The Ultimate Beatles Anthology (Part One of Three)

The “Overview” section of this course which I began to publish this summer (the draft is completed and runs 150-200 pages; the first half dozen pages are published) describes in a highly condensed manner the major events that feed into one month, January 1969, in the career of the Beatles. The events are strung together like beads traveling through time along diverse cultural threads. Eventually, these threads came together forming the backdrop tapestry of the world stage upon which the Beatles forever changed popular music and culture. The main body of the Overview describes my personal “I was there” take on the 1960's (and contrary to urban legend, I do remember every shimmering, and not so shimmering moment)”. It highlights the pivotal role that the Beatles played in the years of continuous socio-political upheaval. The main purpose of the Overview is to frame both the state of the world and the state of the Beatles as they stepped into Twickenham on January 2nd, 1969 to launch their third revolution. We all know that what they planned is not what ended up happening a month later. The Overview includes many audio extracts of the sounds of the decade. It also includes a complete audio retrospective of the Beatles canon leading directly into and back out of the month that was Get Back to Let It Be. In this post, I am making the audio portions available until I get the rest of the Overview completed and published here. This audio material utilizes official and unofficial material (i.e. readily available material that and been floating around for decades). I have tried to be fastidiously accurate in sequencing the material so that you can get a sense of the day to day creative process as it unfolded in real time. Some amazng things jump out at you as you listen to these recordings in sequence. Each idea leads to another. For example, in 1965 George uses the volume pedal on "I Need You" to pleasing effect. However, on their very next recording, "Yes It Is", we find him using it again (presumably at John’s request), but to a much greater artistically satisfying effect, achieving the atmospherics of longing and of profound sorrow that form the basis of the song. I am admitedly taking a creative license in how I use the BBC material, moving things about the time line for artistic effect. I am also taking a fair amount of creative liberty in editing the unofficial parts of the canon. As usual I played around a lot to try and boost the listening experience – especially with the unofficial material. Friends with whom I have shared this so as to stimulate their comments and suggestions, have all urged me to share this on the website so that others can listen to this (sorry, no downloads for obvious reasons). This is something like what I would like to see Apple release in my lifetime: a true audio anthology digest spanning their whole career. So, here are the eighteen volumes (including more art work for the first nine) that comprose this "frame of reference"anthology. This will give you all something slightly new to listen for the few weeks this post is available, allowing me to dive back into the main event. Cheers. Volume One:1961 thru April 1963 "Lighting the Fuse" Length: 1:19:44 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume One takes you from the primitive but nevertheless appreciated Star Club recordings, the Hamburg recordings, thru the infamous Decca rejection audition, and into their EMI audition, the first two singles, and through all but the closing track on their debut LP "Please Please Me”. Included are BBC radio bits to to give you a sense of experiencing it all in sped up real time. They were on the launching pad, with ignition, and all systems were GO. BTW: The third track, Chuck Berry’s “Talkin’ About You”, is the same song that John is trying to start on January 10th (someone please correct me if this is a false memory) when George casually announces that he is leaving the group. Volume Two: April thru September 1963 "Lift off to UK Orbit" Length: 1:19:02 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Two takes you from the lift off of the final track on Please Please Me, through a dynamite third single, through the explosion of the fourth UK single which ignited Beatlemania, and into the With the Beatles LP sessions. The lucky rocket in which they rode was escaping the earthly bond of gravity, carrying them into the ionosphere and on their way to immortality. Even at this early point of their career, they were establishing a pattern of behavior that they would follow until the end. The Beatles would release a body of work and then linger, elusively, just beyond our intellectual and emotional grasp. Suddenly and without warning, as we were catching up with them, they would vanish from our sight, around the next bend in the time line, leaving us behind in the dust. At this stage, it was only their core fans in Liverpool who were being left behind, watching as their home boys, with an equal mixture of local pride and of heart breaking bitter sweetness, ascend the UK show business pyramid in far off London. They, and soon to be an entire generation of humanity, would continue to chase after them, drawing tantalizingly close, only to be eluded once again. This process of chasing the rabbit would continue through the rest of the decade until 1970, when they would vanish forever from the face of the earth, and live on in the collective consciousness of a generation, and of generations to come. “We will never forget them this morning as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.” Volume Three: September 1963 thru March 1964 "World Wide Orbit" Length: 1:19:13 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Three captures the Fab’s explosive leap from a national phenomenon to masters of the global stage, touching down onto two Euro stepping stones (Sweden,well represented on this disk, and Paris) on their way to America and to glory. This rapid transformation is quite evident when you listen to the early take of “Can’t Buy Me Love”, recorded in Paris immediately before Ed Sullivan, followed by the released version finished after Ed Sullivan. The key signature drops, and the playfulness of the earlier incarnation is cast aside as the high energy and drive now infusing their lives turbo charges their post America sound. The end of Volume Three and continuing into Volume Four is where the true seeds of their legacy, as we understand it today, were planted. Had they quit before recording the A Hard Day’s Night songbook, they still would have been remembered as this wonderful and unique British phenomenon from 1963. But they would not have changed the course of western popular culture. The A Hard Day’s Night body of work is their first Lennon McCartney songbook – they wrote all the compositions. The many wonderful oldies that they also recorded during these series of early 1964 sessions were delegated in the UK and Europe to EP’s, and in the US onto the bastardized compilation LP’s created by the silly twits at Capitol records. Examples include “The Beatles Second Album” (now there is an original title) and “Something New” (ditto). This “all original compositions” feat is one that they would not repeat until Rubber Soul, after which they would never record anything they did not write until Get Back to Let It Be. The explosive growth in their cultural scope was reflected in their post American exposure song writing, which was now reaching out into multiple musical genre's all at once. Inventive and melodically creative with fresh sounding arrangements; quirky folkish and soulful mash ups such as John’s If I Fell, his intensely driven rockers such as When I Get Home, and new even ballad standards such as Paul’s And I Love Her. Celebrated mainstream singers such the walk-on-water Ella Fitzgerald began covering their songs, extracting from them new shades of sound and nuances of meaning with their unique vocal approach and arrangements. On the A Hard Days Night LP, the Beatles first began to exhibit the trait that became their hallmark: creating new sounds that mankind had never heard before, that others would pick up and run with. George’s A Hard Day’s Night 12 string Rickenbacker sound literally became the sound that tweaked the fertile imagination of the then folk musician Roger McGuinn, who took the concept and sent it into orbit with The Byrds (it became their signature). George later returned the nod back to The Byrds unique sound on Rubber Soul with his If I Needed Someone. Volume Four: March thru August 1964 "Parodox: John's Gains the World as he Sinks into Hopelessness" Length: 1:18:32 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Four finishes the sessions for A Hard Days Night, followed by a series of BBC radio performances promoting the film and the accompanying songbook. Their manager, Brian Epstein, kept them beyond busy and on an extensive three-legged world tour for much of 1964. One of the stops in Australia is represented on this disk. It was the wildest scene that they had generated to date (soon to be totally eclipsed by the final North American leg of the tour). In between these legs, they were racing about Britain virtually 24/7 – or “eight days a week”. It is on this volume (and becoming more evident on Volume Five) that you witness John’s "Alexander the Great” life crisis. Like Alexander, having conquered the world and fulfilled his every dream as fully as one could fulfill them, there appeared to be nothing left on his horizon to strive for. He suddenly felt empty and rudderless – and in this vacuum his cracked and dangerously fractured subconscious began to eat away at his hard outer ego-shell and seep out thru the fissures and cracks. He began to slip into a deep depression (he later called this point in time "Eight Days a Week" time after the song from the period). His defense mechanism consisted of a threatening, confidently abusive self projection, so evident in all his previous compositions. This began to slowly morph into a growing depression that ate away the struts holding him together. This change in the composition of his surprisingly fragile and newly emerging psyche began to manifest itself in his new compositions. In between gigs where he performed in the limelight of uncontested triumph before wild SRO world crowds, the Beatles would return to the UK and to the EMI Abbey Road studio to work on their next LP. John was now writing on loss and of emotional insecurity (“Baby’s In Black”, “I’m a Loser”). In many respects he was approaching an emotional and spiritual dead end, and he did not yet see the magic escape door he was soon to pass thru. At the end of Volume Four and onto Volume Five, George’s latest guitar work played a BIG part in founding another future school of popular music: Country Rock, which really blossomed four years later in America. Volume Five: August thru October 1964 John lurches from "No Exit", thru the dead end of "Eight Arms to Hold You" and to his self named spiritual low point: "Eight Days a Week" Length: 1:18:59 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Six: October 1964 thru April 1965 From "A New Hope: John Fires the Opening Shot of the Psychedelic Revolution" to "John and George on the Verge of Opening the Door" Length: 1:19:36 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Seven: April thru August 1965 "LSD, Help, and Ego Death: The Mirror Cracks" Length: 1:17:47 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Volume Eight: August 1965 From "The Original Gathering of the Tribe", to "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test: Hollywood Hills Edition" (a/k/a "I know what it's like to be dead") Length: 1:17:47 PLAY LOUD Press to Play Outside (top) and inner (below) cover sleeves. "Hollywood Hills" used by permission of artist Tony de Carlo (2002)