Tag Archives: Beatles Collecting

New Lennon Film + Behind the Scenes Podcast Series

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As part of an ever-growing number of events, books and CD re-issues to mark what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, comes a new documentary film. In a couple of days (on September 25th) “LennoNYC” will make it’s premiere as part of the New York Film Festival. It will also be broadcast on PBS TV in the United States (on November 22nd), and released commercially as a DVD (on November 23).

The film, which looks to be well-researched and gets access to a number of the main players in John Lennon’s life, traces his love affair with the city of New York and how, with the city’s help, he was able to reinvent himself both artistically and in his private life. It also delves into how he worked as a composer and recording artist.

In the lead up to the television premiere the makers of the film – Susan Lacy, Series Creator and Executive Producer of the American Masters series and a producer of “LennoNYC”, and Director/Writer Michael Epstein – are making ten, hour-long, exclusive podcasts freely available. These all contain extended and largely uncut versions of the interviews that were recorded for the film with those who knew and worked with Lennon intimately during his time living in the city.

The first is with Jack Douglas, co-producer (with Lennon and Yoko Ono) of the “Double Fantasy” LP, released just prior to Lennon’s death in 1980. Its timely because he’s just been involved in preparing the special “stripped down” edition of the album which will be released the week after next.

Here is Jack Douglas from the PBS podcast talking about his work on the new stripped down version:

In the hour-long podcast interview Douglas also reveals how “Double Fantasy” was made in top secret – and surprisingly – much of it in John Lennon’s bed:

There are many other great insights and stories from Douglas. He’s particularly poignant about John’s death and its impact on him and others who knew him closely. You can download the full podcasts here, or go to the iTunes store and subscribe there. New episodes will be posted weekly every Thursday until the Thursday after the TV broadcast on November 22.  The final podcast will be a question and answer session using the best questions submitted by users via email.

The “Imagine Peace” website has extensive coverage, information and articles about the film “LennoNYC” (scroll down the page), and there’s also been a trailer for the documentary uploaded to YouTube:

Two Apple Box Sets Coming

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Steve Marinucci in his excellent Beatles Examiner column reports that both the Beatles “Red” and “Blue” plus the extensive Apple Records artists reissues will be available as box sets.

Called “The Beatles 1962 – 1970”, the box set containing the Red “1962-1966” and the Blue “1967-1970” will look like this:

Red and Blue Box Set front cover

Of course inside will be these two double disc sets:

The Red "1962-1966"

The Blue "1966-1970"

The initial information on these releases remains the same – they will be available as individual discs on October 18 (in the UK) and October 19 (in the US). The box set however is listed by Amazon UK for a November 29 release.

Meanwhile, the big Apple artists reissues also planned for October are to be gathered together in box set for those who would like to buy the complete set. The big news here is that the box will contain not only the “Come and Get It – Best Of” disc with its rarities, but also two additional discs featuring the additional and rare tracks that would have only been available as digital downloads – so, 17 CD’s in all. For collectors like me this makes this release a lot more interesting because I still like to have the physical disc in my hands, complete with the liners notes, photographs and artwork rather than the nebulous digitally downloaded audio….

The box set cover will look like this:

Steve Marinucci has a nice slide show of the box and all the discs it will contain.

The one problem I have with all this is that the Beatles and Apple have allowed such a large amount of collectable product to pile up all at the same time. Between now and November we’ll have George Harrrison’s “Collaborations”; John Lennon’s multiple “Gimme Some Truth” releases; Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run” in multiple versions; The Beatles “Red” and “Blue”; and all the Apple re-issues. This makes it incredibly difficult if not impossible for most avid collectors to afford all at once.

Thanks to Beatles Examiner for this information.

Band On The Run – Dates Confirmed + Free Download

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I got an email today from paulmccartney.com confirming the info in my previous post that the “Band on the Run” remastered release will definitely come out on November 1 in the UK and November 2 in the US.  

The website’s News section has all the info – it pretty much says what we already knew about the different formats that will be available (1 CD; 2 CD + DVD; 3 CD + DVD deluxe; and vinyl 2 LP), but goes into more detail about the deluxe version – which comes with a lavish book:

Collectors will be especially thrilled by the 4 disc (3CD, 1 DVD) deluxe edition which adds an extraordinary 120-page hard bound book containing many unseen and unpublished photos by Linda McCartney and Clive Arrowsmith, album and single artwork, downloadable hi-res audio versions of the remastered album and bonus audio tracks, a full history of the album complete with a new interview with Paul and expanded track by track information for all four discs. The deluxe edition also includes a special Band on the Run audio documentary (originally produced for the 25th Anniversary edition.)

The email sent to me also has a link to download an HD version of the one of the videos that will be on the DVD disc that comes with the Special and Deluxe editions. Its a big file but if you’d like to see it click on the image below:

Download "A Trip to Lagos"

Its a short little film with a very home-made feel – but worth it for the soundtrack which is a trance-like version of “Band on the Run” from Paul that I’d not heard before….

Rolling Stone Magazine Names Its Top 100 Beatles Songs

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I’m a bit late catching up on this one as news first came out about it at the end of August, but it’s probably only just hitting news stands near you now – depending on where you live…

In a special Collectors Edition, Rolling Stone magazine has named its Top 100 Beatles songs of all time. (Apparently its the first time they’ve done this). News of the the special edition came out in the US on August 26.

The press release reads:

ROLLING STONE RELEASES “THE BEATLES 100 GREATEST SONGS”

“New York, NY – August 26, 2010 – Rolling Stone released its first-ever list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs as part of a special interest publication that coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Beatle’s final album, Let It Be, and the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Topping the list, as ranked by the editors of Rolling Stone, is “A Day in the Life,” followed by “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

Following an introduction by Elvis Costello, the book features the stories behind each song, dozens of photos, an index of the complete list, and a breakdown of the numbers, including the years with the most songs (1965 and 1966 each had 17), the shortest song (“Her Majesty,” 23 seconds) and the song that spent the longest time at number one on the charts (“Hey Jude,” 9 weeks).

The book also includes special sections with lists of Lennon and Paul McCartney’s five favorite songs, the top guitar and drumming moments of George Harrison and Ringo Starr, respectively, and the best Beatles cover songs.” (ends)

The magazine has created a really nice page detailing their Top Ten songs – including some great photographs too.

See also the different Australian cover.

Apple Records “Come and Get It” Cover Revealed

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The CD cover art for the soon-to-be-released “Come and Get It: The Best Of Apple Records” has been published by Amazon:

The tracklist for “Come And Get It” is as follows:

1 Those Were The Days / Mary Hopkin

2 Carolina In My Mind / James Taylor

3 Maybe Tomorrow / The Iveys

4 Thingumybob / The Black Dyke Mills Band (Paul McCartney’s theme tune for a 1968 British TV comedy drama series)

5 King Of Fuh / Brute Force (originally banned back in 1969, Brute Force is a New York songwriter championed by John Lennon and George Harrison)

6 Sour Milk Sea / Jackie Lomax

7 Goodbye / Mary Hopkin

8 That’s The Way God Planned It / Billy Preston

9 New Day / Jackie Lomax (an original non-album Lomax 45 that was co-produced with Mal Evans)

10 Golden Slumbers-Carry That Weight / Trash (a heavy Scottish group that came to Apple via their producer, former Shadows drummer Tony Meehan)

11 Give Peace A Chance / Hot Chocolate Band (a reggae version by the band that became hugely popular in the Seventies)

12 Come And Get It / Badfinger

13 Ain’t That Cute / Doris Troy

14 My Sweet Lord / Billy Preston

15 Try Some Buy Some / Ronnie Spector (one-time Ronette and former wife of legendary producer Phil Spector)

16 Govinda / Radha Krishna Temple (a UK Top 30 hit for the Radha Krishna Temple in 1970 produced by George Harrison)

17 We’re On Our Way / Chris Hodge (a young British pop singer who caught the attention of Ringo Starr)

18 Saturday Nite Special / The Sundown Playboys (a Cajun French collective from Louisiana, USA)

19 God Save Us / Bill Elliot & The Elastic Oz Band (John and Yoko wrote this fundraiser for the defence in the famous Oz Obscenity Trial of 1971)

20 Sweet Music / Lon & Derrek van Eaton

21 Day After Day / Badfinger

Amazon is listing an October 5 release date.

“Starting Over” – New Lennon Book Coming

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Its the season for new biographical books. There’s a new Paul McCartney biog just released.

And now comes news of a new book associated with the massive John Lennon CD reissue release program that’s planned for October. The book is about the making of the “Double Fantasy” album which when reissued next month will contain the original recording remastered, plus a new “stripped down” version as well.

“Starting Over – The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy” will be published by Simon & Schuster on October 19:

Starting Over - front cover

The book is written by author, musician and columnist Ken Sharp who’s previous works include whats regarded as the definitive biography of Kiss.

To quote from the PR blurb:  “Starting Over is an oral history of the making of Double Fantasy and the definitive account of John Lennon’s last days. From early demos to sessions at New York City’s The Hit Factory, from the electrifying chemistry of the studio band to keeping the project under wraps to the album’s release and critical reception, here is fascinating, insightful commentary from all of the key players involved in its extraordinary creation: Yoko Ono, David Geffen, producer Jack Douglas, engineers, arrangers, session musicians, music journalists, and even Lennon himself via archival interviews.”

The book will feature never-before-seen photos of John and Yoko in the studio, by David M. Spindel and Roger Farrington.

Thanks to Scott Segelbaum of the “Beatle Briefs” podcast for the info on this one.

Speaking of the forthcoming reissue of  “Double Fantasy – Stripped Down”, the new cover art was revealed a couple of weeks ago:

Clearly its a pencil drawing (signed Sean Ono Lennon, 2010) based on the famous photograph used on the original LP and CD covers. It also appeared in a more closely cropped version on the 45 rpm vinyl single “(Just Like) Starting Over”:

FAB: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

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I was in Hobart, Tasmania this week and a friend mentioned at dinner that he’d just picked up a new biography of Paul McCartney.

“What new biography?” I said, as I’d not heard of it. “Oh, its just been released. Looks good”, said he.

Well, next day I had an hour or two to kill waiting for the plane home, and so decided to take wander along the main street of the town. I popped into the local Angus and Robertson bookstore – and to my great surprise there it was on the shelf in its paperback form:

Front cover "FAB: An Intimate Life of Paul Mccartney"

As you can see from the Australian and UK cover above (yes, I bought a copy), it’s called “FAB: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney”, written by Howard Sounes. Harper Collins is the Australian publisher and their website says it was published here and in the UK only very recently – on 25 August, 2010.

Until this week, I’d never heard of it! It has certainly flown under the radar as there hasn’t been much written about it in the lead-up to its release. At least, it flew under my Beatles radar….

In the US it gets a different cover:

As one reviewer asked, does the world need another Paul McCartney biography? The answer is that while this one does trawl through the early days once more, it brings us up right up to date with what has been a prolific and interesting later career. In fact the work includes “Electric Arguments”, “Good Evening New York City”, the Beatles Remastered releases, and his illustrated children’s book “High in the Clouds” released last year.

And it is big – 634 pages. I only got it yesterday – so a review will be coming later.

If you’d like to get a taste Sounes, who worked as a journalist for the Daily Mail in England, has published lengthy extracts from the book that you can read here and here. His other books include “Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan”.

Beatlesnews has also published a short article about author Howard Sounes and this new McCartney book.  The Liverpool Echo has published an interview with the author. And there’s a very good review of the book by Simon Sweetman here.

105 Days with the Beatles

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This isn’t new – it comes from back in December last year but I’ve only just discovered it and thought its worth passing on because it’s kind of interesting.

Its an interview on the Australian EMI site with Richard Lush – who worked at EMI during the 60’s as second engineer to Geoff Emerick recording the Beatles. As he says in a great quote from the article:”….I did 105 sessions; 105 days I walked across Abbey Road and went to work for the Beatles….”.  Not many people can make that claim.

“I was 18 years old and I had been there for 6 months. Before I started on “Revolver”, when we did “A Day in the Life”… Geoff and I, Geoff was 2 years older then me… Geoff would have been 20 and I was 18. I remember us in the control room joking to one another… isn’t amazing…they are actually trusting us… (We laughed)”

“People often ask me: “What’s the worst thing about working for the Beatles?” And I always said… The fact that they would always start late. Most bands in those days started in the morning (10am) but they would start around 2pm. So you would show up just before 2… There would be no fans, no screaming girls, so you knew they had not arrived yet. Then George Martin would show up about 4 o’clock, we would set up, still be waiting, and then the Beatles would roll in about 7 or 8pm and go to about 8 in the morning……I worked on “Pepper”, did a track on “Revolver”, about half   “The White Album”, some of “Magical Mystery Tour”.”

Anyway, check out the interview in full – its worth a read.

If you want to see Richard Lush in the studio here’s a short clip of him examining the piano and drum parts for the John Lennon track “God”, from his solo album Plastic Ono Band. This was part of the great “Classic Albums” video series:

Mojo Magazine – McCartney Cover Story

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This month’s Mojo magazine features a front cover and a 23-page Beatles and Paul McCartney special:

On the Beatles front, journalist Jon Savage examines “Let It Be” , and Mark Paytress returns to the corridors of Apple Corps. And there’s a free CD on the cover called “Let It Be Revisited” – the Beatles’ final album from 1970 re-interpreted by the likes of Beth Orton (“I Me Mine” and “Dig It”), Phosphorescent, Judy Collins, Wilko Johnson, Pete Molinari, and Australia’s C.W. Stoneking among others:

The free CD (it comes with the magazine) is also available for separate purchase as a limited edition vinyl LP.

On the McCartney front, the magazine asks “What to do after The Beatles?”.  For Paul McCartney it meant boozing, battling, then rebuilding and rediscovery in the playful freedom of Wings and the arms of Linda. “I survived,” he tells Tom Doyle.

There is also an essay called “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” by Danny Eccleston, looking at “Ram”, the second solo outing by Paul. He writes: “Ram is different. Side one, especially, has much of the intimacy of McCartney, the impression of one man gluing something together before your very eyes. Sometimes – it’s there in opener Too Many People‘s haunting, weird distance and tangled jangling outro – it makes you think of Beck, or more recent American bedroom psych.”

All Things Must Pass – Variations and Collectors Items

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In November it will be 40 years since George Harrison released his masterpiece, “All Things Must Pass”.

It was the first triple LP ever released by a solo artist. Harrison had so many songs – many of them stored up from his Beatles days – that they sprawled across 2 LPs, plus a third disc called “Apple Jam” which was just that: George and his mates jamming in the studio.

In both the US and the UK the album came out in a black box with a matte, monochrome shot of Harrison on the front, sitting like an elf (complete with accompanying garden gnomes) in the garden of his Friar Park mansion:

atmp-us-cover1

The box came with a huge poster of George (36″ x 24″), and each inner sleeve was in a different colour, complete with the printed lyrics to the songs it contained. Record one is in a light blue sleeve, record two is grey, and record three (“Apple Jam”) is mustard coloured.

The US box open with orange inner and light blue sleeve for record one

The US box open with the lyric sleeve for record two

The US box open with the mustard coloured “Apple Jam” sleeve

The US and UK labels were Apple – but in this time in bright orange:

On the first two discs there was the full Apple on one side, and a cut Apple on the other:

The “Apple Jam” disc (sides 5 & 6) had its own custom labels:

In Australia the packaging for the 3 x LP set was quite different. It was a specially designed triple fold-out cover (not a box set), with a shiny laminated finish on the outside:

The Australian release – front cover

The original release was a top-load cover (there was a later Parlophone label release which was side-load – see below). Here’s the rear cover for the Australian release:

The Australian release – rear cover with song list and artist details

The triple gate-fold opened up like this, and the inserts in which the records are held were made of high quality textured paper in the same colours as the US and UK box-set inner sleeves:

The Australian triple gatefold open on one side

The Australian triple gatefold open both sides

The original Australian issues also came with the giant George poster, and had the bright orange Apple labels – however this time in full on all four sides of each LP (in other words no “cut” Apples on sides 2 and 4):

Plus it also had the special Apple Jam labels for sides 5 & 6:

In the 1990’s in Australia came a vinyl re-issue of the set. It came in the same triple gatefold cover, but this time at a lower quality of paper. And it wasn’t on Apple Records, but the Parlophone label:

There were two 45 rpm singles released from the album at the time. These were “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life”.  In Australia “My Sweet Lord” was backed with “Isn’t It A Pity” and a little bit unusually, the labels on each side had a full green Apple – kind of like a double “A” side:

In 2001 came an LP and a CD re-issue, both of which came as box sets. Here’s the deluxe vinyl box:

The EU 2001 re-issue vinyl box cover

Both the CD box and the LP box were expanded and remastered – containing five previously un-released bonus tracks:  “I Live For You” (out-take); “Beware Of Darkness” (demo); “Let It Down” (alternate version); “What Is Life” (backing track); and “My Sweet Lord (2000)” (alternate version). Both box sets featured a colourised version of the original front cover image. Unlike the original 1970 LP box set, this one had a song list on the rear:

The vinyl was again three LP records – including the “Apple Jam” disc:

The vinyl box open – notice the booklet cover’s statement on environmental degradation

The internal packaging was quite different to the original in a lot of ways. The inner lining (now purple) and the inner sleeves for example:

The vinyl 2001 reissue with the inner sleeve for Disc 1

A booklet replaced the giant poster, but still had some shots from the same photo shoot:

And the LP labels (the record was released on George’s own GN Records label) were different too:

The CD box set contained all the content of the triple LPs – but on two CDs:

The 2001 CD reissue cover – still in shrink wrap with original sticker

All the tracks on “All Things Must Pass” (2001) were remastered and/or remixed by George. He says in the booklet that on some tracks he wanted to “….liberate some of the songs from the big production that seemed appropriate at the time, but now seem a bit over the top with the reverb in the wall of sound”. I guess he means Phil Spector’s production work on the original. There are no hard feelings though as in the booklet George pays tribute to “….the amazing Phil Spector, who produced so many fantastic records in the sixties. He helped me so much to get this record made….God bless you Phil”.  For more information on the complete story of the 2001 reissue see wikipedia

The CD box also had the coloured cover. Urbanisation and degradation of the environment gets worse from the front image, through to changes in each image on the inner sleeves, until the final scene on the booklet where George is literally overshadowed by a motorway and factories belching smog. Here’s the CD label:

Also from 2001 comes a 3 track CD single re-issue of “My Sweet Lord”:

The 2001 “My Sweet Lord” CD single cover

The disc contained “My Sweet Lord”, “Let It Down” and “My Sweet Lord (2000)”:

For further information see also the official All Things Must Pass website, and the excellent Beatles Recorded Sound Index entry.

Don’t forget to check out this weird version of this album.

Also this update on another US label variation in the collection.

And click here for the Record Store Day 2010 limited edition of “All Things Must Pass”.