Beatles U.S. Help LP

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by sandmountainslim1, Aug 2, 2015.

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  1. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Location:
    Way North Of Hollywood, CA in Portland , OR
    Just a post script. The instrumental interludes on the U.S. album were never that long to be a problem for me. It just makes for a more coherent soundtrack album; whereas the UK album is just a mess of "stuff"...IMHO.
     
    audiomixer, Aug 3, 2015
    #76
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  2. Hawkman

    Hawkman Supercar Gort Staff

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I'll add my voice to those who like the instrumentals on the U.S. 'Help!' album. I think it really makes it more of a 'soundtrack' album than a straight Beatles album. Since we have the access to the British 'Help!' album, we have BOTH. It helps to relive the experience of the movie. In a day before videos were readily available at the touch of a button, you either had to wait until a re-release in the theater or a tv showing before one could experience the film again. A soundtrack album, especially a Beatles soundtrack album, fired your imagination as you listened to the instrumental music and pictured what was happening as you tried to remember the scene from which it was taken. It really gave the imagination a work out. I would rather have the instrumentals than not.

    Here is an excerpt from Dave Dexter's 1976 autobiography 'Playback' on just how the U.S. version of the 'Help!' album came to be:

    When the Beatles started their second motion picture, Help!, I telephoned young Palmer in London. (Note to the readers here in the forum...he means Tony Palmer) Would there soon be a soundtrack album? He didn't know, he said. I eventually reached Martin, who not only produced records from the booth but sometimes helped sketch their arrangements and played piano on the background tracks behind vocals. Martin had a fast answer.

    'No', he said. 'We plan no Help! album because the boys won't be featuring sufficient songs to fill an LP and it's a pity, really. United Artists doesn't have the American rights to the package as they did with A Hard Day's Night.'

    So Capitol owned the rights to nothing.

    We could issue the songs, of course, as singles. Yet there is a vast difference in two or three hit singles and an album that exceeds one million in sales. Several million dollars difference.

    It took at least two months of writing, cabling, and telephoning to acquire two tape reels of the film's soundtrack scraps in my office. There MUST be a way to put together a full album of entertainment from a full-length movie, I told myself. And so I booked one of the two studios in the Tower's basement and, working late at night with one of the country's best sound engineers, John Krauss, we ran through each reel repeatedly on a big Ampex console.

    I took notes, a pencil in one hand an a stopwatch in the other. I still have those notes. They indicate there were 36 segments in all, a majority of them brief musical effects and bridges composed by the movie's musical director, Ken Thorne. Much of the music was distorted electronically.

    Nor did I have a synopsis of the picture. Someone in England advised me that the story pegged around Ringo's attempt to escape a murderous gang of Asiatic thugs, with the pursuit of the nosey drummer and his three pals encompassing scenes in the Bahamas, Austria, and England's Salisbury Plain. A ten-armed 'Goddess of Kaili' 40 feet tall figured in the plot.

    So be it, whatever it was. Working around the seven original songs by Lennon and McCartney (Help!, The Night Before, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I Need You, Another Girl, Ticket To Ride, and You're Gonna Lose That Girl) by adventurous editing and by employing a number of mechanical tricks, I ended up with enough tracks to fill two 12-inch microgroove sides and justify the album's production as a 'complete original soundtrack' package.

    There were snippets of music which I forced to repeat, like a motion picture loop. I even obliged to accept a dreadfully tired performance of the overture to the third act of Richard Wagner's 'Lohengrin' which the musical director Thorne had employed for the scenes shot high in the Austrian alps of Obertauren.

    One batch of mish-mosh I entitled The Bitter End. Another mad, up-tempo passage I called The Chase. Two earlier hits, From Me To You and A Hard Day's Night, I spliced together from horrendously distorted tape fragments that sounded like rehearsal warmups and programmed them between the new tunes under the titles From Me To You Fantasy and Another Hard Day's Night. The bombastic Wagner bit I retitled In The Tyrol. On all makeshift selections I was careful to credit Thorne as sole composer.

    Capitol, thanks to electronic skullduggery, had 12 tracks for an album. Livingston listened to the finished product the next morning in his Tower office. He was not enthusiastic.

    'Is that', has asked, 'all there is?'

    But he approved the product well aware of the demand for Beatles product. The last time I looked, sales of the bits-and-pieces Help! album in the United States alone totaled 1,500,000. Another million undoubtedly were sold in Canada, Mexico, and Central America.

    So an album that might never have existed was responsible for a gross of more than $5 million. It is still selling today.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
    Hawkman, Aug 3, 2015
    #77
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  3. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    Can't say I agree with that statement... I'm all about the UK versions of HELP! (and Hard Day's Night) :)
     
    Grand_Ennui, Aug 3, 2015
    #78
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  4. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    I should add though, that as you stated you're also a movie fan, I can see where the US version would be appealing to you... I have a few soundtracks of film music, so I can see where you're coming from...
     
    Grand_Ennui, Aug 3, 2015
    #79
  5. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    :agree:
     
    Grand_Ennui, Aug 3, 2015
    #80
  6. jeatleboe

    jeatleboe Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    I fully agree. As I said earlier, we still have the UK version when we want to only hear the Beatles songs. I'm sure the US HELP! album would have been more palatable to some folks if maybe the Beatles' songs were all on one side, and the instrumentals were on the other.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2015
    jeatleboe, Aug 3, 2015
    #81
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  7. feinstei9415

    feinstei9415 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    And it didn't cost a dollar more than other pop/rock albums of the era.
     
    feinstei9415, Aug 3, 2015
    #82
  8. dewey02

    dewey02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The mid-South.
    I really don't like the instrumental tracks on Help! and now with Hawkman's post describing how they came about, I can better understand why.
    Interestingly, I really like the George Martin instrumentals on AHDN, although I have all of the other George Martin albums of his instrumentals of Beatle songs and I really don't like his arrangements. So he must have done something different for AHDN arrangements and then lost his touch. (in my opinion, anyway).
     
    dewey02, Aug 3, 2015
    #83
  9. overdrivethree

    overdrivethree Forum Resident

    Beats fake stereo and reverb.
     
    overdrivethree, Aug 3, 2015
    #84
  10. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    Location:
    United States Of America
    yes, gotcha...neither did I, but if there was a Stereo album (of course all my Beatles singles were mostly mono) available back then MONO never entered the picture especially after I got my Admiral small consul STEREO hand-down from my parents when they upgraded.
     
    Michael, Aug 3, 2015
    #85
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  11. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I like it. Although my Beatles collection is primarily the UK albums I have the US HDN and Help soundtrack albums. They're what I grew up with. I like the orchestral interludes or links. I don't listen to the album for 'sound quality.'
     
    Raunchnroll, Aug 3, 2015
    #86
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  12. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    I can't help but wonder if the rest of the score exists, and if the masters are still at Capitol records. I would love a full release of the Help score, but I would imagine that even if an enterprising label attempted a release, there would be all kinds of legal snags because of Beatles involvement.
     
    ShockControl, Aug 3, 2015
    #87
  13. Hawkman

    Hawkman Supercar Gort Staff

    Location:
    New Jersey
    From reading that passage, it sounds to me as if Capitol got some crappy copies of the Thorne music. I'm guessing that better sounding tapes of the full score, if any, probably exist in England at E.M.I.
     
    Hawkman, Aug 3, 2015
    #88
  14. Brian Kelly

    Brian Kelly 1964-73 rock's best decade

    I bought it back in the late 70's because I like all the songs from the movie. Didn't care for much of the soundtrack except for the sitar version of "A Hard Day's Night". I ranked it just above YELLOW SUBMARINE and THE EARLY BEATLES among US albums at the time and maybe equal with BEATLES VI and SOMETHING NEW. Of course the UK version is much better!
     
    Brian Kelly, Aug 3, 2015
    #89
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  15. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Location:
    Way North Of Hollywood, CA in Portland , OR
    One man's opinion.
     
    audiomixer, Aug 4, 2015
    #90
  16. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    Location:
    United States Of America
    INDEED!
     
    Michael, Aug 4, 2015
    #91
  17. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    I think the Capitol "Help!" is a lot more fun than the UA "A Hard Day's Night". But that might be because I also think the movie "Help!" is a lot more fun than "A Hard Day's Night".
     
    Gems-A-Bems, Aug 4, 2015
    #92
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  18. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    For those who missed the extra songs from the UK Help! on the US version - the selections were stretched out over three other LP's, Beatles VI, the US Rubber Soul and 'Yesterday' . . . And Today.
     
    W.B., Aug 4, 2015
    #93
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  19. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Location:
    UK expat in Connecticut, USA
    The extra songs from the UK A Hard Day's Night were similarly stretched out over three US albums: The Beatles' Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65...

    ... thus making sure that every regular new US album released between Meet The Beatles and Revolver contained at least one track from one of the two UK 'soundtrack' albums. Good old Dave!
     
    NumberEight, Aug 4, 2015
    #94
  20. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Walhalla, SC, United States
    I always loved the instrumentals on Help! from the surprise orchestral spy jazz intro to all of the others."From Me To You Fantasy" is a brilliant reinvention of the Beatles' song. "In the Tyrol" with its circus band beginning going into the Wagner piece is another nice touch. "Another Hard Day's Night" is a cool Indian-styled Beatles medley, "The Chase" (though not heard in the film) is a nice gat in miniature, and "The Bitter End" segueing into "You Can't Do That" is another nice bit of suspense music leading into spy jazz. I only wish the album had included the spy jazz arrangement of "A Hard Day's Night" from the film as well as the crazy Rossini pastiche that closed the film. In the US, this was the first Beatles album to feature a sitar, and the Indian derived pieces on the album were many Westerners' initiation into the music of India. And oh yes, there are 7 pretty good Beatles songs on it,too.
     
    Folknik, Aug 4, 2015
    #95
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  21. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Walhalla, SC, United States
    The piece from Lohengrin in the middle of the track entitled "In the Tyrol" at the end of Side One is Wagner. The closing credits music is Rossini with a wild pastiche of voiceovers mixed in. I never knew why this wasn't included on the soundtrack. It could have been a "sound collage" 3 years before "Revolution 9."
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2015
    Folknik, Aug 4, 2015
    #96
  22. jeatleboe

    jeatleboe Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Agree - I love it! I hear various Beatles songs in that, and I wonder if others catch them too. There's 'A Hard Day's Night', 'Can't Buy Me Love', and 'I Should Have Known Better' mixed within there.
     
    jeatleboe, Aug 4, 2015
    #97
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  23. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    That's probably why Beatles VI has never been one of my favourites for the American LP's; I've said I always felt side two of the UK Help! was probably their 'weakest' album side (Yellow Submarine excepted), and VI has most of it.

    I never liked the U.S. Help! soundtrack LP (not a fan of the U.S. A Hard Day's Night, either- I can do without the non-band orchestral material) even though I heard it before the UK version. Now, I don't even own either, though if I were to pick up Help! again I'd buy the UK version just for side one...
     
    ohnothimagen, Aug 4, 2015
    #98
  24. Pretty.Odd.

    Pretty.Odd. Guess I'm Dumb

    Location:
    Montclair, NJ
    I 100% prefer the US Rubber Soul. It got rid of the clunker that is "What Goes On". "Nowhere Man" also doesn't fit on the record. The side openers are much better and created a more cohesive listening experience. Play that version of Rubber Soul back to back with the UK Revolver. Amazing.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2015
    Pretty.Odd., Aug 4, 2015
    #99
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  25. jeatleboe

    jeatleboe Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Agreed - and I never felt that "Drive My Car" fits, either. "If I Needed Someone" is the only song that suits the "woodsy" vibe of the LP, imo.
     
    jeatleboe, Aug 4, 2015
    #100
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