On The Records

More historic photos from the early years of The Quarrymen & Beatles have been made available.  In some instances the quality of the original photos is higher, and there’s been colorization of some black & white photos.  Let’s see if that’s a good thing.

The very start of the group that became The Beatles was the day Paul McCartney auditioned for John Lennon’s group, The Quarrymen.  That was on July 6th, 1957.  The above black & white photo captures that day as The Quarrymen were performing at a Liverpool event.  Also above is a recently colorized version of that photo.  In this case (even though the colorization is flawed in places), the colors seem to make the photo clearer as the teenagers appear more as individuals, rather than blending into the monochrome of the first photo.  (All photos enlarge with a click.)

This is the first public performance of Lennon and McCartney with The Quarrymen, October 18th, 1957.  I haven’t seen a colorized version of this one, probably because it’s not especially clear.

At the urging of Paul McCartney, 15-year-old George Harrison was added to The Quarrymen as the lead guitarist in 1958.  Paul was 16 and John 17.  This is an actual color photo taken by Paul’s brother Michael.

The above black & white photo has been readily seen for decades, and now it has been colorized.  This photo is from Hamburg, Germany in 1960, two years before Ringo Starr joined the band that had become The Beatles.  Here the drummer is Pete Best, and the bass player (far right) is Stuart Sutcliffe.  I found a couple colorized versions of this photo, and except for the too-white drum sticks, this one is quite good.  It may not give the gritty old-fashioned period look of the black & white photo, but it better represents how the guys looked in real life.

Here are some more photos from Germany in 1960 of John, Paul and George.

You can decide which versions you prefer.

Above is one more photo comparison of The Beatles in 1960, at a Hamburg club.

In 1962, Ringo joined The Beatles.  Here they are together in the studio for the first time, recording “Love Me Do” on September 4th, 1962.

And here’s their first photo shoot shortly after that.

The debate about colorization could even be extended to the first Beatles movie.

Here’s a famous shot from The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.  The black & white film was very popular with critics and the public.  No one wants to colorize the classic Film-Noir movies of the 1940s & 50s, but would a lighthearted musical comedy really be ruined if it could be made into a quality color version?

That might be a step too far, but if old black & white photos can be carefully and tastefully turned into color (the process is still improving), wouldn’t it make them more historically accurate?  After all, despite what old photos show, the world was never black & white.

Bonus:  Here are a couple of extra comparisons from the Hamburg photos, and a colorized photo from a 1965 TV appearance.

And finally, here’s an extra photo of 17-year-old George from Hamburg in 1960.  Didn’t find one that was colorized, but wanted to include it anyway.

The Robert Plant and Alison Krauss tour made its way to Eugene, Oregon’s Cuthbert Amphitheater last night…August 19th, 2024.

When the two singers hit the stage at 8 PM the sun was still shining and they could see the 5,000 fans in the sold out amphitheater.  The show kicked off with three of the duo’s best tracks…”Rich Woman”, their fun remake of 60s hit “Fortune Teller”, and the first hit from their latest album “Can’t Let Go”.  Their harmony was perfect, and both voices sounded great.  It’s a wonder that 76-year-old Robert Plant (his birthday is today) still retains such a powerful, and at times subtle voice.

The much younger (53) Alison Krauss of course has one of the most beautiful voices in music, and she could also match Plant’s power.  The sound at the concert was very well-mixed, and the supporting band was everything you could want for these multi-Grammy-winning artists.

If you’re familiar with the two very successful albums by Plant & Krauss, you know their sound is unique.  Besides the standard guitars, bass & drums, they featured two violins (one by Krauss), a banjo, and mandolin.  Somehow the combination of a Bluegrass/Country artist and a Hard Rock artist works.  It’s probably based on how well they can blend their voices, along with the guidance of Oscar winning producer T Bone Burnett.

It was a little surprising how much Robert Plant dominated the music that was selected.  He had many more lead vocals than Krauss, and about one-third of the setlist featured Led Zeppelin songs cleverly arranged for these musicians…who could really rock when needed.  Plant also served as host for the evening, often with a fun touch.  Here’s the setlist (from setlist.fm, blue ink links are not active).

In Eugene they shifted their first hit single “Gone Gone Gone” to be the second and final song of the encore. 

Alison Krauss of course had some great lead vocals (such as on “The Price Of Love”), and she also provided many excellent harmony vocals and significant violin parts throughout the evening.  The innovative arranging included two violins substituting for Jimmy Page guitar leads on some hard-rocking Led Zeppelin favorites.

The concert by the two stars lasted about an hour-and-a-half, and they “batted a thousand” with the songs they performed.

Fans of their music can be sure that they present a concert worthy of all those Grammys they’ve won.  Here are a couple more photos from the end of the show.

There are other articles on the site about Alison Krauss (including close-up photos from her 2011 concert in Bend, Oregon), and about the recordings of Plant and Krauss.

The historic Concert For Bangladesh from 1971 has been back in the news since it was finally added to streaming services.

George Harrison had long been friends with sitar great Ravi Shankar of India.  When Shankar asked Harrison for help after the Bangladesh Liberation War and torrential rains & flooding had devastated the country, Harrison put together the first major humanitarian concert.

George called on his friends for help…Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr.  The Beatles were in the middle of their breakup lawsuit, so no Paul McCartney.  John Lennon said he’d do it if Yoko Ono was included, but George said no.  After about three months of planning, the concert was scheduled for August 1st, 1971.  There was  a rehearsal on July 31st, and then an afternoon performance and an evening show on August 1st.

After an introduction and a performance on sitar by Ravi Shankar, the Rock show kicked off with some George Harrison songs… “Wah Wah”, “My Sweet Lord”, and “Awaiting On You All”.  Those were followed by Billy Preston playing his hit “That’s The Way God Planned It” (a nice version), Ringo Starr with “It Don’t Come Easy” (he flubbed some lyrics, but sounded good), and Leon Russell joined George for “Beware Of Darkness” (one of the best tracks).

Just like on the studio version, Eric Clapton played lead guitar on Harrison’s Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (a strong performance, especially by George).

Leon Russell had been on tour with his band & vocalists, and he brought them all along for a stirring in-the-groove medley of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” & “Youngblood”.

Next, George Harrison played an acoustic version of “Here Comes The Sun” with the group Badfinger, who Harrison was producing at the time.  Here’s Badfinger’s Pete Ham with George during the concert.

“Sun” was played a little faster than the original, and Pete Ham did an impressive job on the intricate guitar part.

Then it was the Bob Dylan show.

Dylan has five songs in a row on the Concert For Bangladesh album.  He chose songs from much earlier in his career, and his whole set was a concert highlight..

George Harrison then finished the concert with “Something” and the song he’d written to help publicize the problem in Asia, “Bangla Desh” (which was the original spelling of the country’s name).

When the album came out in December of 1971, it was a 3-record set, and the lid of the box had this cover.

Besides the vinyl, there was an album-size booklet with excellent photos.  I no longer have my records and booklet from 1971, but I did find this shot of some of the pages.  You can click & zoom for a closer look

The photos are really good, like this one of Dylan, and the one of Clapton he later used for an album cover.

Despite some early problems sorting out the finances, many millions of dollars have been going to Bangladesh over the years, and the concert raised awareness for the serious problems there.

Musically, it’s a good album to stream.  I admit I skipped the long spoken introduction and 16-minute sitar performance, but the rest of the performances are really good, even with some typical minor errors you get with live performances that aren’t overdubbed.  Here’s the full lineup of songs now on streaming.

George Harrison deserves a ton of credit for convincing the artists to perform (for free), for dealing with the various labels to make it happen, for working to make the finances come out so the money actually made it to Bangladesh, and for paving the way for future charity concerts.

Paul McCartney is releasing the film One Hand Clapping.  Fifty years ago, in August of 1974, Paul McCartney & Wings filmed the documentary.  The video was of the band recording live in Abbey Road Studios.  The audio album of the sessions was just released this past June, and beginning on September 26th, there will be limited screenings of the film in theaters.

The original project was shot on videotape, but has been restored (as best you can with old video) to 4K for this release.  This new documentary has additional unreleased footage of Paul McCartney performing “Backyard Sessions” on acoustic guitar.  Besides some of his own songs, he plays Rock & Roll classics like “Twenty Flight Rock” and songs by Buddy Holly.  Included is the unreleased song “Blackpool”.

1974 was a time when the Wings album Band On The Run was #1, and there are five songs from that album performed live in the studio.  Here are the songs as they appear on the double CD album.

The audio quality is high, and the band’s playing is very good…quite similar to their performances on the 1976 Wings Over America tour album.  The three Beatles songs you see on Disc 2 are just Paul rehearsing at the piano, and are short segments.

There were two new members of Wings, Geoff Britton on the left, and Jimmy McCulloch on the right.  Paul, Linda, and guitarist Denny Laine had recorded the Band On The Run album and needed the new drummer and additional guitarist for concerts.

The film will have an introduction by Paul McCartney that will also feature previously unseen Polaroid photos from 1974.

Tickets are being pre-sold for the September 26th screenings.  No word yet about when One Hand Clapping might be available for streaming.  Normally, screenings are a way to have a theatrical release prior to a film appearing on a streaming platform.

Extra:  For more information and my review of the album One Hand Clapping, here’s the link.  https://ontherecords.net/2024/06/lennon-mccartney2024-releases/

Since we can no longer see Pink Floyd or The Beatles, the vacuum has been filled for many years by “tribute” bands.  Are they good, or are they poor substitutes?

This week, The Australian Pink Floyd Show came to our hometown, Eugene, Oregon.  The closest we came in the past to seeing Pink Floyd was a concert by Pink Floyd leader/songwriter Roger Waters and his touring band.  Waters and his band played all of The Dark Side Of The Moon album, and many of the other major songs by the band.  And of course we’ve seen Pink Floyd’s concert films.  So how did Aussie Pink Floyd stack up?

The show was extremely impressive!  The musicianship was top notch, and the light show and other visuals were fantastic!  The enthusiastic crowd at The Hult Center applauded as well-known songs started, and then again after musicians nailed some of the extensive instrumental solos.  All of us knew we weren’t watching Pink Floyd, but this was a real celebration of their music.  We attended with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson…three generations of Pink Floyd fans.

As the band played “Wish You Were Here”, the circular screen showed photos of Pink Floyd, but most of the film and photos they showed were clever in that they were reminiscent of visuals that Pink Floyd used, but were originals.  The band was obviously willing to spend significant money to provide us with a Floyd-worthy show.  Here are some more of my concert photos.

Maybe the best compliment Aussie Pink Floyd ever received is that Pink Floyd lead guitarist & lead vocalist David Gilmour once hired them for one of his birthday parties.

The band had a giant inflatable of the bug-looking teacher from The Wall, but instead of a flying pig, Aussie Pink Floyd gave us a fun bouncing kangaroo.  There was also a twist on the famous Pink Floyd prism…this one looked like Australia.

We can listen to Pink Floyd on our home systems, but when we want to feel the bass instead of just hear it, it takes a concert.  The sound was perfectly mixed, loud but clear, and the vocals could be heard above the instruments.  If The Australian Pink Floyd Show has a concert near you, treat yourself.

Ten years ago, a Beatles tribute band came to Eugene.  Some friends of ours knew we were Beatles fans and invited us to go with them.  I was hesitant.  My concern was that it would be something like those not so good Elvis imitators.  But, we went to see the band Rain.

Unlike Aussie Pink Floyd (who didn’t try to look anything like the members of Pink Floyd), Rain did their best to look like The Beatles, changing their looks through the different eras of the band.  The surprise to me was how good the musicianship was.  Rain did a great job of playing The Beatles’ hits, plus their costuming and staging were impressive.

Probably what won me over the most was when Rain did something The Beatles never did.  In the middle of all those sets of Beatles eras, the musicians grabbed acoustic guitars and played an acoustic set of Beatles songs with their own arrangements…a nice original touch!

Okay, it wasn’t as good as when we saw Paul McCartney at Arrowhead Stadium, but a talented tribute band can provide a fun evening of the music fans love.

It must be that the vaults of Classic Rock artists are running dry of studio recordings.  Over the years, we’ve had box sets with unreleased tracks, alternate versions, and remixes.  Now, we’re getting sets of live recordings of old concerts.

The latest is Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage Tour ‘82.  It’s a two CD or three Record set of 22 songs from a 1982 two-night stay at The Forum in L.A.

Here are the tracks.  The same recordings are on the CD’s and vinyl.

It’s a really good lineup of songs, but if you’re a major Mac fan, you could already own 16 of these recordings.  That’s because only 6 of the 22 tracks are previously unreleased.  The list prices are…$25 for the CD’s, $60 for the black vinyl records, and $79 for the clear vinyl.  The release date is September 20th, 2024.

On that same date, a much more extensive box set will also be released.

This is meant for people who really love Bob Dylan and the Band, because their concert tour from 1974 is represented by this huge set.

That’s a total of 27 CD’s from that 1974 tour at a list price of $130.  The thing is, the playlist varies a little bit from disc to disc, but overall, you’re getting a whole bunch of versions of the same songs.  Normally, an artist would put together a live album from a tour by choosing the best version of each song that was played, then issue a single or double album of the result.  Releasing 27 discs has to be a record.  Maybe really hardcore fans will love it, but how many versions of “Lay Lady Lay” do we really need?

No one is forcing us to buy sets like these.  It’s up to us to determine if this is how we want to spend our money and our time.  Also, most music fans subscribe to a streaming service, and can check out the songs without having to make another purchase.  Or, we can just buy individual digital tracks if we want to own them.  It’s good to have choices.

On September 6th, 2024, Neil Young released his third Archives box set.  There are actually two versions.  The Deluxe Edition is limited to 5,000 copies and is priced at $450 (available on Neil Young’s official site).  It has 17 audio CD’s and five Blu-ray Discs.  There are approximately 14 hours of audio and 14 hours of video.  Plus there’s a 176 page hardcover book.  The second box set has the 17 CD’s, but no video discs and a 36 page booklet instead of a book.  It’s priced at $240 (which is about $14 a disc).

Here’s the timing of the three Archives releases.  Archives I came out in 2009, and covered Young’s career from 1963-1972.  It took eleven years (November of 2020) for the release of Archives II, which covered 1972-1976.  And now it’s about four years later when we get Archives III, covering 1976-1987.  The 17 CD’s have 198 tracks including 15 songs that have never been released, and 121 alternate or live versions.  More specifically (by my count), there are 82 live tracks, 62 previously released tracks, 39 alternate studio tracks, and 15 unreleased songs.

The first two discs are live performances with Crazy Horse from 1976.  Disc 3 consists of 20 previously released songs from 1976 & 1977, and one previously unreleased version.

Disc 4 features Nicolette Larson and Linda Ronstadt singing with Neil, mostly in 1977, the year he recorded Comes A Time.  Most of the tracks on that disc are previously unreleased versions.  Nicolette Larson is also featured on Disc 7 Union Hall (1977).  The promo for the set says three unreleased albums are included, but some of the songs were already on other albums, often in other versions.  Here are the track lists which include details (click to enlarge).

This last disc includes Neil’s piano version of “Someday”, which is superior to the previously released Freedom album version, but not quite as good as his solo live version.  Most of the songs on Disc 17 are early acoustic studio recordings, close to demos.

The eleven films last 14 hours, and four of the films were previously unreleased.

The only vinyl is a 16-track 2-record set, Takes, which takes one track each from 16 of the CD’s.  It’s priced at $35.  It’s also available for digital purchase, and you can check it out on the streaming services.

The Archives II release was especially good with a lot of great unreleased tracks from 1972-1976 after his career high of Harvest.  Since the new Archives III covers 1976-1987, it includes the albums Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust, Trans, Landing On Water, and more.

The Beatles were the most influential band in history, and it wasn’t just their music.  Their hairstyles, fashion choices, and opinions impacted the youth of the 1960’s and beyond.  That innovative spirit included The Beatles’ album covers.

The group always used professional photographers and artists to help them with the covers.  Some became iconic, and others were less successful.  So here are the covers of their original thirteen studio albums ranked from weakest to best.

The 1965 movie HELP! is a colorful comic romp, and the album is filled with great songs like “Ticket To Ride”, “Yesterday”, and of course “Help”.  So there’s no explanation for having a boring white cover with the guys simply waving their arms.  You’d think they were at least spelling out the title of the album, but no they’re just putting their arms in positions the photographer thought looked good.

Yes it was winter when Beatles For Sale was released in late 1964, but having The Beatles cold and miserable on the cover was not a great look.  The downer cover has always seemed to unfairly affect perceptions of the quality of the music on the album.  Songs include “Eight Days A Week”, “No Reply”, & “I’ll Follow The Sun”,   Sure there were “down” songs like “I’m A Loser”, “Baby’s In Black”, & “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party”.  But they’re good songs, and the cover is simply too uninviting.

There was another lost opportunity with the A Hard Day’s Night album from 1964.  The music is excellent and exciting, and the movie is a lot of fun.  The best representation of the album and movie is not five little pictures of each of the Beatles trying to make a variety of faces.  The American version was slightly better in that it’s more dramatic, and accents their haircuts which were an important part of their image as they were still breaking in the U.S. at the time.  Certainly the movie would have been better represented by one of the action photos taken during filming.

The Magical Mystery Tour album cover from 1967 is a little too busy, but did a good job of conveying the spirit of the film, especially with the colorful logo.  Although we’d normally like to see The Beatles faces on their covers, maybe having them hidden by costumes was part of the mystery.  It was also a good idea to put the song titles on the cover since this was a unique album.  It was a combination of six new songs, and five recent singles.  This American version became the official British version when Beatles albums came out on CD’s.

Another psychedelic album cover was used for the Yellow Submarine soundtrack in 1968 (shown above on the left).  It’s a good cover in that it provides a lot of the artwork from the animated film.  Next to the original cover is the Yellow Submarine Songtrack that included a lot more songs from the movie in remixed form.  It was released in 1999.  The cover is a nice eye-pleasing update.

The 1963 cover for The Beatles’ first album,  Please Please Me, was The group looking down from the stairwell at EMI’s London headquarters.  The photo was taken by Angus McBean.  It’s an interesting shot that has held up well, and was even recreated in 1969 for the planned Get Back album that became Let It Be.  That 1969 photo ended up as the cover for The Blue Album hits collection.

Here’s another innovative photo from 1963 that was on The Beatles second album, With The Beatles.  It looks like a studio shot with carefully placed lighting, but in reality, photographer Robert Freeman took the photo of the group in a hallway, and simply used the natural light.  The photo style made the album cover one that was imitated by other artists.

This might seem like a boring cover, but knowing when it came out shows the genius of it.  1967 was the height of psychedelia with everything bursting with colors and complicated designs.  In 1968, The Beatles decided to change that up big time by creating a minimalist cover.  The idea came from Paul McCartney who was immersed in the London art scene.  The cover was all white, with “The Beatles” embossed.  That was the name of the record, but it quickly became The White Album.  I remember some fans even saying they felt cheated that there wasn’t a photo of The Beatles on the cover.  Of course inside were four individual colorful photos of The Beatles that were suitable for framing.

In 1970 the final studio album was released by The Beatles.  Let It Be has a dramatic black background, colorful photos with white edging, and the title all capitalized in white.  Maybe the black color, and the use of individual photos (instead of a group photo) were representing the end of the group.  The result is a classy and dramatic cover that stands out among any group of album covers.  Credit goes to Art Director John Kosh who also did Abbey Road.

The Revolver cover from 1966 is an example of The Beatles trusting their friend, bassist & artist Klaus Voormann.  He used a combination of line drawings and photos to create a very unusual look for the album.  It reflected the extremely innovative recordings found inside.  The cover told us that Revolver was unlike any album that had come before it.  Reportedly, Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was overjoyed Voormann was able to create a cover to match the music… “Turn off your mind relax and float downstream.”

The 1965 album Rubber Soul has a cover that really reflects the name.  The story is that The Beatles were looking at the photo being projected onto a white piece of cardboard that fell backwards slightly and made the image look warped.  The Beatles asked photographer Robert Freeman if the cover could be similarly altered to give it that stretched look.  Then illustrator Charles Front designed the title to match the look of rubber kind of oozing from a rubber plant.  That style of lettering was used often during the psychedelic era that followed. 

Album covers don’t get much more iconic than Abbey Road.  It might be the most imitated and parodied cover in history, and the location of the photo shoot has become a tourist destination.  After dismissing complicated ideas, like shooting a photo at Mt. Everest (with Everest a possible album title), they finally settled on Paul McCartney’s photo idea and the title Abbey Road.  Photographer Lain Macmillian was on a ladder and took just six photos.  Here they are.

What’s amazing is that the photo they used is the only one that’s any good.  The other photos look like four disorganized guys kind of stumbling across the street.  It seems they were lucky to get the shot of them in full stride.  One of the defining aspects of the cover is Art Director John Kosh deciding to not put the name of the group or the title on the front of the album.

As simple as the photo shoot was for Abbey Road, the exact opposite is true for our top Beatles album cover, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Like the music on the album, this is The Beatles’ most intricate and hardest to produce album cover.

Pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth were asked to design the cover.  Blake suggested it be The Beatles with a crowd of fans, and said it could be a “magical crowd” made up of whomever The Beatles wanted.  After the group submitted a list of names, the design team had to get clearances to use the images.  In all, the cover has 57 cardboard cutouts and 8 wax figures, including The Beatles.  Today, such a cover would be done electronically, but in 1967 The Beatles dressed in colorful military band costumes and stepped into the complex art piece.

The amount of money spent on the cover was about 70-times higher than normal, but everyone knew the Sgt. Pepper album needed a truly unique cover, so it was worth it..

It’s likely the quality of the music on an album at least somewhat affects our perception of the quality of the cover.  Upon completion of this list of best covers, I noticed the top four selected are probably The Beatles’ four most popular albums.  You can decide what order to rank them musically.

Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney have new releases of old material in 2024.  We’ll start with a review of McCartney’s One Hand Clapping.

These are recordings from 1974 (50-years ago!).  Paul McCartney was coming off the success of his Band On The Run album.  Although that album was released under the Wings name, it was really just Paul, his wife Linda, and guitarist Denny Laine.  The other members of Wings had quit just before the album was recorded.  So, McCartney added more musicians in order to perform the songs live.

Paul (bass, guitars & keyboards), Linda (keyboards), Jimmy McCulloch (guitars), Denny (guitars), Geoff Britton (drums)

“One Hand Clapping” has quality recordings of the new band performing live in the studio for what was intended to be a TV special.  Most of the songs here are familiar…five of the best songs from Band On The Run, plus the hits “My Love”, “Live And Let Die”, “Junior’s Farm”, and “Hi Hi Hi”.  The band is energetic and sounds good on all of the group songs on the album.

Besides the instrumental “One Hand Clapping”, which was supposed to be the theme song for the TV special, there are three short original McCartney songs in a row that were not released prior to the filming.  They sound like they’re from the “Tin Pan Alley” era of songwriting.  It’s just Paul at the piano performing “Let’s Love”, “All Of You”, and “I’ll Give You A Ring”.  Here’s a five-minute audio of the three songs segued together:

They’re raw, but charming, and they show McCartney’s gift for writing melodies.

Also from the non-rock tracks are a couple of standouts…a beautiful version of “Bluebird”, and an acoustic “Sally G”.

“Bluebird”:

“Sally G”:

The released version of Sally G was a fun Country song McCartney recorded with studio professionals in Nashville.  Here we get just McCartney on guitar & vocal with an unplugged version.  By the way, the few Beatles songs on the album are just incomplete rehearsal segments by McCartney.

One Hand Clapping is not a must have album, but there are enough good versions on it to make it worthwhile for hardcore fans.  The two CD set is priced at $25.  Interestingly, if they had left off one 4-minute song, everything would have fit on one CD.  The choice for elimination…”Maybe I’m Amazed”.  It’s a great song, but this version has a tremendous amount of echo on the vocal, and it sounds out-of-sync.

The 2-record vinyl version is $38.

Update:  The 50-year old One Hand Clapping film is finally being released.  There will be limited screenings in theaters beginning September 26th, 2024.  It’ll also include McCartney playing “Backyard Sessions” with an acoustic guitar and vocals on some of his own songs and some classic old Rock & Roll hits.  Normally after screenings, a movie will be moved to a streaming platform.

The John Lennon release is another “Ultimate Mixes” album, this time Mind Games.  Here’s how the CD versions look on Amazon.

You can see the prices for the 6-CD and 2-CD versions.  The album was released on July 12th, 2024.

CD-1 is the original 1973 album, but with improved mixes.  CD-2 has alternate takes of the same 12 songs, plus two bonus tracks.  By the way, the “Nutopian International Anthem” is not really a song.  It’s just 3-seconds of silence that was at the end of Side 1.  So it’s funny there’s an “Ultimate Mix” of it.

If you own any of John Lennon’s previous “Ultimate Mixes”, you know the sound quality is excellent.  Besides the two discs shown above, the mixes of the other four CD’s in the Deluxe version are titled… Elemental Mixes, Elements Mixes, Evolution Documentary, and Raw Studio Mixes.  It’s always interesting to hear the Raw Studio Mixes, because those are the songs just as John recorded them in the studio, without his voice being altered.

The 2-record set has the same tracks as the 2-CD set, and is priced at $48.

Mind Games is not one of John Lennon’s best albums, even though it made it to #9 on the Billboard chart.  The title song was the only hit single (#13), but it’s still worth checking out all the alternate takes and mixes.

Here’s what the titles of the individual discs mean.  Elemental Mixes are stripped-down versions.  Elements Mixes are instrumental versions of the songs with only some of the instruments featured.  Evolution Documentary takes the songs from demo form, featuring segments of their development to completed songs.  Raw Studio Mixes feature the unaltered voice of John Lennon with the songs mostly in a band-only form before overdubs.  There’s also the disc of selected Out-Takes (alternate versions).

It’s a lot to take-in six different versions of each song.  Overall, the Ultimate Mixes versions of the songs on CD/Album #1 are best, and are significantly better sounding than the original album.   It’s also interesting to hear the various mixes.  Besides hearing John’s voice sounding so natural, the various versions let us hear the instruments better, and give us a good understanding of the creativity of the arrangements.

My favorite songs on the album are “Mind Games”, “Intuition”, and “I Know (I Know)”.  One recommendation from the Elements Mixes is the instrumental of “Intuition” with the bass and guitar.  Here it is:

According to the credits, it’s Gordon Edwards impressively on bass, and David Spinozza with the great guitar touches.  Since it’s without the main melody, it makes it hard to recognize the song, but the parts are cool on their own.

Fifty years ago, no one would have thought we’d have new versions of songs by Lennon & McCartney in 2024.

The plan is to have four movies about the Beatles, each from the viewpoint of one Beatle at a time.  Only guessing, but the films will probably be named John, Paul, George and Ringo.  The movies are being developed by well-known director Sam Mendez, who is working with the full music rights and approval from all The Beatles’ representatives.  All four movies are expected to be released in 2027.

And now the lead actors have been cast.

No, they won’t look exactly like The Beatles, but they’re all considered good actors.

Normally the announcement of a new Beatle project is exciting, and has me looking forward to its release.  Ever since this one was announced, I’ve been more wondering than excited.

What made The Beatles so special was having John Paul George & Ringo together.  Trying to look at the same important events from four different viewpoints could be amazingly repetitious.  Were their viewpoints so different?  It could also seem exceedingly long since it’s four movies.  Honestly, this seems better suited for a limited series.

The films are not the life stories of the individual Beatles.  They’re only going up to the 1970 breakup of the band when all four members were still in their 20’s.  The breakup also seems like a downer of an ending that we’ll get four times.

The “Here Comes The Sun” view is that Sam Mendez knows what he’s doing.  That each story will be interesting and entertaining, and that the films will become a treasured history of the world’s greatest band.

Here’s hoping younger fans find the films fascinating, and we older fans are still around in 2027 to enjoy them too!