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Maori Finale

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This story begins with a challenge that Arno Guzek, our Danish friend posted on Facebook: "Who is the lady who rubs noses with Ringo in this picture?"

There was no fixed answer, you had to use all the sources you may have access to in order to come up with the right answer. Johnny Skrøder found a title and a date "The Hongi", the photographer’s name was Morrie Hill and the picture is from The Beatles arriving in Wellington, New Zealand on June 21st 1964. In addition, he found that the lady in question was part of a group called "Te Pataka Concert Party".



More pictures from the same occasion appeared. Michael Theet reported that the group had released an album, "Memories Of Maori Land" and the group's name in this connection was "Te Pataka Maori Entertainers". This album they had also brought with them and donated to the Beatles. Very quickly it was established that this is a 10” LP released in 1961.


Theet also believed to be able to make an educated guess that this was the leader of the group, Miria Hiroti. So then we had a name. Later she married Clark, thus her full name became Miria Hiroti Clark. Finally a newspaper clipping from 1962 with her appeared, where she was also named. Case closed.

But after that I came to think that the final piece in "Hello Goodbye" actually has a name, it's called "Maori Finale". You know, the part of the song that begins with something that sounds like "hela, hebe helloah, hela, hebe helloah".

On Wikipedia it says that this was improvised in the studio, but other sources claim it was already present as early as on the demo stage of the song. There was nothing unusual in that the Beatles were inspired by everyday events, things that had happened to them, newspaper articles and records with other artists. There are three music videos made in Saville Theatre for this song, and for the "Maori finale" thinly clad dancing girls appear.

Johnny Skrøder supplemented this, from the Maori language:
"Kushi hela" = "glad"
"Purna Heba" = "a desire fulfilled"
"Dukh, sukha Helu" = "discussing many things, good and bad"

So after these reports the question arises: Is the "Maori finale" from "Hello Goodbye" inspired by the album The Beatles received that day in 1964 when they visited New Zealand? Unfortunately we do not have this album in our collection, so the theory has not been tested. But the album exists, and some of you may be eager enough to track it down and figure it out?
John Lennon was the no great fan of the song "Hello Goodbye", but from the interviews we know that he had a taste for the ending.
"Hello Goodbye" was released as a single, coupled with "I Am The Walrus" in November 1967 and topped the charts in U.S., UK, France and my country, Norway.


The Beatles in Great Yarmouth

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The Beatles tours in England in 1963 have spurred several British local newspapers to bring 50th anniversary reports about when the Fabs visited their town. As an example, here's a report from EDP24:

It was 50 years ago this weekend that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr stepped onto the stage at the ABC Cinema in Great Yarmouth.
The Beatles were riding high in the charts at the time, their third single From Me To You/Thank You Girl, had only just dropped off the number one spot after spending seven weeks there. Their album Please Please Me had been at the top of the album charts for seven weeks. It would remain there for another 23 weeks.
The Fab Four had already toured the UK a total of three times in 1963 with a fourth tour to take place at the end of the year. Their third tour was supposed to end in Blackburn on June 9 but there was no stopping Britain’s best loved rock group and their manager Brian Epstein kept the boys busy.
Without taking a break, the Beatles began playing a series of one-off concerts across the country, in Liverpool, London, Newcastle and Leeds among others.
June 29 was a big day for Beatle fans, that day the group appeared on the BBC Light Programme’s Saturday Club and ABC TV’s Summer Spin Mersey Beat Special, while John Lennon appeared on BBC TV’s Juke Box Jury.
The next day, June 30 1963, their roadie Mal Evans packed their equipment into the van and they drove 136 miles from London to Great Yarmouth to begin a ten-week series of seaside concerts. During that summer the Beatles would play at a handful of seaside towns and their first was at the ABC Cinema on Regent Road in Great Yarmouth.

The Beatles shared the bill with four other acts: The Brook Brothers, The Terry Young Combo, Erkey Grant, Tommy Wallis and Beryl and the compere was Ted Rogers.
Two of the acts: The Terry Young Combo and Erkey Grant had been on the Beatles’ latest UK tour. Tickets for the show, depending were you sat, would cost between 4s/6d (around £2.89 today) and 9s/6d (£6.11). The first of the two houses began at 6pm with The Terry Young Combo taking to the stage before Terry Young had his own solo spot. Next on stage was comedian Ted Rogers who introduced the next act, The Brook Brothers who closed the first half.
After an interval The Terry Young Combo returned to kick start the second half. They were followed by the musical novelty act Tommy Wallis and Beryl. Ted Rogers took to the stage one last time to introduce The Beatles who closed the show.

Concert programme middle pages
Once the Beatles stepped onto the stage the screams began and they didn’t end until after the group had left.
None of the other performers on the show that night had the same problem, their audience sat quietly and listened to the music, applauding politely at the end of each song.
With the beatles on stage, Ted Rogers’ attempts to calm the crowd down were all in vain. The fans rushed to the front of the stage, jumped up and down - some fainted, but everyone was screaming. And it was so loud the fans in the front row couldn’t hear the group.
If they had heard, they would have been listening to the Beatles playing an 11-song set including over half of their album and both sides of their latest single. They began with a cover of Some Other Guy by Richie Barrett. The Beatles never released a version of the song but it had been part of their live repertoire since 1962. They continued the show with the flipside of their latest single ‘Thank You Girl’ before rocking through ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’, ‘Misery’, ‘A Taste of Honey’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘From Me To You’, ‘Baby It’s You’ and ‘Please Please Me’ before bringing the house down with ‘Twist and Shout’.

In-between the two sets the Fab Four were interviewed in their dressing room for Italian TV station RAI. The reporter, Gianni Bisiach, asks the group if it was true they are the most popular singers in England which makes them embarrassed with John saying “Well, I don’t know really”.
They then give their names and ages before being asked how their style began, the boys joke around saying they don’t know before Paul says, “It is just one of those things that happened you know, Gianni, in the far-off distant lands” with John adding “It’s Rock ‘n’ Roll!” They were also asked about fan mail and the style of their jackets.
The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein was also interviewed but that footage has since been lost.
The interview was originally aired on Italian TV in December 1963 and was given an Italian dubbing however the original audio tape still exists and fans have since overdubbed the original footage with the original sound.
During the second house, which started at 8.15pm the team from RAI took to the balcony and filmed The Beatles performing Twist and Shout but unfortunately the film doesn’t have the original audio.
After the show The Beatles drove back to London and the next day they recorded their fourth single She Loves You/I’ll Get You at Abbey Road studios. The Beatles returned to Great Yarmouth for the second and final time a month later when again they performed at the ABC Cinema on 28 July.
Again, they played to two houses at 6pm and 8.15pm with tickets costing between 4s/6d and 9s/6d. That night they shared the bill with The Kestrels, The Trebletones, Freddie Starr and the Midnighters, Barry Barnett and Glenda Collins. The compere was comedian Alan Field.
After that night’s concert the Fab Four drove back to London and the next day saw them recording tracks for their second album at Abbey Road as well as recording two shows for BBC Light Programme’s Saturday Club and an interview for Pop Chat.
The ABC Cinema was opended on New Year’s Day 1934 as the Regal Cinema. It was renamed the ABC Cinema in 1961 after being taken over by new owners. Sadly, it was demolished in 1989 to make way for the Market Gate Shopping Precient.
WATCH THE BEATLES ON ITALIAN RECORDING The Beatles interview recorded backstage at the ABC Cinema on 30 June 1963 is available here:

The concert footage from the same day with overdubbed sound recorded at a later date can be found here:

Paul teams up with Nirvana again

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Paul McCartney made rock history on Friday night when he brought out Nirvana's surviving members during the encore of his show at Seattle's Safeco Field. It was only the second time that drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic (plus touring guitarist Pat Smear) have performed together in Nirvana's hometown since Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, and the first time they've played there in more than 15 years.
The Nirvana bandmates backed McCartney on "Cut Me Some Slack" – the original song they recorded for Grohl's Sound City documentary last year – as well as joining McCartney's band on a handful of Beatles classics, including "Get Back," Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally," "Helter Skelter" and "The End."
More here: Rolling Stone


More video:
Cut Me Some Slack
Get Back
Helter Skelter

Amazing discovery

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This is "Kansas City" from an acetate recorded at the Cavern Club in 1962. Little survives from the Beatles' days at the Cavern apart from photos and paper memorabilia, so far we have only had the recording and film of "Some Other Guy", and a short excerpt of "Kansas City" with voices talking over it on the Anthology DVD-box, so to be able to finally hear the entire Kansas City is sensational! But here it is, from Dailymotion:

The Beatles at The Cavern Club 1962 - Kansas City

Birthday film

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Most of the streets in LA were decorated with this Ringo poster during my stay there

You may have noticed my absense the first three weeks of July. The reason for this was that I spent three weeks vacationing in the USA, mostly in Los Angeles. While there, I visited the Grammy museum to check out their ongoing Ringo exhibition. It was truly wonderful to be able to study some of the historical artifacts up close, like the Abbey Road/Let It Be drum kit, the Sgt Pepper suit and the black and green 1966 stage suit. The museum also had a film theatre where they were showing a 17 minutes long film about Ringo. The ending of that film was a professionally filmed and recorded version of "Birthday", performed by Paul McCartney at Ringo's 70th birthday bash at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. As far as I knew, this was the first time I've seen this film, earlier I had only seen fan films from this event. However, a YouTube search resulted in me finding this video, uploaded on March 5th this year:

John Kosh Interview

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From Paul McCartney's recreation of the Abbey Road cover, 1993
Friends of this blog will have noticed that we are very fond of the Abbey Road cover photo session. Today I'd like to direct you to a new interview with John Kosh, who designed the cover. Here's a highlight, regarding the "Paul-is-dead" nonsense and Derek Taylor's response: "And Derek, who was brilliant as a promotional artist, said: 'Let it roll. Don’t deny it!' It (the rumour?) sold 26 million albums." Another quote: "I decided not to put the name 'the Beatles' on the cover — or 'Abbey Road.' Because I thought, 'Well, this is the biggest band in the world — why would you need to do that?'".

Rock Cellar Magazine

A Magical History Tour - Beatling around LA

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The Gillymobile
This summer, I had the pleasure of visiting California for the first time. Although it was a family vacation with my girlfriend and her daughter, I did find the time to do a little bit of "Beatling about". Most of this was concentrated in the one day I spent with Gillian Lomax. Gillian is a Merseyside gal who has lived most of her adult life in the USA, following a hitch-hiking trip many years ago. A Beatles fan by heart, Gillian realised that Los Angeles was a city full of Beatles history, but without a Beatles tour. So she created one.

There are a few cities in the world with organized Beatles tours, Liverpool of course, London of course, Hamburg, New York and Los Angeles. I'm not sure if the New York tour still exists, but in 2005 I had the pleasure of attending a New York Beatles walking tour, guided by Trina Yannicos. You can explore a few Beatles sights in Los Angeles by walking, but most sights are far apart, so the best option is to do a tour by car.

As I was the only participant on Gillian's Beatles tour that day, I had the privilege of being driven around in her own trusty Toyota Camry, having her undivided attention. She started off by asking me about my level of Beatles knowledge, which was a good way both to start to get to know each other, and also helped her with her presentation of the sights she was going to show me. Gillian is a down to earth kinda gal (as you'd expect from a Merseysider), and also works as a Beatles news reporter for 97.1 KLSX and 95.5 KLOS Breakfast with the Beatles, among others.



If you've ever been on a Beatles tour or if you have travelled to see a Beatles sight, you'll know that seeing the places you've previously just read about, transforms your inner vision from the mythical to the down-to-earth. And no, seeing a place on TV doesn't accomplish this.


The Capitol Tower is a building you will have come across quite a few times if you're a Beatles fan. The last Beatles related use of this location was when Paul McCartney finally got his "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" star just outside the building last February, and he also gave a invitation only concert in the building's own studio the same day. In the above video you'll see Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson make use of the rooftop of the building for the music video of "Only You" back in 1974. Ringo revisited the very same rooftop in 2007 to hoist the "Help!" flag (see video). If you want to see a bit more of it, here's a film from 1958. When I finally came around to see the Capitol Tower for myself, I was amazed over how small it really was.

Please, no "that's a nice hat" remarks!
Just outside the reception of the building, they have gathered together the four individual Beatle "walk of fame" stars. George, Ringo and Paul had their stars fairly recently, John was the first one of them to get an individual star. The various stars were scattered around earlier, but are now collected one after another. Only Ringo and Paul were around to appreciate this token when they were both alive, the other two are posthumous stars.

The order is John, George, Ringo, Paul.
Another nice building to visit is the former A&M recording studios where Phil Spector produced the sessions for John Lennon's "Rock'n'Roll" album. Currently, the building houses the Jim Henson (of Muppets fame) studios. It also used to be Charlie Chaplin's studios way back. A&M converted two of the old sound stages and Chaplin's swimming pool into a recording studio.


The view from a car, notice the statue of Kermit. Of course, Kermit the frog was as wild about the Beatles as we are.


Of course, George also recorded at this studio, which is located at 1416 North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood. The Police filmed their "Every Breath You Take" video here, and in 1985, the USA for Africa hit single and video "We Are the World" was recorded there.

The Beatles played several concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and 1965, as commemorated on an official LP and cassette release in 1977. When I visited the hills overlooking Hollywood, I realised that the recording equipment from Capitol records didn't have a long way to travel in order to capture these concerts on tape.


You'll notice the Capitol Records tower in the upper left corner and the Hollywood Bowl at the bottom right.

Of course, I couldn't visit Hollywood without seeing a show at the Hollywood Bowl, so we booked tickets for a Grease singalong at the venue, the day before my Beatles tour with Gillian. Here's a photo taken at that occasion, I took the liberty of replacing the view of the Grease scene on stage with a more appropriate scene for this blog.


During what looked like a bathroom break and a time for something to eat or drink, Gillian stopped at the Farmer's market. Ah, but it was no coincidence, because she showed me a photocopy of a thank you note from the Beatles at a stall which sold freshly made peanut butter:


Although the dubious look of the signatures (Neil Aspinall's, perhaps?) seems to rule out that they signed in person, I'm sure they still meant to thank for the peanut butter. Gillian speculated that this Elvis Presley favourite had yet to make it to British shops back in the day, so this may have been the fabs first encounter with the spread. I've always enjoyed peanut butter myself, and have since the sixties, so it was certainly available here in Norway.

During our trip, Gillian was playing mix tapes (yes, they were actually cassette tapes!) while we were driving, and every time we approached a new sight, miraculously an appropriate song would start to play. She must have spent acres of time accomplishing just the right mix! But this meant that when I heard "Blue Jay Way" on the stereo (not a favourite of Gillian's), I knew what was around the corner.

Her detective work had also provided us with the exact location of the house where George wrote the song, but she made me promise not to bring it further. After all, it's her business secret. There was no fog upon LA that day, but the city certainly presented itself in a haze from this particular point of view.

Another house Gillian showed me, was the very house where the one and only meeting between the Beatles and Elvis Presley took place. And, funnily enough, over at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Elvis' and the Beatles' stars are placed right next to each other. I doubt that Elvis is very pleased with this, after all, he thought they corrupted the youth, if we should believe these tales.


I won't go into more detail about the tour, suffice to say that we started at 10 am and finished just before 5 pm, so yes - there are certainly a lot of Beatles sights to be seen and this tour is worth every cent. The tour I got was quite extended, regular Beatles tours last 3,5 - 4 hours. If you are planning to visit LA or even if you're an LA resident, you'll want to tag along. Gillian has met a number of Beatles people during her time and also as a news reporter for several radio stations, and she'll share her anecdotes with you. Here are some of the people she's met: Paul & Linda McCartney, all the McCartney children, Ringo Starr, Neil Aspinall, Dhani Harrison, Denny Laine, Henry McCullouch, Laurence Juber, Peter & Gordon, Joey Molland, Barbara Bach, Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono ... and lots more.

The tours are currently not scheduled regularly, you'll have to book in advance. You can get in touch with Gillian through her website amagicalhistorytour.com or give her a call at 310-582-1120. Email: britgilly@yahoo.com

The highlight for me? After Hollywood Bowl, probably this pool.


Weston Special Edition Newspaper

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A special edition of the newspaper Weston Mercury celebrating The Beatles’ visit to Weston in 1963 is now on sale, with exclusive photos and stories of the Fab Four. So if you're near Weston...the special is still on sale until tomorrow (Weds).
One incident which occurred during the Beatles’ stay at Weston-Super-Mare was the murder of 16-year-old Liverpudlian Barbara Herron at Wolvershill near Banwell. The Beatles actually visited the murdered girl’s friend Joan McNulty in hospital, according to a local eyewitness, Ian McEachran.

The Weston Mercury

Half a chocolate bar started the Beatles

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Paul McCartney reveals to Bono the real story behind the Lennon - McCartney partnership.

"Here's a story. Matt Damon told it. But it's not about Matt Damon. It's about Bono. But it's not really about Bono, either; it's about Paul McCartney. But Damon heard it from Bono. One day, Bono flew into Liverpool. Paul was supposed to pick him up at the airport, and Bono was shocked when Paul picked him up at the airport alone, behind the wheel of his car. "Would you like to go on a little tour?" Paul said. Sure, Bono said, because Bono, you see, is a fan of Paul's, in the same way that Damon is a fan of Bono's. "Bono's obsessed with the Beatles," Damon said at the table in the lobby of the gated hotel in the little town in Germany.
"He's, like, a student of the Beatles. He's read every book on the Beatles. He's seen every bit of film. There's nothing he doesn't know. So when Paul stops and says 'That's where it happened,' Bono's like, 'That's where what happened?' because he thinks he knows everything. And Paul says, 'That's where the Beatles started. That's where John gave me half his chocolate bar.' And now Bono's like, 'What chocolate bar? I've never heard of any chocolate bar.' And Paul says, 'John had a chocolate bar, and he shared it with me. And he didn't give me some of his chocolate bar. He didn't give me a square of his chocolate bar. He didn't give me a quarter of his chocolate bar. He gave me half of his chocolate bar. And that's why the Beatles started right there.' Isn't that fantastic? It's the most important story about the Beatles, and it's in none of the books! And Paul tells it to Bono. Because he knows how much Bono loves the Beatles."

Excerpted from an interview with actor Matt Damon in Esquire. I wonder if this story will appear in the new Mark Lewisohn book?
UPDATE: In an email to us, Lewisohn confirms that this alternative meeting is detailed in his book, but that he didn't know about the chocolate. More will be revealed in October when the book comes!

The Beatles & Bournemouth Exhibition

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The Beatles & Bournemouth
Exhibition
Beacon Hotel, Bournemouth
Opens 15 August

To mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first shows in Bournemouth, on 19 August 1963 when they opened a six-day residency at the Gaumont (now the Odeon) cinema on Westover Road, a new exhibition celebrating their many connections to the town is to open.
The Beatles played more shows at the Gaumont than in any other UK theatre outside London, notching up no less than 16 shows between August 1963 and their final visit on 2 October 1964.
The exhibition, at the Beacon Hotel on Priory Road, Bournemouth, includes dozens of photos of The Beatles in Bournemouth, as well as posters, handbills, reviews and programmes from the group’s four visits to the town. There are various other photos from Robert Freeman’s photo shoot of the boys at the Palace Court Hotel on Westover Road that produced the iconic half-shadow sleeve shot for their second album, With The Beatles. Also at the Beacon Hotel you can find the main venue sign, a section of stage and some seats from the historic Winter Gardens theatre where The Beatles played on 16 November 1963 and were filmed for US television – the first footage America was to see of the Fab Four.
Much interest is bound to fall on the remarkable photo of John Lennon with his young son Julian and his Aunt Mimi at Sandbanks Ferry, just yards from the harbourside bungalow he bought for Mimi in 1965 and where he visited her many times before he left these shores for good in 1971.
The exhibition tells an incredible story of how a small resort on the south coast of England came to play a significant part in the history of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll group of them all.
In conjunction with the exhibition there is a new restaurant opening at the Beacon Hotel in August.
The Bournemouth Rock Cafe uses Harry Taylor’s iconic ‘Stick of Rock’ photo as part of its logo and will be serving gourmet burgers and a full menu in rooms that are adorned with Bournemouth music memorabilia from all eras and genres.

For more information please contact Dave Robinson at the Beacon Hotel on 01202 553319; or Nick Churchill, author of the book Yeah Yeah Yeah; The Beatles & Bournemouth on 01929 472621.
Useful links
http://www.natula.co.uk/BournemouthBeatles.html
http://beatlesbournemouth.blogspot.co.uk/

News from the uninformed

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The above pictured photo has been a "news" item for a couple of days, and today it showed up over at BBC News.
The reality is, this and many more photos were from a film roll in Yoko Ono's camera, which was stolen in 1969. They have been published many places on the internet and in Beatles fanzines, and a number of them were published in a British tabloid newspaper back in the nineties.
Don't believe the "Ballad of John & Yoko" theory over at BBC News, the photos are from the recording of Abbey Road, after Lennon had brought a bed to the studio. The above photo is taken from Yoko's point of view in the bed.
In the summer of 1969, John and Yoko had been in a car accident while in Scotland, and the doctor had ordered Yoko to stay in bed for some time. The others could not believe their own eyes when, on July 9, John and Yoko turned up in the studio with a big bed for Yoko to rest in.
For the next several weeks, Yoko practically lived in that bed. John even requested a microphone to be set up for her so that he could hear her through the headphones.
One day, Yoko Ono had gained some strength and jumped out of her "sick bed" to nick one of George Harrison's biscuits from a packet he had put on his guitar amplifier.  Harrison made it clear that Yoko had crossed the line, to put it mildly, and an argument broke out between him and Lennon. Fortunately it died out pretty quickly.
Other photos show Yoko, Pattie Harrison and Linda McCartney in the same bed, and there are also some photos of the Beatles in a movie theatre, enjoying a preview of an early cut of the "Let It Be" film. The two most controversial photos from this film roll were nude photos of John Lennon. Here's how one of these were depicted in the British tabloid Daily Mirror:


A number of the photos were published in the Beatle Photo Blog in February this year, which we also reported here. Ever since 1969, the photos have circulated among the girls who were nicknamed "Apple scruffs".

Another, sad and misinformed story was over at the Daily Mail, who thought that someone had found a treasure trove of hitherto unseen Beatles photos.

The green series

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On the 6th of February 1976 the 9 year contract The Beatles had signed with EMI back in 1967 came to an end. However, EMI retained the right to reissue anything it wanted from the old catalogue, and they weren't slow in seizing this opportunity. One month and two days later, on the 8th of March 1976, EMI re-released the 22 original Beatles' UK singles in new picture sleeves. All 22 singles had the same design for the front sleeve but four different photographs on the rear.

The first edition of “The Singles Collection 1962 - 1970” came with all the 22 singles in a green box, and added a new single, "Yesterday / I Should Have Known Better (R 6013)". These were the singles:

01. Love Me Do/PS I Love You
02. Please Please Me/Ask Me Why
03. From Me To You/Thank You Girl
04. She Loves You/I'll Get You
05. I Want To Hold Your Hand/This Boy
06. Can't Buy Me Love/You Can't Do That
07. A Hard Day's Night/Things We Said Today
08. I Feel Fine/She's A Woman
09. Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is
10. Help/I'm Down
11. We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper
12. Paperback Writer/Rain
13. Yellow Submarine/Elenor Rigby
14. Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane
15. All You Need Is Love/Baby, You're A Rich Man
16. Hello, Goodbye/I Am The Walrus
17. Lady Madonna/The Inner Light
18. Hey Jude / Revolution
19. Get Back/Don't Let Me Down
all in mono. And in stereo:
20. Ballad Of John & Yoko/Old Brown Shoe
21. Something/Come Together
22. Let It Be/You Know My Name (the B-side in mono)
and the newcomer:
23. Yesterday/I Should Have Known Better

This was the first time "Yesterday" became available as a single in the UK, and it charted. In fact, all the singles did. All 23 again made the Top 100 (at one point ALL simultaneously) with 6 of them reaching the top 50 and therefore being mentioned again in The Guinness Book of Hit Singles. Here are the Beatles chart positions for Sunday April 4th 1976:

10 Yesterday
45 Hey Jude
46 Paperback Writer
53 Strawberry Fields Forever
55 Get Back
59 She Loves You
61 Help!
62 Love Me Do
63 Eleanor Rigby
64 Let It Be
66 A Hard Days Night
68 Can't Buy Me Love
69 I Want To Hold Your Hand
71 All You Need Is Love
72 From Me To You
74 Hello Goodbye
75 Please Please Me
76 Lady Madonna
79 Day Tripper
81 I Feel Fine
83 Ticket To Ride
84 Something
88 Ballad of John and Yoko

So, EMI quickly realised that the Beatles was a money cow they could still milk. Further releases followed swiftly, with albums like "Love Songs", "Beatles Ballads", "Reel Music" etc, but we are concentrating on the green singles series in this blog post.

A little later EMI released the collection in a newly designed box (2nd Edition)


This collection was only for sale through EMI's mail order division, World Records Ltd. As this sold out, it was reissued with 24 singles, adding "Back In The U.S.S.R. / Twist And Shout (R 6016)", promoting the new "Rock and Roll Music" album.
The 3rd Edition of The Singles Collection was issued in 1978. EMI again added a new single, "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / With A Little Help From My Friends/A Day In The Life (R 6022)", to cash in on the new RSO motion picture, "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" - starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton.

The Sgt Pepper single had a totally different design than the other green series singles, but was nonetheless included.

Sore thumb

“The Singles Collection 1962 - 1970” was heavily advertised in the British press. In addition, a mailer was sent to World Records’ regular customers, containing an informational booklet and a promotional flexi-disc containing mono excerpts of songs from the collection. As with all flexi discs this is very much a promotional item and not produced for top sound quality.


In 1982, the single covers were completely redesigned with a more individual look to each single and were released in a new, blue Beatles singles box, which ended the brief but profitable era of the green series singles.

The green series sold in droves and are not rare at all. And since ebay arrived, it's fairly easy to pick up the box and the paper material as well.
The promotional flexi-disc is just a little bit harder to come by, but not extremely rare.

Inspired by the UK green series, EMI in other countries released similar Beatles singles collections.
Here's the Spanish one:

As you can see from the back cover, the Spanish just included the singles which were specific to their country:


Here's an example from the Italian singles collection, entitled "The Greatest Story":

Again, a look at the rear gives you the Italian discography:


The French released their singles in the "Oldies But Goldies" series, featuring 36 different ones, including this:


26 singles from the French singles collection were also pressed and released in Brazil.

Fake "rare" photos withdrawn from auction

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The Daily Mail recently became the laughing stock of Beatles fans when they printed this story about someone auctioning what the paper described as "a treasure trove of hitherto unseen Beatles photos". But the story spread elsewhere all over the internet, and no one had bothered to do any proper research.
According to the story in the Daily Mail, the photos "were taken by Derek Cooper over a 13 year period and feature the Fab Four in their days starting out at Liverpool's Cavern Club up to their acrimonious break up in 1970."
Ridiculous.

Of course, as any follower of the Beatles can see, the photos from the developed film only shows that someone has used a roll of black and white film to capture other, some rather famous, photos of the Beatles, taken by people like Robert Whitaker, Dezo Hoffman and others. It seems these phony prints have been around for a while, too.

The only "rare" thing about these photos is that some of the ones we are used to see in colour, are reproduced in black and white. This also includes the four individual portraits of John, Paul, George and Ringo that were given away with "the White album" back in 1968 and in all further editions of the album.

Sadly however, the trend of "cut-and-paste-journalism" spread the rubbish story all over the world like gospel.

Anyway, the story took another twist yesterday, when the collection was withdrawn from the auction, according to amateurphotographer.co.uk.
We hope it was because someone has alerted the auction house about the true identity of these photos.

The Beatles and Me

McCartney Tour Update

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Paul McCartney's "Out There" tour, now nearing completion of it's North American leg, has been a success, just like most of his tours. But even if we're used to stories about shows selling out all the tickets within minutes, this isn't always the case. Traditionally, Paul and Ringo stage most of their concerts in South and North America, since selling tickets in Europe is harder. In North America, speculants are buying up tickets, reselling them at inflated prices through various internet sites and near the venue on concert day.

Not so with today's McCartney concert in Winnipeg, Canada, according to this news item. Potential black marketeers have realised that tickets for the concert still are available from the official outlet, Ticketmaster, so they have dumped the prices. From the reseller's internet site stubhub, tickets are priced from $17 for the cheap ones to $40 for the expensive, while Ticketmaster wants $35 - $250 for similar seats.
The day after tomorrow, August 14. will see the final concert for a while, until the tour continues with dates in Japan in November. In September and Oktober, workaholic McCartney is likely to oversee the completion and launch of his new solo album.

In conjunction with the Japan concerts, rumours abound about an Australian concert. After all, McCartney owes the Australians after cancelling a planned 2002 Melbourne concert, siting the Bali bombings as the reason.

Poster for the cancelled 2002 Melbourne concert

There are also rumours about December concerts in Europe (perhaps London and Liverpool again?), so we hope that he remembers that he cancelled Horsens, Denmark last year.

Yesterday, a few highlights from McCartney's concert at the San Francisco Outside Lands festival were streamed from the festival's internet site, but many experienced internet hickups. Meanwhile, I've composed a play list of good quality footage from YouTube for your enjoyment. "San Francisco Bay Blues" received a rare non-soundcheck outing, and McCartney was accompanied by real strings during "Yesterday".



Good Ol' Freda

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If you're a fan of the Beatles you will have seen it. It's everywhere you look. What I'm talking about is the advertising campaign for the independent film Good Ol' Freda. You can't surf the internet without it popping up everywhere. I've resisted writing about it much, but I'm giving in. The reason? I just watched the trailer. It looks really, really good and worth your time.

The film premiered at the prestigious SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas and then toured a plethora of other film festivals, and then it was shown at the recent fest for Beatles fans in Chicago.

Here's the blurb:
Freda Kelly was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager when she was asked to work for a local band hoping to make it big. Though she had no concept of how far they would go, Freda had faith in the Beatles from the beginning, and the Beatles had faith in her. History notes that the Beatles were together for 10 years, but Freda worked for them for 11. Many people came in and out of the band's circle as they grew to international stardom, but Freda remained a staple because of her unfaltering loyalty and dedication. As the Beatles' devoted secretary and friend, Freda was there as history unfolded; she was witness to the evolution—advances and setbacks, breakthroughs and challenges—of the greatest band in history.
The film has been funded by donations from Beatles fans who wanted to see it.
The film will be on VOD and iTunes starting September 6th, and the DVD will be released in early December.

The film includes the following songs:

Arthur Alexander - Anna
The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There
Ketty Lester - Love Letters
The Isley Brothers – Twist and Shout
The Beatles - Love Me Do
Fats Domino - I'm Ready
Buddy Holly - Words of Love
The Drifters - Some Kind of Wonderful
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
The Beatles - I Feel Fine
The Shirelles – Boys
The Cookies – Chains
Carl Perkins - Honey Don't
Little Richard - Long Tall Sally
The Beatles - I Will

Puzzling though, all upcoming cinema screenings are confined to Northern America and the film is not yet scheduled for any screenings in other countries, not even in England. Not even at the upcoming international Beatle Week in Liverpool, which brings together not only Americans but Beatles fans from all over the civilized world. Why? You should probably ask marketing at Magnolia films.

Trailer:

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Wrong head

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What's wrong with this picture?

In 1964 the Beatles had their World Tour, which brought them to Holland, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia. In the Netherlands they played two concerts in the small town of Blokker, which the town chose to commemorate by a monument back in 1999. The monument is a fictional album cover and a record player. The cover depicts the four Beatles as pen drawings and the song titles of the songs they played at the concert.

However, something has been wrong with this monument since opening day. The drawings are showing John, Paul, George and Ringo, but as we Beatles fans know, Ringo fell ill and had to be replaced by another drummer, Jimmy Nicol for this part of the tour.

The mistake was corrected in June 2013, and a new version of the monument unveiled. Ringo's head and name has been replaced by Jimmy's name and facial features. Here's a photo from the proceedings, the man in the photo is Jimmy's son Howie, who was present. He has not heard from his father in ten years, and doesn't know the whereabouts of the old drummer.


Howie Nicol is a sound engineer, among his work is The Beatles' "Anthology", for which he won a BAFTA award.

Film from the day.
I Saw Her Standing There from the Blokker concert

Paul McCartney: Going Underground...

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Here's the trailer to an upcoming movie, available soon on DVD: "Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles And The UK Counter-culture".
Description: In the mid-1960s the often rigid and colourless British way of life was irrevocably transformed by the emergence of a cultural underground movement.
Led by a loose collective of young radicals, they introduced new social, sexual and aesthetic perspectives. Operating out of the heart of London, their various activities, from 'The International Times' - a bi-weekly journal that no hipster could be seen without - to the psychedelic nightclub UFO, promoted alternative lifestyles and values, and sparked a social revolution.
This film not only traces the history of this underground scene, but also explores its impact on the pre-eminent British group of the era, The Beatles. Although they were well established by the time the movement emerged, Paul McCartney in particular, was closely linked with several of its key players, and through his exposure to cutting edge concepts brought ideas directly from the avant-garde into the mainstream.
Featuring many new interviews with key players from the time including; IT editor and long term friend of Paul McCartney, Barry Miles; founder of IT and UFO club organiser, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins; founder of UFO and Pink Floyd producer , Joe Boyd; Soft Machine drummer, Robert Wyatt; drummer from experimental improvisational collective AMM, Eddie Prevost; proprietor of Indica, the counter-cultural gallery, John Dunbar; Underground scenester, vocalist with The Deviants and IT journalist, Mick Farren; plus author of 'Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961 -- 1971', Jonathon Greene; Beatles expert, Chris Ingham and Mojo jounalist Mark Paytress.
Also includes rare archive footage, photographs from private collections and music from The Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Soft Machine, AMM and others.


MVD Entertainment Group has announced an October 1, 2013 release date. The DVD is playable in all regions and lasts a whopping 153 minutes.

Live at the BBC Vol 2

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The "Baby It's You" EP from the "Live at the BBC" project in 1994.
In an internal list of upcoming releases, Universal Music recently revealed plans to re-release The Beatles' "Live At The BBC" along with a new release, "Live At The BBC Vol. 2" on October 4th, 2013. The date is tentative and may be subject to change. "Volume 2" will be BBC recordings of The Beatles not available on the previous volume. "Live at The BBC" was released in 1994, a forerunner of a landslide of new material from the Beatles' archives.

The BBC had a habit of reusing their tapes, which means that most of the Beatles radio shows from the sixties were wiped, however quite a few have later been rescued, courtesy of listeners taping the shows at home and BBC transcription records, which were sent to radio stations abroad. In 2012, the BBC had a campaign, asking their listeners to bring the home taped shows to the BBC for review. Hopefully, some more (or better quality) Beatles shows will have appeared in the wake of this.



Along with the "Live at the BBC" album, a four track EP was released, containing tracks not on the album: "Baby It's You", "I'll Follow The Sun", "Devil In Her Heart" and "Boys". Hopefully, the EP will now be integrated into one of the announced volumes.

Here's the track list for the 1994 release:

CD 1
1 Beatle Greetings 00:12
2 From Us To You 00:27
3 Riding On A Bus 00:53
4 I Got A Woman 02:48
5 Too Much Monkey Business 02:05
6 Keep Your Hands Off My Baby 02:30
7 I'll Be On My Way 01:57
8 Young Blood 01:56
9 A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues 02:14
10 Sure To Fall (In Love With You) 02:07
11 Some Other Guy 02:00
12 Thank You Girl 02:01
13 Sha La La La La 00:27
14 Baby It's You 02:43
15 That's All Right 02:53
16 Carol 02:34
17 Soldier Of Love 01:59
18 A Little Rhyme 00:25
19 Clarabella 02:39
20 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You) 02:01
21 Crying, Waiting, Hoping 02:09
22 Dear Whack! 00:42
23 You Really Got A Hold On Me 02:37
24 To Know Her Is To Love Her 02:49
25 A Taste Of Honey 01:57 26 Long Tall Sally 01:52
27 I Saw Her Standing There 02:31
28 The Honeymoon Song 01:39
29 Johnny B Goode 02:51
30 Memphis Tennessee 02:12
31 Lucille 01:49
32 Can't Buy Me Love 02:06
33 From Fluff To You 00:28
34 Till There Was You 02:12

CD 2
1 Crinsk Dee Night 01:03
2 A Hard Day's Night 02:24
3 Have A Banana 00:21
4 I Wanna Be Your Man 02:09
5 Just A Rumour 00:20
6 Roll Over Beethoven 02:15
7 All My Loving 02:03
8 Things We Said Today 02:18
9 She's A Woman 03:14
10 Sweet Little Sixteen 02:20
11 1822! 00:10
12 Lonesome Tears In My Ears 02:36
13 Nothin' Shakin' 02:59
14 The Hippy Hippy Shake 01:49
15 Glad All Over 01:51
16 I Just Don't Understand 02:46
17 So How Comes (No One Loves Me) 01:53
18 I Feel Fine 02:12
19 I'm A Loser 02:32
20 Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby 02:20
21 Rock And Roll Music 02:00
22 Ticket To Ride 02:56
23 Dizzy Miss Lizzy 02:42
24 Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey 02:36
25 Set Fire To That Lot 00:27
26 Matchbox 01:57
27 I Forgot To Remember To Forget 02:08
28 Love Those Goon Shows 00:26
29 I Got To Find My Baby 01:55
30 Ooh My Soul 01:36
31 Ooh My Arms 00:35
32 Don't Ever Change 02:02
33 Slow Down 02:36
34 Honey Don't 02:11
35 Love Me Do 02:29
We'll be back with the track list of "Vol. 2" as soon as we have that.

If Universal Music carries on the EMI tradition, the re-release and the new release will also be available on vinyl, and as digital downloads on iTunes. And with the new merchandising deal, presumably some related products will be made available via the Beatles Official Stores.

A book about the Beatles BBC recordings is also scheduled for October in the UK and November in the USA. BBC insider Kevin Howlett is the expert in this field and author of the previous standard books on the subject: "The Beatles At The Beeb 1962-1965" and "The Beatles At The BBC". His new book is entitled "The Beatles:The BBC Archives".

  

Beatles BBC Show online

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Looks like our post yesterday about an upcoming "Vol. 2" of the Beatles Live at The BBC spread like wildfire over the Beatles internet sites (apart from the official ones, of course). Speculations are ripe, but we should offer a word of advice: hold your hopes low, it may just be an interview disc, with no music. Then again, it may also contain hitherto unheard Beatles music (like an alternate Lucille), we just have to wait and see. Anyway, let's examine the history of the Beatles' BBC recordings!

HISTORY

The Beatles performed for 52 BBC Radio programmes, beginning with an appearance on the series Teenager's Turn—Here We Go, recorded on 7 March 1962, and ending with the special The Beatles Invite You to Take a Ticket to Ride, recorded on 26 May 1965. 47 of their BBC appearances occurred in 1963 and 1964, including 10 on Saturday Club, and 15 on their own weekly series Pop Go The Beatles which began in June 1963. As The Beatles had not accumulated many original songs by this time, the majority of their BBC performances consisted of cover versions, drawing on the repertoire that they had developed for their early stage act. In total, 275 performances of 88 different songs were broadcast, of which 36 songs never appeared on their studio albums.

BBC ARCHIVES

The BBC didn't keep their tapes. Once the programme was broadcast, tapes were probably wiped to make room for new recordings. They did however, press vinyl records of some shows for broadcast on other BBC affiliates around the world, and the BBC transcription departement distributed these.
And people were taping radio shows off-air at home.

BOOTLEGS

In the early seventies, bootlegs started appearing with songs from home made tapes of the shows, starting with the LP "Yellow Matter Custard". The record contained these songs: "I Got A Woman, "Glad All Over", "I Just Don't Understand", "Slow Down", "Don't Ever Change", "A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues", "Sure To Fall (In Love With You)", "Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees)", "Lonesome Tears In My Eyes", "So How Come (No One Loves Me)", "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)", "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", "To Know Her Is To Love Her" and "The Honeymoon Song"



NEW RADIO SHOWS

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of their first BBC appearance, the BBC aired the two-hour radio special "The Beatles at the Beeb" in 1982, featuring a mix of BBC performances and interviews. The show was expanded to three hours when syndicated to other countries. The show's producer Kevin Howlett also released a book, "The Beatles at the Beeb, '62-'65: The story of their radio career" on the subject.
The more comprehensive series "The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes" was broadcast by BBC Radio 1 in 1988 as 14 half-hour episodes. When gathering material for that series, only a small number of original tapes were located, but the BBC transcription records provided them with more material.
Bootleggers mined the radio shows for a 13 LP series, The Beatles at the Beeb, which were also padded out with home made off-air recordings from collectors.

The Beatles At The Beeb Vol. 1
The covers were lovely parodies of non-UK Beatles LP covers, and the series also made it on to CD after a couple of years.

BOXED SETS

Then in 1993 came a boxed set from the Italian company Great Dane, which had all the songs from the "Beatles at the Beeb" series and then some, all chronologically arranged over 9 CD's, and with a colourful booklet which chronicled the BBC radio shows and the previous bootlegs.

The Beatles at the BBC Great Dane Records

They soon had to release a single disc with some material which appeared after the box had been released.

Legend has it that the Great Dane boxed set was actually a legal release in Italy, because Italian copyright laws meant that the copyright on these recordings had expired there. The Beatles had to take action, and as they had now settled their lawsuit with Capitol/EMI, they were free to start releasing new material from the archives, and the official 2CD, 2LP "The Beatles Live At The BBC" became a reality.

OFFICIAL RELEASE

An official Beatles BBC album was being planned as early as 1989, and it was reported that "EMI was preparing an album" of the BBC material by late 1991.
To supplement the archive he had partially rebuilt for The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes, BBC Radio producer Kevin Howlett sought out additional sources, such as tapes kept by people involved in the original sessions; others had contacted him after the series aired to inform him of their own home recordings of additional broadcasts. Remaining gaps were filled by recordings taken from available bootlegs.


From the available recordings, the tracks for Live at the BBC were selected by longtime Beatles producer George Martin. Martin's selection criteria included both the quality of the sound and of The Beatles' performance. Of particular interest were the 36 songs that The Beatles never performed on their official releases, of which 30 were selected for the album.

In all, 56 songs were chosen for the album, along with some banter among the group and the hosts. Three additional songs were released on the "Baby It's You" 4-track single. Abbey Road engineer Peter Mew used audio manipulation software to reduce noise, repair minor dropouts, and equalise to a more consistent sound from one track to the next. The resulting sound quality was considered generally better than the best equivalent bootlegged versions available at the time, although a small number of tracks were noted as exceptions.

CHART ACTION

Live at the BBC peaked at number 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart and reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart. The album sold an estimated 8 million copies worldwide during its first year of release.

MORE BOOTLEGS

But the fans needed more. This was in their eyes, merely a "best of". And as the Great Dane boxed set was due for an upgrade, and in 2003, in came notorious bootleg label "Yellow Dog" with a 12 CD boxed set, also titled "The Beatles At The Beeb". And after the boxed set, they issued a disc 13 "repair disc", featuring tracks that had appeared since the boxed set was released.



The homebrew label Purple Chick had discovered that part of the material on the Yellow Dog set was sonically inferior to other versions available on other bootlegs, and released their own version of the boxed set as internet downloads, free of charge in 2004.



This was deemed the most complete set for collectors of the Beatles radio appearances, until 2009.

On August 31st 2009, BBC radio 2 broadcast another radio programme with material from the sixties shows, again produced by (now independent producer) Kevin Howlett. Some, if not all of this material was sonically superior to the versions on Purple Chick's set. This spurred another fan made compilation, "Unsurpassed Broadcasts", where the original material was sonically tweaked, utilizing the latest developments in audio repairing. One technique used was if one recording was high on treble and another (obviously the same take) had a boomy bass, the two were spliced together, thus digitally restoring both the highs and lows of the song in question.


Since the appearance of "Unsurpassed Broadcasts" and it's follow up "second edition", old recordings thought lost have seen the light of day, old recordings have appeared in better quality, old tapes have been re-transferred to the digital domain, new audio enhancement techniques have become cheaper and available to amateur sound engineers and now it looks like we're up for a second volume of the official album. So take our word for it: There's a new "Beatles at the BBC Complete" just waiting to be made.

BBC SHOW ONLINE

While you're waiting for the official announcement of "Vol. 2", the Beeb itself offers a chance to reminisc.

From BBC Radio 6: The Beatles at the Beeb (Click this link to listen)
Duration: 21:14
Andy Peebles introduces some of the many interviews and live session recordings The Beatles made for the BBC.
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