Category: Beatles

Outsourcing

I haven’t been feeling the blogging bug lately. Too much else going on, my mind on other things, etc. Some of the material I was going to post has been donated to better homes — favorite sites that are devoted to single subjects.

Rob Steibel runs the excellent Kirby Dynamics blog for the Jack Kirby Museum. I sent Rob scans from two magazines with articles about Stan Lee that were published ten years apart — Castle of Frankenstein (1968), and Circus (1978).

I am a devoted follower of the tipper-topper mostest bestest Beatles photo blogger, The Gilly on Tumblr. A long time ago I said I would post Ringo’s Photo Album from 1964, but after scanning the magazine I decided that The Gilly would do a superior job of presenting it, and I was right. The scans are at this link.

Ethan Russell’s words about photos

Has it already been a week since I last posted something? Yikes! Gotta get back in the groove.

The first time I saw photographer Ethan Russell’s name was in 1970, on the back of the Let It Be album. The next time I noticed Russell’s name was in 1971, on the back cover of Who’s Next. A few years later Russell took the photo for the only album I was ever tempted to buy solely for its cover.

What should I do, put out an ugly picture? People look at it and they go “Uuugh.” It’s incidental, you know what I mean. It’s nice to have pretty pictures. It’s part of the frosting on the cake for the audience.
– Linda Ronstadt, Rolling Stone, October 19, 1978, issue no. 276, page 52.

Here’s an interview with Ethan Russell, who has a new e-book. This one I’ll have to look at on the Kindle viewer for Windows, because my Kindle Keyboard’s E-ink screen isn’t very good at displaying photos.

It was fifty years ago today…

… George Martin told the band to play.

http://youtu.be/i1mgIZrlLSE

From Bruce Spizer’s Beatle.net.

June 6, 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first visit to Abbey Road Studios. The group, consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best, arrived at what was then called EMI Studios on June 6, 1962, for a commercial test (an evaluation of a signed artist). Two days earlier, the band had signed a recording contract with “The Parlophone Company Limited of Hayes in the County of Middlesex.” The group was paid Musicians Union rates for the June 6 session, indicating that the Beatles were in fact EMI recording artists by the time they arrived at Abbey Road.

Engineers attending the session in Studio Two remember the poor shape of the group’s equipment, particularly Paul’s bass amp, which was deemed unusable due to its rattling and rumbling. Engineers Norman Smith and Ken Townsend improvised and created a bass rig by soldering an input jack to a preamp and combining it with an amp and a large Tannoy speaker taken from Echo Chamber No. 1. A string was tied around John’s amplifier to prevent it from rattling. After resolving these problems, the Abbey Road staff was ready to record the group.

Four songs were recorded that day… What four songs were recorded by EMI at the Beatles commercial test held at Abbey Road Studios on June 6, 1962? Besame Mucho, P.S. I Love You, Ask Me Why and Love Me Do. The first tune, written by Consuelo Velazquez and Sunny Skylar, was a Latin standard that came to the attention of the Beatles by way of the Coasters, who issued the song in two parts on Atco 6163 in 1960. The other three songs were Lennon-McCartney originals. The tape containing the songs was sent to EMI headquarters for evaluation and is presumed lost; however, acetates of Besame Mucho and Love Me Do survived. These songs were released in 1995 on Anthology 1. All three of the Lennon-McCartney songs were later re-recorded for commercial release, with Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You issued as the Beatles first single and Ask Me Why appearing as the B-side to the group’s second single.