The Beatles "White Album" Super Deluxe Speculative Box / Remix*

Did anyone know just how good those Esher demos sounded before they came out on Anthology 3? I for one was amazed at their quality, from the bootlegs I'd assumed they were just recorded on a crappy tape recorder but they sounded almost studio quality when they came out

 

We knew they were taped on a quality machine and fairly well "engineered" by George. But the boots were a copy of John's mono cassette, so we had no idea how good they could sound until A3.

 

They had the idea at least as early as 1995, when it was mentioned in Billboard:

 

Thanks for posting this! I knew I had read this once, but I couldn’t remember where for the life of me (though I had a hunch it was indeed Billboard).

 

I don't have access to the continuation page of that article. I only could find the front page. So there might have been some other info pertinent to the Esher demos. Maybe someone lese has a clipping of it.

 

Interesting topic. To be honest I'm not in favour of a remix of this great album (and more in general for remixes of classic albums). I know lots op people are very enthousiastic about the new stereo mix of Sgt. P, I'm not. Main reason: the overall sound does not match to the way I know that album so well; so often played since 1967. And some of the stereo effects are a bit weird to my ears. As for craftmanship they did a good job, but not my thing.

So: what would be a great Delux version of the White album?
My choice would be a high quality digitalization (without additional noise reduction) of the original mix of the album in mono (2 discs) and stereo (2 discs), the Asher demo's (I guess 1 disc), session outtakes (maybe including parts of the Peter Seller tape: 1 disc). For the outtakes it would be nice if they leave the studio feel in tact. On Anthology the outtakes seems to be a bit "overproduced".

 

So basically you want the 2012 Stereo and the 2014 Mono releases in a package bundled with some bonus discs. And they've got the Mono master tapes digitised so they could always cut a new lacquer from that source maybe half speed for good measure. To me going back to the source tapes to remix the album is more interesting and worth while.

 

You mean you don't have the original issue? Shame on you, Arnie! I do, but I don't have it handy -- unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of detail in that article. Nothing more about the Esher demos -- they didn't even specifically refer to them, but rather more vaguely to an "acoustic White Album." The comments were by Gary Gersh (then-president of Capitol Records) and he only cryptically referred to "five high-quality new Beatles releases" after the Anthologies (paraphrased).

 

Gorts, can you correct the title of this thread? I don't know if it was my typo when I launched the thread or if the error was introduced when the title was changed to specifically include remix discussion, but that extra quotation mark before "White" is really bugging me!

 

Also worth remembering the results of the poll I started on New Years Day this year, where we placed our bets on what we thought might happen, fair to say as a collective we got it very wrong!....

 

I'd heard them before Anthology due to the Lost Lennon Tapes. They sounded good enough to my ears. My assumption now is those were of a copy John or someone had made. But when I heard Anthology 3 I was blown away -- not only was the quality very good, but they were in stereo! If all the Escher songs are in stereo with similar quality, this would make for an excellent album on its own or a spectacular addition to a White Album box.

 

Unfortunately, we don't know if the Harrison Archives has additional original Esher Tapes or not. I've asked people in the know about additional tapes and they have never answered in the affirmative. There could be additional reels, or even mixdown tapes, but we don't know for sure. Ron

PS Record Collector back in the mid-to-late 80's? or so included the Esher Tapes, Hollywood Bowl and other outtakes in the vaults (this was after the proposed Sessions album was withdrawn) as being possible contenders for future release. This was an odd article where, I think EMI employee, Brian Southall admitted the archives included PARTS of the long Helter Skelter and the TV performance takes of Revolution and Hey Jude. Odd that I remember he said included "parts of" since we know the archives include the complete sessions for these outtakes. This article predates Lewisohn's book so he may not have remembered all the details and was more or less guessing at what was in the vaults. Ron

 

Thank you, Dee -- it's been driving me nuts too!

 

They certainly have Sour Milk Sea from Esher. A minute of it was played on the radio (in 2009 or 2010) in pristine quality.

 

True, but there's no way to know if that was an excerpt, or just a fragment found. It would not shock me if more material is available, but no one in power wants to admit anything on the record. Ron

 

I can't imagine why they'd only have a minute of it. On the other hand, it makes total sense why they'd only play a minute of it. Cruel, twisted sense, but all the same.

 

3+ minutes of "Sour Milk Sea" from Esher is here:

 

^^^What a fab tune. I love it.

 

I suppose the same fate as other demos. Over time portions were erased. Content was inadvertently taped over. End of a reel. Partial copy of a copy. Any manner of things. And then there's your point, that the Harrison Estate has this song and perhaps others from the session(s) and just wanted to give the fans a morsel. To what end though? Ron

 

I can't picture them recording over tapes, hitting the end of the reel, etc, when this material was already used to make copies (like John's collection.) The (far) more likely scenario is that they have it all in the same quality as heard on the tracks from Anthology 3. There's no evidence to the contrary.

 

Why wouldn't George have given them all the tapes in '95? Including some of his own compositions? And why, decades later has only a 1 minute excerpt seen the light of day... or airwaves in this case? Just seems odd. Ron

 

yes, I love you orthography.

But I still like my lenticel reference. It feels tangentially related, but not directly. Makes for a slightly more randomized word of the day...

 

Here's another word I like: vigintillion. Depending on whether your numbering system uses milliards and so on, it's either 10 to the 63rd power or 10 to the 120th power.

 

1. Yellow Submarine Songtrack [1999]
2. Let It Be... Naked [2003]
3. Love [2006]
4. On Air, Live At BBC Vol 2. [2013]
5. Live At Hollywood Bowl [2016]
6. Happy Christmas, Beatle People [2017]

So.... I guess we're done?

[Mr. Gersh probably didn't foresee Love... or maybe he didn't consider On Air high quality.. ?]

 

A wonderful mix of this vocal and the Lomax session is out there.