Category: Beatles

The Greatest Concert You’ve Never Heard, Or Heard Of

Long before the Monterey International Pop Music Festival was held in 1967, in England there were the NME (New Musical Express) Poll Winners concerts. The 1965 event was held on Sunday, April 11, and it featured an unbelievable lineup, along with a couple of lesser-known acts. How did these huge names all clear their schedules to appear together on the same day?

The Moody Blues
Bo Didley
Go Now

Freddie And The Dreamers
Little Bitty
Pretty One
A Little You

Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames
Yeh Yeh
Walking The Dog

The Seekers
I’ll Never Find Another You
A World Of Our Own

Herman’s Hermits
Wonderful World
Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter

The Ivy League And Division Two
Funny How Love Can Be
Sweet And Tender Romance
That’s Why I’m Crying

Sounds Incorporated
Time For You
In The Hall Of The Mountain King

Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Game Of Love
Just A Little Bit Too Late

The Rolling Stones
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
Pain In My Heart
Around And Around
Pain In My Heart

Cilla Black With Sounds Incorporated
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Going Out Of My Head

Donovan
You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Band
Catch The Wind

Them with Van Morrison
Here Comes The Night
Turn On Your Love Light

The Searchers
Bumble Bee
Let The Good Times Roll

Dusty Springfield with The Echoes
Dancing In The Street
Mockingbird
I Can’t Hear You

The Animals
Boom Boom
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Talkin’ bout You

The Beatles
I Feel Fine
She’s A Woman
Baby’s In Black
Ticket To Ride
Long Tall Sally

The Kinks
You Really Got Me
Tired Of Waiting For You

The first time I heard about the ’65 NME concert was at a solo Ray Davies show, where he described how the Kinks were stuck being the follow-up act to the Beatles. Let’s all agree to ignore the presence of the posthumously disgraced Jimmy Savile, and please note that, despite being two hours long, the concert footage is far from complete, but what there is of it is fantastic. And now, on with the show!

Hollywood Bowl Naked

Giles Martin has done an outstanding job with engineering the recent re-issues of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, and Sgt. Pepper. Capitol Records had technical problems when recording of the first half of the 1964 show at the Hollywood Bowl, which was unforgivable, considering the venue is within walking distance of the Capitol tower. They did a better job a year later. Here is the original, unedited audio of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl in ’65, so you can hear exactly what the source material was that Giles had to work with.

A Tale of Two CD’s

In 1987 it seemed like it had taken forever until the first “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” CD was released, only four years after the Compact Disc was introduced in America, and 20 years after the original album came out. The remixed stereo CD of Pepper is now out, and it definitely sounds remixed, not just remastered as with the 2009 sets, which also included the original mono mixes. I like most of the changes in the new Pepper, but some will take a little getting used to.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what was going on exactly 30 years ago, with a bit of Johnny Carson’s opening monologue from May 21, when the Alzheimer’s Disease affecting Ronald Reagan was already starting to show.

Gimme Some Lovin’, My Boy Lollipop

A few years ago, a retired A&R man (artists and repertoire) named Chris Peers contacted me, requesting help putting him in touch with Prue, which of course I was glad to do. Peers was involved with Chris Blackwell and Island Records at the beginning, before branching out on his own. One of the acts he worked with was the Spencer Davis Group, with Stevie Winwood, as he explains in this video. Peers told me that he had a heck of a time pitching the band in America, before finally landing a deal with United Artists.

And this, of course, was the song that broke the top 10 for the Spencer Davis Group in America.