The BeatlesThe Alternate Revolver (Pear)(2003 Pear Records: PDP 007)Demos / Outtakes / LiveStudio Soundboard RecordingsEncoded: 256 Kbps MP3Track List: (Artwork Included)1. Eleanor Rigby3. I'm Only Sleeping4.
The album's title isn't decided until July 2nd 1966, while the Beatles are on tour, in Tokyo. At first Abracadabra was considered. But somebody else had used that title already. Other candidates were Magic Circles and Beatles On Safari, Bubble And Squeak and Free Wheelin' Beatles. In the end, everybody is happy with Revolver.
Love You To5. Here, There And Everywhere6. Yellow Submarine7. She Said She Said8. Good Day Sunshine9. And Your Bird Can Sing10. For No One11.
Doctor Robert12. I Want To Tell You13. Got To Get You Into My Life14. Tomorrow Never Knows15. Paperback Writer16.
Paperback Writer17. I'm Only Sleeping19. Here, There And Everywhere20. Here, There And Everywhere21. Yellow Submarine22. And Your Bird Can Sing23.
Doctor Robert24. Doctor Robert25.
Tomorrow Never Knows26. Paperback Writer27. She Said She Said29.
Paperback Writer30. Paperback Writer.
September 26 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road, the album which many regard as The Beatles’ true masterpiece. I count myself among those, even as I prefer to listen to. Abbey Road certainly was an audacious album, with its collection of half-finished songs on Side 2.And what a collection of half-finished songs they are. Because none of them were singles or feature on compilations, they are The Beatles’ “hidden” treasures.
The people who feature here obviously saw the genius that runs through the medley, and most covered these tracks as songs in their own, full right.It is Side 2 that deserves genius status, from Here Comes The Sun — the side’s only fully-fledged song — to The End (we’ll disregard McCartney’s silly coda to the queen as the unnecessary gimmick of a royalist toady which it was). Side 1 is rather hit-and-miss. Of course, Something is a stone-cold classic, and Come Together is great, if you don’t get annoyed by it. But until the great slow-burning blues of I Want You, with its moog-created wind effect, there’s a trio of entirely dispensable songs.Of those, Paul’s attempt at doing soul, Oh Darling, can be said to have some value, but the Yellow Submarine sequel Octopus’s Garden is a weak point on the album. Some suggest that Ringo’s song is still better than Paul’s murder ballad Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Here Paul again went into dancehall mode, as he did on Sgt Pepper’s with When I’m 64 and on the White Album with Honey Pie.Not surprisingly, few artists have bothered to cover Maxwell’s Silver Hammer with great seriousness.
The version here is in German by a Brazilian singer called Teddy Lee who seems to have been part of The Rotations, who had an early 1970s hit in Europe with. His version is what the song deserves: not lacking in respect, but nothing that merits huge respect either.On the other hand, the great a cappella band The Persuasions deliver an appealing version of Octopus’s Garden, and Oh Darling produced three strong contenders.
In the event, I picked Roberta Flack’s slow-burning version over those and The Persuasions (whose lead singer shortly after I compiled this mix).There are four bonus tracks of songs which The Beatles released on single during the Abbey Road timeframe. Of those, Get Back gets a gratuitous airing, since it will reappear (in a different version, obviously) on Let It Be Recovered.As ever, CD-R mix, home-zebracrossed covers.
PW in comments.1. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Come Together (1975)2. Isaac Hayes – Something (1970)3. Teddy Lee – Maxwells Silberhammer (1969)4. Roberta Flack – Oh! Darling (2012)5.
The Persuasions – Octopus’s Garden (2002)6. George Benson – I Want You (She’s So Heavy) (1969)7. Nina Simone – Here Comes The Sun (1971)8. Gary McFarland – Because (1970)9.
Sarah Vaughan – You Never Give Me Your Money (1981)10. The Bee Gees – Sun King (1976)11. Cornershop – Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam (2009)12. Los Lonely Boys – She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (2009)13. Carmen McRae – Golden Slumber/Carry That Weight (1971)14. London Sympathy Orchestra – The End (1987)15.
Tok Tok Tok – Her Majesty (2005)Bonus TracksJessi Colter – Get Back (1976)Randy Crawford – Don’t Let Me Down (1976)Teenage Fanclub – The Ballad Of John And Yoko (1995)Leslie West – Old Brown Shoe (2004)orMore Beatles Recovered. With the Beatles’ incredible achievements in mind, it is easy to forget that three of the Beatles’ first four albums were topped up with fillers, many of them cover versions — which is quite ironic since the Beatles went on to become the most covered band ever. Some of these covers are better known in their original versions; the Little Richard and Chuck Berry compositions and Motown classics, for example. Some are generic classics (A Taste Of Honey; Till There Was You), and some are fairly obscure, or would become so.In this instalment of, we look at the lesser-known first recordings of songs covered by The Beatles on their albums or singles.Twist And ShoutTwist And Shout is probably the most famous cover by The Beatles, and is most commonly associated with them. And rightly so: their take is rock & roll perfection. It was based on the 1962 cover by the Isley Brothers, who introduced the rhythm guitar riff (which borrows heavily from Richie Valens’ La Bamba) and the “ah-ah-ah” harmonies, to which the Beatles added the Little Richardesque “wooo”.The song was written by the legendary Bert Berns (sometimes credited to his pseudonym Bert Russell) with Phil Medley. Berns gave Twist And Shout to The Top Notes — a Philadelphia R&B group which might have been forgotten entirely otherwise — whose recording was produced by a very young Phil Spector.The result did not please Berns, who accused Spector of “fucking it up”.
He was a bit harsh on young Phil; the Top Notes’ version is not bad, but Berns had hoped for something a more energetic. So he took the song to the reluctant Isley Brothers, who had scored a hit two years earlier with the driving Shout, which had the kind of sound Berns imagined for his song. Their Twist And Shout, which Berns produced, became a US #17 hit and is included here as a bonus track. In our alternate Beatleverse it’s 1977, and three years after 1974’s classic double album, the Fabs are finally releasing a follow-up.By now John is concentrating on his home-life more than he does on The Beatles, and Ringo is enjoying his forays into the movies.
Between them, they provide only three songs to the new album, and John.s are hold-overs from the Photographs sessions real life aside: the featured Lennon tracks are from the Menlove Ave. Album of outtakes from the Walls & Bridges sessions. One might’ve thought that John.s Rock & Roll shtick was something of an anachronism, but by 1977 it was in line with the 1950s revival which a year later would find full expression with the film Grease.Paul and George have been prolific, however, and their contributions to this LP are quite lovely.
Remarkably, The Beatles have not yet succumbed to the influences of disco.The album title, 77, is a bit lazy. Obviously it refers to the year of its release. One wonders whether it is also an oblique reference to the year being the tenth anniversary of the year in which Sgt Pepper.s was released. The plain red back cover and the font on the front-cover more than hints at that.This series of alternate history mixes pay tribute Peter Lee.s commendable alternative-history novel The Life And Death of Mal Evans which is available in print or eBook from or from or.The set fits on a standard CD-R and includes covers (and if you don.t like them, take it up with The Beatles.
Arts department). PW in comments.Side 11.
Let ‘Em In (Paul)2. Cracker Box Palace (George)3. Silly Love Songs (Paul)4. Rock And Roll People (John)5. Beautiful Girl (George)Side 26. This Song (George)7.
Lady Gaye (Ringo)8. Girls’ School (Paul)9. Old Dirt Road (John)10. You (George)11.
Letting Go (Paul)OR: Beatles Reunited albums:). Coming just over six weeks after the release of the White Album, The Beatles released the soundtrack LP for the animated Yellow Submarine movie on 13 January 1969. Its release exactly fifty years ago yesterday was not massively popular, partly since Side 2 comprised only George Martin instrumentals, and in any case, it was always going to be overshadowed by the epoch-making double album.The Beatles weren’t too keen either; they put together their contribution only because of a contractual obligation to United Artists, which was releasing the film.Two of the six songs on Side 1 had been previously released on single (All You Need Is Love and the title track). George Harrison’s sarcastic Only A Northern Song was recorded during the Sgt Pepper’s sessions in February 1967, but rejected for that album.All Together Now, which McCartney called “a throw-away track”, was recorded in May 1967 for the film project, as was John Lennon’s Hey Bulldog, recorded in February 1968. It’s two years after the alternate history Smile Away album of 1972; and here is the 1974 double album.
The title of the last album was drawn from a Paul track; this one uses the plural of a Starr-Harrison song.Another Ringo song comes very close to a being Beatles record in the post-split period: I’m The Greatest it features three Beatles in Ringo, John (who wrote it) and George. The third Ringo number made the cut only by squeezing shut an eye: All By Myself was written by Ringo with Vini Poncia (who in 1964 wrote a song titled Ringo I Love You for Bonnie Jo Mason, who soon after that became known as Cher). Let’s imagine Ringo passed it off as his own track until the album credits had to be written.For George the period 1973-74 was pretty shallow; he gave three tracks (and his half of Photograph) to this album.
I suppose his Sue Me, Sue You Blues might have needed a tweak in lyrics since the band hasn’t broken up and sued one another.Paul and John obviously dominate here. John gets one song more than Paul, which I’m sure would have caused friction. But Paul could have given The Beatles the superb Live And Let Die, but he had to release it as a solo single ( of course he would have)!Obviously one can argue all night about my choices for this double LP, and even about its title (a quite ferocious critic last time around was quite certain that The Beatles would never have called an album Smile Away. I suspect that his mindreading skills are superior to mine, but, well, in my alternate history they damn well did).
Alternate histories aren’t science; the fun is in discussing whether one’s idea of might have been coincide with that of another. But one ought to be civil about it.These “Beatles Reunited” mixes are in a way inspired by Peter Lee’s commendable alternative-history novel The Life And Death of Mal Evans which is available in print or eBook from or from. Also check out Peter’s.The set fits on a standard CD-R and includes very literal covers. PW in comments.Side 11. What You Got (John)2.
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (George)4. Photograph (Ringo)5. Whatever Gets You Thru The Night (John)Side 26. Band On The Run (Paul)7.
Nobody Loves You When You’re Down (John)8. Sue Me, Sue You Blues (George)9. Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple) (John)Side 310. Junior’s Farm (Paul)11. I’m The Greatest (Ringo)12. Let Me Roll It (Paul)13.
My Love (Paul)14. # 9 Dream (John)Side 415. All By Myself (Ringo)16. Mind Games (John)17. Helen Wheels (Paul)18.
Dark Horse (George)19. Steel And Glass (John)GET IT: Beatles Reunited albums:). The Magical Mystery Tour LP, released 50 years ago on November 27 in the US (and in the UK on December 8 as a double EP) is something of a stepchild in the Beatles canon. The British EP comprised the original tracks from the British TV movie of the same name. On the album, those tracks make up side 1 of the LP. Side 2 of the LP are songs that appeared on single that year.The British EP was lavishly packaged. The gatefold cover included a 28-page, full colour booklet of photos from the critically panned TV film and song lyrics.
When I bought a Japanese pressing of the LP 14 years later, it came in a gatefold sleeve with the booklet, now in LP-size.The Magical Mystery Tour LP was a success in the US, even earning Grammy nominations. And there are some stone-cold classics on that LP. Obviously the singles on Side 2 – All You Need Is Love, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and Hello Goodbye – plus the title track, Fool On The Hill and I Am The Walrus on Side 1. Then there is the glorious Baby You’re A Rich Man, which was the b-side of All You Need Is Love but could just as well have been a hit in its own right.Which leaves us with the quite forgettable instrumental Flying (the only Beatles song credited to all four members); Harrison’s Blue Jay Way, another one of his Indian-flavoured tracks which are unloved by most Beatles fans; and Your Mother Should Know, one of those McCartney flapper-tinged nostalgia trips.So, a strike rate of 9/12 is pretty good going. Even if one allows that half the LP is a singles collection, it is nevertheless remarkable that they were all recorded during or just after the Sgt Pepper’s sessions that culminated in the release of that watershed in rock history, only five months before Magical Mystery Tour came out.
It’s The Beatles in 1967 that needed to put out a double album, not those of 1968. The release of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50 years ago rewrote the rulebook of pop music. It’s not that it was the first concept album (in as far as it was even that in the sense we’ve come to understand the idea now), nor the first to dabble innovative studio tricks (The Beatles themselves had done so on Revolver, and Brian Wilson was perhaps even more innovative at the time). But for contemporaries, the album changed everything.Perhaps it was also the cover that had such an impact. It was not usual to create artworks for LP covers – the Beach Boys were still goofing about with animals on snapshots for the sleeve for Pet Sounds.
One could study Peter Blake’s collage for the duration of Side 1 and while away the inferior second side studying it some more, and return to it over and over again. Even today, it is a significant piece of 20 th-century art.But the thing is, Sgt Pepper’s is greater in its context than it is within the canon of Beatles albums. Of course, there are mighty tracks on it.
A Day In The Life is a masterpiece, but I know few Beatles fans whose life would be poorer for the absence of Lovely Rita, or, indeed, Within You Without You (cleverly sequenced to start Side 2, for easy skipability). It doesn’t require clever revisionism by deliberate iconoclasts to regard Sgt Pepper’s as not the greatest album the Beatles made. But it does require the revisionism of fools to call it overrated. Sgt Pepper’s is a great album, especially the first side, and its historical impact cannot be overstated.And if the later rule of already-released singles finding a place on albums had been in force, imagine how much better Sgt Pepper’s might have been with Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. In the event, EMI insisted on releasing the songs, which were recorded as part of the Sgt Pepper’s sessions, as a double a-sided single.
A poster of The Beatles in Sgt Pepper’s uniforms in the German youth magazine. (see for daily vintage Bravo posters)Just a couple of weeks after Sgt Pepper’s was released, The Beatles recorded All You Need Is Love. The boys – Ringo was just turning 27; John was 26, Paul was about to turn 25, George was 24 – were on a hot streak.Of course, Paul McCartney will turn 75 this month. But 50 years ago he was already dead, and long-standing research shows that Sgt Pepper;s provided the proof we’d have confirmed by the Abbey Road cover, by way of very clear clues. To start with, there’s a new band with one Billy Shears as the singer (well, Ringo is Billy Shears, but let’s not have Failing Fake News disturb us).
In A Day In The Life John sings: “He blew his mind out in a car”, indicating the method of Paul;s death. And if you play the song backwards, you apparently can hear the phrase, “Paul is dead, miss him, miss him”.
At the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, John says, “I buried Paul”. Lennon claimed he mumbled “cranberry sauce”, but why would he say “cranberry sauce” when Paul is dead and he buried him? Wake up, sheeple!And then there’s the cover.
In the foreground is clearly a grave — Paul’s grave, of course! Look at the wax figure Young Beatles: Ringo is sad, very sad, as he looks at Paul’s grave. John is putting a comforting hand on Ringo’s shoulder (George seems glad though. Was he involved in the plot to kill Paul?). On the back cover, “Paul” turns his back; even Fake Paul is trying to give us a clue, apparently trying to escape the conspiracy. And here’s the smoking gun: Place the cover in front of a mirror, and the words “Lonely Hearts” on the drum read, “1 ONE 1 X HE DIE 1 ONE 1″, as you can see very clearly below.
It’s so obvious, folks.So happy birthday to you, Sir Paul McCartney, whoever you are!Which brings us to this selection of cover versions of songs from Sgt Pepper’s, in the proper sequence. The selection is eclectic, yet it all flows. You’d expect otherwise from a sequence that goes from psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix (recorded in concert in Stockholm) to bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to soul singer Natalie Cole to rockers Status Quo to old comedian George Burns to folkie Richie Havens and so on. And still, it all fits together well. It helps that Scruggs isn’t banjoing the hell out of With A Little Help From My Friends, and that Natalie Cole rocks harder than the Quo, who sound more like Burns. On the LP, the closing song is the crowning glory. The same might be said here of War’s epic take on A Day In The Life.I have added covers of Strawberry Fields and Penny Land to the mix.
The best cover of the former is that by Richie Havens, but he already features with She’s Leaving Home. In any case, Havens’ version has featured before on.Coming in at under an hour, the mix fits on a standard CD-R. Covers are included. PW in the comments section (the purpose of which is not really to declare passwords but for readers to say something).1. Jimi Hendrix Experience – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1968)2.
Earl Scruggs – With A Little Help From My Friends (1971)3. Natalie Cole – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1978)4. Status Quo – Getting Better (1976)5. George Burns – Fixing A Hole (1978)6. Richie Havens – She’s Leaving Home (1968)7.
Eddie Izzard – Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite (2007)8. Sonic Youth – Within You Without You (1989)9. Claudine Longet – When I’m Sixty-Four (1967)10. Fats Domino – Lovely Rita (1968)11. Micky Dolenz – Good Morning Good Morning (2012)12. Stereophonics – Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (2007)13. Eric Burdon – A Day In The Life (1976)14. Peter Gabriel – Strawberry Fields Forever (1976)15. Amen Corner – Penny Lane (1969)GET IT: great stuff.
August 5 will see the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ seminal Revolver album. If Rubber Soul was the moment when the besuited moptops handed over the Beatle baton to the more experimental stoners, Revolver was the moment the stoners became adults, doing things on their own terms.George Harrison’s I Want To Tell you is perhaps most emblematic of that progression. The melody could have been on Rubber Soul, or even Help!, but the arrangement and especially the lyrics absolutely couldn’t.The first song which the Beatles recorded for the album was one that set the scene for what innovation was to come. Tomorrow Never Knows, which was born almost exactly four months before Revolver‘s release (on April 6), was a radical departure from the pure, relatively uncomplicated pop and rock & roll which the band had produced just a year earlier on Help (which was released on August 6, 1965, almost exactly one year before Revolver.
Let that timeline sink in!). The song was subject to such experimentations as tape loops and running the vocals through a speaker normally used for the Hammond organ, plus Ringo using a novel drum-pattern.The cover of that song here is a sparse affair from 1970 by the blues/R&B singer Junior Parker, recorded a year before his death at the age of 39 during surgery for a brain tumor.Harrison had already experimented gingerly with Indian music on Rubber Soul. Here, on Love You To, he went full Indian “” I guess it must have been even more startling to Revolver“™s first listeners than Tomorrow Never Knows.
It is covered here by the Don Randi Trio, who recorded the whole of Revolver in their jazz interpretation, within weeks of the album’s release. Their version respects the original’s Indian core.Revolver had several moments of genius. Eleanor Rigby in particular is a masterpiece, lyrically and musically (I’ll leave it to you whether Ray Charles’ interpretation trumps the original). McCartney’s other two ballads on the album – For No One and Here, There And Everywhere – are remarkable as well. Emmylou Harris features here with her gorgeous take on the often neglected For No One, from 1975’s Pieces Of The Sky LP. She might also have been included for her version of Here, There And Everywhere, recorded the same year for the Elite Hotel album.
That song is covered to equally lovely effect by that other country woman of crossover appeal, Bobbie Gentry.Lennon was more hit-and-miss on Revolver than Paul. Tomorrow Never Knows and I’m Only Sleeping tower above the serviceable but usually not unduly overlooked Dr Robert, And Your Bird Can Sing and She Said She Said, decent tracks though they are. Dr Robert was the most difficult song to find a cover for. Here it is done by an Italian band called Slow Feet (an allusion to Eric Clapton’s nickname Slow Hand), which specialises in covering classic rock songs.In don’t know why Paul’s excellent Good Day Sunshine doesn’t receive more love. Roy Redmond’s southern soul cover reveals a depth to a song which in The Beatles’ version is “just another” Beatles pop song.Critics don’t love Yellow Submarine, written by Paul specifically for Ringo and deliberately as a children’s song. It ought to have been only a b-side (as it also was, to Eleanor Rigby), not an album track.
But while the purists hate it, the public loved it, as would be the case two long, long years later with the much maligned yet ferociously popular Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.The Pickin’ On Picks recording was the only feasible version of Yellow Submarine that I could include here (though I include the 1976 Sesame Street version – three monsters harmonising in monstrous ways – as a bonus). The Pickin’ On Picks was a 1990s project whereby session musicians would render the catalogue of a particular artist in the bluegrass genre. Cross-genre appropriation sometimes works well, and sometimes does so only in small doses. This is such a case: one or two songs at a time are great; more than that is quite enough.The obvious choice for a cover of Got To Get You Into My Life might have been that of Earth, Wind & Fire, or perhaps that by Thelma Houston, which surely inspired the EWF arrangement. That itself might have borrowed from the one used here, by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The EWF version previously featured on; the Thelma Houston version you can get on the.Naturally the mix fits on a CD-R, and includes home-renovated covers. PW in comments.1. The Loose Ends – Tax Man (1966)2.
Ray Charles – Eleanor Rigby (1968)3. Lobo – I’m Only Sleeping (1974)4. Don Randi Trio – Love You To (1966)5. Bobbie Gentry – Here, There And Everywhere (1968)6. The Pickin’ On Picks – Yellow Submarine (1995)7. Hedge & Donna – She Said She Said (1971)8.
Roy Redmond – Good Day Sunshine (1967)9. Spanky & Our Gang – And Your Bird Can Sing (1967)10. Emmylou Harris – For No One (1975)11. Slowfeet – Doctor Robert (2006)12. Chris Stainton & Glen Turner – I Want To Tell You (1976)13. Blood, Sweat & Tears – Got To Get You Into My Life (1975)14.
Junior Parker – Tomorrow Never Knows (1970)More great stuff. What if The Beatles hadn’t broken up in 1970? In Any Major Alternative Universe the Fab Four stayed together, releasing solo records as they pleased but also keeping on producing Beatles albums.We’ve already had the double-album follow-up to Let It Be, titled, from 1971,. This new effort is also from 1972, including a few hold-overs from Harrison’s and Lennon’s fertile period in 1971. In 1972 Lennon was busy producing his weak Some Time In New York solo album with Yoko anyway, so that was just as well.Ringo was on a roll and had two songs of his own composition included on the album (both in real life featuring George Harrison, who also played on John”™s Gimme Some Truth). Back Off Boogaloo, written by Ringo, was so good that Paul couldn’t object to its inclusion, even though the song addresses him.In his commendable alternative-history novel, Peter Lee produced his own idea of post-1970 Beatles albums.
I followed his lead in calling the 1971 effort Everest. His follow-up album was set in 1974, as will be my next collection.Arriving at a title for this putative 1972 LP was a bit of a challenge. What would The Beatles call an album in 1972?
What was the vibe? I went for an easy option, and decided to riff on one of the song titles on this collection. But which one? I was torn between some theme relating to Gimme Some Truth, or maybe It Don’t Come Easy. But I think Smile Away is enigmatic and sounds like it fits to 1972. So that’s the one.This is a single album, so it’ll easily fit on a CD-R. Covers included; PW in comments.Side 1Power To The People (John)It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo)Hi Hi Hi (Paul)Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll) (George)Another Day (Paul)Imagine (John)Side 2If Not For You (George)Smile Away (Paul)Gimme Some Truth (John)Back Off Bugaloo (Ringo)Behind That Locked Door (George)Wild Life (Paul)Death & Life of Mal Evans by Peter Lee is available in print or eBook from or from.
Also check out Peter’s.More great stuff.
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