Showing posts with label Let It Be. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Let It Be. Show all posts

Friday, July 11, 2014

The Beatles' Rooftop Concert

There are many pertinent facts about the Beatles' fabled Rooftop Concert.  The concert came at the end of the Let It Be recording sessions.  The original concept for the album and accompanying film documentary, Let It Be, was to conclude the project and film with a Beatles concert, although no agreement could be found as to where it should take place.  Ringo recalls that some ideas centered on performing at the Palladium.  Other ideas included performing on board a ship or on a Greek island.  The lack of agreement reflected the band's turmoil during this period, a friction that can clearly be seen in the Let It Be film.  General consensus says that a few days before thr Rooftop Concert was staged, the Beatles finally decided to get the project over with--by that time they were ready to end the very unhappy sessions--by simply going to the rooftop of 3 Savile Row in London and playing some of the tracks they'd been working on.

The concert was held on January 30, 1969 after Beatles roadies brought the instruments, amplifiers, and recording equipment to the roof.  The film's director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg used camera crews to record the group's performance from many angles, including exterior shots from the roofs of other buildings as well as the sidewalk, where pedestrian reaction was also captured on tape.  Engineer Alan Parson used two eight-track machines to record the musical event.

Spectators on lunch break congregated on the streets below when the Beatles started playing, and while most people, young and old, received the concert favorably, the Metropolitan Police became concerned about the growing traffic and noise.  Neil Aspinall and other Apple employees refused to allow the police inside to halt the concert but relented when faced with arrest although they did their best to stall for time.

The concert was comprised of nine takes of five songs:

Get Back
Don't Let Me Down
I've Got a Feeling
One After 909
I Dig a Pony

Takes of "I've Got a Feeling," "One After 909," and "I Dig a Pony" were used on the vinyl issue of Let It Be.  The concert abruptly ended with "Get Back," after which Lennon utters the famous line "I'd like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition."  Ringo and McCartney have both said that they had hoped that the police would have literally dragged them away in order to have a dramatic ending to the film.

The concert has become both iconic and legendary.  In the fifth season of The Simpsons, for example, Homer's barbershop quartet performs on the roof of Moe's Tavern.  Episode guest George Harrison drives up in a car and says, "It's been done."  A rooftop concert was also featured in the 2007 film Across the Universe.

For the concert, Lennon played lead and rhythm guitar, McCartney bass, Harrison lead and rhythm guitar, Starr drums, and Billy Preston the electric piano.  Lennon and McCartney do lead and backing vocals, and Harrison does backing vocals.

SITEMAP

Home
About
Beatles Albums: Background and History
Beatles Biography
Beatles Connections: Official Websites for the Beatles Inner Circle
Beatles Discography
Beatles Films
Beatles General Discussion Topics
Beatles History
Beatles News
Beatles Roadies: Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans
Beatles Solo Discography
Beatles Songs Discussed on BeatlesFacts.org
Beatles Songs - Solo
Beatles Timelines
Beatles Trivia Quiz
Books About the Beatles
Books by John Lennon and George Harrison
Quarrymen
Sitemap
Sites Related to Beatles History
Songs Covered by the Beatles
The Beatles Official Website
The Lennon Pages
Contact
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, June 19, 2009

I Me Mine

Not known as one of the Beatles mega-hits, there are still interesting facts about "I Me Mine." This Harrison composition was based on a tune played by a marching band George heard while watching television. In the film Let It Be, he plays the song for Ringo, describing it as a "heavy waltz." Ringo, George, and McCartney perform the song impromptu while Lennon and Yoko Ono waltz around the studio. The song was not laid down in its present form until one year later, when the group was informed that its rehearsal of the song would be included in the film.

The song as recorded on January 3, 1970 at Abbey Road Studios, minus Lennon. When the Let It Be project was handed over to producer Phil Spector, he overdubbed an orchestra and choir.

Harrison plays acoustic and lead guitar and sings lead vocal. McCartney plays piano and does background vocal. Starr plays drums, with Billy Preston on organ.

Harrison later titled his semi-autobiography I Me Mine, which was an odd assortment of pictures, handwritten song lyrics, and anecdotal material about his songs and his life. In the "bio," he wrote that the song was about problems people have pushing aside their egos. More specifically, "I Me Mine" grew out of his experimentation with LSD, after which he viewed everything as "mine" (Harrison's). After immersing himself in transcendental meditation, however, which demands that one clear the mind and transcend the ego, he claimed that he discovered the eternal observer within his consciousness, the self that represents what would later be known in quantum physics as non-local intelligence (or the Oneness or Divine Mind, as it is called in various belief systems).

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Saturday, March 28, 2009

McCartney: The Album

One of the primary Beatles facts for the album McCartney is that it was the first solo album released by the Beatle. Recorded from November 1969 to March 1970, it was released on April 17, 1970. The other Beatles tried to delay its release since it might potentially conflict with the impending release of the controversial Let It Be LP and film. Phil Spector was still mixing the album as late as March of 1970. McCartney not only declined to postpone the release of his album but declared on April 10, 1970 that he was leaving the band, in part because of his dissatisfaction with Spector's work on Let It Be. The group, of course, had already begun to slowly disintegrate during the White Album sessions.

A portion of the album was recorded at McCartney's home in London on a four-track tape recorder. Another portion was recorded at Abbey Road Studios under the pseudonym of Billy Martin. Some of the tracks were instrumentals (see below).

Except for some backing vocals from his wife Linda McCartney, Paul played all instruments on the album and sang all lead vocals. The instrumentation was quite varied and included electric and acoustic guitars, bass, drums, organ, Mellotron, and mini-xylophone.

While George Harrison thought the album had merit, John Lennon thought that the LP lacked distinction given McCartney's perpetual desire for perfection in the recording studio.

The tracks include:

The Lovely Linda
That Would Be Something
Valentine Day (instrumental)
Every Night
Hot as Sun/Glasses (instrumental)
Junk
Man We Was Lonely
Oo You
Momma Miss America
Teddy Boy
Junk (instrumental)
Maybe I'm Amazed
Kreen-Akrore

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Beatles Song: Get Back

This Beatles song was written in the studio on January 27, 1969 and the surprising fact is that it was recorded the very same day. McCartney admits he just grabbed the lyrics off the top of his head. This initial recording was used for the Let It Be album. The single version was recorded the following day. The song is also played at the Rooftop Concert on January 30, 1969 on top of Saville Row, headquarters of Apple Corps.

The song is performed in the film Let It Be, and a second version is also heard in the film, a version with different lyrics, ones concerned with the overcrowding of Pakistani families in London flats. McCartney was accused of racism, although he said he threw the lines into the off-the-cuff version because he was against such living conditions. Lennon commented on numerous occasions that he believed the line "Get back to where you once belonged" was a reference to Yoko Ono.

The song was released as a single in the UK and U.S. on April 11 and May 5, 1969 respectively. The album and single versions are different inasmuch as the single adds additional bars, starting with Ringo's drums, whereas the album's version ends more abruptly.

McCartney sings lead, with Lennon providing backing on the chorus. McCartney plays bass, Lennon lead, Harrison rhythm, Starr drums, and Billy Preston keyboards. George Martin was especially impressed with Preston's playing on the Let It Be tracks. Lennon can also be heard in the background on the album, saying "Picture the fingers." He was using his white( stripped down) Epiphone Casino, and was enjoying playing lead at this point.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Beatles History: George Harrison Leaves the Beatles

A legendary Beatles fact is that on February 10, 1969, George Harrison left the Beatles for a short time during the Let It Be sessions at Twickenham Studios, where the band was filming their recording work to be released as a film culminating in a live concert. Harrison had recently returned from Woodstock, where he had been playing and jamming with Bob Dylan and The Band.

George Martin has commented in many interviews that given John's preoccupation with Yoko, Paul had more and more assumed responsibility for organizing the group and its musical and film projects. According to Martin, the other Beatles were growing increasingly resentful of his bossiness.

Harrison himself admitted many times after the Beatles' final break-up that he had ignored Paul's bossiness for the sake of peace but that he was becoming increasingly frustrated with what both he and Lennon perceived as an absolute preoccupation by McCartney with perfecting his own songs, giving perfunctory attention to the compositions of Lennon and Harrison. George stated unequivocally that this attitude even resulted in his accumulating many songs that simply weren't getting recorded.

On February 10, 1969, the Let It Be film chronicled an argument during which McCartney criticized Harrison for his playing on "Two of Us." Harrison's first response (on camera) was to say that he'd play it any way McCartney wanted--or perhaps not play at all. His second response was to simply quit the band. He was later approached by Neil Aspinall, who convinced him to rejoin the band and finish the album.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Let It Be

"Let It Be," a McCartney composition, was recorded January 31, 1969 at Apple Studios. Overdubs were added on April 30, 1969 and on January 4, 1970, the last Beatles recording session, with Lennon absent. The original session produced both the single and album versions. It was released in both the UK and the U.S. on March 6, 1970 and March 11, 1970 respectively.

McCartney said that the song's inspiration came from a dream he'd had about his mother during the 1960s. Citing that the 1960s had been a hard decade because of the Beatles' rise to fame, he said that the dream about his mother, who died when he was only fourteen, gave him strength.

On the single version, McCartney sings lead vocal and plays piano. Lennon plays bass and adds vocal harmony. Harrison plays lead guitar and also adds vocal harmony. Billy Preston plays organ and Starr plays drums. Some sources say that Harrison played bass and and Lennon lead.

On the album version, Harrison plays a Lesley guitar, which sounds like an organ. Billy Preston doesn't play. Orchestration was dubbed in by Phil Spector.

Still other sources say that Harrison and Lennon both played lead, with Lennon playing his Epiphone Casino and Harrison a Gibson SG. Tapes of the sessions would seem to bear this out.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Reissues of Beatles CDs, Let It Be, The Shea Stadium Concert, and Other Projects

Record stores have still not seen the long-anticipated remastered, enhanced reissues of Beatles CDs. Other projects also remain in limbo, such as a DVD of the Shea Stadium Concert or a DVD release of the Let It Be documentary, briefly shown in theaters and then shelved in the vaults of Apple.

For over a decade now, McCartney has also teased the public with hints that his avante-garde "Carnival of Light" track might finally be released. The latter track was recorded in 1967 for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, an art festival/electronic sound and light show designed by David Vaughn and held at the Chalk Farm Road Roundhouse Theater in January and February of 1967. (All archival Beatles material would require the consent of the remaining Beatles as well as Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.)

The issue of the Let It Be documentary, however, should not be withheld under any circumstance. The film was originally shown in theaters in the late 1960s and many bootlegs are floating around the internet. Many have speculated that McCartney and Apple do not wish the film to be released so as not to tarnish the band's reputation for a new generation of fans since the film shows the Beatles fueding during recording sessions and rehearsals. Essentially, the film chronicles the break-up of the band. The band's history is common knowledge, however, and even the newest fan can gain access to events surrounding the dissolution of the Beatles with ease. The film contains many great performances and is as important to Beatles history as The Beatles Anthology. One might well speculate that Lennon, if he were alive, would say, "Put it out there. It's the truth. It's what happened."

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)