RSD 2023 Beatle-related Titles Announced

The Record Store Day 2023 release list has just come out and come April 23 there’ll be at least three titles of interest to Beatle collectors.

Probably the most interesting and hard-to-get will be a re-imagining of John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth best-of compilation which is being re-issued as a boxset containing 9 x 10” white vinyl EPs. Each EP will feature four tracks. Only 500 copies of this will be produced, hence the ‘hard-to-get’ moniker….

Next is the highly speculated 50th anniversary release of Paul McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway in limited edition, Half Speed Master vinyl form:

According to the RSD list there will be 5,000 pressed so this should be much easier to secure. It follows similar Half Speed Master editions of McCartney, Wings Wild Life and RAM.

Then there’s a re-issue of the 1981 Ringo Starr title Stop and Smell the Roses. This is being re-issued on vinyl as a 2LP with six bonus tracks for the first time. It will come in a gatefold with printed inner sleeves, original record labels and specialty color vinyl described as lava lamp effect clear red/white for LP1 and lava lamp effect clear red/pink for LP2. There are 2,500 copies being pressed.

Stop and Smell the Roses will also be issued on RSD as a CD (500 copies).

So, that’s John, Paul, and Ringo for Record Store Day 2023.

But wait, there is a George connection too. Dark Horse, the record label he started up (now run by son Dhani Harrison) is releasing not one but two LPs.

The first is by Stairsteps, a band originally signed to the label back in 1975. For Record Store Day 2023 we’ll see their 1976 album 2nd Resurrection re-issued on black vinyl. Billy Preston played synthesizer and served as co-producer alongside Robert Margouleff.

Dark Horse will also have a 20th Anniversary edition of the Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros album Streetcore as a limited edition pressing on white vinyl for RSD:

Wild Life Gets 50th Anniversary Half Speed Master

50 years ago, on December 7, Wings released their debut album Wild Life – recorded over an eight-day period at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Now it joins McCartney and RAM in getting the Limited Edition, 50th Anniversary Half Speed Master treatment:

Paul and Linda McCartney, Denny Seiwell and Denny Laine arrived at the studios on 25 July, 1971 to begin recording with engineers Tony Clark and Alan Parsons.

“They rehearsed for a while, sang some old songs, wrote some new ones and in time headed for the big city studios. In three days they had laid down most of the tracks and by the end of a couple of weeks the album was finished. In this wrapper is the music they made. Can you dig it?”, wrote Clint Harrigan for the original album’s back cover liner notes.

On PaulMcCartney.com Paul wrote: “Wild Life was about spontaneity: the opening track ‘Mumbo’ was recorded in one take. I’d read that Bob Dylan had just made a quick album and I really liked the idea, because we tended to take longer and longer to make records. The early albums by The Beatles hadn’t taken long and it seemed to me that Dylan was getting to that. I was a great admirer of his – and still am to this day – so I thought, well, if it’s good enough for him, let’s do it.”

The 50th anniversary edition of Wild Life is cut at half speed at Abbey Road using a high resolution transfer of the original 1971 master tapes. The Half Speed 50th will be released on February 4. It is available for pre-order now.

RAM Gets 50th Anniversary Half Speed Master

In March last year we got news that there was to be a 50th anniversary Half Speed Master edition of Paul McCartney’s first solo outing – which of course was simply called McCartney.

This year it’s the turn of RAM, Paul and Linda’s great LP from 1971.

The new RAM vinyl will be very limited (reportedly just 2000 copies for the UK) and it will only be available via independent stores and the usual McCartney/Universal channels.

The RAM Half Speed Master will be released on May 14, so if you want a copy you’d better get your skates on.