George Harrison – Two New Rare Tracks on the Way

Posted on July 21, 2013 by beatlesblogger

For those George Harrison completists among us there are a couple of new rare tracks to be aware of.

Bob Dylan is about to release another volume in his continuing Bootleg Series, and it contains two songs where Harrison makes an appearance.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) comes out on August 27 and the trailer for the compilation (below) says it features unheard collaborations between Dylan and Harrison:

Rolling Stone says the two songs, “Time Passes Slowly” and “Working on a Guru,” come from Dylan’s one-day session in New York with George in May, 1970. “Most of the songs from that day suck,” says a quoted source. “The story we heard from the engineer is that they were just messing around as they waited for Elvis, and Elvis never showed up. They were just treading water. But these two songs are very nice.”

The Harrison session marked the first day of recording for the Dylan album which followed Self Portrait called New Morning.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) will be released as a 2CD Standard Edition, a 3LP Standard Edition, and a 4CD Deluxe Edition:

Ringo the 4th – An Auction….

Posted on July 13, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I recently posted on getting a promo copy of Ringo Starr’s Ringo the 4th LP.

Now the fabulous Chained and Perfumed has discovered that the “power” ring that Ringo is seen wearing for the album’s cover shot is up for auction shortly:

Turns out the ring was commissioned as a Christmas gift for him by the lady who is sitting on his shoulders in the cover shot (front and back). She was also the photographer and Ringo’s then-girlfriend – Nancy Andrews. So, a self-portrait of sorts.

Another Variation of McCartney’s Choba b CCCP

Posted on July 7, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Another variation of Paul McCartney’s Russian album Снова в СССР has come into the collection. I found another version on Ebay which I didn’t have. It was listed by an Australian seller (so postage was relatively safe, fast and cheap). It was also at a very reasonable price and so I couldn’t resist:

Снова в СССР is Russian for “Back in the USSR” and last time I posted on this was way back in 2010 when I detailed some of the other variations in my collection. I had five different vinyl pressings then, plus the CD edition, but there are actually almost too many variations of this LP to count. This latest one I have comes from the Aprelevka pressing plant which was just on the outskirts of Moscow. It’s the 1989, thirteen track version.

You can see all the many variations of this disc at the amazing The Beatles Get Back in the USSR website. To get to the key Снова в СССР entries go to the site’s pages detailing the original 11 track release; the more common 13 track release (which we have here); and the very rare mis-pressed 12 track release. As well as the many label variations from the different Russian pressing plants you’ll be able to explore the many cover variations in the printing of this album as well.

Linda McCartney Exhibition Moves to Vienna

Posted on June 30, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Paul McCartney’s official blog currently has an article about Paul attending the opening of a Linda McCartney photographic retrospective at the Kunst Haus Wien Museum in Vienna, Austria.

This is very similar in scope to a previous exhibition which premiered in New York in June, 2011.

The museum site includes an interesting extract from a documentary about Linda made for Austrian television:

As one fan puts it on the McCartney website: “I love that you are keeping Linda’s legacy alive. Her art and her spirit.”

All photographs © Paul McCartney / Photographer: Linda McCartney

A New McCartney Song Collaboration

Posted on June 21, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Just when you were recovering from the release of Wings Over America (in deluxe box set, triple vinyl, and standard CD), and Rockshow on DVD and Blu-Ray, comes news of yet another Paul McCartney release to track down.

This time he’s teamed up an Italian dance punk outfit which goes by the name of The Bloody Beetroots. Using some of the basic vocals from a song called “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” (from the 2008 Fireman release Electric Arguments performed with Youth – a.k.a. Martin Glover) they’ve just issued a pretty crazy remix single called “Out Of Sight“.

Here’s the teaser clip from June 10th:

Then the single came out as a digital download on June 14.

Rolling Stone magazine says of the song: Out of Sight (which also features Youth) finds the old Beatle appealing to the stadium EDM crowd in a heavily thumping, airily melodic track on which he wails in his finest Little Richard mode. There’s an interesting background article on how the song came about here.

If you want to hear it: [audio https://beatlesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/01-out-of-sight-feat-paul-mccartney-youth.m4a]

I’m not sure if there’s going to be a physical version on CD or vinyl. If anyone knows that can they please let us know? The only thing I can find is that the track will appear on The Bloody Beetroots’ album Hide, out on Ultra Music in September.

Meantime it’s on the web at Soundcloud, on iTunes and on YouTube:

UPDATE: On July 8 this official film-clip was added to YouTube:

Four Beatle Books for a Song…

Posted on June 19, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Made the mistake of walking past my local discount book store today…..haven’t been near the place for weeks and it’s always a bit of a lottery to go in. They turn over discontinued and surplus titles very quickly and at very cheap prices so you never know what you might find. Today, in ten minutes, I came away with not one but four new Beatles titles for the collection.

This first one is a ripper and comes from 2010. It documents what is now a legendary photo shoot by the band in July, 1968 otherwise known as “The Mad Day Out”. Photographer Don McCullin shot about fifteen rolls of film over the course of a day out in the streets of London and back at Paul McCartney’s house at St John’s Wood.

Many of the photographs had until now remained largely unpublished. If you have the Beatles “1962-1966” or the “1967-1970” double LPs or CDs you’ll have seen at least one photo from this same photo shoot. It’s the black and white one inside the gate-fold album cover, or in the very centre of the CD booklets, labelled (incorrectly as it turns out) “St Pancras Old Church, 22 July 69”. Here’s two other photos from the book: This edition is in a smaller format than what I recall seeing in shops when this book first hit the shelves, but it is a very nice book to have none-the-less.

Here’s the rear cover:I already had a copy of this next one, but not in the same format. The book I found in the discount shop today is a very small paperback copy. It’s Ringo’s Postcards From the Boys, and for just $4.99 how could I resist another copy?

Postcards is a collection of 51 postcards sent to Ringo from John, Paul and George. Each card (displayed front and rear) is accompanied by brief reminiscences from Ringo:

This book first came out as a hardback in 2004 after originally being released in a very limited and expensive edition by Genesis Publications. This one I found today is at the other end of the scale – a small-format, budget re-issue from 2005:

(If you want to see the absolute deluxe version in minute detail, check out this lengthy YouTube clip).

Next find was a what looks to be a very interesting study of the Beatle money trail, how they got ripped off, and lost and made fortunes:

Beatles For Sale – How Everything They Touched Turned to Gold is by John Blaney, the author of a number of Beatle-related books (including this one). It was published back in 2008. I have always been interested in the Beatle money matters (especially around the formation and eventual demise of their Apple Corporation) and so this one looks like it will be a very good read. Here’s the rear cover:

Finally, a book about Beatles books.

Beatle Books – From Genesis to Revolution is an extensive compendium detailing all the books written about the band, by the band members, and about them as solo artists too.

There was only one copy of this on the shelf, and it has been pretty beaten up. It looks like its been dropped, or something heavy has been dropped onto it. But it’s a really handy reference book and one I have never seen before. The guy gave me an extra discount because of the damage – so I paid the princely sum of $5.99….

If you’re interested this came out in 2008, is manufactured in Canada, and was published by Collectors Guide Publishing in Ontario. Strange to find one copy floating around a discount bookshop in Sydney, Australia.

Fundraiser Book and CD Fair – Some Good Beatle Finds

Posted on June 8, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Almost a year ago to the day I posted on a big book and CD fair where I found a couple of Beatle-related items of interest. This fair is held by a local classical music/jazz radio station (2MBS-FM) as a much-needed fundraiser. It has now become a well-established annual event.

This week saw the opening of the 2013 fair and again I got in on the very first day. Once more there was a huge selection of CDs and books on offer, especially good quality music books. This time around I tackled the CD tables first and after just a minute or two of browsing the first Beatle item I found was this:

The Best of George Harrison was released in 1976 and is a CD I don’t have. It’s one I’ve been on the lookout for for some time though so the evening was definitely off to a very good start. It was released in a number of countries, and has a unique cover. This one is the Australian pressing:

Next came George Martin’s In My Life, from 1998. I’ve been aware of this CD since it was first released but, until now, I didn’t have a copy in the collection:

In My Life is very much Beatle-related. Their producer invited into the studio a wide range of what he describes as his “heroes and friends” to record versions of Beatle songs. It has to be said the results are patchy at best, but at just $5.00 it seemed like a good time to finally get it.

The final two CDs I found I already have four versions of….

The Beatles 1 gathers together 27 of their number one singles. It was originally released in 2000, and I have a UK CD copy, a Taiwanese CD version, a copy on vinyl, and it was remastered and re-issued again in 2011 in a gatefold cardboard cover. However, at the fair I found two Australian pressing CD’s of the disc (the jewel case version) from 2000. One had a black sticker on the front, the other had a white variation:

Of course I had to have both. I know. Do I really need another two copies? Call me crazy. Enough CDs already!

From there it was over to the book section of the fair and as 2MBS-FM is a classical and jazz music station their book stall always seems to have a wide selection of music books on offer. This year did not disappoint. They had stacks of sheet music too, and in one of the piles I found some practically mint copies of two Beatles songbooks – one large thick one for the Beatles “blue” album, The Beatles 1967-1970:

No, I didn’t pay $41.99 for this!

The other find was a much slimmer songbook, one which I’d never seen before. It was published only in Australia and New Zealand by Northern Songs. The Colourful Beatles – Souvenir Song Album contains the sheet music for twelve of their songs and, despite its age, was in near-new condition:

Here’s the index page:

Next it was across the room to the books proper, and this one caught my eye immediately. It’s a really thick paperback called Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles, Britain and America by US author Jonathan Gould. It was published in 2007.

Again, I didn’t pay $45.00, or anywhere near it. The New York Times book review of Can’t Buy Me Love says in part: “Gould aims to meld the three primary, often distinct strands of Beatle bibliography — biography, music appreciation and pop sociology — into a single volume, a mother ship of Beatles books, with, as the subtitle implies, a special emphasis on the divide between the country that gave them birth and the country that arguably loved them best….Happily, the effort paid off: Gould has written a scrupulous, witty and, at times, appropriately skeptical study, which drew me back into a subject I thought I was sick of. The book lacks the intimacy of a full-fledged biography — if you want to know who John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr really were, you’ll do better elsewhere — but it compensates with an imaginative intelligence and a lively breadth of knowledge.” You can do one of those Amazon “Look Inside” reads to get a taste of Gould’s style and insights if you want.

Well, that was just about it. I was headed to the counter to pay, already thinking I’d probably gone overboard a bit on the purchases, when I saw this 1993 large-format book.

Inside are lots of great photos of George Harrison, including many unusual ones:

I tossed up whether to get this book as I know author Geoffrey Giuliano has a mixed reputation amongst Beatle and other fans (see his entry in Wikipedia for more). In the end it was the broad and eclectic photo selection which did it for me.

So, a successful Thursday evening trawling for Beatle treasure. Even by my standards I probably went a bit overboard this time – but how could you leave this sort of quality behind? And they were all at fantastically low prices (well, thats what I keep telling myself…..)

George Harrison and Hamilton Island

Posted on May 9, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Apologies for the long delay in posting anything on Beatlesblogger but I’m on vacation.

As it happens I’m on a resort island off the coast of Australia – and funnily enough there is actually a Beatles connection to this place.

I’m sitting on beautiful Catseye Beach on Hamilton Island off the Queensland coast and it occurs to me (dredged from somewhere deep in the back of my mind) that George and Olivia Harrison once had a luxury holiday home on this very island….and here it is:

A quick search on Google confirmed that vague memory and led me to this comprehensive article in Architectural Digest outlining the full story of how George ended up owning a little piece of Australia. The article is penned by writer and Harrison family friend Paul Theroux – who contributed the Introduction to the book “Living in the Material World“, and whose work also appears in the very limited (and expensive) Genesis Publications anniversary book about the “Concert for George“. The Harrison home was sold in 2008, apparently for $8 million – setting a new sales record for the island at that time. I just wish George was still around to enjoy this very beautiful part of the world….

You can see a Google Map satellite image of the house here.

A New Addition to the Collection – Ringo the 4th

Posted on April 28, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I have found an interesting second-hand record store not far from my local area which I didn’t even know existed.

It is called Audiomania. It’s a bit oddly located in a semi-industrial area and, unusually, is only open two day’s a week for four hours at a time! On one side of the shop there’s an extensive selection of good quality vinyl (pop, rock, blues, lots of jazz and a bit of a specialty of the store – reggae). On the other side of the space they have vintage hi-fi (amps, turntables, CD players, etc.) and – wait for it – restored motor cycles….

It is the most eclectic record shop I’ve come across in some time.

My son and I descended on Audiomania on the weekend a couple of weeks ago. He was on the hunt for jazz vinyl, and me in search of the Beatles (or anything else Beatle-related).

I ended up with three items. An Australian copy of Paul McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway; a copy of his Give My Regards to Broad Street; and Ringo Starr’s Ringo the 4th.

I wanted the McCartney LP’s because the Red Rose Speedway (Australian pressing) had a cover which didn’t have the Braille writing on the back, and the Broad Street was a US copy on the Columbia label (in Australia this LP came out on Parlophone).

Like I said in the previous post, I seem to moving from not having much of Ringo solo on vinyl to now having quite a few of his releases all of a sudden. I didn’t have this LP at all in my collection. Despite the ringwear on the cover (which you cane see below), this one being both a US pressing and a promo copy, it seemed worth the A$5.00 asking price:

As you can see it has a big black and white Atlantic Records “Promotional Copy” sticker on the front containing a track-listing with composers, song publishers and running times (for use by radio stations I guess), plus a gold-embossed stamp on the upper left-hand side saying “Promotional Copy NOT FOR SALE”.

You can see the rear cover above (pardon the pun). I don’t know who that is sitting on his shoulders or why they are there….if you know please drop us a line. There is also a paper inner sleeve with a photo of Ringo and his co-writer of many tunes on the album Vini Poncia:

The album came out in 1977 on the Atlantic label and has a cast of top session players and guest artists of the day including David Spinozza (guitar), the great Steve Gadd on drums, Chuck Rainey (bass), Michael and Randy Brecker (horns), and Bette Midler, Melissa Manchester, Jim Gilstrap and Luther Vandross (background vocals).

So, one more Ringo Starr for the collection – and a promo copy at that.

Record Store Day, and a Record Fair…

Posted on April 25, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I had a goooood Record Store Day last weekend.

For starters I managed to pick up copies of the Wings 12″ 45 of “Maybe I’m Amazed“, and I also scored the Ringo Starr three x 7″ box set. I got the Wings at one of Sydney’s longest-running, best-known and best-stocked independent record stores – Red Eye Records. We had to queue up in pouring rain outside the shop from opening time (9.00am Saturday) to get in. There were so many people hunting for RSD product it was a bit nerve-wracking wondering if they’d sell out of the Wings title. But, no problems. They still had some left when I finally got to the sales counter.

The Ringo box-set was another matter though. Red Eye hadn’t been able to secure any copies at all, and a quick phone around to just about every other likely outlet in town was the same story. I don’t think any copies of this actually made it into the country. So then it was a matter of just waiting for RSD to roll around in the USA and some copies to begin appearing on eBay. Which, due to the time difference between here and there, they eventually did late on Saturday night.

The Ringo Starr Singles Collection is three 7” vinyl singles in a lift-top box. You get “Photograph” b/w “Down And Out” / “It Don’t Come Easy” b/w “Early 1970” / “(It’s All Down To) Goodnight Vienna” b/w “Oo-Wee”, presented with replicated original picture sleeve artwork, a poster, and a bonus custom record spindle adapter.

Meanwhile….the rest of Saturday was taken up largely by attending the Glebe Record Fair. This is one of the big second-hand record fairs on the Sydney calendar and this year it did not disappoint. The heavy rain on Saturday did not deter people coming out in their droves:Crate digging at the Glebe Fair I actually found quite a lot of things. First was a Beatles eight-LP box set I’ve been seeking out for some time – The Beatles Box – From Liverpool:

It’s the Australian edition from 1981 on the Parlophone label, and it came with the original poster too! I already had the Readers Digest Australian edition of this set (with different labels) – but having a mint copy on the orange Parlophone label has been an aim for a very long time:

From the same dealer I also got what I think is a quite rare Ringo Starr LP from 1983 called Old Wave. You can read the story of why there aren’t a lot of copies of this one around on Wikipedia. Because I’d purchased The Beatles Box – From Liverpool set he sold this one to me for A$10 – which I think was a bargain:

This copy is on the Australian gold RCA label:

I seem to be going from having hardly any Ringo Starr solo to now having quite a few. At the Glebe Fair I also spied a reasonable copy of the budget Music For Pleasure edition of his Blast From Your Past:

This “best of” compilation originally came out on Apple in 1975. In fact it was the last record to be released on Apple (before the label re-emerged in the 1990’s). This MFP re-issue comes from 1981. See the post Budget Beatles for more info on this and other budget labels which feature the Beatles as a group and as solo artists.

On the topic of budget Beatles, my final purchase for the day was a copy of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl on the Australian EMI budget label Axis:

This LP came out in 1987 in a single sleeve (as opposed to the original EMI/Capitol issue from 1977 which had a gatefold cover). This is nice copy in very good condition.

So, a really productive (if somewhat expensive) Record Store Day.

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