Tag Archives: Music

Paul McCartney Back with Capitol Records Again

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Paul McCartney has just announced that he’s signed a worldwide recording agreement with his old label, Capitol Records.

The deal encompasses McCartney’s entire body of post-Beatles work, from his 1970 McCartney album, through his decade with Wings, to the dozens of solo and collaborative works and is a welcome home to the label where he began his career.

“This is genuinely exciting for me,” McCartney said. “Not only was Capitol my first U.S. record label, but the first record I ever bought was Gene Vincent’s ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ on the Capitol label.”

McCartney is currently working on a new studio album, while a comprehensive plan for the artist’s catalogue is being conceived by Capitol and Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) – in conjunction with the artist and his management team – and will be implemented beginning July 2017**. The catalogue moves to Capitol/UMe from the Concord Music Group, Paul’s previous label partner.

Capitol Music Group (CMG) Chairman and CEO, Steve Barnett said “Paul McCartney’s association with Capitol has long defined so much of our historic legacy, and all of us here are extremely proud and honored that he has chosen to come back home. Paul’s indelible contributions to our culture are second to none, and his constant evolution as an artist and performer continues to inspire and enrich the lives of countless millions of people. We are overjoyed that Paul will be creating new music for years to come, and that Capitol will be helping to present it to the world.”

Paul McCartney High in the cloud recording session

** Just what this means will be interesting for collectors and fans. We’re in the middle of a huge McCartney Archive re-issue program in conjunction with Concord Records. So, what happens to that is one question that comes immediately to mind. Hopefully we’re not looking at starting over with an entirely new back-catalogue release program…..

Splinter – The Place I Love

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One of our favourite places in Sydney to crate dig is Revolve Records and Relics, and it has come up with another Beatle-related treasure for the collection.

Splinter was one of the first bands signed to George Harrison’s Dark Horse record label in 1974, and The Place I Love was their debut album:Splinter coverSplinter rear coverThey were a two-man band hailing from the town of South Shields in England. Bill Elliott and Bob Purvis wrote all their own material, were produced by George Harrison, and were joined on this album by Harrison (on guitar, mandolin, bass, harmonium and percussion and using the pseudonyms Hari Georgeson, P. Roducer and Jai Raj Harisein), as well as the likes of Klaus Voormann (bass), Billy Preston (organ), Jim Keltner (drums) and Gary Wright (piano).

The album was recorded at Harrison’s Friar Park home studio.

This is an Australian pressing. The cover is a gatefold, graced with a sepia-toned historic street scene of The London Hotel, taken in the late 1800’s in Splinter’s home town of South Shields.  Splinter gatefold

Here’s the LP’s ever-stylish Dark Horse label:Splinter label

There’s also a single sheet insert with the song lyrics printed on each side:

Splinter insert

And an inner bag made of heavy paper and stamped with the Dark Horse logo to hold the record:Splinter inner

Splinter’s Bill Elliot has another strong Beatle connection. John Lennon had earlier invited him to perform the song ‘God Save Us‘ with The Elastic Oz Band. Released as a 7″ single on Apple Records in the US in 1971. This was a protest song in support of the underground publication Oz magazine, then embroiled in the famous Oz obscenity court case.God Save Us

 

Here Comes the Sun – Instrumental Cover Version

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We don’t usually post Beatle cover version videos. But this one, from a guy named Cody Senn, is great – and well worth making an exception. Let us know what you think:

 

A Beatle Music Book – and a McCartney CD

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Went browsing at an opportunity shop (or “thrift store” if you are in the USA) and found two items of interest.

The first is a sheet music collection of great Beatle tunes called The Beatles Rock Score:Beatles Rock1_0001

There are some good photos inside on the lead-in pages:

Beatles Rock1_0002As you can see from the images above, the book contains the music for twelve songs, scored for small groups:Beatles Rock1_0003

The book is part of a series, with other titles covering The Rolling Stones, The Doors, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Sting and U2 to name just a few. These are listed on the rear cover:Beatles Rock1The other find is of only mild interest, but at only $2.00 who could resist?

It’s Paul McCartney’s 1987 release All The Best!, only this time the CD was manufactured in a country that now no longer exists – West Germany:All the Best1 All the Best2 2

A closer look at the small print:All the Best2

We already have this CD as an Australian release, and also a US version. That’s because in each country these CDs have different running orders and song selections. See here for the background on that.

Ringo LP’s – Times Two

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Friday Music and Sony have just re-issued a special, limited edition, green translucent vinyl pressing of the 1992 Ringo Starr release, Time Takes Time:Time Takes Time

This edition comes in a gatefold sleeve. (And BTW for the absolute completists out there, there’s also a red vinyl pressing exclusive to the Collectors’ Choice Vinyl store!)

We also took the opportunity to grab a copy of his most recent release on vinyl as well. Postcards From Paradise was released last year. We already had it on CD…..but it’s nice to now have it in the collection on LP too:

Postcards from Paradise

George Harrison – The Stories Behind the Albums

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We just had an email from Universal Music alerting us that the George Harrison page on their site has some new content.

Every week, music writer Richard Havers will review each of the fourteen Harrison solo albums and tell the stories behind them. Each review will contain audio streams of the album (Spotify and Deezer), quotes, insights and soundbites.

So far they have up there: Wonderwall Music; Electronic Sound; All Things Must Pass; The Concert for Bangladesh; and Living in the Material World.

1WonderwallMusic

2ElectronicSound3AllThingsMustPass3ConcertForBangladesh5LivingInAMaterialWorldGeorge-Harrison-150x150

More on The Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl

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Apple and Universal Music have now officially announced details of the expanded and newly remixed version of The Beatles’ 1977 live album At The Hollywood Bowl.

The new release will be known as The Beatles: Live At The Hollywood Bowl, and it is directly sourced from the original three track tapes of the concerts. Producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell have remixed and mastered the recordings at Abbey Road Studios. The album will include the thirteen tracks from the original album produced by George Martin, plus four bonus tracks – 3 of which are previously unreleased recordings from the concerts. Those tracks are: ‘You Can’t Do That’ and ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ (both from 23 August, 1964) and ‘Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby’ and ‘Baby’s in Black’ (both from 30 August, 1965).

Giles Martin gave this background:

“A few years ago Capitol Studios called saying they’d discovered some Hollywood Bowl three track tapes in their archive. We transferred them and noticed an improvement over the tapes we’ve kept in the London archive. Alongside this I’d been working for some time with a team headed by technical engineer James Clarke on demix technology, the ability to remove and separate sounds from a single track.

With Sam Okell, I started work on remixing the Hollywood Bowl tapes. Technology has moved on since my father worked on the material all those years ago. Now there’s improved clarity, and so the immediacy and visceral excitement can be heard like never before. What we hear now is the raw energy of four lads playing together to a crowd that loved them. This is the closest you can get to being at the Hollywood Bowl at the height of Beatlemania. We hope you enjoy the show…”

Live at the Hollywood Bowl will include a 24-page booklet with an essay by music journalist David Fricke, and will be issued on CD on 9 September and as a gatefold double vinyl LP on 18 November 2016.LATHB-EMAIL-BANNER

Read more at Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines.

Beatles “Live at the Hollywood Bowl” to be Re-issued

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Looks like the Beatles At the Hollywood Bowl is to be re-issued as part of the release program surrounding the new Ron Howard film Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years, due out in September.At_the_hollywood_bowl

One change from the original is the title. It becomes Live at the Hollywood Bowl, and rumour has it that there will be four additional tracks included, though it’s not clear exactly what these will be. Two of the songs will most likely be ‘Baby’s in Black’, which has previously been issued as the b-side of the 1996 ‘Real Love’ single, and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, part of which appears in Love, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles stage production and which appears on the 2006 Love album.

The US Amazon site has the CD only (so far) listed for pre-order, saying the release date is September 9. No images of the packaging are available yet. This will be the first time this album has been officially issued on CD.

UPDATE: Amazon have now added an image. If this is the actual item it is disappointing. While this artwork works as a movie poster, it’s not a classic Beatle album cover by any means.Live at the Hollywood Bowl

They’ve also added info about a vinyl release too. It’s due on November 18.

Looking at the cover it seems to indicate that a Hollywood Bowl reissue may be the only release that will be associated with the new film, which is also disappointing if that’s the case. We await further news.

Making of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ Video (Love version)

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With the 10th anniversary of The Beatles/Cirque du Soleil Love album and stage show coming up on July 14, the official Beatle YouTube site has uploaded a “making of” style video for the George Harrison song ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.

It includes a tribute to the late George Martin and information on how elements of the Las Vegas show are being tweaked and updated with fantastic new graphical elements for 2016:

The official Beatles site also has the song in full – complete with the fancy new graphics – all part of the 10th anniversary revamp:

Pure McCartney TV Ad

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Featuring a range of vintage and sometimes strange play-back formats – check out the cool robot-inspired 8-Track Cartridge player. It all ends with a current and very nice British-made turntable, a white Rega Planar RP1.