This new McCartney feature film, made by Albert Mayles (of “The Beatles First US Visit” fame), is now out on BlueRay, on DVD, and as a digital download:
If you’d like to see this trailer in a larger format click here. And there are some short comments and further information on the film here.
Stumbled across yet another discount book this week. Not bad for A$5.95:
“The Mammoth Book of the Beatles” contains a LOT of information across its 594 pages.
This is a compilation book edited by Sean Egan who has gathered together more than 30 contemporary accounts, articles, and interviews about the Beatles (from Maureen Cleave’s “Beatles Bigger than Christ” feature, to their debunking in the News of the World just before the release of “Sgt Pepper”. Hmmm. Good timing News of the World. It was a dodgy newspaper back then, too). There are also latter-day memoirs and re-assessments. Contributors include Paul Gambaccini, Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus and Alan Clayson. There’s also a short section on the Beatles cartoon series – written by Mitch Axelrod (from the Fab Forum radio show and podcast). The book also includes reviews of each album and single release, interviews, and a comprehensive Beatles and solo Beatles UK discography.
Published by Constable and Robinson in the UK, and by Running Press in the US. I have the US paperback edition that came out in 2009.
There’s a pretty good review of the book here by blogger David Marx.
Guitar World magazine in the US has released a special holiday edition that focuses on the Beatles as guitarists. They are calling it their “ultimate guide” to the recordings, songs and gear of the band.
The issue is devoted to an in-depth examination of the Beatles 13 albums – from “Please Please Me” to “Let It Be” – and includes commentary culled from original interviews with producer George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick and Alan Parsons. The magazine explores the Beatles through their musical instruments and the unique recording equipment inside EMI’s Abbey Road studios.
According to the press release I was sent by the magazine, each album is explored in detail – from the story behind its creation to the guitars and amps used in its making, for example the George Harrison Rickenbacker 360 12-string guitar used on “A Hard Day’s Night” and numerous other classic-era songs, as well as his custom-made rosewood Fender Telecaster, used during the making of “Let It Be”. There’s also behind the scenes stories of selected tracks from each album including “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Ticket to Ride,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and others.
The Holiday 2011 issue of Guitar World is out now. To find out more visit the magazine’s website.
On Friday 25 November, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States (called Black Friday), the Record Store Day people are making a whole load of special releases available for a limited time only to independent record store retailers.
This is not the same as the official Record Store Day – which stands as a special and separate day where independent record stores are encouraged and supported. On that day they also offer for sale a range of very special and limited vinyl record releases (see below for some previous Beatles-related issues).
The 2011 Black Friday event is a separate and additional day to do the same thing though – and artists, bands and many record companies have got behind it in a BIG way.
On Friday 25 November there will be two releases of interest to Beatles collectors. The first is a limited edition box set of four Beatles vinyl 45 singles, and the second is a 40th anniversary vinyl edition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” LP.
The Bull Moose record store in Portland, Maine has maintained a terrific up-to-date site detailing all the releases, including the two Beatles-related ones. They’ve also posted two lengthy videos highlighting some of the key releases for Black Friday, which includes collectors items from Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Miles Davis, Nirvana, and the Kings of Leon – to name just a few.
The special box set Beatles release is mentioned and detailed right at the beginning of Part Two of the store’s YouTube video and you can see that here:
For information about the Lennon LP re-issue you need to scroll in to about 6 minutes and 56 seconds of this Part Two video. Chris Brown from Bull Moose shows the box set of John Lennon’s “Imagine” re-issue. As you can see, it has a unique cover image:
Both these items will be strictly limited and released on Friday 25 November.
Previous Record Store Day Beatles or Beatles-related limited editions include the Beatles “Paperback Writer” single, George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” triple LP, and the John Lennon “Singles Bag”, all of which are really nice limited edition collectors items now.
You can find more details about the Black Friday releases at the official site here.
In the city the other day I stumbled upon this box of Beatles books:
It gathers together four books by respected British Beatles historian and writer Alan Clayson. Collectively it’s called “The Beatles Box”, and contains four individual books on each member of the group. There’s one on John Lennon (which was originally published in 2003):
One on Paul McCartney (also originally published in 2003):
One on George Harrison (originally published in 1996 as “The Quiet One: A Life of George Harrison”, but updated here in 2003):
And one on Ringo Starr (originally published in 1996 as “Ringo Starr: Straight Man or Joker?”, but also updated here in 2003):
This box of books is nicely designed. The covers are all complementary and the book spines line up when they are placed side-by-side in the box, with photos of each looking out:
“The Beatles Box” is published by Sanctuary Publishing. Alan Clayson is also a musician and has his own website.
Released this week in the USA – “The Beatles With Tony Sheridan: First Recordings 50th Anniversary Edition”, a new double CD package released by Time-Life Entertainment to mark the Fab Four’s 50th anniversary. :
This features tracks the band performed with singer Tony Sheridan as Polydor artists after the German bandleader and music executive Bert Kaempfert discovered them performing in Hamburg in 1961.
The CD’s come with a booklet full of rarely seen photographs taken by one-time Beatles guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe’s fiancee Astrid Kirchherr. It also has band contracts, poster art from their early shows and handwritten biographies by each member of the group.
The package was released on November 8. Looks like it comes in a nice gate-fold digipack:
Time-Life has a small website with a little bit more detail. And there’s some good information about these recordings here.
At work we have a pretty good library. I was in there the other day and on a shelf displaying their newly-purchased books I saw this nice little item:
Of course, it captured my attention, not only because this book celebrates one thousand covers of the famous “Rolling Stone” music magazine (one of my favourites over the years), but also because of the classic Annie Leibovitz cover photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken from the January 22, 1981 edition.
This book might have been new to our library, but it’s not a new publication. It actually came out back in 2006 and celebrates the publication of “Rolling Stone” over a span of almost four decades. From its humble beginnings in November 1967 to June 2006, making the cover of “Rolling Stone” meant something. And of course the Beatles (either as a group or as solo artists) feature more than a few times. This post features just a small selection of those covers.
I was surprised to learn in the book that John Lennon actually featured on the front cover of the very first “Rolling Stone” magazine ever – Volume 1, Number 1 – in a publicity shot from the 1967 film “How I Won The War“:
As you can see, back in the day “Rolling Stone” was more like a traditional newspaper.
Three years later the cover of the magazine had evolved somewhat and featured a solo Beatle in the form of Paul McCartney, who had just released his first, self-titled album “McCartney“:
In 1971 George Harrison had gathered together a fine coterie of musical friends to stage what would become the first big fund-raising concert of its kind, “The Concert for Bangladesh“, featuring Ringo Starr, members of Badfinger, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Ravi Shankar, Klaus Voormann, and of course Bob Dylan – appearing live in concert for the first time in many years. Funds raised went to UNICEF to provide milk, blankets, clothes and food to millions of starving refugees:
The photograph of George above is another one by Annie Leibovitz. In the rear of the book there is an index of photographers and Leibovitz is by far the most credited single photographer with over 140 “Rolling Stone” cover shots to her name out of the one thousand featured.
In February 1984 “Rolling Stone” marked the twentieth anniversary of the Beatles with this special edition:
“He left this world as he lived in it: conscious of God, fearless of death and at peace….” [from a statement by Olivia and Dhani Harrison].
In January, 2002 “Rolling Stone” dedicated an issue to the life of George Harrison, who had passed away after a battle with throat, lung and brain cancer. Bob Dylan wrote of him, “He was a giant, a great, great soul, with all the humanity, all the wit and humor, all the wisdom, the spirituality, the common sense of a man and compassion for people.” :
2005 saw another Paul McCartney cover shot. This time the angle was “….a new album, new tour, new life – and nothing left to prove“. That new album was “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard“, produced by Nigel Godrich.
By my count the Beatles as a group or solo appeared some 27 times as the cover image/story of “Rolling Stone” magazine between 1967 and 2006.
“Rolling Stone – 1000 Covers” was published in 2006 by Abrams Books, New York.
For some other covers of “Rolling Stone” see also: The Lost Lennon Tapes; Nine Copies of Rolling Stone; Rolling Stone Names Its Top 100 Beatles Songs; and for the Australian cover variation of the “Top 100 Beatles Songs” click here.
There is a great little video from the deluxe materials included with the “Living in the Material World” DVD and BluRay sets. It features George Martin, Giles Martin and Dhani Harrison (George and Olivia’s son) filmed at the mixing desk listening back to the Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” – complete with a previously unheard guitar solo from the song which never made the final mix. Nice.
Here’s some more on the limited edition Beatles 45 and tee-shirt packs only available at Target stores in the US.
Some folks have been posting more information and pictures at the Steve Hoffman Music Forums – worth checking out for Beatles information and updates from time-to-time.
Someone put up a photo of the way the boxed sets are displayed in the store – usually at the end of an aisle like this:
As my copies are sealed and will probably stay that way I was interested to see some label images of the records inside:
Just a quick reminder about what we are talking about here:
And here are the copyright and other details on the bottom of one of the boxes – which I forgot to include on my earlier post. This one is for “Hello Goodbye”:
(If you’d like to see this slightly larger just click on the image above).
A visit to a garage sale this past weekend (you might use the term “yard sale” where you come from) has added another nice LP record to the collection.
It’s the “Beatles VI”, which first came out in 1965 in the US on Capitol. However, the copy I got on Saturday is a New Zealand pressing on the Parlophone label:
As you can see, this New Zealand pressing has the same picture cover (front and rear), and the same running order as the US release seen here below:
In Australia the artwork of this album is a bit confusing because the cover photo for the “Beatles VI” LP is the exact same cover photo that EMI Australia chose for a completely different Beatles LP they released back in 1968 called “The Beatles Greatest Hits Volume 1”:
I’ve got this on the orange Parlophone label, which would make my pressing from the 1970’s:
But to make things even more confusing, I also have the same LP (with the same cover) on a black and silver Parlophone label – from New Zealand:
So, two different records with different songs on them, but very similar cover artwork.
In case you are wondering about the origins of the photograph, it is actually the Beatles cutting a cake:
Beatles Blog 