JOHN LENNON RECORDING SESSIONS 1971

I still love John Lennon and the Beatles. Call me an unrepentant hippie, call me a geezer and a baby boomer (though I'm on the young side of that bulge), call me a damn peace freak and a lefty liberal (and proud of it) call me anything you want, but I'm still a fan of the Fab Four. Not that you asked, but my favorite Beatle was always John. When I discovered this film of him recording the "Imagine" album I flipped.

"Imagine" was the first--and only--number one pop song to ask people to imagine a world without religion and countries and possessions. "Nothing to kill or die for, above us only sky." In spite of the beautiful melody, Lennon remained the rabble rouser. No wonder Richard Nixon and his coven of Republican warmongers tried to have him deported. (Check out the documentary, The U.S. vs. John Lennon). If some deranged nut hadn't killed him, I'm sure John would still be fighting for peace and justice, and not like some dull peacenik but with all the wise-cracking wit and talent at his command--and he'd still be making great music. Imagine a world without hand guns. It's easy if you try.


"Gimme Some Truth" by John Lennon

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

Lennon didn't pull any punches. He didn't candy-coat his message. From the moment he first stepped into the Ed Sullivan studio, through the touring Beatle years and the studio Beatle years, through the solo albums, and the times he was hounded by the FBI for being an anti-war protester, to the moment he was killed outside the Dakota Hotel, John Lennon represented truth. Raw, un-processed, un-auto-tuned truth. People might want to strip him of his crankiness, his lefty politics, his fierce honesty, and make him into a simple hitmaker, but that's missing the point.



"Isolation" by John Lennon

HAPPY B-DAY--BEATLES REMASTERS RELEASED

Today is 9/9/9, and the Beatles Remasters are finally available to the music listening public. What's the big deal? Are they any different from the albums we already have? Are these remasters better than those mixed by Dr. Ebbetts or Purple Chick, superior versions that have been passed around by collectors for years?


Jem Aswad writes on MTV online:"The recordings have been meticulously reprocessed with technology I couldn't hope to explain (involving '24 bit 192 kHz resolution via a Prism A-D converter'), but the remastering team has been just as meticulous in retaining the original mixes and feel of the recordings. Thus, the closest analogy here is a restored painting: The songs are the same — they even retain mixes that, in the strange logic of the early days of stereo, can have all the vocals and the bass in one speaker and all the other instruments and no vocals in the other — but it's as if a cloak has been lifted from them, bringing forth sounds and details that were obscured on earlier releases. You can hear breaths being taken before verses are sung, previously muffled instruments (usually percussion or keyboard parts), mumbled asides in the backing vocals, enthusiastic shouts in the background (usually from Paul McCartney), and even subtleties like the group seeming to fight off laughter as they sing the final 'Mee-ee-ooooo' of 'Help!'"

"Songs that once seemed to make up the numbers step into the spotlight in bold new colours, or, rather, the old colours revealed anew," says the London Times. "On Revolver, the dissonant tug of Paul McCartney’s piano on George Harrison’s I Want To Tell You sounds discombobulatingly urgent, while on the 1964 A Hard Day’s Night album Any Time At All swings zestfully between the canine eagerness of John Lennon’s vocal and a guitar part from Harrison that fleetingly foretells the jingle-jangle mourning of the forthcoming folk-rock boom."

"No less startlingly," says the Times, "songs long since dulled by ubiquity suddenly burst into life again. Yesterday in particular is a revelation. Free of the reverb that blights the 1987 CD version, McCartney’s voice radiates a damp, autumnal proximity that foregrounds the brittle bitterness of loss. No less affecting is Penny Lane, a song in which McCartney pauses the videotape of memory on a moment to which he knows he can never return, now revealed in more tantalising detail than ever."



Here's the complete story from the Times Online, including some wonderful A/B samples comparing the remasters with the original 1980s CD mixes. Times Online.

MOJO has posted their Beatles coverage online here.

SINGING TOGETHER

"You've Lost That Loving Feeling," by the Righteous Brothers.

Great vocals are all about feeling. Sure, you can get Mariah Carey to hit six octaves or hire the Three Tenors to sing the Manhattan phonebook and it would all be technically perfect--and about as dull as dishwater. Good vocals are about feeling, and the spaces in between, and the surprising harmony that somehow lifts it all off the ground. The sand in the Vaseline is what makes it interesting. The great pop song makes you tap your feet, or stop and listen, or crank up the radio as you drive the great American highway.

"I Get Around" by the Beach Boys

The Beach Boys were an harmonic convergence of California sun, surf, girls, and souped-up hot rods. Their soaring vocals were instantly recognizable as the sound of summer. At the creative helm was Brian Wilson, who directed this juggernaut into teenage symphonies, but you can't beat these early transistor radio tunes. This sounds like summer.

"Cloud Nine" by the Temptations

Out of Motor City, The Temptations were one of the most successful soul acts, a tough little outfit with vocal harmonies that reached a gritty perfection. The Temps were cool. The sound of these soul survivors was tough and real back in the day, and folks may snicker at their outfits and dance steps because all style gets old eventually, but their vocals remain timeless. On top of that, they didn't just sing silly love songs. They could "tell it like it is."


"Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down" by the Beatles

The Beatles...of course. With two of the greatest rock vocalists ever, Lennon and McCartney, not to mention unrivaled songwriting teams, The Beatles could do it all. They wrote their songs, and could play just about anything, but their vocals were a huge part of their success. Here they are, late in the game, after the screams of Beatlemania had died down playing on the Apple rooftop in London.



"Pancho and Lefty" by Willie Nelson & Bob Dylan

As if to prove my point, here are too technically imperfect voices--Willie's is thin and high and lonesome, and Dylan's is gravelly--that come together in a wonderful duet on an old Townes Van Zandt song. They make it their own, and you believe them. Sure, Mariah could sing this tune and toss in all that glissando but it would be like eating a cake made entirely of frosting. This is a plate of ribs, crispy and burnt on the ends, slathered with picante sauce that leaves you gasping for beer. This performance fits a story of outlaws and bandits beautifully.

ABBEY ROAD ANNIVERSARY

Fans of the Beatles are descending upon Abbey Road to mark the forty year anniversary of this photograph. The iconic photo was taken in August of 1969, and became one of the most famous album covers in history and graced their last recorded work, "Abbey Road," which gave us such enduring classics as "Something," "Come Together," "Here Comes the Sun," "Oh! Darling," and that brilliant medley at the end of side two. (For those who don't know: unlike a compact disc, a long playing record had two sides)


The Beatles on Abbey Road

Here are some other shots from the photo session:

NEW BEATLES SONG

Call me an old geezer, but something new from the Beatles is a cause for celebration, innit? The new song, Now and Then, will delight Beatle people, but mystery shrouds the project like potsmoke on St. Mark's Place. Some call it a hoax.

Not so, says Paul McCartney, and he is anxious to release it.


According to MOG, "It was rumored that when Yoko gave Paul the demos of "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" that were polished up later by Paul, George and Ringo for The Beatles Anthology sets in the mid-90's, she also gave Paul a third demo."

That demo was a Lennon composition called "Now and Then." After some work by the remaining bandmembers, here is the polished result.

What do you think? Is it real, or something to get hung about? Have a spot of tea and give it a listen:



Paul also wanted to release the unheard ‘Carnival of Light’, a 14-minute composition, but Harrison was against the plans.

I MET THE WALRUS

In 1969, 14-year-old Beatles fanatic Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite created an animated film using the original recording as the soundtrack. "I Met the Walrus" was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short.

THE BEATLES REUNION & REMASTERS

The closest we'll ever get to a Beatles reunion happened last Saturday night, when Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr rocked the house at David Lynch's "Change Begins Within" concert at Radio City Music Hall. These clips from a fan's video camera capture some of the magic. Sorry we missed that show!


On top of this "Beatles reunion," there is good news about the original recordings. Apple Corps and EMI announced they will be reissuing the Beatles' albums with improved sound. Fans have always complained that the original 1987 CD releases could be vastly improved. While waiting for an official re-release, pirate producers such as "Dr. Ebbetts" and "Purple Chick" released remarkable jobs of their own. We only hope the remasters are as good as these outlaw versions circulating among collectors.


The New York Times reports:

"After watching the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps, devote the last few years to developing a site-specific show in Las Vegas, a video game and a line of pricey memorabilia, Beatles fans are finally getting something they’ve been demanding for at least the last decade: sonically upgraded reissues of the group’s original British albums, in stereo and mono. Apple Corps and EMI announced on Tuesday that the much-postponed remasters would be released on individual stereo CDs and in two boxed sets — one stereo, the other mono — on Sept. 9, the same day the Beatles edition of Rock Band, the music video game, is scheduled for release."



From Rolling Stone:

"On September 9, 2009, after a nearly 22-year wait, digitally remastered versions of all of the Beatles studio albums will be released, a press release has confirmed. Each album will feature the track listings and artwork as it was originally released in the U.K. and come with expanded booklets including original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited time, each of the Fab Four’s 12 proper albums will be “embedded” with a brief documentary about its making. The re-releases will include the Beatles’ 12 studio albums and Magical Mystery Tour as well as Past Masters Vol. I and II, which will be packaged as one collection. All 14 discs will be available with DVDs of the documentaries in a stereo box set, and a set titled The Beatles in Mono featuring 10 discs will also be released."


And now...Part 2 of Paul and Ringo's show last Saturday night...



Read the rest of the NYT story here.

IT WAS 45 YEARS AGO TODAY

Today marks 45 years since the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. The Fab Four appeared three consecutive Sundays in February of 1964. According to Beatles News, this first performance was "considered a milestone in American pop culture and the beginning of the British Invasion in music. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for an American television program."

Back in those days, there weren't so many channels--and Sunday night in America virtually EVERYONE watched the Ed Sullivan Show, where pop singers vied for your attention with plate spinners and borscht belt comics. The impact of these four longhaired kids from England cannot be overstated, especially to young people who "got it" immediately. Parents were puzzled. "They look like girls," they said. "Every song sounds the same," said others. "Turn that racket off!"

They were wrong, of course. The Beatles were the vanguard of a revolution in pop culture that would change the world. Their music, their hair, their joyous exuberance and wisecracking humor influenced everything and there was no turning back.


Here comes the British Invasion!

"Tell Me Why" by the Beatles. Just click button to listen:

THE PARADIGM SHIFT

Let the new day begin. The inauguration gives me hope, especially after the dark years of the Bush administration. Maybe I'm naive but it seems like a paradigm shift is in the works. Here are images (albeit tampered with slightly) from another pivotal year, 1967. Nicknamed "The Summer of Love," at least by the square press, society experienced a sea change that season.

One brilliant record concentrated the energies in living color, and that was the Beatles' "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band." The album was released in June, just in time to kick-start the famous summer. Throughout the summer it played everywhere, drifting out of open windows like the burnt odor of grass. It was strange and trippy, but made perfect sense. There were other great psychedelic records that year--Surrealistic Pillow, and The Doors' first album spring to mind, but Pepper took the cake. Bach trumpets and harpsichords and sitars exploded in a riot of flowers. It was pop, it was rock, it was baroque, it was avant garde. Everyone loved it. The Beatles had elevated their game to the level of art, and everyone followed their iridescent snail trail.

It's not my favorite Beatle album--that would be "Revolver" or "Rubber Soul," or even "The White Album," but Pepper is a fantastic time capsule. Some of it may seem dated, but you can't deny it's power. Pepper was highly influential, and not just on pop music; it influenced the entire culture. The following documentary examines the album closely--perhaps as closely as you did after smoking that Nepalese temple hash. It's worth a look.

"The Making of Sgt. Pepper:"

LET IT BE

I read the news today, oh boy. Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have stopped the release of the Beatles film 'Let It Be'.

The 1970 documentary reveals tensions between the Fab Four - Paul, Ringo and the late John Lennon and George Harrison - shortly before their break-up, and insiders at the band's record company, Apple, claim the two surviving members do not want it re-released.

(Sorry...the "Let it Be" film has been removed) For educational purposes only, we present the film in it's entirety. As unrepentant Beatles fans who bought every album and movie, and happily forked out dough for the "Love" show in Las Vegas, we think you should see this--with all due respect to Paul and Ringo, it's part of the story. They should release the film.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RINGO!

On the special occasion of Ringo Starr's 68th birthday, we're screening the movie "Help!"

Ringo is in trouble again, this time being chased by a cabal of Indian mystics who are after his ring. Hilarity ensues as Ringo vows to liberate all sentient beings from samsara and deliver them into Nirvana. The Beatlesattva does not seek bodhi (Awakening) solely for himself, but chiefly for the sake of freeing all other beings and aiding them into bliss. East meets West in this zany romp, with catchy tunes from Ringo's old pop combo, The Fabs. There are many paths to enlightenment, grasshopper. Seriousness isn't one of them.

This week, Ringo celebrated his 68th (!) birthday with a "peace & love" street party in Chicago. The old geezer still has his priorities straight. People came from all over for tea and cake. Happy Birthday, Ringo!

BEATLES DANGEROUS, SAYS GRINCH

After the Beatles show-- A civic leader speaks his mind

SOMETHING SPECIAL

SHEA STADIUM, 1965. The Beatles flew into New York City on August 13th, 1965 to begin a tour of the United States. On August 14th they rehearsed and recorded a live tape at CBS studios to be shown on the Ed Sullivan Show later that evening. Throughout the city, the excitement was palpable. The Beatles were in town! The following day, August 15th, they officially opened the US tour with a concert at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets.

This was an amazing show. The boys were in top form. The fans screamed and fainted and were carried away by New York's Finest. This was the first time in the history of pop music that a stadium was used for a rock concert! 55,600 adoring fans witnessed rock history. The take at the box office was a record $304,000 -- of which the Beatles took a whopping $160, 000!


Happy Birthday, Bekki!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Two songs for Father's Day from across the generations: First up, Frank Sinatra sings "New York, New York." To my father's generation, Frank Sinatra was the kid who fought his way out of the slums, who became "The Voice." who did it his way, and with style. He meant a lot to folks my father's age. Since my Dad is an Italian-American from Brooklyn, New York, he means even more.


Pete Hamill, a writer who hung out with Frank in saloons and casinos, explains: "He wasn't simply an entertainer...Through a combination of artistic originality, great passion, and immense will, he transcended several eras and indirectly helped change the way all of us lived. He was formed by an America that is long gone: the country of the European immigrants and the virulent America-for-Americans nativism that was directed at them; the country in which a mindless Puritanism, allied with that scapegoating nativism, imposed Prohibition upon the land and helped create the Mob; a country undergoing a vast transformation from a fundamentally rural society to one dominated by cities; a country that passed through Depression and war into the uncertain realities of peace. They were extraordinary times, and in his own way, driven by his own confusions, neuroses, angers, and ambitions, Frank Sinatra helped push the country forward."

Maybe the Frank Generation didn't know what to make of the next generation -- the Beatles Generation, the Dylan Generation. The world had changed drastically, the rules had shifted, and fathers looked at their sons across a great chasm. Maybe they always have, since time began. Maybe the Beatles Generation doesn't know what to make of the Radiohead Generation, or the Arctic Monkeys Generation, and so on. Anyway, here is a song about that gap, Cat Stevens singing "Father and Son."

DAVID RIESMAN ON BEATLEMANIA

David Riesman (1909-2002) Sociologist and Educator

If you've read any sociology at all, you've probably read David Riesman. In his important book The Lonely Crowd, he wrote of 'inner-directed' and 'other-directed' personalities. Riesman made a case that the character of post WWII American society pushed individuals to "other-directedness", the classic example being modern suburbia "where individuals seek their neighbors approval and fear being outcast from their community." Conformity was key, and the individual was being homogenized.


The Beatles in Germany, 1966

As a non-conformist of sorts, I always liked Riesman. Still, I think the good doctor missed the boat on Beatlemania. Riesman himself would admit he's the product of his own cultural time and place, his own social conditioning, his zeitgeist. In this 1964 interview he took the Fab Four for a passing fad. Of course, at the time of the interview the Beatles were a recent phenomenon, and we can't expect Riesman to enjoy our 20-20 hindsight. Still, it makes a fascinating read.

"Compared to the Elvis Presley craze, it is a very minor one. Presley created a definitely 'antiparent' outlook. His music—and he, himself—appeared somewhat insolent, slightly hoodlum."

Read the entire 1964 interview in the US News and World Report by clicking HERE.

HEAVY CREAM

Cream stormed the reality studios with heavy blues and psychedelic rock, killer guitar playing and a crack rhythm section. Jack Bruce played bass and sang, Ginger Baker pounded the skins, and of course Eric Clapton did his best on Fender Stratocaster. He also sang. This is well before Clapton looked like a respectable accountant, back when an Afghan vest and a paisley shirt were practically de rigueur. (Don't worry, youngsters, the styles of today will also look weird after a few years). The year is 1968. Clapton has been recording with the Beatles , who were putting together the White Album. That lead guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is Clapton. This is "Crossroads," by Robert Johnson.

One of only two surviving photographs of the great Robert Johnson.

DRINK UP, HONEY!

Remember these guys? A while back, we did a story about a scientific study of Beatles memories (to reread it, click here). Here is a chance to participate in the study, to add your own Beatle memories -- and read the memories of others. It's kind of cool.
http://www.magicalmemorytour.com/

BEATLES FIXER STAYS MUM

Neil Aspinall, who was everything from road manager to Mr. Fix-it to the Beatles (and is shown here with McCartney and Lennon) died yesterday at 66. These past forty years, when it seems everyone connected to the Beatles has written a bestselling tell-all autobiography, Neil, who had been a childhood friend of Paul and George, and was with the Fab Four from the early days to the end of Apple Corps, kept mum. As always, Neil remains the perfect gentlemen.

Read the article in the Guardian here.

SPRINGTIME IS HERE!

Springtime is here, and we celebrate with Botticelli and The Beatles.
Botticelli gives us "Primavera" (Spring), and George Harrison sings "Here Comes the Sun" at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Since this benefit, one of the earliest concerts of it's kind, we've managed to eradicate war and famine.*


*That's not true, but don't you wish we could say that?

RUTLEMANIA

A Rutles reunion? Amazing but true! It's hard to convey the thrill of the first Rutles performance on the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964. They tore the roof off the place. If you were a kid in that era, you know what I mean. Now, it's very possible these four lovable moptops are getting back together again. You heard it here first.


Click here for an interview with Eric Idle.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20184381,00.html