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 The set was temporarily withdrawn from sale while they sorted out a production error where the song “Sweet Little Sixteen” appeared twice, and the song “You Can’t Catch Me” was missing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:
We were digging around in a cupboard the other day and came across a long-forgotten stash of Beatle sheet music collected from a variety of places over the years. Thought you might like to see the front covers. Most are printed and published for the Australia/New Zealand market. Some are books with numerous songs, others are single titles. As you’ll see, they’re in far from pristine condition, but interesting none-the-less.
Quite a few more photos of the Beatles holding or working with records have come in so it is time for a further instalment of our series The Beatles With Records.
The Liverpool Echo news site is reporting that the stereo radiogram shown in this picture of Ringo Starr and wife Maureen is up for auction:Maureen is shown sitting on the custom-built record player and radio which was built for the couplewhen they lived at 34 Montagu Square, London in 1965. It was a quality piece for the time with a Garrard turntable, a British Leak valve amplifier, and an Armstrong tuner with twin speakers. Also in the photo are at least four Beatle gold records, plus a shelf stacked with LPs of various kinds.
According to the Echo, Ringo gave the radiogram to his Auntie Everley and Uncle Jim at 59 Madrin Street, Liverpool, which was Ringo`s Grandad`s house. It has been in his Aunt’s possession since 1966 and has just surfaced after almost 50 years:The radiogram is just one of the lots in the Liverpool Beatles memorabilia Auction to be held in the Paul McCartney Auditorium there on August 29. We first featured the photo of Ringo and Maureen at home back in The Beatles With Records – Part Two.
Speaking of Liverpool, here is a cool photograph taken outside Brian Epstein’s NEMS Music Store:
Lots of records in the front window – and the arrow points to one record cover that may give a hint as to the date. It is Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’, which came out in January, 1964:
Lots of other LPs and EPS there in the window. Anyone else recognise anything? (The image was kindly sent through by Billy Shears at the SgtPepperChannel on YouTube).
Back in The Beatles With Records Part Twenty Five we showed a photograph of George Harrison with the Radha Krsna Temple and an Apple single they’d released (and he produced) called ‘Govinda’.
Here they are together again – this time in 1970 – and one member is holding another single of their Apple singles, ‘Hare Krishna Mantra’:
(Again, thanks to Billy Shears for sending through those images).
The topic of George Harrison brings us to model Patti Boyd, who later became his wife. Before they were married she featured in a number of photo shoots with Beatle records. Here’s another. This time Patti is holding a UK mono copy of With The Beatles, from 1963:
And we’ve just had the anniversary (on August 11) of John Lennon apologising to the American people for his “the Beatles are bigger than Jesus” comment. It led to some very odd and sad scenes of LPs and singles being publicly destroyed, these ones below live on air on radio….
Jumping ahead in time, here’s Lennon at home with what looks like an acetate or test pressing in front of him (on the bed, lower right). Impossible to tell what it might be though: And John Lennon again, this time in what looks like a U.S. radio station studio with DJ Scott Muni:
This image looks very much like another photo from the same day, taken at the radio station WNEW-FM in New York. John was on the publicity trail for his album Rock’n’Roll. The two men are wearing the same clothing (Lennon a tee-shirt, and Muni a shirt and light coloured knitted sweater). You can see this photo in The Beatles With Records – Part Three:And to finish a video of Paul McCartney, performing live at the famous Amoeba Music record store in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 27, 2007. Here Paul is literally surrounded by vinyl and CD’s in the hundreds and thousands:
Just two obvious cover shots from the posters on the wall behind him…..You will no doubt spot a lot more:
As mentioned in our previous post, a recent holiday trip took us to Europe (including a first ever visit to the Netherlands) and this presented the opportunity to trawl through a few of Amsterdam’s specialty vinyl record shops – and there are quite a few of them!
Collectors will know that pressings from Holland are fairly common because once upon a time EMI had quite a large presence there and pressed a huge amount of discs (both LPs and CDs). These were not only for local consumption, but also for distribution worldwide.
So, as a travel memento, we wanted at least a couple of Beatle or Beatle-related pressings as a physical reminder of our visit to the Netherlands.
The shops we made it to in Amsterdam included Record Friend, in the city’s Niewmarket area (at St Antoniesbreestraat 64); the enormous Concerto Records (at Utrechtsestraat 52-60); and finally City Records, also in Niewmarket (at Geldersekade 100A). There are many more places to find vinyl – but we had only a limited time.
The Record Friend store is situated below street level and it’s pretty big – and a bit overwhelming when you first walk in:
But it was easy to find the Beatles section and we soon found a nice clean Dutch copy of this double LP in its gatefold cover:
We already have this LP (in Australian and US pressings), but this one is made in Holland with unusual grey and silver Parlophone labels, so it’s different. And for us it serves as a reminder of a fantastic visit to a fantastic city:
Country of origin detail on the rear cover:
Next we called in to Concerto – which is huge. The store (spread over five shops all joined together in one long line – see photo below) offers a wide selection of new and used vinyl, CDs and DVDs. Surprisingly they didn’t have a huge amount of Beatle vinyl.
So, after a lengthy browse of their many shelves we moved on to City Records.
There, in a small but very neat and clean store (fairly new and with the owner still in the process of setting up), we found three nice collectable items. We’re always on the lookout for different versions of the 1970 Apple LP John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. We have quite a few – but to now have an original Holland pressing in the collection is a delight:
This one had the (censored) paper lyric sheet inner:
And a little surprise added bonus – the cheeky postcard insert from Lennon’sImagine album which was meant as a rebuff to Paul McCartney’sRam cover. Not sure how it ended up with this LP, but out it fell when we got home:
Next out of the crates at City Records was a Dutch pressing of George Harrison’s budget compilation LP The Best of George Harrison. We’ve been looking for a vinyl version of this for some time so it’s good to finally have one, pressed in Holland of course:
And here’s the final Beatle LP we found at City Records. This version of The Beatles Ballads is a really nice find. This release (which is a Beatles “Best Of” style LP also issued in the UK and Australia) is collectable because it has a front and rear cover unique to Holland and is titled De Mooiste Songs (which roughly translates as The Most Beautiful Songs):
The British and Australian covers for this have a blue border on the front cover:
And a predominantly yellow rear cover:
Here’s the Dutch label:
In Australia this came out originally on the orange and black Parlophone label:
For more on the background to the special painting done for this cover have a look here.
The owner of City Records was very helpful. Realising these albums had to make the very l-o-n-g journey back to Australia, he offered to put the LPs into a sturdy cardboard mailer to help protect them more fully. A kind gesture very much appreciated.
Next time – what happened on our visit to France……
We’ve just returned from the annual Glebe Record Fair – one of the biggest of the year – held in the Sydney suburb of Glebe:
The two photos below were taken just after opening time at 9.00 am. This was before the venue really became absolutely packed with patrons hungrily seeking out vinyl, books and CDs. As you can see it’s already very crowded:
And the crowds just got bigger and bigger. In the melee that ensued we were lucky to discover four interesting little 45 singles. First up, a US white-label pressing of George Harrison’s ‘This Song’ from 1976 on his Dark Horse label, complete in its original outer sleeve. First pressings of this came with these white labels, while later issues have the traditional colour label:
At the same vendor’s stall we also discovered this unusual New Zealand pressing of PaulMcCartney and Wingscontroversial ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’, dating from 1972. As was the case in most of the rest of the world this is on a custom Apple label:
A little later in another pile of 45s we spied this nice US pressing (and original picture sleeve) of Mary Hopkin singing ‘Goodbye’:
By this time we were feeling pretty weary, and the crowds had built considerably. We were just about to leave and doing one final trawl through some singles at another table when out popped this rare little gem:
It’s a 1986 UK pressing with re-mixes of the Suzy and the Red Stripes song ‘Seaside Woman‘ (a.k.a Linda McCartney and husband Paul). This was originally released on the A&M label back in 1980 with this cover:
The Rutles are a legend. A living legend. A legend that will live long after other living legends have died. This is the semi-legendary story of the Prefab Four who made the sixties what they are today!
For such a huge cultural phenomenon the Beatles have attracted surprisingly few parodies and send-ups over the years. That is until The Rutles came along…..
We’ve just scored a nice vinyl copy of their 1978 LP The Rutles:
Created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for British television, The Rutles first appeared in 1975 as a sketch on the BBC TV comedy series called Rutland Weekend Television. The sketch presented a mini-documentary about the 1960s band “The Rutles”, and featured Innes singing “I Must Be In Love”, a pastiche of a 1964 Lennon-McCartney tune.
The Rutles gained more fame after their 1978 mockumentary television film, All You Need Is Cash(in whichGeorge Harrison actually appears). The RutlesLP is the soundtrack album from that film and it contains 14 of the film’s 20 songs.
The Rutles comes with a gatefold cover and pasted inside is a lavish 16-page, full colour book containing text and images detailing the history and (imaginary) releases of the band. Here’s a selection:
And there’s an inner sleeve containing more band parodies, too:
What we have here is the US pressing. Released on the Warner Brothers label in 1978.
If you’d like a taste of what The Rutles are about:
Stumbled across a blog site that takes an interesting approach to Beatle history.
The Beatles in the News is just that – a site where multiple, random articles from across the decades and from all over the world are aggregated and re-published daily.
There are newspaper and magazine articles, concert reviews, TV news, and advertisements. It’s not only about the Beatles as a group but also as solo artists. Around 500 items from the past are uploaded every month.
One of the posts from January 23 this year caught our attention. It features – in full – a special colour supplement produced by the iconic Australian Women’s Weekly magazine in March, 1964 at the very height of Beatlemania:Of course, being a “women’s magazine” from the day meant you had to have a section dedicated to what to cook for that special Beatles party:
Just love those mop-top muffins with the chocolate hairdo’s! And also how to dress in Beatle fashion:
Fantastic stuff.
With this site you never know from day-to-day just what gems might pop up.
For anyone interested in the BeatlesThe Beatles in the News is well worth visiting regularly. You never know what you might find.
For those of us who remember the days of visiting good old “bricks and mortar” record stores to browse and buy the latest vinyl……this amazing footage of the legendary Tower Records on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood in 1970 will take you back (and possibly take your breath away if you’re a vinyl nut!)
In it we spotted literally hundreds of plastic sealed copies of George Harrison’s then new box setAll Things Must Pass being put out on display……a fleeting glimpse of Lennon’sPlastic Ono Band in the arms of a female customer…..stacks of McCartney’sMcCartney LP…..Badfinger’sNo Dice……a copy of the BeatlesYellow Submarine….and from footage taken outside, a big John Lennon billboard.
Scenes from this great archival film were used to illustrate this spoken word advertisement for Tower Records voiced by John Lennon himself (possibly from 1973) – then promoting his latest LP Mind Games:
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had an interest in the homes of the Beatles. Not a snooping, voyeuristic interest – but more of an architectural one because they (especially John and George) have lived in some very interesting buildings over the years.
That’s why our interest was sparked when we got a press release this week from a company called The Campfire Network advertising a new book. In coordination with “Ye Friends of Friar Park,” Campfire has just announced the publication of the second book in a series which celebrates the history and architecture of residences which at some point were homes of one or more of the Beatles. (Their first book in the series was The Dakota Scrapbook, published last year).
Now comes Friar Park: A Pictorial History, a collection of vintage, rare, and original photographs and illustrations telling the story of George Harrison’s spectacular and unusual home – Friar Park – from the time Sir Frank Crisp began purchasing land in the medieval town of Henley-on-Thames in the late 1800s, all the way to the time it was purchased by Harrison.
Carefully selected images offer a rare and unique glimpse of the property’s extraordinary gardens, mansion home, lodges, and assorted structures, lakes, and secret underground caves, as well as other architectural and horticultural treasures and wonders on the grounds of Friar Park. Here are some of the pages and images from the book:
Campfire’s Marketing Director Kelly Cardinal says: “Beatles fans, architects, historians, and anyone interested in grand homes and beautiful gardens have long-admired Friar Park from afar, with little more than the occasional description or photos that have appeared here and there. Now, for the first time, is a publication that includes the largest collection of photos and information about Friar Park that has ever been gathered together in one place before. It has generated quite a bit of excitement.”
The pictures and information in the book were found during the development of a forthcoming film documentary about the home.
Friar Park: A Pictorial History is now available from Amazon, as is a companion volume called Friar Park: 1919 Estate Auction Catalogue, a recreation of the official auction catalogue for the house when it was sold following the passing of original owner Sir Frank Crisp. Upon his death his family instructed auctioneers to sell the entire estate, including all the grounds, the boathouse on Henley-on-Thames, and three grand residential sites. The sale took place on Saturday, August 9th, 1919 and this book is a scholastic and educational study of an architecturally and historically significant English country house.
If you are interested in this sort of thing, “The Story of Tittenhurst Park” – the English stately home owned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, will be released in 2015.
(Each of the links above are to Amazon pages with a “Look Inside” function so that you can have a bit more of a sticky beak at these very interesting books).
Thanks Universal!
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