Category: Beatles

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.

May is Beatless month

It had been my plan to be at an in-theater screening tonight of the Beatles concert from February 11, 1964 at the Washington Coliseum. Unfortunately, “last minute issues” came up, and the shows were postponed.

MAY 2012 LIMITED ENGAGEMENT OF “THE BEATLES: THE LOST CONCERT” POSTPONED

New York, N.Y., May 8, 2012 — Screenvision announces the postponement of the May 17 and 22 limited engagement of “The Beatles: The Lost Concert.”

The new 92-minute documentary charts the birth and impact of Beatlemania and includes, in its entirety, their first U.S. concert from February 1964 at D.C’s Washington Coliseum.

According to sources at Screenvision, the film’s distributor in the U.S., the postponement is the result of last-minute issues which are being resolved by the documentary’s producers. The distributor hopes the issues will be resolved in short order so the attraction can be rescheduled for an even longer theatrical run in late Summer 2012.

“It’s regrettable that these issues have caused the cancellation of our planned limited engagement” adds Darryl Schaffer, EVP of Exhibitor Relations, Screenvision. “We are looking forward to their resolution so we can bring ‘The Beatles: The Lost Concert’ to even more Beatles fans and theaters in the U.S.”

Anyone who purchased advance tickets can obtain a refund through Fandango, MovieTickets.com or their local exhibitor.

For updated information on the film and future screenings, please visit www.lostbeatlesconcert.com

Lost and Found Rock and Roll

I’ve been very busy and distracted lately, so a tip of the ol’ Dograt toupee to Samjay, for spotting this item about an upcoming special event at movie theaters. It’s the complete video of the Beatles’ first live concert after their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The concert was at a rather shabby venue, the Coliseum in Washington, D.C. on February 11, 1964. It was taped by CBS and shown in movie theaters over closed circuit TV the following weekend.

As I wrote in late 2010, iTunes had the complete concert video available for viewing, and this new presentation is a return to the original intended format. Regarding the concert video having been lost, there is more background at this link. I don’t know if this alleged master tape was the source used for this latest presentation, but it seems possible.

http://youtu.be/t-pBqLGhMU0

A Hard Day’s Write

Richard Lester, who directed the two truly great Beatle films, A Hard Day’s Night and HELP!, has received a Fellowship from the British Film Institute. With the recent death of Davy Jones, I’ve been hearing the old assertion that the Monkees TV show was based on AHDN, but I just don’t see it. HELP! was clearly the model for the series, with producers Raphelson and Schneider drawing inspiration from the fantasy of the boys living together in a quirky, colorful pad, full of groovy stuff.

I have high praise and thanks for author Ray Morton, and his book about the making of A Hard Day’s Night. Besides being a solid and thorough telling of the background and production of the movie, in A Hard Days Night: Music on Film Series, Morton did something no other writer on the subject has done — he gets the facts right about Prue Bury, and for that I am sincerely grateful. Ray Morton can be heard on Reject Radio talking about the movie and his book at this link. He comes in at 40:30 into the podcast.

Back in 2002, Rolling Stone had a piece about the Miramax DVD release of A Hard Day’s Night, and it has one of the classic promotional photos of the Beatles with (l-r) Pattie Boyd, Tina Williams, Prue Bury, and Sue Whitman.

By coincidence, and to my great amusement, that issue also had this item:

So the first time that Doug Pratt had a connection to Prue Bury, it was a different Doug Pratt!