Great Lost Beatles Album?

I'm not going to make anyone read all this under the illusion that one has been discovered. So straight up, no, I don't know of one. But I do wish there was a lost unreleased album.

Over the years there have been rumours. Hot As Sun was one such album, apparently recorded somewhere between Let It Be and Abbey Road. The master tapes were stolen and held to ransom, before being accidentally erased when carried through an airport X-ray machine

It is, of course, too good to be true. But bootleggers have created editions of this "lost album" using rehearsal tapes, mostly from the Get Back sessions.

Over the years I have been thrilled to discover unreleased tracks. Back in the 90s it was That Means a Lot, If You’ve Got Troubles and 12 Bar Original. And, over time, there have been a few others. It was wonderful hearing "new" Beatles songs. Of course there is a reason they weren't released at the time, and they generally don't get played too often. 

There are tracks we know are still in the vaults. At this time they are nothing more than titles. And, for the most part, I imagine they are not tracks we would play too often. But as fans and collectors, we would still love to hear them.

Unlike Neil Young or Prince, for example, I don't for one minute believe the Beatles have an unreleased album hidden away. Their time throughout the 60s is very well documented, and it's unlikely they would have had time to record a missing album. I think the best we can hope for a track or two hidden away which perhaps even they had forgotten about but might pop up on an acetate somewhere.

No, there isn't a lost album. But I can still dream.

Get Back To 1969.

For the last week or so, while working, I've been listening to the Beatles' 1969 Get Back rehearsals.

They were potentially planning a live show, their first in almost 3 years, and so on a cold January morning they arrived at a soundstage at Twickenham film studios with a crew recording the rehearsals for a TV special.

It was cold, the soundstage was cavernous, and their relationship was fraying - for a number of reasons. But they made music, playing old rock 'n' roll standards and learning new songs. After a week or so, George had had enough and quit. The others continued for a day or so before deciding they weren't working as a trio and so they packed up and left.

A week later they had convinced George to return, with the proviso there wouldn't be a concert and they would move to a friendlier studio space. And so, with an 8-track recorder borrowed from EMI, they moved the rehearsals to the basement of their offices at Apple Records, a studio which was being built but was not yet complete. They continued rehearsing for the rest of the month until the climbed the stairs to the roof where they played live for 42 minutes across the rooftops of London. Their last ever live performance.

The film crew captured more than 100 hours of footage, which formed the basis of the Let It Be movie. The sound crew for the film used portable Nagra recorders to tape the audio, all on 16 minutes tapes. 

The 8-track recordings from these rehearsals became the accompanying album.

More than 20 years ago, bootleggers managed to get hold of around 550 of these Nagra tapes, and started releasing the complete rehearsals. They managed around 60% of the rehearsals before they were busted, and all the tapes were returned to Apple. But they made backups, and the backups were then released on the internet for fans.

What this means ifs that I have around 97 hours of audio from these sessions. It has been a long-time ambition to listen to them all chronologically. And now I am living the dream.

It's not for the faint-hearted. There's lots of dialogue and discussion (fascinating if you are a Beatles scholar), sloppy attempts at half-remembered songs, take after take after take of new songs as they learn them. Even I get a little bored after an hour of Maxwell's Silver Hammer with accompanying anvil strikes and whistling intro.

I listen to a couple a day while I'm working, and I'm currently about 17% of the way through.

Yes, they can be tedious, they can be sloppy, they can be flat due to disinterest from a disintegrating band. But when they're on the same page, and focused, they can be absolute magic.

And those are the moments I love.

And In The End, The Love You Take Is Equal To The Love You Make.

I've been listening to The Beatles a lot recently.

Anyone who knows me well may not think this is particularly surprising. I collect Beatles music, books, newspaper cuttings. I've read hundreds of books on them (yes, hundreds) and I'm even acknowledged in one for my comments and critiquing. But for the past few years I've listened to them in much the same way a casual fan would listen to their albums.

I used to listen more like a scholar, (OK, some would say obsessive freak), comparing this mix with that mix, this take with that take, even this pressing with that pressing. I'd listen to hours and hours of Get Back rehearsals, listen to them as they created and constructed their songs. As they chatted about the weather, the news, even what's for lunch. I loved nothing more than finding a fragment of conversation or (oh my goodness) a song I'd never heard before. But with the advent of the internet, I think it all became too easily available and I no longer had to hunt for things. Perhaps too I had access to too much and I became blase about what there was.

But a break is as good as a holiday, they say, and I'm back into it, deep into 1969 rehearsals and listening to perhaps the greatest band the world will ever know as they implode and self destruct.

It makes me sad.

I watched the rooftop session last night. The last live performance they ever gave. It was a cold January morning and they shuffled up onto the roof of the Apple building to run through some songs. And for a few precious moments, you can see them happy, lost in the songs, actually enjoying making music together. Which is unbelievable considering the misery the rest of those three weeks were for them.

And then with a couple of police officers telling them to pull the plug, the dream was over.

None of them could be bothered even touching those rehearsal tapes. They were given to Phil Spector who cobbled the Let It Be album together. Sure, they went back into the studio six months later and recorded Abbey Road, a swansong, but it was never going to be the same again.

Yoko wasn't at fault for the breakup. She was a symptom. As was Linda, Ringo's film-making and George's exploration of all things Indian and spiritual.

If only. If only John and Paul had agreed to sit down and work things out. If only the others had been keen to continue. If only The Beatles were still The Beatles.

Watching them on the rooftop, grinning, flubbing lines, living in the moment is exciting. But it's also sad.

Only a few months after Woodstock, the sixties were over, The Beatles on the rooftop and The Rolling Stones at Altamont had killed the dream.

Write. Read. Make art. Create music. Live the dream. Don't regret. The time is now.

It Was 40 Years Ago Yesterday...

To say The Beatles broke up because of Yoko Ono is a little simplistic.

From all I've seen and read egos seem to be to blame.  Paul became leader because Brian had gone, and the others resented that. John didn't want Paul to be leader - but couldn't work up the effort to actually do anything himself. George was tired of being treated like the kid brother. Ringo, of course, was Ringo.  If The Beatles had stayed together, he'd have still been there drumming.

And Yoko was there, gazing up at rebellious John.

But as a relative of mine recently said to me, they should have just worked through it and continued making music.  The sum was always greater than the parts. He then echoed Larry Norman, who sang:

The Beatles said, "All You Need is Love"
and then they broke up.

Who knows where their music would have headed if they'd stayed together.

We'd certainly have had the best songs from their respective solo albums (plus ones we don't know, as their lives would have led different paths and the experiences would have changed.) Of course, there's always the chance they would have been terrible. (Think later Rolling Stones).

As the character said at the end of Fanboys, as he's about to see The Phantom Menace after a 15 year wait, "What if it's crap?"

But at least John and Paul were always each other's filters.  And John would have told Paul that Bip Bop was just plain silly, while Paul would have toned down some of John's more scathing attacks. (As well as (hopefully)  preventing Yoko from appearing with her own songs. We're all Water????  Ugh!)

But what's done is done, and the past cannot be changed.

At least we still have Please Please Me to Let It Be, and all the stuff making the rounds for collectors.

But somewhere, in another universe, Paul, John, George and Ringo are getting on stage to belt out some old and new tunes.

And I wish I was there.

The Angry One.

As you may recall, I was lucky enough to find myself inside Abbey Road studios a couple of years ago. When I first entered the holy place and was waiting at the reception counter, I stood next to some guy who was opening a stack of envelopes and checking the mail. What made this ultra cool, though, was the letters were all addressed to Sir George Martin. To me it was a moment of surrealism, a moment when I felt connected personally to the Fabs. I mean, here I was standing next to the guy who opened mail for the guy who produced The Beatles.

With my wife and our host, I toured all three studios guided by the studio manager. She was able to share lots about the studios, both technically and historically, but I more than held my own when it came to geekdom and useless trivia.  At one point she pointed to some pictures on the wall, and identified the artists. The Goons, Cilla Black, Sir Malcolm Sargent. (All of which I knew.) There was, however, one group that she didn't know.  I was able to identify them, though.  At another point she told me she wasn't sure whether The Beatles had ever used Studio 3. I was able to state which songs were recorded there, and then had a similar conversation in Studio 1.

Yeah, I know I'm sad.  But I'm a Beatles nerd.

There is very little in the way of storage available at the studios, so the hallways are lined with instruments. As we passed a couple of pianos and an organ, the manager just tapped them and said "Lady Madonna, Billy Preston, A Day in the Life.  Would you like to play any of these?"

I don't think I drooled though I may have gasped audibly.  I did, however, have enough presence of mind to grab the opportunity to play a couple of chords on the Lady Madonna piano.  And it had that sound. You could instantly recognise the tones.

As we were leaving, I asked my wife what the date was. She replied it was the 4th of January. "Wow", I said. "Thirty-seven years ago today the Beatles had their last ever session here. George played the guitar overdubs to Let It Be." At this point our host said, "You need to get a life!  Ride a bike, or something." And grinned. I guess he was kind of impressed, in the same way people are 'kind of' impressed by road accidents.

Let It Be was released in two versions. The single with the softer guitar solo, and the album track with the overdubbed 'angry' solo.  I believe there were plans at one stage to release the song with the two solos on different channels, but it never eventuated.

But last week, as I started teaching myself the 'angry' solo, I recalled the afternoon I spent in the studio. A bunch of kids at school, the keyboard ensemble,  have chosen to play Let It Be at a concert. And their music teacher has asked me to accompany them on stage. It didn't take long to figure out - but I want to nail the thing so I get it right on the night.

OK, it's not Woodstock, but it's a gig.  And I know I'll have fun.  I only hope I do credit to George Harrison.