR Norah Jones
• MY SWEET LORD Brian Wilson (from The Beach Boys)
• ISN’T IT A PITY The Black Ryder
• ANY ROAD Butch Walker
• I’D HAVE YOU ANYTIME Karen Elson
• TAXMAN Cold War Kids
• IT’S ALL TOO MUCH The Flaming Lips
• HANDLE WITH CARE Brandon Flowers, Britt Daniel, Dhani Harrison, Jonathan Bates, Wayne Coyne, and “Weird Al” Yankovic
• ALL THINGS MUST PASS Ann Wilson, Dhani Harrison, Karen Elson and Norah Jones
“Handle Me With Care” has now been posted on YouTube:
While sitting at home this morning there was a knock on the door. It was a courier with a registered parcel that looked suspiciously like an LP mailer:
Could this finally be the replacement John LennonRock’n’Roll album from the John Lennon 8-LP box set? The postmarks were from Great Britain, and the sender address was Universal Music in London.
As you know, Universal are now the manufacturers and distributors of all Beatle releases, including the back-catalogues of John Lennon and George Harrison. They had a big problem with the Rock’n’Roll album shipped with the Lennon box. The set was temporarily withdrawn from sale while they sorted out a production error where the song “Sweet Little Sixteen” appeared twice, and the song “You Can’t Catch Me” was missing altogether.
The company set up a special website. Providing you had proof of purchase you could request a replacement copy of the faulty album. We did this at the start of August, but had nothing but stoney silence from Universal since, despite a couple of follow-up emails to them seeking an update on progress.
Now, over two months later, out of the blue our corrected replacement copy has arrived:
The Beatles’ first recording contract, part of a just-concluded New York auction of items from the Uwe Blaschke Collection, has sold for an impressive US$93,750. It went to an unknown internet bidder, but fell short of the predicted US$150,000 target.
The 1961 contract, signed by all four members of the group at that time (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best), was for a recording session with the Polydor company in Germany and produced the single ‘My Bonnie’. It was credited on the label to “Tony Sheridan & The Beat Brothers” because there was a stipulation in the contract allowing Polydor to use a different group name. They felt the name “Beatles” wouldn’t be readily accepted in the German market. Never-the-less, the group was making it’s very first professional recording for commercial release by an actual record label.
While ‘My Bonnie’ achieved only modest success in Germany, back home in Liverpool Beatle fans who knew about the recording began asking for it in record shops, including the store owned and managed by Brian Epstein. When he learned that the requests were for a local group, he paid a visit to the Cavern club to see what the fuss was about, and the rest is history….
Also in this auction was the 45 single ‘P.S. I Love You’ (the B-side to ‘Love Me Do’) – signed by all four Beatlesand which we wrote about last month. This was the next most expensive item to go under the hammer yesterday. It fetched a substantial US$25,000 from a bidder in the room at the New York auction. This was well above the expected US$10,000:
The third most expensive item on the day was a framed, signed Beatle fan card photo from 1962. On the back is printed “With Best Wishes from Paul, Pete, John, and George. The Beatles. April 5th 1962”. Around that text are a number of signatures: “für Christa von George Harrison”, “für Christa von Paul McCartney”, “Roy Young” (a British Rock singer and pianist), “für Christa von John Lennon”, “Best Wishes from Pete Best”, and “Best Wishes from Bernard Boyle” (the founder of the Beatles Fan Club). These fan cards were given out at a Cavern Club concert on April 5 honoring the Official Fan Club. This sold for US$12,500:
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