The Ballad of John and Yoko – By the Editors of Rolling Stone

Posted on April 18, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I was in Armidale, NSW (Australia) last week and managed (in between work meetings) to duck out to the recycled book and record store in town. I picked up a nice, used copy of book which looks to be a companion to the Rolling Stone magazine book I found earlier this year in Sydney about George Harrison. It’s similar in style and scope, only this time the editors of Rolling Stone have John Lennon and Yoko Ono as their focus:

This is the paperback edition and it came out in 1982. The book details (from the pages of Rolling Stone over the period 1967 to 1980) the love, the life and the activities of John and Yoko. It looks to be a fantastic compendium of some of the best writing about the pair as individuals, as a couple, and of course John as a member of the Beatles.

There are some great colour and black and white photos throughout, some of which I’d not seen before – like this one of Yoko.

The photograph above is an interesting composition. As you look at it you realise those are John’s hands.

Articles by the likes of Jonathan Cott, Jann S. Wenner, and Chet Flippo; photos by Annie Leibovitz; and a section just called “Remembering John” – with contributions from Gerry Marsden, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Jim Keltner, David Geffen, Bobby Keyes, Carly Simon Norman Mailer, Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger and Harry Nilsson – to name just a few. It is going to be a very interesting read.

Beatles Collecting – The Nice Things People Do

Posted on April 14, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Sometimes you don’t go looking for Beatle records. Sometimes, Beatle records come looking for you. That was my experience about three weeks ago when an old friend asked me if I was still interested in collecting the Beatles because she had a couple of records and would I like them?

Well, yes of course I would! Always open to donations. She dropped them in a couple of days later, and you’d have to say it’s a mixed bag of goodies….

The first one wasn’t even the Beatles. It was Wings. Well, not even Wings really, just an obscure band called P.K. and the Sound Explosion doing covers of Wings:

I think there are only two saving graces about this one. One is the daggy cover design featuring a (poorly) stylised version of the official Wings logo of the time. This is what the real thing looks like:

The other saving grace is that this copy is still sealed in protective plastic and is in mint condition. This is a US copy that came out on the Pickwick Records budget label back in 1977. It is so bad, it’s good! (P.K. and his group have also done a Disco Christmas LP, the Beach Boys Songbook, a Paul Williams Songbook, and the Bee Gees Songbook).

Next came three of the real thing, some it has to be said in better shape than others. For instance this very well-used example of the Australian-only cover of Beatles For Sale:

You’d have to say this is a copy that has had a good life. I’m not sure about you, but it has so much patina of age that I’m tempted to keep it just because it looks so pre-loved and lived-in. There was one other intriguing thing. When I took out the vinyl it’s the mono pressing, but not the Australian version. Here’s what I got:

This is what it should look like:

Clearly the original Aussie pressing has been played to death and someone, over the course of the long history of this particular copy of the album, has sought out another to replace it – that being the UK mono we see above….

There was another Australia-only cover in the four records my friend donated. It’s the 1972 release The Essential Beatles on the Apple label. This is a “best of” compilation and as its catalogue number suggests (TVSS 8), it was associated with a TV advertising campaign by EMI in Australia:

This copy of The Essential Beatles has a well-used cover but the vinyl inside is actually in pretty good shape.

Finally a double LP of the soundtrack to the documentary movie Imagine John Lennon:

This is a gatefold album of twenty-one Beatles and Lennon songs. It is in what I would describe as good (G) to very good (VG) condition. The Internet Movie Database says of the film: This “biography” evolves around the nearly 240 hours of film and videotape fortuitously taken by Lennon of his life. The archive footage is transformed into a fascinating life story of one of the most complex and fascinating men of the modern music era….Includes some very personal and insightful footage, never before made available to the public.

The gatefold has some nice photos:

This is the Australian pressing, on the black and silver Parlophone label:

So, some varied, interesting and unusual donations from a friend. Sometimes you don’t have to go looking too far. Beatle records just come to you.

Another Very Limited Edition Sgt Pepper Up for Auction

Posted on April 11, 2013 by beatlesblogger

You might have heard recently about the signed copy of Sgt Pepper which sold at auction for US$290,500. It made headlines around the world because it shattered the previous record for such an item.

The album was purchased by an unnamed buyer from the Midwest USA. An anonymous seller parted with the album through the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, which ahead of the bidding estimated the album would sell for $30,000.

The album was a U.K. Parlophone copy with a high gloss cover and gatefold:

Now comes news of another perhaps even rarer copy of Sgt Pepper that will be auctioned by the same auction house.

I got an email last week from a guy named Tony Gillespie alerting Beatlesblogger to this one. Its a copy of Pepper on the Capital label – but the cover has a major difference to what you are used to. Many of the faces on the famous shot have been superimposed with the faces of Capitol Records sales executives from the day. I first came across talk of this unusual item this back in 2009. Its estimated that only 40-50 copies were ever made for internal company distribution. Now, one is coming onto the market. Tony Gillespie is helping the owners of this extremely rare LP to publicise the auction – and so I asked him to provide me with some more details. His response is printed below:

Here’s a quick history of the “Doctored” Sgt Pepper’s cover:

Earlier this year, I received a message from a friend of mine named Chad, a prominent local buyer and seller of collectibles and antiques. He purchased a set of Beatles records, and since records aren’t his forte, he contacted me, Tony Gillespie, owner of Gillespie Records, because he knew of my extensive Beatles record collection, which has been called one of Indiana’s finest. (www.facebook.com/gillespierecords) He mentioned a “weird Sgt Pepper’s cover with different faces on it.” I asked him to send a photo of that record first.

I recalled reading an article that was generated from a story in Record Collector magazine (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/the-beatles-album-artwork-worth-70000-276691) about a “doctored” Sgt Pepper’s cover. I found the article and waited for the photo. When I opened the attachment, my knees buckled. There it was, the Holy Grail! The article estimates the cover to be worth 70,000 pounds (equvalant to $100,000+ US dollars, roughly).

I called the owner (Chad) and his wife (Kimberly), and told them to sit down. I revealed what the article said, and the roller coaster ride began. The three of us formed a partnership, with them owning the record, and me acting as their representative and got to work on finding the best home for the record. We contacted Perry Cox, the leading authority on all things Beatles, and he agreed to have us to his home (we flew from Indiana to Arizona) to personally authenticate the record. It was the first time he had ever held the “doctored” cover in his hands.

Perry estimated there were only 40-50 copies of the record produced (a claim mirrored by Bruce Spizer in his book, “The Beatles Story on Capitol Records, Part 2) for a Sales Executive meeting held in late 1967 in Florida. One cover is thought to have been made for each of the executives featured on the cover, but only 3-5 are known to still exist, and NONE have ever been sold on the open market, making the true value of this cover unknown. We were able to successfully tie the record to an executive on the cover, which Perry says could double the value!!

Perry also gave me this quote for promotional purposes…he has given his permission to me to print it:

“Among the rarest and most interesting artifacts produced during the original era of the Beatles classic Sgt. Pepper’s LHCB”, was an extremely rare U.S. stereo album cover version prepared exclusively for a Capitol Records party in honor of the landmark album in late 1967. The front cover of the album featured photos of noted Capitol Records employees amongst the many noted famous images we’ve now become so familiar with. Today, this has become one of the most sought after albums by collectors and fans all over the world. With only about 40+ examples made, I rank it one of the top 10 all time collectible albums by the Beatles in the world.”———Perry Cox, April, 2013.

We settled on Heritage Auctions of Texas to handle the first public sale of the “Doctored” Sgt Pepper’s cover, which will be held on August 10. They gave an auction estimate of $25,000-$30,000 but admitted the estimate in this case was hard to pinpoint due to the record’s obscurity. Chad, Kimberly and I have set up a Facebook page dedicated to the record www.facebook.com/rarestbeatlesrecord , a Twitter account @Beatlesrarist and a website www.rarestbeatlesrecord.com. We also made a You Tube video to detail the story a bit better here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hhg4XzjCN0E

Record Store Day 2013

Posted on April 1, 2013 by beatlesblogger

A late addition to Record Store Day for 2013 will be a Ringo Starr Singles Box, three 45″ singles accurately reproduced in their original picture sleeves in an Apple Records lift-top box. It will come with a Record Store Day spindle adapter.

The singles will be Photograph b/w Down And Out; It Don’t Come Easy b/w Early 1970 and (It’s All Down to) Goodnight Vienna b/w Oo-Wee. There will be just 5000 copies released.

The 3×7″ lift-top lid box sounds very similar to the Beatles singles box from Black Friday 2011 (an alternate Record Store Day limited edition release).

Also this year on Record Store Day Paul McCartney will release a Maybe I’m Amazed 12-inch single with mono and stereo versions of the song in varying durations. This is a pre-cursor to the next instalment in his McCartney Archives release series which will be Wings Over America, due later in the year (probably June by all accounts) featuring a multi-disc CD/DVD box set, “deluxe” and “standard” edition CD’s, plus vinyl.

This live version of Maybe I’m Amazed was originally serviced as a radio-only promotional 12-inch vinyl single back in 1976, also to herald the release of Wings Over America.

Is Your Beatles Collection Insured?

Posted on March 24, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Summer in Australia is great. It’s warm, holiday time, Christmas (yes, its hot here while it’s cold in most other places celebrating Christmas around the world).

It’s also a bad time of year – we get frequent floods, bushfires and cyclones (the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of hurricanes).

This year has been particularly bad for flooding rains, and that got me thinking about the value of my Beatles collection, and how I’d feel if my house got flooded. What could I do to protect it? I guess I also had in mind those confronting images which went around the world after the “super storm” – Hurricane Sandy – hit the east coast of the USA last year…What if your precious collection was inside this place?:

The photo above was taken at Fairfield Beach, on Long Island Sound in the US in the wake of Sandy. And there were people there who did indeed have their record collections affected:

This poor lady, Carla Strobel (at left above), is attempting to dry out her record collection which was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in Fairfield, Connecticut on November 11, 2012. (Photos: Brian A. Pounds). It’s even worse if you own a record label with masses of stock in a warehouse that gets trashed by a hurricane. Check out these poor folk at Norton Records in New York who also suffered massively at the hands of Sandy.

Truly soul-destroying. Of course it could be something a lot more simple and plainly domestic that gets you. This poor guy just had a water heater burst upstairs. Over a period of just forty-five minutes several hundred gallons poured on the floor and eventually made its way to his record collection down in the basement:

Or this poor record store flooded by a blocked drain that wasn’t even on their property. It slowly seeped into storage area though…

All this leads me to an email I received from an organisation called Home Insurance. They wrote an article for Beatlesblogger which I reproduce here as it may just have some information for you about whether or not you should insure your collection against loss or damage:

Insurance Considerations for Beatles Collectors

When you’re collecting memorabilia from a band whose influence still makes a limited edition Bazooka Bubble Gum Wax Box go for more than $4,000 on eBay (despite being broken up now for five times longer than they ever existed in the first place) – you’re bound to rack up a sizeable bill. If any of your prized Beatles possessions are ever stolen or damaged in a fire, how will you recover all of the big investments you made in your collection?

A limited edition Beatles Bazooka gum color cards Box.

Even if you’ve already purchased a smart homeowners insurance policy, chances are your Beatles collection won’t be fully covered. Consider the fact that most standard policies include a limit of only $200 for high-value items. That’s nothing when you’re talking about collectibles from the Fab Four.

Do you own a blue Aladdin 1965 Lunchbox? You could be sitting on almost $700, depending on its condition. A cork stopper branded by Paul McCartney is worth more than $500. Even if you’ve just held on to a pair of original Beatles concert tickets from 1964, you’re likely already way over your insurance policy’s coverage limit. So how can you affordable and adequately protect these items?

One option for serious Beatles collectors is to purchase additional coverage on their homeowners insurance policies by scheduling an endorsement. An endorsement is a quick and convenient way to increase coverage limits for valuable collections under an existing policy. It’s important to have your collection appraised by an expert in order to make sure you’ve insured it to its full value.

Another option is to invest in a personal articles floater from a provider that specializes in insuring collections like yours. This option is more expensive than scheduling an endorsement and may increase your premiums anywhere from 1-20% (depending on the value of your personal collection), but it also comes with peace of mind that your claim will be handled by someone with expertise in collectables.

Whether you’re just starting out or if you’re the proud owner of The White Album no. 0000005 – the first LP given to anyone outside of the band and last valued at $31,000 – it’s important to take steps to protect your Beatles collection. Contact an expert or licensed insurance agent as soon as possible if you’re not 100% sure you’ll be able to get help recovering your investment if something ever happens to your prized possessions.

(This article was contributed by Kelly McMurtrie, a writer for HomeInsurance.com. Kelly has been writing content for HomeInsurance.com and other major brands since 2011 after graduating from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Media Arts).

For one other sad collection damage story click here. I also came across some info from the University of Iowa on how to professionally salvage records, CD’s and DVD’s affected by flooding.

I’d be interested in your thoughts and comments on this one. Have you insured your collection? Or (like me) do you take the risk and hope for the best? Can an insurance payout bring back a lifetime of collecting anyway? So many items would be so difficult to find and replace. And how do you put an accurate value on a big collection?

John Lennon’s Rolls Royce – Part Two

Posted on March 16, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I’ve had an update on the latest whereabouts of John Lennon’s Rolls Royce from one the men who helped restore it, and on the portable Sony TV which used to be installed in the rear passenger area of the car. That television was possibly the one also featured on the front cover of the Sgt Pepper LP, although there is a bit of mystery surrounding that little Sony.

Jim Walters works at Bristol Motors in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada and they have been the custodians of John Lennon’s famous Rolls Royce since 1993.

The car is actually owned the Royal British Columbia Museum, which for a long time has been looking for a replacement portable Sony TV to install into the space where the original used to be – one just like a Sony model TV9-306 UB – the one on the “Sgt Pepper” cover.

Well, Jim writes:

“I just thought I’d update the search for a Sony TV 9-306 UB. I finally found one on eBay in the UK last year and now have it here on display in my shop (Bristol Motors). The Royal BC Museum’s curators have not yet decided whether they will put it in the car as it is not the actual TV that was in it, although it is the identical model. Also John Lennon’s Phantom V 5VD73 is on display in the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum in Montreal, Canada until April 2014. They have an exhibit called “The Beatles in Montreal” in which the car is prominently displayed.”

Thanks so much Jim for the update – and anyone living in or travelling to Montreal in the next year should drop in to see “The Beatles in Montreal” exhibition. You can find more details on that here. The exhibition opens on March 29 and runs for a year.

With 2014 being the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first world tour there are a number of museums, including here in Sydney and in Melbourne Australia, planning exhibitions of their city’s brush with Beatlemania….

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

Posted on March 9, 2013 by beatlesblogger

This blog is sub-titled “Adventures in Collecting Beatles Music”, and that’s exactly what happened to me this week.

I had some colleagues in town for a conference and on Tuesday we all went out for a drink in the city. On the way there our cab went past a second-hand book and CD shop called T.Kelly Books on George Street, which is the main thoroughfare through the Sydney CBD. I’ve known about this store for some time but not visited it for years. Its a bit of an institution. The reason I noticed it this time was a very big sign out the front: “ALL STOCK 50% OFF”. Hmmm….looks like it is closing down, which is sad. Mental note – “Try to get time to come back later this week….”.

When I did I discovered this book at half the marked price (i.e. $20.00):

I’d never seen this book before and so it was a surprise. It was first published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster, and is as its title suggests a collection of articles about the late George Harrison that have appeared in Rolling Stone magazine over the years. This is the rear cover:

The Google Books review says it is “….a definitive tribute that features a new foreword by Olivia Harrison, the editors have drawn on their archives and hundreds of photographs, both the iconographic and the rarely seen, to celebrate the life and career of one of the most important musicians in rock & roll history.”

“Compiled by the editors of ROLLING STONE, Harrison chronicles the guitarist’s life before, during and after the Beatles. Contributing editor Mikal Gilmore offers an expansive, thoughtful new essay, “The Mystery Inside George.” ROLLING STONE senior editor David Fricke tells the stories behind Harrison’s best-known songs, and offers a guide to twenty-five essential Harrison recordings. Harrison also features news stories and interviews with the guitarist from throughout ROLLING STONE’s history — from his first Q&A with the magazine, in 1968, to his last, a 1987 interview with ROLLING STONE contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis”.

Its kind of a nice retrospective precursor (if that isn’t an oxymoron!) to the “Living in the Material World” book and Scorsese documentary from 2011.

For a “Look Inside” experience of Harrison – By the Editors of Rolling Stone go to Amazon.

Beatles with Records – Part Eighteen

Posted on March 5, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Our friend Lammert Mulder, who has contributed in the past to solving some other Beatles with Records mysteries, has come up with a wide range of new photos and information. First up is a photograph of George Harrison at home with three records. I can only identify two – the first (on his knees) is The Fabulous Miracles:

(This the same Miracles LP we saw in a photo of John Lennon in the Beatles with Records Part 17). George also has what looks like a copy of the 1963 pressing of Little Richard Sings Gospel (it is lying beside him on the bed):

If anyone can identify the third LP that he is holding, let us know.

In the Beatles with Records Part 15 we showed this photo of George from 1964, loading singles into the then very groovy in-dash record player in his E-Type Jaguar:

Here’s another shot from a different angle – and we can now identify the 45 as “Can’t You Tell by the Look in His Eyes” by the Reflections:

(click on images to see larger versions)

This is the portable player – a Philips Automignon AG2101D 45 In-Car Record Player:

Paul had one fitted to his Aston Martin, and John had one in his psychedelic Rolls Royce too (thanks to Piers Hemmingsen at Capitol 6000 for this info).

Yet another shot of George – this time with Ben E. King’s 1962 release Don’t Play That Song:

This LP also shows up in a pile of records that John and Paul have in this photo (from the Beatles with Records Part 1). You can see it just under the copy of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that Paul is holding:

Yet another photo of the lads (below) leaving the USA after their first tour. They purchased a lot of records for their personal collections on that trip – and we’ve seen some of these in previous posts. This is a new one of Paul holding up a copy of Martha and the Vandellas 1963 Heatwave LP:

(click on images to see larger versions)

Any ideas about this photo of Ringo below? It’s been suggested that this is the rear cover of the LP Mary Wells Live on Stage:

And this additional photo of Ringo at the Beatles Green Street flat in 1963 confirms that the record he has underneath The Shirelles (see BWR Part 2 and BWR Part Three) is in fact The Marvelettes – Live on Stage (1963):

This next one is a photograph of John’s record players at his Kenwood home – and lined up on the shelf you can clearly see a 1966 copy of Buffalo Springfield’s first self-titled album Buffalo Springfield:

Plus a copy of Electronic Music which we also saw in the Beatles with Records Part Nine:

And I reckon you can also see a copy of Sgt Pepper peeking through behind the experimental Electronic Music (click on the photo to enlarge it). It’s odd though because you can see the Shirley Temple doll with the “Welcome the Rolling Stones” sweater, and also what looks like the Mae West cut-out, but they are on the wrong side or reversed to what is the published and very famous original…. Anyone got any thoughts? And can anyone else identify any other titles on the shelf?

Both John and George were obviously fans of Save as Milk (1967) by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. How can we tell? They both had the free bumper sticker that came with the album displayed in their houses. In fact, John had two stickers in his home:

George at Kinfauns (above), John at Weybridge. The original release of Safe As Milk came with a free sticker, as pictured (thanks to Michael Stanowski).

Meanwhile, back in the studio in the studio with B.B.King’s Live at the Regal (1965) on the electric piano:

You can see the other parts in “The Beatles with Records” series here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

The Beatles Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection

Posted on March 2, 2013 by beatlesblogger

It’s funny how Beatles records can end up wandering the earth. I just brought this thirty-four disc box set of Australian singles from a guy in France. It was made here in Australia – and now it has returned home after a long journey and a long time away…

It’s the 1982 release The Beatles Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection. They are all housed in a maroon coloured carboard box:

As you can see, mine has been quite faded on the front and sides from exposure to the sun. It has the catalogue number AB34 stamped on the side:

Here’s the rear of the box showing the deeper maroon colour which is closer to how it would have originally looked:

The original box colour is more like this one:

Inside there are 34 singles, plus a six-page insert with the details of each single:

Despite the slightly beat-up outer box (it is faded, has a sticker mark on the front, and had some split seams on the lid – which I have repaired) the singles inside are in VG to EX condition. Each single comes in a unique (but quite flimsy) paper picture sleeve, and each one features different photographs (both front and rear) taken during the Beatles 1964 tour of Australia and New Zealand. I won’t show all thirty four (!) but here are just three favourites, front and back:

To see the complete set of covers visit the wonderful beatlesaustralia.com and click on each catalogue number to view the cover plus the labels.

Each single in my box set is on the black and silver Parlophone label, except for two (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da/While My Guitar Gently Weeps and The Ballad of John and Yoko/Old Brown Shoe), which are on the Apple label – green on one side and cut on the other:

However, I notice on the beatlesaustralia.com site that all the singles they show, including the two I have on Apple (A8693 and A8793), are on the black and silver Parlophone label. An interesting variation….

Love Me Do, P.S. I Love You and Copyright Law

Posted on February 22, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Will you be buying any of the “new” Beatles CDs which are taking advantage of “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” being out of copyright? Both songs are now fair game in Europe for any compact disc compiler out there to use when putting together a Beatle early days disc, and a number of small labels are taking advantage.

[European copyright laws grant ownership of a recorded track for fifty years – and “Love Me Do” has just gone past that. There are moves to extend the period to 70 years, but this is not expected to happen until at least November this year. In the US the period of copyright is 95 years.]

So, there are a number of Beatles recordings due for release shortly. Wogblog has already mentioned this one:

The Beatles Archive I Saw Her Standing There will come out on February 25. And there are more on the way. Rolling Stone is reporting that a company called Digital Remasterings will be including “Love Me Do” on a compilation of early Beatles recordings, and that the French classical reissue label Pristine Classical has also released the song as a remastered single. This was apparently done in protest against the trouble the planned 70 year copyright extension will cause it when reissuing old symphonic recordings. However, I’ve scoured their website and cannot find any reference to the Beatles at all…..

And here’s another CD I found on Amazon yesterday – The Beatles – The Early Years. It’s also listed as having a February release:

These albums are pretty much entirely made up of songs recorded by the band before they signed to Parlophone Records. They are all previously released material which can now legally be supplemented by two official songs.

So, here’s a quick straw poll. Let us know what you think:

Beatles Blog

Adventures in collecting Beatles music

Tag Archives: Beatles Collecting

The Ballad of John and Yoko – By the Editors of Rolling Stone

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

The Beatles Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection

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Insurance Considerations for Beatles Collectors

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