Author: Phil Bausch

If you were a teenager in America in 1964, you know what it was like.  If you weren’t, the new documentary is a chance for you to learn a little more about how The Beatles quickly conquered the musical scene and culture in America..

The streaming service Disney+ has a new documentary called Beatles ‘64.  It started streaming the day after Thanksgiving, November 29th, 2024.  It includes new interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and some fans who were there.  It also has archival footage, including some that has never been seen.  The film is directed by David Tedeschi and produced by Martin Scorsese.

What was to later become a “British Invasion” began when American radio stations started playing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” toward the end of 1963.  They had heard about Beatlemania in England, and obtained the records from overseas.  Officially, Capitol Records realeased the single (with “I Saw Her Standing There” on the flip side) on December 26th, 1963.

For teens, the combination of those two songs was like an explosion of a completely new and energetic musical sound.  That was especially true when compared with the mostly tame Pop music of the teen idols and the left over old-fashioned singers from the 40s and 50s.

But it was a lot more than one single.

(My Beatles singles from 1964)

Before “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was released by Capitol Records, three other labels had been given the rights to Beatles recordings that had been released earlier in England.  Soon, those small labels rushed-released “She Loves You”, “Please Please Me”, “Love Me Do”, “Twist And Shout”, “From Me To You” and more.

January of 1964 also gave us two albums filled with more songs.

Both of these albums were out before The Beatles came to America, so we heard even more great songs like “All My Loving” and “This Boy”.  Beatlemania was already dominating our radio stations and turntables by the time The Beatles’ Pan Am plane touched down in New York City on February 7th, 1964.

Thousands of screaming fans greeted them, and two days later, a record 73-million tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show to see The Beatles perform in the U.S. for the first time.

We finally got to see the four young men who had already captured the musical hearts of America’s teens, and the group’s popularity soared even higher.  Then on February 11th, 1964 they played their first U.S. concert in Washington D.C.  All archival footage used in the documentary has been restored in 4K, and the sound has been remixed by Giles Martin.

Beatles ‘64 only covers about three weeks of The Beatles’ first visit to America, but there were another four albums released that year in the U.S.

You can see that among the albums is A Hard Day’s Night. Somehow during all their songwriting, recording, and touring, The Beatles filmed what turned out to be a very popular movie.  It also gave us two more #1 singles “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “A Hard Day’s Night”.  In total, The Beatles had 19 Top 40 hits in 1964, and six of them made it to #1. Those are numbers very few artists have reached in their entire careers.

Review:  Beatle fans will want to watch Beatles ‘64, but there’s not much we haven’t seen before.  The vast majority of the film has been used in multiple documentaries.  One of the main reasons to watch it is that the quality of the film and audio have been digitally upgraded, and it looks and sounds great.

The historical arc they chose was that America was depressed after the November, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and that was why there was such a strong reaction in the U.S. to the joy brought by The Beatles.  I just don’t buy it.  I was 15 when The Beatles’ music started being played on U.S. radio stations and they came to New York City.  The reason The Beatles were so popular here is because the music was so excitingly good.  They also looked and acted different than any previous artists.  Beatlemania had hit England months earlier, and the reaction there was just like in the U.S. (screaming fans & huge crowds)…no assassination involved.

The only real difference between Britain and America was that it was a buildup over time in England, and it was an explosion in the U.S. as a year’s worth of Beatles’ music was dropped here all at once.

Probably the most interesting part of the new Beatles ‘64 documentary is hearing present day thoughts from some of the fans who were a part of the initial visit.  They tell how they reacted to The Beatles, and try to convey why.  Also, insiders like Ronnie Spector, Smokey Robinson, and musician/producer Jack Douglas provide important historical perspective.

The timeline of the documentary was a bit weak.  They played a portion of the Washington D.C. concert before The Beatles had even been on the Ed Sullivan Show, and there was no good reason for including it out of order.  When they did get to the D.C. concert, the sound of the new mix by Giles Martin was impressive.  It would be great if more of the concert could be released.

Despite some shortcomings, Beatles ‘64 is worth your time if you want to relive the excitement of The Beatles’ first trip to America.

As you’ve probably noticed, Classic Rock artists have recently been releasing old concerts, and now Crosby Stills Nash & Young are part of the trend.  Neil Young joined CSN shortly before they played four times in two days at the Fillmore East.  The four-man group had performed just two shows (including Woodstock) before appearing at the New York City venue.  There have been poor-quality bootlegs of this concert from September 20th of 1969, but now we have the high-quality eight-track mixing-board recordings.

Live At Fillmore East, 1969 was released October 25th, 2024. The review is below.

The 2024 mix of the album was supervised by Stephen Stills and Neil Young.  As an audio buff, Young was particularly happy with the result.  He said “It’s all analog.  The vinyl comes out just like it would have been in 1969.  It’s a beautiful thing.”

The tracks are in the same order on the records and the CD.  The acoustic set is on record one, and the electric set on record two.  For the electric set, the group was joined by drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Greg Reeves.  This was before CSNY released the album Deja Vu (which was March 11th of 1970).

That timing makes for an interesting concert that covers ground from Buffalo Springfield “On The Way Home” and Neil Young’s first album “I’ve Loved Her So long” to not-yet-released songs such as Still’s  “4 + 20”, “Go Back Home” & “Find The Cost Of Freedom”, plus Graham Nash’s “Our House”.  Seven of the songs are from the original Crosby Stiils & Nash album released earlier that year.  The new live album features a 16-minute jam of “Down By The River”, a song from Neil Young’s 1969 Crazy Horse album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

Review:  Serious CSN&Y fans will consider this a must-have album.  It’s historic in that it’s near the beginning of Crosby Stills Nash & Young as a touring group.  They’re just figuring out how to blend Neil Young into the band.  The album begins with just CSN.  Stephen Stills is on guitar and lead vocal, and Crosby & Nash provide the harmonies to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”.  They do an excellent job on the very challenging song.  They then play a song that was an album cut released a year earlier, “Blackbird” off The Beatles’ White Album.  Here we get the song in beautiful three-part harmony.  “Helplessly Hoping” is next, and well done, although you may find the giggling in the middle either charming or annoying.

The peak of the album comes in the next two songs, “Guinevere” and “Lady Of The Island”.  David Crosby and Graham Nash trade off singing harmony on each other’s songs and the results are gorgeous.  Stills is excellent on two solo songs, “Go Back Home” and “4 & 20”.  Neil Young joins in the acoustic set with the nicely done Buffalo Springfield song, “On The Way Home” and his own “I’ve Loved Her So Long”.  Nash performs the not-yet-released “Our House”, with then girlfriend Joni Mitchell in the audience.  The acoustic set is all good, and ends with a solid version of “You Don’t Have To Cry”.

The electric set is the lesser part of the concert, as Stephen Stills pretty well admits.  He said… “The acoustic part of the show took care of itself, but now we had the equipment and Dallas and Greg and sizable shows to do, we just went for it.  What we lacked in finesse, we made up in enthusiasm.”

The electric set’s highlights are a good version of “Wooden Ships”, and the long 16-minute jamming on Neil Young’s “Down By The River”.  All in all, CSNY Live At Fillmore East is a welcome part of the band’s legacy.

Graham Nash is pleased the concert was finally released, he said… “I remember the first Fillmore East shows with great fondness.  Hearing the music again after all these years, I can tell how much we loved each other and loved the music we were creating.”

One of the best aspects of this album is that old friends Stephen Stills and Neil Young are working together again.  Besides mixing the live recordings, the two performed at the Harvest Moon charity event October 5th, 2024.

Stills & Young started their set with “Long May You Run”, and then played crowd-pleasing songs that went all the way back to Buffalo Springfield (including “Bluebird” & “For What It’s Worth”) from the 1960’s. There were of course CSNY songs, and some Neil Young classics.  The two were supported onstage by bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Anthony Logerfo.

Bonus photo:  Fillmore East

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 14-year-old brother Mike at a wedding reception March 8th, 1958.  It’s thought to be the first color photo of the future Beatles, as well as George’s first gig with the others.

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 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” & “Trouble With My Lover”), 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 has released 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 came out this past June.  The 67-minute film was released on September 26th, 2024, with limited screenings 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 has an introduction by Paul McCartney, and features previously unseen Polaroid photos from 1974.

No word yet about when One Hand Clapping might be available for streaming or on DVD.  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 was September 20th, 2024.

On that same date, a much more extensive box set was also 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.

Review comments are posted following the song lists below.  By the way, when you see “Rap” on a tracklist, it’s just a quick comment from Neil about the music.

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).

If you had to play someone a “classic Neil Young concert”, this might be it.  The first 7 songs are solo acoustic versions, and the other 7 songs are rocking with Crazy Horse.  “Lotta Love” makes an appearance 2-and-a-half years before it’s 1978 studio release on Comes A Time.  This concert was recorded in Tokyo.

The next Across The Water concert was in London.  This one has just eight tracks, but that’s because three of them are quite long.  The first three songs are solo acoustic, and the last five are with Crazy Horse.  It’s all good, but Disc 1 is the better show.

All but the last track on Disc 3 are previously released.  Most of them are solo studio songs from Hitchhiker and solo live recordings from Songs For Judy.  The two live performances Young provided for The Band’s Last Waltz film are included.

Imagine sitting in a room while Neil Young plays acoustic guitar and sings about a dozen new songs for Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson.  As they get to know the songs a bit, Linda and Nicolette lightly add some harmonies.  That’s this recording done at a table in Ronstadt’s Malibu home in 1977.  These are not completed definitive versions of the songs, but there is a kind of magic to hearing them coming to life.  Even in this casual setting, Neil’s guitar playing is impressive.

Disc 5 above (The Ducks) is a group of musicians Neil worked with briefly in 1977.  It’s mostly Country music.  Of the 8 songs, Neil sings lead on three, others take the lead on three songs, and two are instrumentals.  Seven of the eight songs are live recordings.

The first three songs on Disc 6 are full-band old-fashioned Country & Western  recordings.  The remaining songs are mostly Neil Young playing all the instruments and doing the lead and harmony vocals.  They sound good, and could have appeared this way on albums like Comes A Time, but they’re not quite up to the quality they became with Nicolette Larson singing the harmony parts.

Disc 7 is mostly a rehearsal from 1977.  This one suffers from not having a great sound mix.  The impression is that it’s “just a rehearsal”, and is less expertly recorded than an actual performance would have been.  You can hear the difference when a completed recording “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” is heard near the end.  The old Classic Country song is a duet with Neil Young & Nicolette Larson and has superior audio.

Disc 8 is part one of a good 1978 solo acoustic concert Neil performed at The Boarding House in San Francisco.  Three of the new songs from that concert are the highlights… “Sail Away”, ”Powderfinger” and “Thrasher”.  The studio versions would later appear on Rust Never Sleeps.

Disc 9 above completes the live solo concert with five more songs, but also inserts an unnecessary and out of place version of “Hey Hey, My My” with Devo.  The track marked “dressing room” at the end is not a song, just a short audio recording in the dressing room after the show.

Disc 10 is all previously released recordings from Young’s excellent Rust Never Sleeps & Live Rust albums, except the previously unreleased studio song “Bright Sunny Day”, which is fine, but not a classic.

Disc 11 is mostly previously released songs from two of Young’s lesser albums, Hawks & Doves and RE-AC-TOR.  Of the three new studio songs, “Winter Winds” is a good country song, and “Sunny Inside” & “Get Up” don’t really work.

Disc 12 finds Neil Young in 1982, with synthesizers and a vocoder (to electronically alter voices).  First we get the six vocoder tracks from the Trans album.  I find myself in the minority of fans, because I actually like “Sample And Hold”, “Mr. Soul” and “Transformer Man”, but overall it’s not a well-liked album.  Next the disc moves into one of the “unreleased albums”, Johnny’s Island.  It might be described as “Yacht Rock”, or perhaps “Yacht Pop”.  It features a full band of some of Young’s regulars…Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Ralph Molina, Bruce Palmer, and Joe Lala.  It’s not bad, but the pop music style would probably not have been well received if Neil had released the album in 1982.

Disc 13 is an odd mix of music.  It starts with two live solo performances with Neil Young on Banjo.  Then we get a couple of very Country songs, before going into Neil’s mostly-disliked album of 1950’s Rock & Roll songs, Everybody’s Rockin’.  The disc ends with 6 more of Neil’s “just me on all the instruments & vocals” recordings.

This disc is the country version of Neil Young.  The best tracks are near the end… “This Old House”, “Southern Pacific”, and “Interstate”.

Disc 15 above is another live album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.  Not as good as Disc 1 & Disc 2.

Disc 16 has songs from the Landing On Water album, plus three previously unreleased tracks.  If “Road Of Plenty” sounds familiar, that’s because it was developed into “Eldorado” for 1989’s Freedom album.

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.  For those of you who haven’t heard the live version (taken from a 1989 radio concert) here it is:

Most of the songs on Disc 17 are early takes of acoustic studio recordings, close to demos.

Overall, it’s great that Neil Young releases these historic Archives collections.  There are always unreleased tracks and live versions that add to our enjoyment of his impressive musical legacy.

Helpful Hint:  If you’d like to stream any of the songs or albums from Archives III, they’re on the Neil Young Archives website.  The monthly fee is just $2.99, and you can quit at anytime.  The site has all of Neil Young’s releases for streaming.  As of this writing, Archives III is not on other streaming sites.

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.  Paul McCartney was immersed in the London art scene, and found minimalist artist Richard Hamilton to design the cover.  It is 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.  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), recording engineer Geoff Emerick said Ringo suggested they just take a photo outside and call the album Abbey Road.  Instead of just posing in front of the building, Paul McCartney provided a sketch of The Beatles crossing the road.

According to photographer Iain Macmillian, “The whole idea was McCartney’s”.  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.