Tag Archives: Beatles Collecting

Beatlesblogger – New Domain Name and More…

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You might have noticed that we’ve now got a new domain name. It’s much more simple. All you need to remember is:

beatlesblogger.com

Don’t worry if you have beatlesblogger.wordpress.com in your bookmarks because it will automatically redirect.

We’re also on Twitter. Just search for beatleblogger  (note there is no “s”, just beatleblogger).

And we have a Google+ account called the beatlesblogger

Our email is still beatlesblogger@gmail.com  Please feel free to get in touch.

And we have a QR Code (just in case you want to copy and paste it somewhere). It looks like this:

Beatles Rock’n’Roll Music Vols 1 & 2

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Found this great pic on the web the other day:

It’s a beauty – and kind of joyous. The faces behind the Beatles are just as interesting to look at as the band themselves. Check out the face of the cop, who seems to be looking straight at the camera.

This looks like the first arrival in the United States?

Clearly this photograph is from the same day and same photographer as this shot used for these two covers, only the background crowd has been Photoshopped out:

For more info on these releases see the Beatles Music for Pleasure.

“Kisses on the Bottom” – The Variations

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Time to take a run through the different versions of “Kisses on the Bottom”, Paul McCartney’s new album.

It’s been released in physical form as a standard CD, a deluxe CD, a deluxe CD with bonus tracks (more on this later), and as a double LP vinyl. (Remember, to see larger images of all the scans below just click on the image).

Firstly the standard CD. Here’s the front cover with the sticker on the shrink- wrap still attached:

This is the rear cover of the standard CD – which has 14 tracks. This copy is manufactured in the EU:

The standard CD is a cardboard, single gatefold sleeve with the booklet glued onto the cardboard:

Personally I think that when the cover is first opened it looks odd to have that large expanse of white cardboard on the right-hand side. Surely another couple of images or text could have been put there. Or, like the deluxe version (see below), a cutout provided so that you can see the CD label.

The booklet in this version is 18 pages and contains an interview about the album, photographs taken during the recording and also photos from the Mary McCartney official photo shoot. There is also track-by-track personnel details for each song, followed by a page with final credits including studio locations, engineers and the obligatory “thank you’s”, etc.:

The CD printing itself is very simple and uncluttered and looks like this:

In some markets (in the US, I think) the CD came with a red wrap, promoting the song “My Valentine”:

Buyers of the deluxe CD edition in the US will need to know there are two versions: one has 14 tracks and the other has 16 (which is available only from Target stores at this stage – see details below, and see also this post from Wogblog). In Britain, the EU countries (and in Australia because we are getting the EU versions) all deluxe versions have the two bonus tracks:

The bonus tracks are “Baby’s Request”, a re-recording of a McCartney song which first appeared on the 1979 Wings album “Back to the Egg”, and “My One and Only Love”.

The deluxe CD has more complex packaging. It comes in a cardboard, double gatefold cover. In other words it opens out to be four panels in total. To give you an idea of how this looks here’s a photograph of how the package opens up, plus the inclusions (which are covered in more detail below). This is the US non-bonus track deluxe version:

When you first open the deluxe CD cover this is what you see on the inside:

These two panels then open out again. This is the left-hand side:

And this is the right-hand side (containing the booklet):

What looks to be the same booklet as the standard CD (also glued onto the cardboard) is actually longer – with 22 pages. The extra space is for a longer version of the interview with Paul McCartney, and there are additional photographs, and these are laid out differently to the standard CD. Inside a pocket in the deluxe CD cover there are also three postcards:

And included in the postcards pocket is a smaller card with details and a code for a download “…of Paul McCartney’s exclusive performance at Capitol Studios…”:

That bonus download sounds like an enticing extra on first read. But when you log in with your code you get just four live songs from that live performance, not the whole show. You get “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter”; “Home (Where the Shadows Fall)”; “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive”; and “My Valentine”.  As has already been noted on the web by Wogblog, this is kind of disappointing. I mean, just four songs? It feels kind of cheapskate on Paul’s behalf.

Back to the 14 track/16 track deluxe confusion. Target in the US is selling the 16 track deluxe edition as a retail exclusive and are the only US vendor selling this edition:

There’s an interesting side story to the interview featured in both “Kisses on the Bottom” CD booklets. It’s done by Paul Du Noyer. If the name sounds familiar he is the well-known British music journalist and writer who also did the liner notes for all the John Lennon remastered re-issues a while back including the John Lennon Signature Box, and the “Double Fantasy – Stripped Down” version. He also worked extensively on Paul McCartney’s “Band On The Run – Deluxe Edition“, which has just won a Best Historical Album Grammy Award. As editorial consultant for the package, Du Noyer edited the 128-page book, wrote the liner notes and interviewed McCartney. He also worked on the “McCartney” and “McCartney II” deluxe reissues.

Finally to the vinyl edition of “Kisses on the Bottom”.  This is a double LP and comes in a gatefold sleeve:

I got my copy from Amazon and thought it would be made in the US, but it says “Printed in the EU” on the back cover…

I haven’t taken my copy out of its sealed plastic cover, preferring it to remain a collectors item and “still sealed”. Also, all that white cardboard is going to get easily marked and scuffed. Keeping it sealed will also help keep it in pristine condition. Looking around on the web I did find this image of the vinyl package opened up:

You can see that it comes with two inner sleeves which reproduce the text elements of the CD booklets. The two 180g vinyl LPs have custom labels. And you get access to a digital download of the 14 track album as well.

[Thanks to cyber-beatles.com for the additional images used in this post.]

Three Old (But Interesting) Magazines

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Had to take another driving trip to Canberra – Australia’s national capitol – and so I called into the country town of Goulburn, which is along the way. There’s a big old second-hand book and record store there called the Argyle Book Emporium. I wrote about this shop once before when I discovered three copies of “Q” magazine there which were of interest.

When I got to the Argyle Emporium I headed straight to the room the owner uses to store his records, music books, and music magazines. As I said in the previous post, searching here is pretty frustrating as everything is just a free-for-all, with masses of unsorted discs on shelves and in boxes all over the place. There is so much that it is difficult to know where to start, and it’s one of those places where you get the distinct impression that the whole collection has already been picked over very thoroughly by collectors….Not surprisingly after pretty solid search I didn’t find anything of much interest amongst the records, and so I turned my attention to some boxes of magazines in one corner. There I found three items – two “Q” magazines from way back in 1993, and an “Uncut” magazine from a relatively recent 2010.

Both “Q” mags had info of interest to the Beatles collector. The June 1993 edition had and article about Irish photographer Kieron Murphy who in April 1971 was sent to cover John Lennon recording what would become the “Imagine” album:

Ummm…if you can get past the rather striking cover photo of Terence Trent D’Arby (and yes, there is more of the same, only more, inside the magazine) you can see on the left-hand side a reference to a legendary and historic lost photo session for “Imagine”. It took place just outside London at John Lennon’s home, Tittenhurst Park. Of this very special assignment Kieron Murphy says “Meeting him was the high point of my life. I’d never met anyone so famous and I suppose I still haven’t. When I got there it was five o’clock in the afternoon and he was having breakfast…..More people began to arrive, like Klaus Voorman (bass player), and Alan White (drummer), and Nicky Hopkins who was playing the piano; then George Harrison came along, and there they were, all having a cup of tea.”

Kieron Murphy captured some great images for “Sounds”, the magazine he was working for at the time. If anyone has seen the documentary “Gimme Some Truth – The Making of John Lennon’s Imagine Album” (released in 2000) then these black-and-white photographs will look familiar. Like that film, Murphy has captured a unique point in musical history – being played out amongst scenes of very ordinary domesticity. There are only six photographs in the magazine but they are special.

The other “Q” magazine comes from December 1993:

Kate Bush adorns the cover but what caught my eye was the heading:  BEATLES EXCLUSIVE – John, Paul, George, Ringo and Nicola?!

It’s a neat little four-page article and photo essay, a where are they now piece on the whereabouts of the little girl called Nicola who appears in the Beatles 1967 film “Magical Mystery Tour” and who is name-checked and immortalised on the track-listing on both the album and the original EP cover. You can see this in the printed title for the song “I Am the Walrus”, which has the hand-written subtitle  (“No you’re not!” said Little Nicola):

Well, in 1993 “Q” magazine tracked Nicola down and told the story of how she and her mum, Pam, ended up appearing in the MMT film. They found Nicola Hale, then aged 30, living in Forest Park on the outskirts of Chicago. She was working at a drop-in centre for young people with substance abuse problems. The article has some great photographs of Nicola in scenes with Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and this one mucking around with a soccer ball on the bus with Ringo Starr:

That’s her mum Pam on the right, and the carefully preserved dresses they wear in the scene are shown in colour in an insert at top right. All the pictures, newspaper clippings and memorabilia shown in the article come from the collection of Nicola’s father, Dave Hale.

Its a great little article and well worth having. I wonder where Little Nicola Hale is today?  She would be 48 years old. Does anyone have any information? Please let us know.

The final magazine is much more recent – an “Uncut” from the UK, dated August 2010:

Basically this is Part One in a four-part series where the magazine looks at what each Beatle did following the break-up of the band. The first in the series was John Lennon:

“Confidants, band members and therapists reveal all about the cold turkey and primal scream therapy, the relationship meltdowns, the battles between pacifism and revolution – and the extraordinary music of the Plastic Ono Band.”

With great photographs throughout this article ranges over 10 pages. It features the reminiscences of a range of people including Andy Stephens who was a tape operator at EMI’s Abbey Road studios during the rush recording of the song “Instant Karma” in 1970. (We learn in the article that Stephens is now the manager of Susan Boyle!). He relates a revealing story of Lennon enjoying a rare moment of privacy at Abbey Road in 1970:

“It was about two in the morning. He asked me to have a look out the front. There were always fans hanging around….I told him the fans had gone. John got hold of Yoko and they turned left and walked up Abbey Road. They came back 15 minutes later. John had a wonderful grin on his face. I mean, just a wonderful wonderful grin. He said, ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like to go for all that time without getting hassled.’ It was such a buzz for him. He’d gone 15 whole minutes without getting stopped.”

Footnote:  Interestingly, in looking up the “Uncut” magazine site I discovered that the Beatles are in fact this month’s cover story as well:

It’s all about the Beatles time in Hamburg. The issue comes with a free CD called “Sounds of the Star Club” with 16 tracks of songs covered by the Beatles, including tracks by Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Fats Waller, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Ray Charles and Elvis Presley.

And editor, Allan Jones, says that this is the last printed edition of Uncut in it’s present format: “From next month, the magazine will have a cool new look and there will be changes to what’s in it and how it’s presented….the new-look Uncut goes on sale on February 28.”

The Beatles Revealed

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Another nice Beatles book has joined the collection.

“The Beatles Revealed” is a large-format hardback book of 200 pages, printed on quality glossy paper:

Music journalist and author Hugh Fielder would be known to some Beatles collectors because he compiled the rear cover liner notes for the British edition of the Beatles “Rarities” album. This originally came out as a bonus record available only as part of “The Beatles Collection” box set. But in 1979 the record was issued separately as a stand-alone single vinyl LP (with the Fielder liner notes) due to popular demand. You can read that story here. The rear cover of that release looks like this:

“The Beatles Revealed” book is organised chronologically by year and covers all the major events in the Beatles career, beginning with “The Formative Years 1957-1962” and ending with “The Break-up Years 1969-1970”, and an “Epilogue” of 1970 reunion rumours and 1995’s “Anthology” TV/DVD series and CD sets. The book contains some great images:

“The Beatles Revealed” is published by Flame Tree Publishing and came out in 2010.

The photo above is a beauty of George in the very early days (note the script used for “The Beatles” on Ringo’s drum skin). It’s on the rear jacket cover.

McCartney’s Kisses on the Bottom – Who Owns The Songs?

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Just had an email from Bruce Hamlin, an Australian collector who runs The Beatles Records Information Service, with some information about the new Paul McCartney release of Kisses on the Bottom (out on February 7).

Because the album is Paul interpreting some of the great old songs he loves, Bruce muses at the end of his email: “The cynic in me reckons that Paul owns the publishing rights to all these songs too. Just for that extra bit of icing on the cake when the royalties come in….”

McCartney of course owns MPL Communications Limited, one of the biggest song publishing and licensing companies in the world – and in fact does own the rights to literally thousands of songs and covering nearly 100 years of music.

So, how many of the songs he’s covering on Kisses on the Bottom does McCartney already own, and will he subsequently get song royalties from tracks he didn’t write back into his own business? In the album’s track-list below I’ve put in RED whether MPL administers the publishing rights:

1. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter  –  YES  (written by Joe Young, Fred E. Ahlert, 1935)
2. Home (When Shadows Fall)  –  NO
3. It’s Only A Paper Moon  –  NO
4. More I Cannot Wish You  –  YES  (written by Frank Loesser, 1949)
5. The Glory Of Love  –  NO
6. We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me)  –  YES  (written by Dick Robertson, Sammy Mysels, Nelson Cogane, 1939)
7. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive  –  YES  (written by Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, 1944)
8. My Valentine (it’s a new McCartney composition, 2012)  –  YES 
9. Always  –  NO
10. My Very Good Friend The Milkman  –  NO
11. Bye Bye Blackbird  –  NO
12. Get Yourself Another Fool  –  NO
13. The Inch Worm  –  YES  (written by Frank Loesser, 1951)
14. Only Our Hearts (another new composition)   –  YES  

The Deluxe CD Album will feature 2 bonus tracks:

15. Baby’s Request (a 1979 McCartney tune from Back to the Egg)  –  YES 
16. My One And Only Love  –  YES

Therefore, in answer to Bruce’s question, for the standard CD edition of Kisses Paul McCartney owns half the songs. For the deluxe edition he owns the rights to 9 out of the 16 tracks.

Also, it’s just been pointed out to me by Beatlesblog reader Craig that two of the songs on the album have previously been released in versions on Apple Records. Ringo did ‘Bye, Bye Blackbird’ on Sentimental Journey (his 1970 tribute to old songs he loves), and Mary Hopkin recorded ‘The Inch Worm’ on her first album, Postcard (1968).

Peter Asher, Paul, Mary Hopkin at Trident Studios, London, 1968 (Apple)

Paul produced Mary Hopkin’s Postcard LP, so he must have liked the song ‘The Inch Worm’ for a long time. He chose the album’s songs, the arranger and even the artwork for the album cover. From the liner notes of the digitally re-mastered edition of Postcard from 2010:

Mary remembers that the show tunes and hits from yesteryear that make up half the collection were favourites of Paul’s father, Jim McCartney. They call to mind the valve-warming radio days of the BBC’s old Light Programme, Ringo Starr’s Sentimental Journey album that Apple would soon release, and the comfy familiarity that Paul evoked in Beatles songs such as ‘Honey Pie’, ‘When I’m Sixty Four’ and ‘Your Mother Should Know’.

Sounds just like the 2012 publicity for Kisses on the Bottom, doesn’t it.

‘The Inch Worm’ originally comes from the 1952 Danny Kaye film Hans Christian Anderson. And Paul’s company MPL Communications Limited now owns the publishing rights to the song.

You can access the database for all the songs that ML Communications has the rights to at: www.mplcommunications.com/search.php  For most tracks in the database you can also listen to full audio examples, often by a range of performers.

For a great film of Mary Hopkin performing different language versions of ‘Those Were the Days’ see the Wogblog page. Great shots of the Apple offices in 1968, too.

We have a Winner….

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In my previous post we had a small competition running to win a Bruce Spizer additional booklet for “The Beatles on Capitol Records Vol.1” CD set.

The easy question was:  “Meet The Beatles!”, one of the US Capitol records included in the box set, features the same striking black and white cover photo as the British LP “With The Beatles”.  Who took that photograph?

Of course the answer was Robert Freeman.

Curtis from Indiana in the USA was the first to contact us with the correct entry. Well done Curtis, and your booklet will be in the post very soon. It looks like this:

Incidently, that Robert Freeman photograph used for both “With the Beatles” and “Meet The Beatles!” has a connection to this post about a new book out recently called “Yeah Yeah Yeah – The Beatles and Bournemouth”.  The Freeman shot was actually taken on 22 August, 1963 in the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth, England.

Thank you to all those who submitted entries.

Competition – Win a Beatles “Capitol Albums – Vol. 1” Extra Booklet

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If you own the 2004 CD box-set release of “The Capitol Albums – Vol. 1” you might not be aware that respected Beatle historian and author Bruce Spizer has written and self-published an additional little booklet designed to accompany that set. “The Capitol Albums – Vol. 1” set containing the first four Beatles releases on that label looks like this:

The front cover of Bruce’s companion 12-page booklet for this set looks like this:

This booklet is in addition to the official booklet that comes in the four CD box set (which also contains a wealth of rare photos and has notes by well-known Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn). You can find out more about Bruce’s booklet here.  It is CD-sized and designed to simply slip into the box set alongside the CDs.

Bruce Spizer ended up writing the liner notes for the official booklet that comes with “The Capitol Albums – Vol. 2”, and he’s the author of a suite of impressive (and very large and heavy!) books on the history and discography of all the Beatles record releases.

His latest work is “The Beatles For Sale on Parlophone Records” annotating in minute detail all the band’s British record releases. That book joins his previous works detailing in a similar comprehensive manner all the US releases on Capitol, Apple, VJ, Swan, and other labels. They’re all well worth seeking out but are becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to find due to them being self-published and therefore only released in limited numbers. Bruce’s website is at beatle.net

Anyway…..this is long way of getting around to saying I have a spare copy of the little companion 12-page booklet he wrote for the Beatles “The Capitol Years – Vol. 1” and I’d like to give it away to a lucky reader.

It is not an expensive item but one you might like to add to your collection if you own a copy of “The Capitol Albums – Vol. 1”.

Just so you know: what happened was I ordered this booklet through Bruce’s site just before Christmas  but due to a mix-up I received two copies, not one.  So, I’d very much like to give one away to someone who’d like it.

All you need to do to win is answer this easy question:  “Meet The Beatles!”, one of the US Capitol records included in the box set, features the same striking black and white cover photo as the British LP “With The Beatles”.  Who took that photograph?

The first correct answer sent to me at beatlesblogger@gmail.com, complete with your name and postal address, will win. I will post the booklet to you. It’s as easy as that.

Good luck.

Bruce has written an interesting article on “The Capitol Albums – Vo.l 1” here.

The Fireman – Fluid Remixes

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The music:  This is a 12-inch vinyl disc released in 1999 containing remixes from “Rushes”, The Fireman (aka Paul McCartney and Youth)  LP and CD from 1998. Paul’s Fireman work is electronic, ambient and experimental.

The remixes were done by British musician Nitin Sawhney and this 12 incher contains three of Sawhney’s remixes of the track “Fluid” plus one other song called “Bison”.  All the original versions can be found on the “Rushes” CD and LP.

Back then McCartney was keen to keep as many details of his involvement in The Fireman project as low-key as possible. More recently for The Fireman’s “Electric Arguments” CD and LP he’s been much more open about who The Fireman is (see this official site for example). But back in 1993 (for their first outing “Strawberries Ocean Ships Forest“), and in 1998 (for “Rushes“) he was very much incognito and uncredited.

In the UK both “Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest” and “Rushes” came out on the little-known Hydra label. (In the US “Strawberries Ocean Ships Forest” was licensed to Capitol Records to distribute). One small McCartney give-away in the fine print of both these albums and their spin off remixes and singles is that all the songs are copyright to Juggler Music – a veiled reference to the McCartney company MPL Communications and its logo?:

The Cover:  This, like all The Fireman releases so far, is an interesting example of design. It’s a triple-fold cardboard “sleeve” which wraps around the disc and is held together by a custom-made red elastic band. Unusual. No designer is credited, but it seems that Norman Hathaway  (who did the extensive artwork for the “Electric Arguments” project) was involved. The colours used throughout the design have common themes and elements taken from the “Rushes” CD and LP covers. The vinyl disc has custom labels:

I think Paul is having a bit of a laugh with that second label….;-)

The inner cover is very plain, being three panels (moving left to right):

Only 3000 copies were released worldwide….my copy (which I only just got via Ebay) is no. 2658.

Paul McCartney – Kisses on the Bottom Latest

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Paul McCartney has updated the information available about his forthcoming new release “Kisses On The Bottom” his album of sentimental covers (plus two new original tracks written and performed in the same vein). Here’s the cover artwork:From the McCartney official website news page:

Paul’s tribute to personal favourites & two new self penned compositions out February 6th/7th 

On December 19th 2011 Paul announced that February 2012 would see the release of his brand new studio album. Scores of fans then streamed the new original track ‘My Valentine’, many assuming it would be the new record’s title track.  While a few Twitter hints have been dropped and rumours have run rampant, Paul puts an end to speculation today, confirming that the album will indeed be titled ‘Kisses On The Bottom’.

Paul has apparently had some fun with his choice of album title—while causing some confusion amongst those who have historically subjected his every move to microscopic scrutiny (with many fixating on an anatomical interpretation!). The phrase ‘Kisses On The Bottom,’ however, actually comes from the album’s opener ‘I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter’. Originally made a big hit by Fats Waller in 1935, the song opens with the lines ‘I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter and make believe it came from you.  I’m gonna write words oh so sweet.  They’re gonna knock me off of my feet.  A lot of kisses on the bottom , I’ll be glad I got ‘em’.

‘Kisses On The Bottom’ is a collection of standards Paul grew up listening to in his childhood as well as the two new McCartney compositions ‘My Valentine’ and ‘Only Our Hearts’.  With the help of Grammy Award-winning producer Tommy LiPuma and Diana Krall and her band—as well as guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder, McCartney’s new album is a deeply personal journey through classic American compositions that, in some cases, a young Paul first heard his father perform on piano at home.  The full tracklisting reveals that Paul has been both reverent and adventurous in his song choices.

Kisses On The Bottom

1. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter   

2. Home (When Shadows Fall)                                                                   

3.  It’s Only A Paper Moon                                                                      

4. More I Cannot Wish You                                                                       

5. The Glory Of Love                                                                                   

6. We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me)                                          

7. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive                                                               

8. My Valentine                                                                                              

9. Always                                                                                                          

10. My Very Good Friend The Milkman                                                       

11. Bye Bye Blackbird                                                                                     

12. Get Yourself Another Fool                                                                        

13. The Inch Worm                                                                                            

14. Only Our Hearts                                                                                           

The Deluxe CD Album will feature two bonus tracks plus access to a download of an exclusive live show (available from Tuesday 14th February via paulmccartney.com), plus longer liner notes and expanded packaging featuring three postcards)

15.  Baby’s Request                                                                                        

16.  My One And Only Love                                                            

The album will also be available digitally. You will be able to pre-order the album directly from PaulMcCartney.com soon!

The album was recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, New York and London throughout 2011.  It also features guest musicians Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder, respectively, on the original compositions  ‘My Valentine’ and ‘Only Our Hearts’.  Eric also appears on the track ‘Get Yourself Another Fool’.

The album artwork concept was conceived by Jonathan Schofield (Visual Director at Stella McCartney) and designed by Matthew Cooper (who has worked with artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand).  Paul was photographed by his daughter Mary McCartney for the album sleeve.

The Wogblog website says the deluxe CD package will contain longer liner notes and expanded packaging featuring three postcards, along with the two bonus tracks mentioned above. He also reminds us that”Baby’s Request” is a McCartney composition that can be found on the Wings album “Back To The Egg” from 1979.

For vinyl collectors there’ll be a double LP version of “Kisses On The Bottom” released.