* A new blog on the Oscars and Instant Runoff Voting — http://oscarvotes123.blogspot.com/. Here’s a post about the new voting system for Best Picture, written by the Chair of FairVote Board of Directors, Krist Novoselic.
* The last new Johnny Cash album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave is being released on February 23, during what would have been his birthday week. Am buying, sound unheard, if I don’t get for my birthday.
* Brian from Coverville turned me on to Deanne Iovan’s mission, inspired by Julie & Julia, as well as the 09/09/09 Beatles’ releases, of covering The Beatles’ White Album, track by track, putting out a new song every nine days. She just put out Julia, which is at the end of side two. (Side 2? Hey, I grew up with the vinyl version of this album.)
* 500 cartoons on life in biology research.
* The Business Librarians listserv helped me answer a question this week. Apparently the doohickey on the tops to plastic containers, where the grated cheese comes out, one side being a shaker while the other side you can use a teaspoon to dish it out, is called a spice lid or a dispensing closure.
* Valentine’s Day/Census tie-in campaign with a selection of electronic postcards in Spanish and English.
* New CPR on YouTube: Continuous Chest Compression CPR – Mayo Clinic Presentation, sent to me by a nurse friend of mine, who thinks it’s terrific.
* A recent study outlines the health benefits of having more sex. CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen has the details.
* My medical reimbursement company, only this week, has FINALLY decided to accept e-mailed PDFs, GIFs, etc. as well as mailing and faxes. This is particularly helpful since our fax at work does not seem to work. (When someone announced “Fax is dead!””, they weren’t kidding.)
* Found several places: The Muppets: Beaker’s Ballad – the Internet is SO mean.
* Thom Wade points to Hey! It’s That Guy!? It’s a page “dedicated to the character actors collectively known as ‘That Guy’.” Simon Oakland was one of the first ones I knerw by name as a kid.
* Betty White for host of SNL. My only problem is the notion that it’s a resurgence; she never really left.
* Arthur@AmeriNZ found a video response to the Google Super Bowl ad done from a gay man’s POV.
* An old friend accidentally pushed some button that sent an email to EVERY address in her e-address book, which allowed us to reconnect. I’ve had a child and she’s had two since we last communicated.
*Local school catches Olympic fever. “Events have included ring toss, rock climbing, hockey, boggle, hang man, reading comprehension, and math facts.” I’ll pick math facts.
* The 9th Annual Underground Railroad History Conference, Friday, February 26 at 8:30am through Sunday, February 28 at 2:00pm at Russell Sage College, Troy, NY, where I’ll be one of many presenting on that Saturday. Register now!
ROG
Category Archives: Beatles
B is for Beatles Butchers
If you grew up in Great Britain or many other countries in the 1960s, your collection of Beatles albums looked one way, but if you were coming of age in the United States during that period, your Fab Four LPs looked very different. And, regardless of country, if you are younger, with your first exposure to Beatles albums the 1987-era CDs or later, which followed the British system, those albums made for the American market might mystify.
Here are some cogent facts:
1. The Beatles first (British) album, Please Please Me, on Parlaphone Records, was rejected by its US affiliate, Capitol Records, in the summer of 1963. It was then released, missing two songs, in the US as Introducing the Beatles, on Vee-Jay Records; it was a dud.
2. When the Beatles finally DID make it big in the US, early in 1964, Capitol put out the album Meet the Beatles, featuring nine songs from the Beatles’ SECOND British album, With the Beatles. (The covers are similar, with the lads partially in shadow.)
3. American albums were almost always a) shorter – 11 or 12 songs, rather than usually 14, and b) almost always had to have a single – in the case of Meet the Beatles, I Want to Hold Your Hand plus a couple B-sides – because the American packagers figured the kids wouldn’t buy the albums without the hit song. Conversely, in Britain, the single and the album were largely separate entities.
4. As a result, there were more US albums than British ones. The Beatles Second Album on Capitol consisted of the remaining five songs from With the Beatles, plus various singles – notably, She Loves You, plus B-sides and EP cuts. This is why, when you heard live recordings of the Beatles in the United States, they would inevitably refer to a song as from “our last album” or the “album before last.” They knew the package they had put together was going to inevitably be rearranged in the States.
5. Even albums with the same NAME didn’t always match up. Help! in the UK had 14 songs, seven from the movie (on Side 1, for those of us old enough to remember vinyl) and seven others (on Side 2). Help! in the US included only the seven songs from the movie, interspersed with instrumentals from the movie soundtrack. Some of those other songs landed on an earlier US album called Beatles VI.
Rubber Soul, US and UK, had 10 songs in common. The US version included two songs from Help!
Which brings me to an album that did not exist at all in the UK, Yesterday and Today (or “Yesterday” …and Today, as it was often rendered. It is the very first album I ever bought in a store; previous albums I got from the Capitol Record Club, by mail. It cost $2.99 at the Rexall drug store/pharmacy.
Here is the song list (with YouTube links that I know all of you unfortunately cannot access); all songs by Lennon-McCartney, except as noted:
Side one
Drive My Car (from Rubber Soul) – 2:30
I’m Only Sleeping – (from Revolver) – 3:01
Nowhere Man (from Rubber Soul; also released as a US single) – 2:45
Doctor Robert (from Revolver) – 2:15
Yesterday (from Help!; also released as a US single) – 2:08
Act Naturally(Morrison-Russell) (from Help!; also released as B-side to “Yesterday”) – 2:33
Side two
And Your Bird Can Sing (from Revolver) – 2:01
If I Needed Someone (George Harrison) (from Rubber Soul) – 2:24
We Can Work It Out (released as a single) – 2:15
What Goes On (Lennon-McCartney-Richard Starkey) (from Rubber Soul; also released in the US as B-side to “Nowhere Man) – 2:51
Day Tripper (released as flip side of “We Can Work It Out” single) – 2:50
That’s right. The Capitol compilers cynically took three songs from the NOT-YET-RELEASED Revolver album to fill out this package. Worse, they took three Lennon songs of the 14, leaving John only two lead vocals on the 11-song US Revolver album. I had wondered about that at the time.
Which is why, when Yesterday and Today was released with the cover that looked like what was pictured on the left, it was thought that the Beatles were rebelling against the folks at Capitol for butchering their albums. This was NOT the case. As the Wikipedia narrative suggests the Beatles were merely tired of doing another set of conventional pictures and agreed to photographer Robert Whitaker’s ideas for more avant garde imagery.
The covers were printed, and at least a few were sold before Capitol pulled the album. They made replacement pictures that went over the controversial image, but they weren’t flush with the cover underneath. Thus the “butcher cover” has become very valuable. The album lost money for Capitol because of all the extra work and expense.
I recall reading in some pop music magazine of the time that John Sebastian, then from the American rock group The Lovin’ Spoonful, said that his favorite song on Rubber Soul was Drive My Car. Well, I snooted, EVERYBODY knows that Drive My Car was on Yesterday and Today. Yes, I was right, but so was John Sebastian, who must have had access to the UK version.
I liked Y&T well enough, though TWO Ringo leads (Act Naturally AND What Goes On) was one too many. But in retrospect, I wish Capitol Records had put other songs on there instead of the songs from Revolver, such as I’m Down (B-side of the Help! single), and/or the single Paperback Writer/Rain, or even earlier songs that had never shown up on a Capitol album prior to the band’s breakup, such as There’s A Place, Misery, From Me To You, or A Hard Day’s Night.
It should be pointed out that the Beatles were not the only British artists to receive this treatment from their American label. Donovan also had his catalog altered, as did the Rolling Stones. Check out the playlist for the different versions of the Stones’ Aftermath album, for instance.
Interestingly, after Revolver, Capitol started putting out the UK albums (Sgt. Pepper, the white album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be) as the Beatles had originally imagined them. Perhaps they were finally realized the albums weren’t just commodities.
There were two box sets called The Capitol Albums.
The 2004 release contained the first four albums, and the 2006 edition the next four. Y&T was the ninth Capitol album. I never knew why they didn’t release the first FIVE albums, then the second FIVE.
ROG
Lennon
Sometimes I think about acknowledging the day John Lennon died, but something always draws me in.
This year, it’s the fact that he is on the top 10 list of dead celebrities. According to Forbes:
No. 7: John Lennon
$15 million
Musician
Died: Dec. 8, 1980
Age: 40
Cause: Murder
It was a big year for the Beatles, especially for the songwriter behind many of the band’s most famous songs. In September, Electronic Arts and MTV Games released The Beatles: Rock Band, allowing fans to jam along with a virtual version of the band and download additional albums for $17. As well, the Fab Four’s music was repackaged and remastered in a 16-disc box set that went on sale in September. LOVE, the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show featuring the group’s music, still reels fans into The Mirage
Add to that John’s widow Yoko Ono licensing his song “Real Love” to be used by JC Penney in television ads, and her giving Ben & Jerry’s ice cream permission to release a Lennon-inspired flavor called “Imagine Whirled Peace.”
Oh, since I know you need to know, the top-earning dead celebrity is French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who “earned $350 million in the past year. Much of his estate was auctioned off at Christie’s in February. Laurent died of brain cancer in June 2008.” So his #1 status probably won’t be maintained.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein rank second with combined earnings of $235 million. Why are they considered as one unit, I don’t know. Both of them composed with others. Anyway, I imagine the revival of South Pacific did not hurt.
Michael Jackson is third with $90 million; I have to assume it’s a reflection of moneys in, since, before his death in June, there were numerous reports about his mounting debt.
Elvis Presley, the perennial leader in this category, is fourth with $55 million, though he made more than in previous years. He’s followed by J.R.R. Tolkien ($50 million), Charles Schulz ($35 million), John Lennon ($15 million), Theodor Geisel -Dr. Seuss ($15 million), Albert Einstein ($10 million) and Michael Crichton ($9 million).
The interesting thing about the Beatles 09/09/09 revival is that it has gotten me newly interested in the Beatles, again. Not that they ever fell very far from my heart. But watching all the specials reinvigorated my ears. Seeing the Paul McCartney ABC special on that aired Thanksgiving night reminded me of Lennon playing the organ with his elbow on I’m Down at Shea Stadium in 1965.
I haven’t actually GOTTEN any new music – the Beatles in Mono box set is on the Christmas list – but just reading about the differences in the recordings, especially the white album has gotten me excited.
Did I ever mention that, years ago, I received a picture of the Imagine square at Strawberry Fields in NYC? It sits over the entryway from the living room to the hallway.
Ah, the picture above is from LIFE again. It’s from 1980, but I didn’t need the caption to know that.
ROG
Meme of Solace
I’m sure the title refers to a James Bond film; I’m swiping this from SamauraiFrog.
List 10 musical artists (or bands) you like, in no specific order (do this before reading the questions below). Really, don’t read the questions below until you pick your ten artists!!!
There is something to be said for following the instructions in this case.
1. The Beatles
2. The Beach Boys
3. David Bowie
4. The Rascals
5. The Rolling Stones
6. Linda Ronstadt
7. The Supremes
8. The Temptations
9. Talking Heads
10. The Police
What was the first song you ever heard by 6?
Something early, probably “Different Drum”.
What is your favorite song of 8?
“I Can’t Get Next To You”. From the rowdy opening to the Sly Stone-inspired shared vocals.
What kind of impact has 1 left on your life?
Massive. I have a ton of their albums, both as a group and as solo artists. I know arcane things about their album releases. People say to me, “What album is X song on?” and far more often than not, I’ll say “American or British album?” And then peg both of them. There’s a picture of Lennon in my office and a photo of the Imagine imagine from NYC in my house.
What is your favorite lyric of 5?
Probably the chorus of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. “But if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need.” From Let It Bleed, probably my favorite Stones album. The organ noodling of this song during the early funeral sequence of The Big Chill cracked me up, while others in the audience wondered why.
How many times have you seen 4 live?
Never, though I’ve seen them live on TV once or twice.
What is your favorite song by 7?
“Love Is Like An Itchin’ In My Heart”. What an insistent bass line. there’s a version that’s about 30 seconds longer than the single I particularly enjoy.
Is there any song by 3 that makes you sad?
Ashes to Ashes
Time and again I tell myself
I’ll stay clean tonight
But the little green wheels are following me
Oh no, not again
What is your favorite song by 9?
“Making Flippy Floppy”, probably because I saw the Talking Heads during the Speaking in Tongues tour in 1983 or 1984 at SPAC in Saratoga.
When did you first get into 2?
It’s really odd, actually. I had a compilation album with I Get Around and Don’t Worry Baby in 1965, and the Pet Sounds album in 1966, both of which I liked. But I never considered myself a real Beach Boys fan until I got Surf’s Up, which was a mainstay of my freshman year in college, 1971-72. THEN I went back and got into the earlier music, and bought the retrospective albums that came out in the mid-1970s.
How did you get into 3?
I was in my dorm room in my freshman year and somehow won Hunky Dory from my college radio station, WNPC on a radio call-in contest. I liked almost all of it; my roommate Ron only liked Changes.
What is your favorite song by 4?
“It’s Love”, the last song on the Groovin’ album, featuring flute by Hubert Laws, plus a great bass line. When I got a new turntable in 1987, the track ran so close to the label that the album would reject before the song would end; drove me nuts. Actually bought the CD five years ago largely for this one song.
How many times have you seen 9 live?
Once, but it was one of the two greatest shows of my life, along with the Temptations in 1980 or 1981.
What is a good memory concerning 2?
A mixed memory actually. I had this friend named Donna George, and I bought her the Beach Boys box set. Before she died of brain cancer a few years ago, she assigned another friend of hers and me to divvy up her music. I took the Beach Boys box, and I always remember her when I play it.
Is there a song by 8 that makes you sad?
The Temptations with a Lot o’ Soul is full of melancholy songs, but I’ll pick No More Water in the Well.
What is your favorite song of 1?
A truly impossible question. Seriously. It’s dependent on mood, what I’ve listened to recently. I’ll say Got to Get You Into My Life, but reserve the right to change that.
How did you become a fan of 10?
Almost certainly listening to WQBK-FM, Q-104 in Albany, NY, a truly great station that also turned me onto the Talking Heads, the Clash and a lot of other music of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
ROG
Twist and Shout
STILL stuck in my mind: that great dance sequence from the movie 500 Days of Summer which makes more sense in context.
The song namechecks the song “Twist and Shout”.
Then there’s this new show on Nickelodeon the daughter is watching called The Fresh Beat Band. They were originally called the Jumparounds, plugged so often in the commercials as such that my daughter still refers them that way. (Also, she knows I think that their initial name was goofy, but the new moniker is boring – generic is what I actually said, but boring is a reasonable translation.) Think the Monkees aimed at four-year-olds. The Hispanic guitarist goes by Kiki and the red-haired percussionist is Marina. But it’s the guys’ names that I should note. The preternaturally tall guy is the beat boxer Twist, while the black keyboardist is named Shout. Twist and Shout? I expect that if this program catches on, the players will be replaced as though they were in Menudo. (None of them go by their real names.)
Which of course brings us to one of the great cover songs of all time, by the Beatles. Just saw this clip again on the Beatles Anthology, which I have on VHS. Don’t know why this song doesn’t get more respect in those “best covers” polls.
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Speaking of covers, I’ve really gotten into the new television show Glee, but I must admit there are some 21st century songs I couldn’t tell you the original artist without looking it up. One piece I did recognize instantly, was Queen’s Somebody to Love. Probably my favorite cover thus far on the show.
But I still prefer the original. I own only Queen album, a greatest hits collection, and that on vinyl. (And unlike my CDs, my LPs are in great disarray.) Any Queen album recommendations?
“If you think you’re too small to have an impact,
try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”
— Johan Bruyneel
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VOTE
ROG
Roger Answers Your Questions, Jaquandor and Rebecca
Jaquandor of Byzantium Shores, the finest blogger in western New York AND a fashionista ahead of the curve, asks these questions:
Does David Paterson know what he’s doing?
More often than he’s given credit for, I think. On his Day 1, he’s all funny and charming. On Day 2, he admits that both he and his wife were unfaithful, a brilliant move designed to make sure the state was not suddenly surprised by another sex scandal after Eliot Spitzer’s downfall. It was a calculated risk that worked.
He was right to note the fiscal disaster the state was going to be suffering after the Wall Street collapse, as it affected our state disproportionally; not only was the state heavily invested, but a lot of New Yorkers lost their jobs on Wall Street in the market meltdown. Of course, the state, unlike the federal government, cannot operate in a deficit, so cutbacks and layoffs were inevitable. Part of Paterson’s problem is that he was bearer of bad news.
He was also stifled by the second most dysfunctional state legislature in the country – I’m convinced California’s is worse – and threw a Hail Mary by picking his own lieutenant governor in order to break the state Senate deadlock. I found and read the state constitution and decided that the lower court was right; that picking his own replacement, essentially, was beyond the scope of the emergency powers he was citing. I thought they would be used in cases where the legislature was wiped out by war or disaster that the state couldn’t be allowed to flounder. Apparently, the Court of Appeals (which, for you non-New Yorkers, is the state’s highest court) decided that the gridlock that took place for a month beginning June 8 WAS enough of an emergency that picking his own lt gov WAS kosher. So kudos to him.
Now, he royally messed up the appointment of Hillary Clinton’s replacement for the US Senate. Don’t know what that whole Caroline Kennedy dance was. But while Kirsten Gillibrand was not a popular choice downstate at the time, notice how her primary opposition has melted away.
This is not to say that I’ve agreed with all of his decisions. His unilateral decision NOT to tax the rich more, lest they leave the state, seemed tone deaf to me.
So his abysmally low poll numbers surprise me a bit. There is a local public radio force named Alan Chartock of WAMC who believes part of his problem is him being characterized as a bumbler on Saturday Night Live a few times, much the same way that Chevy Chase’s portrayal of Gerald Ford established the President as clumsy. There was a poll a while back (Siena or Marist College ran it) that said that 7% of the population felt negative towards Paterson because of how SNL portrayed him. Wow, didn’t think that SNL still had that much pull, outside of Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin last year.
I’ll be curious how he does on Meet the Press today, rerun on other NBC networks during the week. You KNOW that David Gregory has to ask him about the report that the Obama people didn’t want him running for governor in 2010, which would not come from legitimate channels right before the President visited the Capital District on Monday.
Photo by John Hebert
To what degree is the eBook the way of the future? (I assume we all grant that there will be eBooks, but how much will they take over?)
Actually, I’ll ask you this, since you read and watch science fiction: do you EVER see people reading books or newspapers in the futuristic portrayals? I don’t recall any.
I think more the question is how much will paper products stick around? There were a couple pieces in Entertainment Weekly recently – pretty sure Stephen King was one of them – that discussed the visceral pleasure of the book – how it feels in the hand, how it smells, how it is laid out, how you can fan the pages to create a breeze (I’m doing this from memory and may have made up that last one) – that the electronic equivalent can NEVER replicate.
There’s a private high school in New England that in 2009 got rid of all of its books, replaced by eBooks. The headmistress said that the students were thriving. If experiences like that “take”, then the books will become like vinyl records; they’ll still be around, but marginalized. Conversely, if there is a pushback from educators who say our kids NEED the actual manipulation of pages – and, IMO, they do – then the flow will be stemmed, though not stopped.
Of course, eBooks might be replaced by something else – remember how ubiquitous the VCR used to be? – are replaced by some sort of computer chip that goes directly into our brains.
There are, by my rough estimation, about fifty thousand books about the Beatles. Can you recommend a couple, to help narrow it all down?
You are a relative newbie to the Fabs, so I’d start with The Beatles by Hunter Davies, one of the first. It’s pretty thorough without overwhelming (e.g., the Beatles Anthology), though ends before the end of the group, if I remember correctly. Beyond that, it would depend on what you’re really interested in: their songwriting, the recording techniques, their lives, Beatlemania. Many dismiss Philip Norman book Shout! as anti-Paul, but few doubt his thoroughness and it’s a good read; he has a newer book I haven’t read that seems to be better received. Peter Brown’s The Love You Make is “an insider’s story”, and is interesting at that level. There’s a relatively recent book Can’t Buy Me Love that has reviewed really well, but I haven’t actually read.
My personal favorite, actually, is The Beatles: An Illustrated Record by Roy Carr & Tony Tyler. It was about the recordings, and it was at the point where I (thought I ) knew everything about them, but I was basing my knowledge on the US LPs I bought; this book totally upended my understanding. But now the CDs are out in the “British” order, so it wouldn’t have the same effect, I imagine.
I’d love to hear the opinions of sages such as Fred Hembeck and Johnny Bacardi on this topic.
Rebecca from 40 Forever, who is intelligent, attractive and personable – naturally she’s a librarian – asks:
How many guitars are in Rochester’s famous House of Guitars?
37,326.
Actually, the website says “it’s home to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 guitars and 4 million albums, CDs and tapes.”
Meant to get to Scott’s questions, but I still feel not great and I may be the healthiest of the three of us. Certainly feeling better than the wife, who took a three-hour nap yesterday. Anyway, Scott, before the end of the month. as the J5 title goes, “Maybe tomorrow.”
The Lydster, Part 66: Dead Rock Stars
(I didn’t have a blog in Lydia’s first year; so here are photos from the summer of 2004. Today Lydia is five and a HALF, so here she is a little more than five years ago.)
I try really hard not to indoctrinate my daughter with my music. I want her to find her own way, and then pick and chose which of mine she’s comfortable with.
But when Michael Jackson died, he was on TV ALL OF THE TIME. She inevitably heard some of his songs. ABC by the Jackson Five is immediately infectious for a child. We went on a car trip during July and I played the first disc from the J5 box set in the car. It’s quite danceable, and now she knows who Michael Jackson is – well, usually; sometimes his morphed appearance confused her. She loves to dance in the house and the solo hits such as Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Rock With You and Beat It will make her want to move her feet.
A fact that will shock you: I’m a big Beatles fan. I was watching lots of Beatles-related items such as some old videos around 09/09/09. Lydia wanted to know all about them. I said, “That’s a group that was very popular when Daddy was growing up.” Her next question: “Are they still alive?” Well, the drummer is still alive; his name is Ringo. And the guy…THERE…his name is Paul.” Since both John (d. 1980) and George (d. 2001) passed away before she was born (2004), it’s all ancient history to her. She asked over and over about their state of mortality – “Is that one dead?”
Subsequently, EVERY group she heard me play was the Beatles. Sometimes, it WAS the Beatles, but more often it was not. I was slow on the uptake as to why she was so honed in on the Fab Four. It was because of the animated program The Wonder Pets.
From the Amazon description: “The Wonder Pets! get groovy in the newest release, ‘Save the Beetles!’ Yes, the Wonder Pets are called up on the ol’ telly with a request for help from four members of a famous rock band, the Beetles, whose yellow submarine has gotten tangled up in kelp. As they journey to rescue them, they’ll dive straight into Beatlemania pop-culture (and reference numerous Beatles song titles and lyrics along the way!)” She saw this episode at least twice on TV – and I watched it myself at least once. THIS was the real jumping off point.
Mary Travers just died, and on ABC World News, what does the daughter here but “Puff, the Magic Dragon”? I’m singing along, and Lydia asks, “How do YOU know that song? I learned it in day care.” Well, dear, long before you heard it at school, I heard it on the radio.
ROG
School, Beatles, and other things
Yesterday was Lydia’s first day of kindergarten. To say she did not want to go would be an understatement. She wouldn’t get up, she wouldn’t eat when asked (then suddenly when it was time to go, was ravenous) and mostly, she lost the ability to talk – all she could do was grunt and it was up to her parents to decipher the guttural sounds. The obligatory pictures all having her looking forlorn when she actually faced the camera. But when I got home last night, she was all smiles. I think she was afraid she wouldn’t fit in, despite our best efforts to reassure her.
Not so incidentally, she’s not attending the neighborhood school this fall, contrary to plans my wife Carol and I had made, but rather the school where Carol teaches. Carol had called the school a couple weeks ago and had left a message to this effect on the answering machine. She also called the district office but was directed back to the school. We never got a call from the local school until someone who sounded like a truant officer called, noting Lydia’s absence.
We are disappointed that Lydia will not be able to attend the neighborhood school. The problem was that the school’s relatively late opening time, 8:45 a.m., made it it impossible to drop her off and get to work at anything approaching on time. If a pre-school program had been available, it is quite likely that our school choice for Lydia would have been the neighborhood school.
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I can’t believe how sucked into the Beatles stuff I’ve gotten this week. I’ve taped every program and watched quite a few, although not yet the movies A Hard Day’s Night or Help! or six hours of the Anthology series yet. I did watch this Beatles video collection which I loved. Penny Lane wasn’t as good as I remembered it from when I was 13, but the version of Revolution (loud but with the do-be-do-wahs of Revolution 1) was great.
Some of these are being repeated through this weekend, if you want to tape them (times are Eastern, I assume, or maybe it’s accurate for multiple time zones) on VH1 Classic.
Beatles Video Retrospective – Th 9/10, 4pm; Su 9/13, 3 pm
A Hard Day’s Night – F 9/11, 7 pm; Sa 9/12, 2 pm;
Help! – F 9/11, 9 pm; Sa 9/12, 4 pm; Su 9/13, 1 pm
The Beatles Anthology Part 1 – Su 9/13, 5 pm
The Beatles Anthology Part 2 – Su 9/13, 7 pm
The Beatles Anthology Part 3 – Su 9/13, 9 pm
One segment that’s NOT being repeated, as far as I can see, is this 2005 special about the Bangladesh concert, which I watched. It featured the late Billy Preston, who died 6/6/06; my, he did not look well. BTW, his birthday was widely reported as 9/9, but according to Billy’s official website and some court papers, his birthday was 9/2, 1946.
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The Ellie Greenwich Coverville cover story, which another fellow and I had requested.
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Dateline:@#$!: Fred Hembeck Interviews Wonder Woman (Sept 8), featuring gratuitous mentions of the songs of a Motown legend. As Fred put it, “Take a look, should you be so inclined–it’s WAY shorter than ‘Watchmen’ and just as likely to be ignored by Alan Moore!!”
ROG
Number Nine Scheme
I’m always in favor of anything that gets the Beatles on the front cover of Entertainment Weekly, the Collectors’ Choice Music catalog and undoubtedly other publications. But today’s a mixed bag for me.
Since I’m not a gamer, the Beatles on Rock Band is an interesting sidelight. But what of the remastered box sets? As I’ve undoubtedly mentioned before, it’s tough to pull the trigger on buying the same songs for at least the fourth time (US LP, UK LP, CD). Some of those early US LP as I had to buy twice because they were stolen in 1972. And some songs show up on more than one album (Vee Jay’s Introducing the Beatles/Capitol’s The Early Beatles; UA’s A Hard Day’s Night/Capitol’s Something New) or on compilations (Rock ‘N’ Roll).
Yet, I had come to the conclusion that while I don’t NEED one (or both) of these box sets, I would WANT to have them, particularly the mono box. Checking out the description of the mono set, it does NOT include the Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be albums, “as they were originally recorded in stereo”, according to Amazon. But, if I understand correctly, the “double-CD set of mono singles, EPs and rare tracks… exactly mirrors the stereo ‘Past Masters’ collection, except it includes ‘Only a Northern Song; All Together Now; Hey Bulldog’, and ‘It’s All Too Much’ [the four ‘new’ songs from Yellow Submarine] and excludes ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko; Old Brown Shoe’, and ‘Let It Be’.”
Which means if I DID get the mono set, I’d need to keep (or replace) those three albums (YS for the instrumentals) plus Past Masters 2. The calculations are hurting my head.
Ultimately, the reason I MIGHT take the plunge – when it’s back in stock, as it’s sold out until October – is this lost recollection. I got the first four Beatles CDs for free in 1987. My friend Broome bought them for me shortly after they came out. At the time I was resisting getting caught up in this new-fangled technology called the compact disc player until I was sure it would stick. Hey, I NEVER bought an 8-track!
Having four discs with NOTHING on which to play them he knew would drive me crazy, and it did. Ultimately, I got a CD player, and bought a half dozen other CDs (one couldn’t have a CD player with just four CDs, could one?) including greatest hits of Elton John and Billy Joel plus Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms.
So those early discs in particular I can ALMOST justify replacing. Wait a minute…honey, Christmas is coming and the ONLY thing I want is…
***
Being a Beatles fan is a curse as much as a blessing. Someone at work came up to me just last week to ask me on which US and UK albums Doctor Robert appears. It’s one of those things someone could easily Google, but it’s apparently more fun to Just Ask Roger. Oh, it was Yesterday…and Today, and Revolver, respectively. I remember it so well because I thought it strange when it came out that the US version of Revolver had only two songs sung by Lennon, She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows; Harrison had THREE songs. Doctor Robert, I’m Only Sleeping and And Your Bird Can Sing were stripped from the US Revolver and put on the US-only release, Y&T.
Then I was on Amazon, drooling over the mono box when I came across someone confused by early Beatles chronology. Some helpful bloke replied, “Meet the Beatles was the first Capitol Album in the US. It took some cuts from the Please Please Me album and their single I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t entirely correct and as a librarian, I just had to reply:
“Meet the Beatles was comprised of 9 songs from With the Beatles, plus the single, US B-side I Saw Her Standing There (from Please Please Me) and the UK B-side, This Boy. With the Beatles and Meet the Beatles both have the classic black and white photo.
“There WAS an album on Vee-Jay Records called Introducing the Beatles, which came out BEFORE the Beatles were big in the US, and the Please Please Me album was the source of THOSE songs, as well as a Capitol album called The Early Beatles, which came out as their fourth or fifth Capitol album.”
It’s a curse, I tell you.
ROG
And Gordon
One of the very first albums I ever bought from the Capitol Record Club -11 albums for only one cent! (But read the fine print) was BIG HITS FROM ENGLAND AND USA: one side had two songs each from BEATLES, BEACH BOYS, and PETER & GORDON, the other side, 2 songs by NAT KING COLE and CILLA BLACK, plus “Tears and Roses” by AL MARTINO. I probably still have it upstairs in the attic.
The intriguing thing I discovered as I actually looked on the record’s label was that Lennon-McCartney were listed as composers not only of the Beatles’ songs, Can’t Buy Me Love and You Can’t Do That, but also of the songs of Peter & Gordon, A World Without Love and Nobody I Know. It took me a while to catch up on the Beatles’ trivia that Peter, the one with the glasses, was the brother of Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher. Peter & Gordon recorded a number of Lennon/McCartney (really Macca) tunes such as I Don’t Want To See You Again and Women, attributed to Bernard Webb to see if the songs were moving because of the Beatles’ connection; based on its chart action, maybe they were.
Peter later became a prolific record producer for James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, among others.
But what of Gordon Waller after the 1968 breakup? According to Gordon’s website, he also stayed busy in the music business, with an extensive, if not commercially successful discography.
He also had opportunities to sing with his old mate from time to time. Gordon Waller died of cardiac arrest on July 17 at the age of 64. Peter writes:
Gordon played such a significant role in my life that losing him is hard to comprehend – let alone to tolerate.
He was my best friend at school almost half a century ago. He was not only my musical partner but played a key role in my conversion from only a snooty jazz fan to a true rock and roll believer as well. Without Gordon I would never have begun my career in the music business in the first place. Our professional years together in the sixties constitute a major part of my life and I have always treasured them.
We remained good friends (unusual for a duo!) even while we were pursuing entirely separate professional paths and I was so delighted that after a hiatus of almost forty years we ended up singing and performing together again more recently for the sheer exhilarating fun of it. We had a terrific time doing so.
Gordon remains one of my very favourite singers of all time and I am still so proud of the work that we did together. I am just a harmony guy and Gordon was the heart and soul of our duo.
I shall miss him in so many different ways. The idea that I shall never get to sing those songs with him again, that I shall never again be able to get annoyed when he interrupts me on stage or to laugh at his unpredictable sense of humour or even to admire his newest model train or his latest gardening effort is an unthinkable change in my life with which I have not even begun to come to terms.
I’d read on one of the sites that the duo was originally billed as Gordon & Peter. It’s tougher when you’re after the ampersand.
World Without Love:
***
There was this old Shake ‘N Bake commercial – do they still make that stuff?– and this girl with a STRONG Southern accent says, “And I Haiped!” Which is supposed to be “helped”. Brian Ibbott’s recent Kinks Koverville, er Coverville was a topic I suggested in honor of Ray Davies’ 65th birthday last month. I also pointed out the Tom Jones version of Sunny afternoon, which he played to, so far, positive reaction, I’m surprised to note. ROG
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