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‘WELL, IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY…’
18th October 1967:
Beatles attend premiere of How I Won The War film, featuring John Lennon in a small role.
20th October:
Chris Barber Band issue 'Catcall', an instrumental written by Paul.
27th November:
'Hello Goodbye'/'l Am The Walrus' and Magical Mystery Tour album out in US. (Single out three days earlier in the UK.)
8th December:
Magical Mystery Tour double EP package out in UK.
26th December:
Magical Mystery Tour film premiered in black-and-white on BBC TV (Repeated in colour, 5th January.)
AND TEN YEARS AGO...
11th November 1977:
'Mull Of Kintyre'/'Girls School' released as double A-side, but 'Mull' soon grabs the attention. This hymn to a landmark near Paul's Scottish home features the local Campbeltown Pipe Band and has sold over two and a half million copies to date. It was the best-selling British single of all time until the Band Aid Song, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', topped it in 1984.
FLYING SAUCER NEWS
No, you aren't reading U FO Times, but those small, shiny CD's do resemble visitors from worlds beyond, don't you think? Anyway, we can confirm that the saucers which came our way contained nothing unfriendly.
The Beatles' CD's are certainly exciting, but apart from minor variations and unforeseen delights you know roughly what you're getting on those released to date. The Paul/Wings CD's are less predictable and much has happened lately, so let's start there.
Three albums came out on EMI's mid-price Fame label (a new departure in the company's CD marketing) in early October, with extra tracks added to each. Apart from 'Mary Had A Little Lamb', a British top ten hit in 1972, all were B-sides. Here is the list, with the A-sides in brackets: -
Wings Wild Life:
'Oh Woman Oh Why' ('Another Day')
'Mary Had A Little Lamb'
'Little Woman Love' ('Mary Had A Little Lamb')
Red Rose Speedway:
'The Mess' ('My Love')
'I Lie Around' ('Live And Let Die')
'Country Dreamer' ('Helen Wheels')
McCartney II:
'Check My Machine' ('Waterfalls')
'Secret Friend' ('Temporary Secretary')
So, with 'C-Moon' (hooray!), 'Goodnight Tonight' and 'We All Stand Together' now on All The Best, the list of non-album McCartney tracks in CS43 is shrinking rapidly for owners of CD players.
These lucky folk have another treat in store with the release - imminent at press-time - of one of Paul's most popular albums, Venus And Mars, at mid-price. It has not been out on CD before: two which have, Ram and Press To Play, come out at mid-price on the same day.
After the euphoria surrounding Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles catalogue still retains plenty of delights for the CD fancier. Although the Beatles grew apart after 1967, one compensation is that they added a contemporary rock 'n roll attack to their awesome technical sophistication. The four new songs on the half-forgotten Yellow Submarine soundtrack album include 'Hey Bulldog' to back this up, while the others (including Paul's singalong 'All Together Now') hark back more to the Summer of Love. With 'Yellow Sub.' itself and All You Need Is Love' available on other CD's and side two consisting solely of George Martin's inventive orchestrations from the brilliant cartoon film, EMI have been pleasantly surprised by the sales of this one.
" 'All You Need Is Love' on CD? Come again?" Yes: after initial doubts, EMI decided to issue the album which US Capitol created by adding the six Magical Mystery Tour tracks to five from recent singles. (One B-side, 'I Am The Walrus', was among the film songs.) Besides the CD effect, there is an added bonus to the MMT album in its new guise. The Capitol album featured 'fake' stereo, artificially created from mono tapes. Until the CD, the only way to obtain these tracks in true stereo was to buy the UK cassette. The original booklet could not be condensed into 24 small pages, so the essential info has been extracted.
Dodging back to '68, we reach the legendary White Album, officially entitled The Beatles. Though less unified and lyrically and musically harsher than its predecessors, The White Album is full of incidental delights. Double CD's do not come cheap, but the first batch are individually numbered (as with the original album) and all copies will come with a 24-page booklet containing all the lyrics and photos inserted with the vinyl version. Again, sales have been very pleasing to EMI.
The last pair of original albums present a sharp contrast. Abbey Road, George Martin's personal favourite, has probably even more to reveal on CD than Pepper, especially during the brilliant montage of songs and fragments on side two. Let It Be, recorded before Abbey Road as all real buffs know, ended the Beatles' career on a rougher note. Yet although the group disliked the sessions which produced this album, '/ Dig A Pony' (a waltz, I gather from hearing Steve Race on My Music), 'I Me Mine' and 'I've Got A Feeling' are first rate nouveau rock and there are several other good songs. Paul disliked the strings Phil Spector had added to The Long And Winding Road (a single in America); finally, in 1984, he set the record straight with a less cluttered version for Give My Regards To Broad Street. The legendary booklet from the original album box is not reproduced, for reasons similar to those applying to the Magical Mystery Tour package.
It's well known that the Beatle s CD's have boosted sales of vinyl and cassettes. Happily, therefore, the latter are now available in much improved form. When cassettes were very much a secondary market, the songs' running order often differed from the records and packaging left something to be desired. Now the albums are not only on high-quality XDR tape, but (like the CD's) come with a smaller reproduction of the record's sleeve, plus full original info. In a similar move, US Capitol have issued the first eight UK albums (Sgt. Pepper was the eighth) on record and tape. At last American fans can hear the Beatles' music as the group intended, with neither duplication nor short measure. Better Kate than Heather, as we English sometimes say.
So what now for the Beatles on CD? A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale in stereo remain a distant prospect. To reverse the coin, dedicated fans keen to hear the mono White Album (which differs markedly from the stereo in places) on CD look likely to remain disappointed. The 'red' and 'blue' compilations (1962-66 and 1967-70) are due next year, after April. Two CD's (or one double) of uncollected tracks are also due "sometime next year".
Neither project is as simple as it looks. In 1982 the authoritative Record Collector magazine stated that five mono tracks from the red and blue collections had previously appeared in stereo outside Britain. If available, will the stereo tapes of these songs stand up to the close scrutiny possible via CD? The collections of material not on 'proper' Beatles LP's could do worse than base themselves on the UK Rarities (though with the US Rarities sleeve) and the US Hey Jude (issued in Britain much later).
That last suggestion presumes that normal marketing principles will then apply in the CD field, since one otherwise non-album song from Hey Jude appears on the red collection and six on the blue. Fans who'd bought the 'proper' CD's would want Rarities and Hey Jude (or something like it), while those who hadn't would probably be happy with the red and blue sets. The eight other singles now only on these sets or other hits albums could also be added to a Hey Jude-rype collection. Apart from 'Love Me Do' Mk. I, that would seem to tie things up.
But what of the Rock 'n' Roll Music compilation? The selection was logical and (apart from the sleeve) well received and in time will look a natural for CD release. But Record Collector also revealed that George Martin had remixed the tapes for the American version and that these mixes were used when the double set was split into two Music For Pleasure albums in Britain. Which mix would be used for CD?
With powerful expectations to satisfy, membership of EMI's Beatles Committee cannot be the easy number some might think. We fans, by contrast, can relax and know that, sooner rather than later, we'll hear 'Hey Jude', 'Get Back' and 'Lady Madonna' as George Martin and his engineers heard them in the '60's.
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