Yoto players are designed for kids to listen to stories and music on pre-recorded digital cards that slot into the player, plus they can record their own creations onto blank cards and play them back. The Boys of Dungeon Lane card contains the full album, and it comes with unique cover art. So far it looks like this edition is only available through the UK Yoto store.
The company is slowly building up quite a relationship with McCartney and The Beatles. A couple of years back they issued short versions of The Beatles 1962-1966 [Yoto Edition]:
They also have a unique compilation album called Say Hello to Paul McCartney, designed to introduce kids to McCartney’s back-catalogue:
This 14-song card includes two tracks never-before released on a music product – the ‘Hey Grandude’ and ‘Hey Nandude’ themes in full, from Paul’s two children’s books.
Speaking of which, in line with the kid’s storytelling aspect of the players, Yoto has audio book versions of the two titles, Hey Grandude and Grandude’s Green Submarine:
Now, if you’re thinking these cards look kind of cool and collectable but I don’t want to buy an expensive device just to listen to them, you don’t actually need a stand-alone Yoto player. The Yoto app can be downloaded for free to your phone, and a simple tap of the card gives you access to the contents. The cards are the size of a credit card:
Is it just me, or are there a lot of books about Beatle managers around at the moment?
There are not one but three new books (out now or soon to be released) looking into what it is like to work at building the Beatle business.
The first is a new release by Philip Norman called Mr. Moonlight – Brian Epstein and the Making of The Beatles. As it’s title suggests, this is a new examination of the life of Beatle manager Brian Epstein.
Philip Norman is a British writer, novelist, journalist and playwright, probably best known for his first book, Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation (also published as Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles). First published in 1981 it has sold over a million copies and has often been re-issued and updated. No doubt you’ve seen or heard of this one. His other works have been on the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, and Elton John, and he’s penned individual biographies of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.
Now Norman turns his attention to Brian Epstein.
From the press blurb: Brian Epstein didn’t just manage the Beatles – he transformed them into the most famous band the world has ever known. A young record-shop owner from Liverpool, he took four relatively unknown musicians and set out to make them ‘bigger than Elvis’, changing pop music, celebrity, and British culture forever. Only a few years older than John, Paul, George and Ringo, he called them ‘the Boys’, guiding, protecting and relentlessly believing in them as no one else did. Without Brian Epstein, there would have been no Beatles as we know them.Drawing on a remarkable cache of exclusive interviews with those closest to him, Philip Norman delivers the most intimate and revealing portrait yet of this complex, conflicted and ultimately tragic figure. Mr Moonlight reveals the depths of Brian’s many trials and tribulations – how he almost lost the Beatles to organised crime; the antisemitism and homophobia he endured even at the height of his success; his intense and fraught relationship with John Lennon; and the haunting circumstances of his lonely death during the so-called Summer of Love.
Mr Moonlight looks worthwhile and it’ll be interesting to see if after all this time if any truly new material and insights emerge.
The second new book is also about Brian Epstein, but it comes from a very different perspective indeed.
1967 – The World of Brian Epstein and The Beatles: The Address Book That Defined an Era is by Gary Kemp and Simon Halfon. It isn’t published until October in the UK (and not until January 2027 in the US), but it looks to be a fascinating insight into the life of Brian Epstein through an unlikely primary source: his 1967 personal address book. Kemp, one of the UK’s most successful songwriters and guitarists – and founding member of the iconic 80s band Spandau Ballet, secured the address book five years ago at a Sotheby’s auction.
“When I first saw Brian Epstein’s black Twinlock binder, I was struck by how small and unassuming it was – just 160 by 100 millimetres, the kind of thing you could slip into a coat pocket. But inside, it held a universe. The book felt alive, buzzing, ready and waiting to be explored. So I dug deeper.”
Simon Halfon is one of the UK’s leading graphic designers, so the book should be visually interesting as well.
This book looks very cool and different. It explores Epstein and the Beatles’ world using 404 contacts in that unique personal address book from that pivotal year. Through detective work and biographical research the authors illustrate and unpack some of the extraordinary characters who appear, each one telling a different part of Brian’s story. A really interesting and unusual approach! Genuinely looking forward to this one.
The third book also promises a unique insight into managing a Beatle, away from the bright lights and public face. What’s it really like?
Richard Ogden was Paul McCartney’s manager from 1987 to 1993. In his self-published memoir, Bigger Than The Beatles – Sixty Years in Showbusiness he looks back on those years working in the pop music industry with more than 200 artists – from some never-heard-of’s, to a handful of the all-time biggest names. Ogden’s book includes chapters on Shirley Bassey, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent, The Motors, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin, and Van Morrison amongst many others. But none are bigger or enormously famous than Paul McCartney, to whom he devotes three chapters.
It was during Ogden’s time with McCartney that he embarked on one of his biggest world tours. It saw him set a Guinness Book of Records first as he performed in front of 184,000 people at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro. The Brazil gig was particularly special for Ogden as it was when Sir Paul said the words that inspired the title of this new memoir: “It’s what Paul McCartney shouted at me when he came off stage in Rio in April 1990″.
Speaking to The Liverpool Echo though Ogden said it wasn’t success and fun all the time. “It wasn’t all roses and champagne, I can assure you. We fell out. After three years, we fell out. I don’t know why. It’s a mystery to me. I pursue that in the book, trying to understand why it happened. We parted on very bad terms. It was a great shame because I did great work with him. Why it ended the way it did, you’d have to ask him. I’ve never been really sure.”
“You could say that he just didn’t renew my contact. But we had a bit of a to-do. At one point this was the title of my book, but I changed it. I said to him, ‘All you want around you is yes men.’ But he said, ‘I tell you what I don’t want. A no man like you.’ My book for a while was called No Yes Man.”
Ogden doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to describing what it was really like working for Paul McCartney: “Dealing with him had become even more difficult than it was when I first started. And his dissatisfaction with me was affecting Linda who, as everybody who worked at MPL [McCartney Productions Ltd] knew, tended to ‘get it in the neck’ first when the boss was unhappy… it wasn’t unusual for my ‘McCartney hotline’ phone to ring first thing and for a tearful Linda to warn me that all was not well with His Nibs.”
It hasn’t even been released yet but quite a bit of work is being done by fans to identify the source of every image seen on the striking collage that fills the inside of the newly announced gatefold edition of Paul McCartney’s forthcoming Boys of Dungeon Lane LP:
There’s also a cassette which includes the same collage as a fold-out print and, in what’s turning into a big crowdsourced research project, fans from around the world are turning amateur detective and contributing to a special “Collage” Tumblr page set up by @bodl-gatefold.
The Tumblr page says: “We’re trying to source all the photos that went into this collage. If you think you’ve spotted one, send us an ask with a screenshot of the section where it appears, and a copy of the photo. The more info you can provide with your photo the better, but if you don’t know anything about where it was taken or even who’s in it, that’s find, send it!”
Here’s the collage (click the image to enlarge):
An email announcing the new gatefold edition says this “…screen‑printed collage is made from over 100 archive images, including previously unseen photography from Paul’s personal archive.”
So, here’s the artwork showing with red marks all the images @bodl-gatefold has identified so far:
As you scroll through the Tumblr page you’ll see examples of each of them – and there are a lot! The collage image is shown, and then the original source photo – usually (where known) with a time and place the original image was taken. The two below for example come from a hitchhiking trip Paul and George’s made in August, 1959:
There are many, many more great discoveries.
One thing that’s also immediately obvious, apart from the all the people, is that there’s a lot of bird images used throughout the collage. This helps explain the many bird references and little bird emojis in the current marketing teaser campaign. For example:
From what we can tell the album is deeply nostalgic and young Paul was once a very keen birdwatcher. Turns out that all the bird images on the collage come from The Observer’s Book Of Birds (which Paul has several times mentioned owning), plus two other books Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands and The Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs. So the Tumblr investigators have obviously been pouring over these. Here’s a detail example of the depth of the detective work being done just to identify the birds in the collage (again, click the image to see a larger version):
It seems that the making of this complex artwork for the gatefold was one of the reasons the release has been slightly delayed.
Back in March Paul’s brother, Mike McCartney posted a message on X leaking the title of the album and it’s front cover logo – a British street sign. He said that the album artwork was designed by his son Josh McCartney, Paul’s nephew.
Then a member of the Steve Hoffman Music Forum said he’d attended a screening of the Wings film, Man On The Run where Paul’s manager, Scott Rodger was a special guest. Rodger did a brief Q&A following the film and said, “There will be new Paul music in 2026. The record is done. The only reason it’s not out already is Paul took his time with the artwork.”
This collage is reminiscent of the collage poster that came with the White Album and has the potential to stand as a landmark piece of imagery, a permanent tribute to Paul’s amazing past.
McCartney’s Instagram and other socials have been carrying a short “behind the scenes” video of the collage being created. The artist who is making the collage is Kate Gibb:
Since we posted about the new Paul McCartney solo releaseThe Boys of Dungeon Lane there’s been some developments, mostly to do with new variations and vinyl colours being added.
As we did for McCartney IIIand it’s sibling McCartney III Imagined, we’ve started the chart below showing all the known variations so far to help you keep up. We’ll add to this as more come down the pipeline:
(Click the image above to see a larger version)
Two new collectable vinyls have been added to the list. They’re not actually new covers or colours, but consist of a limited edition outer sleeve which slips over the cover of either the standard black vinyl, or the pink vinyl being made available to independent record stores. These come from The Jacaranda Records and Club in Liverpool (which has a long association with the Beatles, going back to the early 1960s). You also get a printed 12″ insert and a replica 1960 Jacaranda Club membership card:
We’ve also added to the graphic the two Japanese pressings (standard black vinyl and limited red vinyl) along with their unique OBI strips. These images have not been available previously:
Last week the big news was blue. A very limited blue vinyl was made available to The Beatles mailing list subscribers for a limited time. If you’re a subscriber you got an email with a link through to your country’s UMe store (e.g. for us it is Universal Australia). This limited blue vinyl comes with alternate embossed cover artwork with blue text, an alternate red and blue inner sleeve, and a 12-page lyric booklet:
Prior to that a spectacular blue splatter vinyl variation was announced. This one was strictly limited to 4000 copies pressed and was exclusive to Blood Records in the UK. It sold out in a matter of hours:
Blood Records is an interesting cross between pressing plant and online retail store – a boutique supplier producing limited edition, exclusively pressed vinyl. They pick and choose only those artists who resonate with their ethos of making only exclusive records and promoting listening to music as something special. And they’ve added The Boys of Dungeon Lane to their catalogue – in an embossed cover with blue lettering and a “Ripples in a Pond” splatter LP with a crystal clear and blue/white liquid effect. As mentioned, it is limited to 4,000 copies in a one-time only pressing run and is hand-numbered. It also has a red and blue inner sleeve, the same as the limited blue vinyl version from UMe stores mentioned above.
The previous week a very limited, UK customer-only pink vinyl with a Japanese-inspired OBI strip was announced. It’s available exclusively through Assai Record stores based in the UK. This was limited to 500 copies, each hand-numbered with an embossed Assai logo. There’s a 12-page lyric booklet and embossed cover artwork. It too is now sold out:
There was also a very nice looking picture disc featuring the screen-printed collage announced. This is only available through official McCartney stores (i.e. UK and US), plus Universal Music stores like Bravado in Germany, Udiscover Music in Mexico, The Sound of Vinyl in Australia, etc.:
And don’t forget the “extremely limited” silver vinyl. This one is only to be sold at “listening parties” to be held in a limited number of US bricks and mortar record stores on release day (May 29), and then for the following two days while stocks last. It comes with a fourth variation of the black and white portrait postcard included (see below). Customers, who have to show up in person at their participating store, will also get a Dungeon Lane tote bag plus entry into competition to win “a very special prize”.
A couple of weeks back a McCartney and UME Store exclusive with 180g black vinyl, gatefold blind-embossed cover artwork, full collage interior spread, and a 12-page lyric booklet was also added to the list, as was a cassette which comes with a fold-out print of the same collage.
Gotta admit, the collage looks great. It is screen‑printed and made from over 100 archive images, including previously unseen photography from Paul’s personal archive:
Along with the different cover art and vinyl colour variations, one other difficult thing emerging for the absolute completists (who must have everything in every permutation) is the different lyric cards to be included with some of the vinyl and some of the CDs.
So far there are 7 different cards: 3 collage lyric cards, and now 4 b&w portrait postcards.
In the green vinyl exclusive to the McCartney and Universal Music stores it is a green/purple collage card, while in the red vinyl – exclusive to larger chain stores – the card is an orange/red/blue colour with different images. It is also orange/red/blue in the Target exclusive CD, but it depicts a different collage of faces.
Then, in those releases that come with the portrait postcard, there are 4 different photos in use. One for the gold vinyl (exclusive to Barnes & Noble, and possibly Rough Trade UK – but this is still to be confirmed); one for the green cover CD (a McCartney Store/Universal Music exclusive); a third variation for the Walmart exclusive CD; and now a fourth iteration for the exclusive US launch-day silver vinyl just announced. We’ve tried to show these on the chart, but here they are side-by-side for comparison.
We’ll be updating this variations page and chart as soon as any more different colours or packaging is announced.
This will obviously be a brilliant companion piece to the recent documentary One To One: John & Yoko by Kevin Macdonald, a revelatory inside-look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s.
The One To One doco featured music from the two benefit concerts the pair played at Madison Square Garden in August, 1972, all newly remixed and produced by Sean Ono Lennon. Now, we get to see the concert in full – with the best performances taken from the two shows – in multiscreen on the big screen. Power To The People will also form a great visual companion piece to the multi-disc box set, also called Power To The People, released last year.
Newly restored, re-edited and remixed by the Lennon Estate’s seven-times GRAMMY®-Award winning team, the film will premier exclusively in cinemas worldwide from April 29 for a limited time only. Tickets go on sale March 20. There’s no word of a physical release yet, but a Blu-Ray/DVD is expected later in the year.
Of course we’ve just had the release of the Morgan Neville-directed documentary Man On The Run, which follows Paul McCartney stepping out for the first time as a solo artist and forming his new band Wings during the 1970s:
But one of the other great stories in McCartney lore is the search for his legendary long-lost bass guitar – a 1961 Höfner 500/1 which was stolen in 1972. Now comes a behind-the-scenes documentary film about tracking it down and getting it back to it’s original owner, The Hunt For The Lost Bass:
From the official site:
“For over 50 years the disappearance of McCartney’s original Höfner bass has been one of rock ‘n’ roll’s enduring mysteries. McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass tells the extraordinary story of this iconic instrument, and the fan-powered quest to find it. This rock ‘n’ roll detective story features exclusive interviews with McCartney, his brother Mike, Klaus Voormann, Elvis Costello and the roadies, journalists and fans who embarked on a mission to track down and restore the bass to its proper place in music history and to Paul. It’s a story about fandom, creativity, love, loss, memory and the transformative power of music.”
Gotta admit, this looks like it’ll be great fun. It is in cinemas only in the UK to start, on April 2 & 4. It’s unclear if other countries will be rolled in, if the film will be streamed at some stage, or if there’s to be a physical release for fans to buy. I guess it is a case of “watch this space”.
Last but not least is the official release of an extraordinary biographical doco on Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It. This film follows the life and six-decade career of the Grammy Award-winning keyboardist whose sound helped shape the work of a virtual Who’s Who of the music world: The Beatles, Ray Charles, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Barbara Streisand, Eric Clapton and many others. He had his own solo No.1 hits too including ‘Outa-Space’, ‘Will It Go Round In Circles’, ‘Nothing From Nothing’ and ‘You Are So Beautiful’. Billy’s first hit single, ‘That’s The Way God Planned It’ – recorded in 1969 for Apple Records – was produced by George Harrison.
Two variations of the film’s promo trailer are out there on YouTube, both with different cuts and content, so both are worth watching. Here’s the official trailer:
And this next one is great as it focuses specifically on Billy’s time with The Beatles:
Billy Preston, for a time, truly did deserve the title, “The Fifth Beatle”:
Not sure if this is coming to one of the streaming platforms after it’s cinema release (we certainly hope so) but for more info on That’s The Way God Planned It and where you can see it go to billyprestonfilm.com
Meanwhile, to tie in with the film’s release, Dark Horse Records has re-issued Billy’s two Apple Record LPs. Encouraging Words (produced by Billy and George Harrison) is now available to stream and to buy on gold vinyl:
The old addage “when you’re on a good thing, stick to it” comes to mind today as Ringo Starr announces the release of his second album with T Bone Burnett as producer – due out on April 24.
It’ll be called Long Long Road and it follows on from last year’s well-received Look Up, a welcome return to the country/Americana style that Ringo, and his audience, are very comfortable with. Under the direction of Burnett, Ringo is having something of a late career revival and reaching new audiences.
Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, the 10-song album features collaborations with Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, and St. Vincent.
And a CD in a good old-fashioned plastic jewel case:
Talking about the new album Ringo says “I’m blessed to have T Bone in my life right now and working with me on these records. After we did the last record, which I love listening to, this one just sort of happened. I like to say sometimes I make the right moves, like you can go left or right at any point, and one of the right moves was hooking up with T Bone for Look Up, and now for this one, which I’m calling Long Long Road, because I’ve been on a long long road.”
Renowned music photographer (and good friend of Ringo’s) Henry Diltz shot the album cover, as well as additional photos for the album packaging. If you don’t think you’ve seen his work before, it’s almost certain that you have! Check out the link above to his official page. Since the 1960s he’s been snapping rock royalty. His photographs of The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, James Taylor, Paul McCartney plus countless others have graced more than 250 album and magazine covers.
As mentioned in December, we made some successful bids on a big Beatle and Beatle-related auction here in Sydney, Australia.
The other successful bid was on an auction lot made up of quite hard-to-find, original Australian (plus one quite rare New Zealand) Dark Horse Records singles. These are all 45’s you very rarely come across in the wild, so they’re welcome additions to the collection.
They each come in their original generic company outer sleeves too – in this case from Festival Records, which had the manufacturing and distribution rights for A&M Records (Dark Horse Records‘ parent company).
The first, which will be reasonably well-known to most, is from the George Harrison protégés Splinter. Their song ‘Costafine Town’ is lifted from the 1974 Dark Horse debut LP, The Place I Love. Harrison produced all the songs and played a variety of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitars, dobro, bass, and harmonium:
Next up another Splinter single, this time from 1975, called ‘Which Way Will I Get Home’ taken from the band’s second LP, Harder To Live produced by Tom Scott:
And there’s one other Splinter single from the Harder To Live LP, called ‘Half Way There’:
Also in this auction lot was a single from Shankar Family & Friends. It is of course ‘I Am Missing You’, taken from their self-titled 1974 LP, produced and arranged by George Harrison:
Jiva was a Los Angeles band signed to Dark Horse that released only one album with the label in 1975. From that self-titled album came this single. They had a nice funk/soft rock sound, but never made into the charts:
Attitudes was a bit of an L.A. super group consisting of killer keyboardist David Foster, brilliant guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Paul Stallworth, and Jim Keltner on drums. They were all top flight session players who went onto play with just about everybody. In fact a very young David Foster met Jim Keltner while playing on George Harrison’sExtra Texture. Attitudes released two LPs on the Dark Horse label and this first single comes from their self-titled 1975 debut release:
This second single ‘Sweet Summer Music’ was included on Attitudes’ second album, from 1977, called Good News:
In this auction lot there was also an unusual New Zealand pressing of ‘Sweet Summer Music’ on the Dark Horse label but distributed there by WEA (i.e. Warner Bros. – hence the different company sleeve and small print on the labels). The label also contains a mistake as it incorrectly states under the title “from The Dark Horse Album “Attitudes” DH 3021″. It should say “from The Dark Horse Album “Good News” DH 3021″
If you want a bit more information on the Dark Horse label check out this article on the official George Harrison site.
There has been a lot of speculation about the forthcoming documentary film, Paul McCartney – Man On The Run. Would there, or wouldn’t there, be an accompanying soundtrack release on physical media?
Director Morgan Neville dropped a hint a few weeks ago saying yes, there would be one. But many fans figured he was simply referring to last year’s Wings triple LP band retrospective. Well, it turns out he was correct as the McCartney camp has today announced a single LP (or CD) 12-song Man On The Run soundtrack album. There are just four rarities/unusual tracks on it though alongside more standard back-catalogue songs which all collectors no doubt already have – probably many times over. The rarities are one previously unreleased version of ‘Arrow Through Me’; ‘Silly Love Songs (Demo)’; ‘Gotta Sing Gotta Dance’ (from the 1973 James Paul McCartney TV special); and a version of ‘Live and Let Die’ (taken from the live video, Rockshow).
The version that is already sold out is a limited “New York Taxi Yellow” edition, pressed by Third Man Records. This was limited to just 3,500 copies:
And of course it’ll be available on standard black vinyl as well:
Each of the vinyls comes with a poster.
Plus there’s a CD:
Pre orders are available now and they’ll be released on February 27.
The documentary film itself is due for a limited, one-day-only theatre run in cities around the world on Thursday, February 19 before it premieres on Amazon Prime. You can see where it is is playing and book tickets online. EDIT: Some cities have now added additional screenings for Sunday, February 22.
It didn’t last long. Some helpful readers pointed out we’d left out Ringo’sStop & Smell The Roses – the numbered, liquid vinyl edition – limited to 400 copies.
And the other Ringo Starr was a red vinyl re-issue of his 14th studio album, Choose Love from 2005. This had first been slated for Record Store Day Black Friday, but was quietly removed from official lists prior to the day. It’s popped up again on the Friday Music site, this time with a late January 2026 release date (though knowing Friday Music that is extremely likely to change):
Then Dark Horse Records announced it would be issuing a further title from the Yusuf/Cat Stevens back catalogue that the label now has the rights to. It’s called Tell ‘Em I’m Gone and it will be on yellow vinyl:
So, each of these were duly added into a revised graphic and we were just about to re-publish when last Friday came news of yet another collectable, this time linked to the Beatles’Anthology re-issue – and in particular Anthology 4. On it are the 2025 re-mixes of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ and they are now being released as a limited edition, double A-side 7″ translucent milk white vinyl single. This is the 2025 mix of both songs.
There’s been no indication of a CD version of the single being made available (except for Japan where there’s been an exclusive Japan-only CD announced). Nor has there been any talk of updated versions of the ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ EPs (or “maxi-singles”) which were originally released to accompany Volumes 1 and 2 of Anthology back in 1995 and 1996. That means all of the extra tracks on those EPs will remain unavailable, with the exception of the song ‘This Boy’, which has been added to the Anthology Volume 4 discs.
The ‘Free As A Bird’ (2025 Mix)/’Real Love’ (2025 Mix) 7″ coloured vinyl single is only available from Beatles official stores (e.g. in the UK or the US), or from certain Universal Music online stores (eg. this one in Germany).
So, it has been a most busy time for any Beatle collector who is a completist. There’s been so much product so fast it’s been difficult to keep up.
To help, here’s our updated visual. If you want everything, this is what you’ll need to order. There are no fewer that 51 items here! This has got to be unprecedented in the run-up to Christmas:
The book and its contents are very similar to the limited and expensive edition reported here, but this is a super special version (number 17 of just 25 copies), allocated to McCartney as author to send out to significant people.
It has its own unique signature page with hand-written details of just how limited it is.
The book comes in a deluxe cloth case featuring screen printing and includes a 24-page full-colour bound-in booklet of Wings-era album and singles cover artwork, an enamel Wings pin and blue and white embroidered patch, and a uniquely bound copy of the book itself:
It’s really nice to see that Denny’s family have received this from Paul and MPL, and that such things exist alongside the versions that you and I have access to.
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