For the first time ever° an original version of a Beatle song has been overdubbed with strings and choir and will be included on a forthcoming charity album called Animal Requiem.

Animal Requiem is the brainchild of composer (and wife of Pete Townsend), Rachel Fuller. An animal lover, she has written a musical work with the intention of celebrating, remembering and honouring all the animals we have loved and lost.

As a long-time animal rights supporter Paul McCartney was also keen to be involved, and has granted permission for the Beatle song ‘Blackbird’ to be included. It’s apparently the original White Album recording (featuring McCartney’s vocal and guitar), but now accompanied by an entirely new classical arrangement performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir of London, conducted by Robert Ziegler.

Rachel Fuller said, “I composed the Animal Requiem for all of us who have lost a much beloved pet – the pain we feel is equal to the love we felt for them. With this music, I honour and remember all the animals I have loved and lost. All their lives have had an extraordinary impact on mine and I am forever grateful.”

The Requiem has been created for every person who is passionate about animal welfare, who believes in a world where animals are treated with kindness and compassion, and that each and every life is a valuable one.

All profits from the album and ticket sales from concert performances will be donated to animal charities and small independently run shelters around the world.

The album will be released in the UK on March 8. It is already available as a digital download in the US, with ‘Blackbird’ only downloadable if you purchase the whole album.

° Of course there was the lovely George Martin string arrangement for ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ used in the Cirque Du Soleil stage show and included on the Beatles Love album. But that’s a different vocal/acoustic version of the song, not the original from The White Album. Have there been any others?

Aren’t friends kind when they remember your passion for collecting Beatle stuff, and out of the blue they give you something that is really worth adding to your collection?

That’s what happened the other day when a very dear family friend told us she had embarked on a month-long challenge.

To live more simply (and to create more space in her apartment) every day for a month she was going to throw out anything not used or looked at for years. However, and here’s the big challenge, the number of things going out each day had to correspond with the date of the month. So, for example, on day one she’d be dispensing of one item, but by the end of the month (in this case January) she had to come up with thirty-one items – to bin or pass on to some more deserving person!

My friend used to play the viola and also a little bit of piano back in the day, and therefore had a big stack of sheet music in her house. In amongst these were two original vintage Beatle music books – one for Revolver, and the other for Let It Be: 

They’re both made and printed in Australia, and are in very good condition. Here are the rear covers:

From the Revolver LP you get the music for eight of the fourteen songs (on the UK/Australian release), including ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, ‘For No One’, ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, and this George Harrison composition:

From the Let It Be LP you also get eight songs (out of the original thirteen tracks on the record): ‘Let It Be’, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’, ‘Dig a Pony’, ‘One After 909’, ‘Two of Us’, ‘Across the Universe’, ‘The Long and Winding Road’, and this one with a song-writing credit to the whole band, ‘Dig It’: As the old saying goes: “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”

And the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th anniversary news just keeps on coming…..

The official Beatles merchandise store has announced that there’s a Sgt. Pepper themed vinyl jukebox coming soon. 

The exact dates that these are to be available is a little confusing. On the official Beatles merchandise site it says “coming soon”, while on the manufacturers site (Sound Leisure Classic Jukeboxes in Yorkshire, England) the spectacular player appears to be available for order already – at a cool £8,995 which includes delivery to mainland UK addresses.

The machine will be distributed in the US and Canada by Deer Park Distributing and will have its official launch at the global consumer technology trade show CES in Las Vegas in January.

Rather than being mass-produced, each jukebox is being hand-made to order. And that is for a period of two years. After that – no more. If you have the cash, this does look like an opportunity to obtain a unique, limited and hand-crafted official Beatle item.

The jukebox holds seventy 7″ records – although it is not clear whether these are supplied as part of the purchase price. If you don’t have seventy 45’s to fill it, never fear. The Sgt. Pepper jukebox has Bluetooth – so it can also stream digital music from anywhere.

It features officially sanctioned artwork from the iconic 1967 album cover – and we’ve gotta admit it looks VERY cool.

As to the question of these jukeboxes being hand-made to order, take a look at this intriguing video showing how each one is put together. You’ll get a clear idea of the care and workmanship involved:

Sound Leisure has been manufacturing high quality Jukeboxes in Yorkshire since 1978. Still family owned, the company remains one of only two traditional jukebox manufacturers in the world. In addition to hand building a wide range of classic styled CD and digital jukeboxes they are the only manufacturer to be producing a vinyl playing jukebox.

Seems the confusion over the availability of eight limited-edition, coloured vinyl versions of Paul McCartney’s Archive Series releases (so far) has been cleared up.

After a week of silence on just how and where these could be purchased, both the Universal Music UK and Universal Music US sites are now listing them again as being available for pre-order, with a shipping date of November 17th. However, there’s still a lot of confusion in the UK over the pricing of the coloured vinyl editions….

Meanwhile, there’s even more news on the coloured vinyl front.

The official Record Store Day site has this week confirmed that two Paul McCartney vinyl singles (one red, one green) will be available in limited numbers as part of their Black Friday special event.

The red single will be Paul McCartney and Jimmy Fallon (backed by The Roots) singing a version of ‘Wonderful Christmastime’. The B-side is Norah Jones singing ‘Peace’ (recorded live at the Sheen Centre).

The green single will have the same version of ‘Wonderful Christmastime’, but this time the B-side will be a song called ‘Jesus Christ’ performed by The Decemberists.

Only 3,500 of each are being pressed apparently, so it looks like these may join a 2012 McCartney RSD Black Friday coloured vinyl Christmas release, ‘The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)’. This was also issued on red and green vinyl in very limited numbers. Both have become a rare and collectable items.

If you miss out on the vinyl singles then you can always pick up the song ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ on the CD Holidays Rule – Volume 2 which was released on October 13th: 

We’ve just discovered another great Beatle podcast. It’s called Fabcast – A New Way of Talking About The Beatles…

Fabcast is three highly opinionated but very well-informed Beatle fans sitting together and discussing a set topic at length. The three are music writer Howie Edelson, musician Stephen Bard, and veteran record company publicist and executive Dave Morrell.

Their podcast started last year and they are now thirteen episodes in – and counting.

The trio begin each show with these words: “The only home of intelligent, cool and forward-thinking Beatles discussion…”, and yes – they have very strong and often unique opinions. But they back this up with great knowledge, a passion for the band and, in Dave Morrell’s case, first-hand insider experience having worked with and for a number of the Beatles directly – notably John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Overall, across this podcast there’s a reverence for and love of the Beatles’ music throughout.

Episode Thirteen is one of their longest, and best. They had as their guest eminent Beatle historian Mark Lewisohn. The Fabcast trio talked with him (and sometimes at him) for nearly two and a half hours! Yes, it’s a long episode, but it is great stuff. 

Hear all the guy’s podcasts on Soundcloud, or subscribe using Apple iTunes.

P.S. The other great podcast we’d highly recommend is Something About The Beatles by Richard Buskin and Robert Rodriguez. They’re now 120 episodes in and counting and we reckon they too are a “…home of intelligent, cool and forward-thinking Beatles discussion”!

If you had US$12,000.00 to spend on a guitar, this would be nice to own:

Check out the official Martin homepage for more.