Sir George Martin, Giles Martin and Dhani Harrison, listening to the multi-track master of “Here Comes The Sun,” reveal the audio channel with George Harrison’s “lost solo guitar.”
Kind of like X-raying a great painting and finding something significant underneath the surface. Sublime!
Thank you Ron Nachmann!
Photographer Robert Whitaker, known for the infamous Beatles’ raw meat photo shoot, has died at the age of 71 of cancer.
The album cover of “Yesterday And Today” (1966) featured a photograph taken by Whitaker of The Beatles in butcher smocks covered in slabs of raw meat and a beheaded baby doll perched on Paul McCartney’s shoulder. It created a firestorm of controversy and the album was immediately pulled from the marketplace by Capitol Records when distributors complained that it was offensive. 750,000 copies of the record were in warehouses ready to be shipped but it’s estimated that only 25,000 copies of the album were actually sold with the original cover, ultimately making it one of the most collectible albums in rock history.
Rather than destroy all the sleeves, Capitol instead chose to slap a much more conservative photo of the lads posed around a steamer trunk over the original art and then re-issue the records to retailers. It didn’t take long for fans to figure out how to peel the trunk photo off to reveal the Butcher photo underneath, which eventually lead to a cottage industry of professional peelers. A collectors’ jargon evolved to distinguish “First State” (original uncovered version), “Second State” (paste-over version) and “Third State” (peeled) copies.
Whitaker proudly took credit for the cover concept saying that the idea was entirely his own…
though he was never consistent in explaining it. Sometimes he said he was not sure why he had posed the Beatles that way; other times he said the butcher theme was meant to suggest that the Beatles, so worshipped by their fans, were real flesh-and-blood people. On another occasion he said the image was to be one of three that would tell a story.
Among the other rock stars and artists that Whitaker photographed were Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Allen Ginsberg, Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers and Eric Clapton. But it was his iconic photos of The Beatles that brought his vision to millions and millions of people and for which he will be best remembered.
Whitaker with George Harrison. Photo by Whitaker.
Allen Ginsberg, Hyde Park 1967
Early color footage of The Beatles, from November 20, 1963. The fabs were on a 6-week tour of the UK and Ireland, when British Pathe caught up with them at the ABC Cinema, Manchester, filming them backstage and perfroming “She Loves You” and “Twist and Shout”.
He couldn’t play the bass, but he certainly could paint. The trouble is, Stuart Sutcliffe never lived long enough to fulfill the destiny his talents promised, tragically dying at the age of twenty-one from a brain haemorrhage.
As The Beatles original bass player, and John Lennon’s best mate, Sutcliffe’s legend has grown over these past fifty years, and this documentary Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle examines the short life and long myth of the man who quit the Fab Four to follow his own star.
Told via interviews with an impressive array of Sutcliffe’s family and friends—and through uniquely descriptive quotes from his letters—this hour-long documentary reveals a lot of intimate detail about Sutcliffe’s transition from promising art-school student in Liverpool (and best friend of John Lennon) to reluctant musician (pressed into service by Lennon) to determined painter within the German avant-garde scene. A lot of Stu’s story, as Beatles fans know, is set in Hamburg, during and after the days the group was a house band in the city’s red-light district. Familiar tales of friction between Sutcliffe and Paul McCartney abound. But these are offset by a tremendous amount of fresh insight and detail offered by such important Beatles-saga figures as rocker Tony Sheridan, Klaus Voormann and—most crucially—Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer who influenced the Beatles’ look and who became Sutcliffe’s lover until his death.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
Jimmie Nicol: The Beatle Who Never Was
More on Stuart Sutcliffe, after the jump…
Fun and informative mini-documentary from 1968 on the animators and studio behind the creation of Yellow Submarine.
Plus, a trailer for Yellow Submarine, which, given its age, looks like it was shot underwater.
In recent news, Robert Zemeckis’ plan to make a 3D version of Yellow Submarine for Disney has been given the red light. It ain’t happening. Zemeckis’ last big-budget animated flick, Mars Needs Moms (dreadful title)) was a mega bomb. It took in $7 million at the box office while costing $150 million to make. Disney figured investing in another Zemeckis project was just too risky. I doubt that fans of the original Beatles’ film are shedding any tears over this turn of events. And for some of us, Yellow Submarine has always been in 3D.
Steve McLaughlin’s “Run For Your Life” takes all of the Beatles’ officially released UK albums and compresses them into 61 minutes by speeding them up 800%. The result is trippy, maddening and at times quite beautiful. Of course, it would be impossible to do anything to the Beatles music without slivers of beauty jutting out here and there.
McLaughlin’s Beatles methy mix has been wedded to video excerpts from Bollywood and Lollywood films in addition to fragments of documentaries, experimental films, fractals and animation. Admittedly, an hour of this music/video mashup can be both nervewracking and trance-inducing. But, it’s worth taking the trip.
The Bollywood bits meld nicely with the music. There are awkward moments, but I imagine getting a tight edit with music at this speed would take many many hours, if not days.
I don’t know much about Indian musical time signatures, but the Beatles on super fast forward, with no fixed tempos and various speeds, reminds me of the battling of sitars and tablas in raga breakdowns and Hindi movie soundtracks with a nervous condition.
Albums featured:
Please Please Me
With the Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles for Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles (White Album)
Yellow Submarine
Abbey Road
Let It Be
‘Magical Mystery Tour” is not included because it was not released as an album in the UK. It was released as two EPs.
While McLaughlin’s Beatles mix has been available for awhile as a free download on the Internet, this is first video mashup to the music I’ve seen.
For a teenager, Mike Mitchell had a great eye and skill with a camera. His secret stash of stunning black and white photos of The Beatles hit the auction floor tonight at Christie’s and sold for $360,000, considerably more than what was expected.
On July 20, Christie’s is pleased to present The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell, a sale comprised of nearly 50 lots of unpublished and never-before-seen photographs of the Beatles’ first hysteria-inducing visits to America in 1964. Shot in black and white by photographer Mike Mitchell when he was just 18 years old, the images have been filed away for nearly fifty years. The complete rediscovered collection is expected to realize in the region of $100,000.’
More photos are on view at Christie’s website.
An inspiring interview with Mike Mitchell who is now 60 years old:
The story is told of a furious George Harrison storming out of a Beatles recording session in 1969 and then going to see a Ray Charles concert in London. Billy Preston (who Harrison had met in 1962 when Preston was playing in Little Richard’s group) was performing with Charles. Harrison invited Preston to come into the studio with The Beatles where his friendly personality and musical talents calmed the rising tensions within the band.
Billy Preston was the only musician the Beatles ever credited alongside them, for his contribution to “Get Back.” The song was also performed in the rooftop concert of the Let It Be film with Preston in tow (see below). John Lennon allegedly proposed the idea of inviting Preston to be the “Fifth Beatle” but Paul supposedly replied that it was bad enough already with four. (Preston also played on Abbey Road’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Something.”)
Musical prodigy Preston played with gospel legends Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, and Andrae Crouch. In 1963, at the age of sixteen, he played organ on Sam Cooke’s Night Beat. Preston was also a frequently featured performer on ABC’s musical variety series Shindig! and a member of the house band (lots if clips on YouTube). Below, Billy Preston performs “Agent Double O-Soul” with Ray Charles. Check out his moves!
He recorded a great song in 1965 with a young Sly Stone called ““Can’t She Tell?” that was produced by David Axelrod. Do yourself a favor and hit play:
His 70s solo career saw his friendship and professional association with George Harrison continue. Preston appeared onstage at the Concert for Bangladesh and his records came out on the Apple label. His first really big solo hit was “Outa Space” which sold a million copies and won the Grammy for “Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1972”:
Preston also played on several 70s Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock’n Roll and Black and Blue. He toured as a support act on their 1973 European Tour and played with the band as well. Mick Taylor played guitar on Preston’s live album. In 1974 he co-wrote “You Are So Beautiful” with his songwriting partner Bruce Fisher (and an uncredited Dennis Wilson) for Joe Cocker.
More Billy Preston after the jump…
Redditor suziecreamcheese says she made this abstract Beatles quilt for her friend’s baby shower. Where’s the “Butcher Block” cover?
On June 15, 1964 The Beatles flew into Melbourne, Australia to play a couple of shows at Festival Hall. A huge crowd of over 30,000 fans were there to greet them. At one point, the group sought shelter on the upper floors of Town Hall where they waved and goofed around from a balcony for the fans below. Spoofing their own fame, power and the hysteria of their fans, John gave the throng a Nazi salute while mimicking Hitler by placing his finger over his upper lip as though it were a mustache.
On the balcony with John are Paul, George, Ringo and Ringo’s substitute drummer Jimmy Nicol.
Sleep with angels forever in your very own custom made Jonathan Ross casket from British company Creative Coffins. The company is “committed to providing a green alternative to traditional wooden coffins” by using cartonboard materials.
Our individually designed cartonboard coffins provide for a more eco-friendly funeral and, most importantly, the range of carefully created styles will help you find a design that truly reflects the personality of your loved one.
In 1993, Edgar Wright made this video montage of guns in movies and used The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun” as the soundtrack. He recently wrote on his website, “The following clip I edited together while at Bournemouth Art College. Way before I’d ever seen an Avid suite, this was done over some long weekends locked in a VHS tape to tape editing suite. Yes, VHS!”
(via HYST)
A 15-year-old, Hugh Cornwell poses with his first band Emil and The Detectives in 1964. The band was formed by guitarist Richard Thompson (on the far right of picture). who went on to Fairport Convention, while Cornwell found fame as frontman with The Stranglers. Cornwell talked about this early snapshot in the Telegraph Magazine:
I remember getting the violin bass guitar I’m holding here, I was about 15 and had saved up £50 for it. Before then I’d been playing a homemade version with a neck the thickness of a plank of wood. Richard Thompson (on the far right) suggested I learn to play bass because he was forming Emil and the Detectives (the band in the picture) and he needed a bass player, so he taught me. We were good friends from school and we played each other music that we had discovered, like the Rolling Stones and the Who. Richard’s older sister, Perri, who was the social secretary at the Hornsey College of Art in north London, would book us to play parties and pay us £30 per gig. Our biggest claim to fame was supporting Helen Sahpiro at the Ionic cinema in Golders Green. But after we took our O-level [exams] we lost touch. The next I heard he was the lead guitarist in Fairport Convention…
...In August 2008 I was doing a festival outside Madrid and the promoter said, ‘If we hurry we can catch the end of Richard Thompson’s set.’ I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen Richard in 30 years. We had a big huggy reunion and now we’re back in touch it’s really lovely. When I played in LA last year he came to watch and I suggested that we play a song together. I chose “Tobacco Road” by the Nashville Teens, which was a number one hit in the 1960s and was one of the first songs we learnt together.
Hugh Cornwell tours the UK April 6-17, details here.
More early pics and performances of pop stars, including Lemmy, Bowie and Davy Jones, after the jump…
With The Beatles and Apple Corporation’s seal of approval, Commes des Garcons in tandem with French company Spring Court are selling tennis shoes emblazoned with The Beatles and Apple logos.
While this appears to be just another tacky attempt at sucking more money from the Beatles’ legacy, there is some historical context for this particular bit of marketing. John Lennon wears Spring Court sneakers on the cover of Abbey Road.
If you’ve got a spare $295.00 lying around and dubious taste in footwear, you can buy the sneakers here.
Via Highsnobiety
The Beatles “perform” “Smack My Bitch Up” at Shea Stadium, 1965.
Initially, I thought this video was going to be terrible, but the editing by YouTuber pleaseunhelpme is so damn clever I ended up enjoying the hell out it.
(via KFMW)
