New Three Part Beatles Radio Series – “Here, There & Everywhere”

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Coming soon to a radio station near you – a new radio special about the Beatles as a musical phenomenon.

Officially sanctioned and distributed to radio stations by Apple and EMI Music, The Beatles: Here, There and Everywhere is a three-part radio special featuring exclusive new interviews with a variety of artists and producers talking about the influence of the The Beatles on their individual careers. Brian Wilson, Tom Petty, Dave Grohl, Jeff Lynne, Anne and Nancy Wilson, Peter Asher, Jackson Browne, Bob Seger, T-Bone Burnett, Cameron Crowe and Rick Rubin all take part. The series is narrated by veteran British presenter and music writer Paul Gambaccini.

Written and produced by Beatles historian Kevin Howlett (he researched and wrote all the liner notes for the new Remastered CDs), the three 48 minute installments each take a different thematic approach. The website eil.com has this summary of each episode:

Part One: Meet The Beatles!

The interviewees recorded exclusively for this series reveal the impact made upon them by The Beatles’ records from throughout their career. We hear Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Tom Petty, film director Cameron Crowe and Ann & Nancy Wilson (of Heart) talking about their first-hand experience of The Beatles’ phenomenal 1964 breakthrough in the United States. Dave Grohl, Mark Ronson and Slash discuss the enduring influence of albums such as Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road.

Part Two: Ask Me Why

The interviewees focus on the various elements within the group that combined to make The Beatles so musically powerful: their strengths as performers – both instrumentally and vocally – plus the brilliance of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison as songwriters.

Part Three: The Beatles On The Record

We hear how The Beatles’ music was captured on record with the help of innovative arrangements and adventurous production by George Martin. Some of today’s leading record producers – Peter Asher, Joe Boyd, T-Bone Burnett, Jeff Lynne, Mark Ronson and Rick Rubin – marvel at the dazzling creativity evident in recordings made more than 40 years ago.

If you didn’t get to hear it over the Thanksgiving holiday, or its still to come to a radio station nearby, here is a short extract from the opening sequence from Part One:


Ringo: New Album on the Way

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Ringo Starr has announced the release of a new album called “Y Not”. It’s due for release on January 12th, 2010.

It’ll be produced by Ringo, and will feature an appearance by Paul McCartney on one song – the first single to be released – called “Walk With You”.

The cover looks like this:

Ringo's "Y Not" Cover Shot

There’s an article about the new album on The Beatles Official site here.

Sgt. Pepper Released As Second Download For Rock Band

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The Beatles Rock Band Poster

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is the second full album available as a download in its entirety for The Beatles Rock Band since the video game’s launch on 09.09.09.

Last month Apple released “Abbey Road” as the first full downloadable album for use in the game.

“All You Need Is Love,” the first downloadable track available for the game, has had more than 100,000 downloads to date, with all proceeds benefiting Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

With “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “With A Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “Getting Better,” and “Good Morning Good Morning” already included on The Beatles Rock Band game disc, players will now be able to complete the entire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

The download is available for Xbox 360 and Wii from Nov. 17 and for PlayStation 3 from Nov. 19.

Individual Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band singles: “Fixing A Hole,” “She’s Leaving Home,” “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!,” “Within You Without You,” “When I’m Sixty – Four,” “Lovely Rita,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” and “A Day In The Life” are down-loadable as individual tracks.

“Rubber Soul” (1965) will be released as downloadable content in December.

For the full details and to see a short video featuring songs available in the download visit The Beatles official site.

New Beatles “Christmas Pack” of 4 Remasters

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Its either a cynical marketing exercise in the lead up to Christmas, or a really helpful move for those who can’t afford the steep asking price of the full Remastered boxed sets…

EMI in Europe has announced it is issuing (on 7 December) a limited edition boxed set of four of the new stereo remasters called The Beatles Christmas Pack.

The Beatles "Christmas Pack: Limited Edition"

The set will contain “Rubber Soul”,  “Revolver”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Abbey Road”.

Each album will include the bonus “Making Of” video that uses exclusive original footage from the Beatles’ own archive plus other rare footage and voice-overs by the Beatles and George Martin.

Weird “Concert for Bangladesh” LP

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Every so often you come across a CD or LP where you just can’t identify the country it was released in. Its kind of frustrating because collectors usually like to know this kind of detail…especially when you come across unusual or different packaging of a release you think you know well.

That’s the case here with this three-LP set from 1971 of George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh”.

Every copy I’ve seen to date comes in a hard cardboard box, with a lid that lifts off and looks like this:

The usual "Concert for Bangladesh" box

The box contains the three vinyl discs, and the white-covered 64-page book of concert photos, text and credits for the album. The rear of this box is plain and has no writing on it.

However, I have a copy in the collection that’s a bit different. Its a box, but made of soft cardboard that doesn’t have a lid. The front cover looks familiar enough:

Front cover "Concert for Bangladesh"

So far so good. But this release has flaps on the back which you pull out to get access to the records and book inside:

The flaps in the closed position

You flip open these flaps and the “box” looks like this:

"Concert for Bangladesh" open

From what I can tell the US, UK and Australian versions all have the lidded box, and not this top-opening, slide-out style box. Also the US and UK versions have dark khaki brown inner sleeves in which the records sit (the Australian release doesn’t have any paper sleeves).

Inside this box  though the LPs are in light yellow colored thin paper sleeves:

The LPs are in yellow paper sleeves

The place you can usually tell the country of origin is in the small print on the labels of the records themselves. This one has no hints – with no mention of a country of origin. However, it does have a lot more copyright information on each disc, located just near the record number information (see top the left-hand side in the pics below as compared to the Australian release):

The label of the "strange" version - with copyright info top left

Compare this to the official Australian release:

The Australian release label - note no copyright info

The final main difference is that the words “Sole Distributors, Gramophone Record Company, Ltd” are written on the labels and prominently across the back of the box. The image below is from the rear of the box:

"Sole Distributors, Gramophone Record Company, Ltd" printed on the rear of the box

So, a weird one.

Being a huge worldwide Apple release, this concert disc set would have been issued in a large number of countries. I have my suspicions that this one here could be either the New Zealand or the Indian release.  But I don’t have anything to prove that.

If anyone has any information on this release please let me know by submitting a comment. Cheers for now.

George Harrison – Traveling Wilburys (Deluxe)

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If there’s ever a thing to get a collector going it is a couple of different versions of the same release….

Enter the George Harrison side project The Traveling Wilburys, a super band he shared credit for with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.  (Or, as they are credited on the album sleeve: Lucky, Otis, Charlie T. Jnr. and Nelson Wilbury).

In 2007 Rhino Records released a limited edition box set of the two Wilbury albums, plus a DVD disc featuring a twenty-four minute documentary on the band and a collection of music videos.

The box set was released in three editions; the standard edition, with both CDs and DVD in a silver-coloured double digipak package with a 16-page booklet, and a “deluxe” boxed edition with the CDs and DVD, a hard-back 40-page booklet, and an envelope containing two old-style photos, two modern band photos, and a sticker.

The first release of this deluxe edition came out in a white linen covered box. However, you can see in the pictures below not one, but two versions of this deluxe box set – that’s because the first edition was so popular it quickly sold out….and so a year later they released another version – this time with the exact same content inside but housed in a blue linen covered box.

Each comes with a “Certificate of Authenticity” and is numbered. The white box here is number 18887. The blue box is numbered 102681.  Both are now pretty hard to find, though I think the white box is the rarer as there were fewer produced.  There was also a vinyl edition of the set – but I haven’t got that one. Yet…..

Traveling Wilburys     The Traveling Wilburys Collection

(First & Second Editions)

Label: Rhino  Records

Cat. No.:   R2 167868     (8122 7998 233)

2007 and 2008/US/2 CD/1 DVD/Ltd. Ed./book/4 photos/sticker/linen covered box sets

Traveling Wilburys 1st and 2nd Editions

Traveling Wilburys 1st and 2nd Editions

Traveling Wilburys 1st and 2nd Editions

Traveling Wilburys 1st and 2nd Editions - Front

Inside the 1st Edition Deluxe Box

Inside the 1st Edition Deluxe Box

Rare McCartney – Dance ‘Til We’re High

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OK. Another fairly difficult-to-find McCartney CD single has come into the collection this week.

When Paul’s alter ego The Fireman (being Paul McCartney and long-time collaborator/producer Youth) released his third album last year (2008) there were three collectable promotional releases associated with the project.

The first was the full album – but with a different cover – that was only sent to reviewers and radio stations. (More on this in a forthcoming post…).

The second was a promo-only CD single containing the song “Sing the Changes”. The numbers of these floating around for sale on Ebay, etc. were a fair bit higher – so there were obviously more of these pressed than third item on the list – another promo-only CD single containing the track “Dance ’til We’re High”. These were far harder to find, and pretty costly on Ebay as a result.

The CD is a digipack gate-fold cardboard sleeve featuring photographs inside and out from the same sessions as the photos from the official album release cover and booklet.  The two other promotional items mentioned above also have similar photos – so if you have them all they sit together nicely thematically with a very similar look and feel.

I have included a scan of the front cover of “Dance ’til We’re High” below, as well as a scan of the printing on the disc itself which has the words “For Promotional Use Only” on it.

If you’d like to see and read about another hard-to-find Paul McCartney CD single click here.

I’ll post some info and images of the other Fireman-related promo CD’s soon.

The Fireman  “Dance ’til We’re High”

Label:  MPL/One Little Indian

Cat. No.: 1011p7cdp

2008/UK/1 track CD Single/Promo

Dance1

"Dance 'til We're High" - The Fireman

Dance2

"Dance 'til We're High" CD

Beatles USB

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Well, my last post just a day or so ago was about some new Beatles-related releases planned or rumored…..but they seem pretty minor now in the light of this one – which is official, is actual Beatles, and really takes the cake!

Apple/EMI have today announced that every stereo remastered Beatles album will be available on a specially-designed USB stick. So much for waiting around for iTunes digital downloads. Apple seems to have taken things in a completely new direction…

No need to write too much more because the Beatles’ official site has pretty much all the info we know so far. It’s limited to 30,000 world-wide and is released on December 8.

Details here: http://www.thebeatles.com and here.

Beatles USBThe Beatles USB - Partly OpenThe Beatles USB - Open

New Releases – Coming Up or Out Now

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Time to detail a couple of new releases expected very soon…some definite, some pure speculation, and one that’s already out.

Paul McCartney this month will release a new CD and vinyl in a variety of editions.

It’s called “Good Evening New York City” and is a live set recorded at the newly-opened CitiField venue in New York on July 17, 18 and 21 this year. The concert was symbolic because CitiField is built on the site of the famous Shea Stadium where the Beatles played way back in 1965.

“Good Evening New York City” will be available in three formats:  a 3-disc (2 CD + 1 DVD) standard edition and a 4-disc (2 CD + 2 DVD) deluxe version featuring expanded packaging and a bonus DVD including McCartney’s July 15 live street performance on the David Letterman Late Show. The set will also be released on vinyl LP. Collectors get ready to dig deep into those pockets again…

It comes out 17 November (US) and 23 November (UK).

You can see a very short teaser for the album on Paul’s official YouTube site. And here is a cover image:

Good Evening New York City

Good Evening New York City

Another release that’s supposedly pending is a special 40th Anniversary box set vinyl edition of the Beatles “Abbey Road”.  No one is sure if this is to be the newly remastered version of the disc or the previous mix. You can find out a bit more here, and the Record Store Day site says that the box set will include the vinyl album, a t-shirt, and a poster. The limited edition deluxe package will, according to them, be released on November 7th in the US and will be limited to 5000 copies worldwide. Intriguingly, Amazon has a holding place for the record here.  Someone has produced this cover image, so I’m not sure if this release is really happening or not:

418453424510 550

Abbey Road 40th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set?

Speaking of vinyl, rumors persist that there is to be a full box set of ALL the Beatles Remastered albums made available in Mono and Stereo on vinyl.  The respected Mojo magazine carried this article on its website yesterday saying that the box sets are on the way, but there are no firm release dates just yet. Watch this space….

And finally Beatles’ long-time friend and sometime collaborator Klaus Voormann has a new album out now. Its called “A Sideman’s Journey”, and features appearances by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.  Voormann has known the Beatles since the Hamburg days and is an artist and bass player. He drew the cover of “Revolver”, and has played on numerous tracks for Beatles solo projects (including, amongst many others,  Lennon’s “Walls and Bridges” and “Imagine” and Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” and “Concert for Bangladesh”). See his biog entry in Wikipedia here.

His new CD is made up of newly recorded covers of some of the songs he helped make famous with the Beatles and others over the years.

Stereo/Mono Remastered – Revisited

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In an earlier post I included an audio extract from a US National Public Radio podcast featuring Beatles historian and writer Kevin Howlett. He was talking about some of the fascinating differences between the  Stereo and Mono versions of the Beatles Remastered CDs.

Then the  other day I stumbled across this website where a guy called Jake Brown has gone to a lot of trouble to detail a lot more.  He’s spent time cutting together actual audio examples and palcing them side-by-side so we can all quickly hear what differences are. He’s also detailed in text form some other variations.  Have a read and a listen.  Thanks Jake!