Unanswered Beatles questions ?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by George Blair, Feb 23, 2018.

  1. numer9

    numer9 Beatles Apologist

    Location:
    Philly Burbs
    I don't think he was talking about that one.
     
  2. NYSPORTSFAN

    NYSPORTSFAN Forum Resident

    Location:
    Howell, Michigan
    I remember reading there is either a rehearsal or an outtake of Paul singing lead on "I Want You (She's Heavy).
     
  3. andrewskyDE

    andrewskyDE Island Owner

    Location:
    Europe
    An acetate (78rpm) with two Decca tracks was auctioned few years ago: 'Hello Little Girl' b/w 'Till There Was You'

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2019
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  4. andrewskyDE

    andrewskyDE Island Owner

    Location:
    Europe
    John possibly meant the songs individually, not another session. By 'demo' I think he meant that the recording of these songs were low quality performances.
    The George Martin bit is kinda interesting, but maybe he confused it with another band? He also produced some other groups like Gerry & The Pacemakers at that time...

    Just my guess, I think John considered the band might re-record these songs at EMI later but more properly.
    (Actually 'Hello Little Girl' was given away to The Fourmost, so eventually the Beatles' recording from Decca was later meant to be a demo reference to the other band.)
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2019
  5. ChrisScooter1

    ChrisScooter1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Athens, GA
    He is turning up the “volume” only. Those drip edged Twins only had volumes, master volumes were added to the Fender amps in ‘72.
     
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  6. MitchLT

    MitchLT Two for the show

    Why don’t the Deluxe bonus discs for Pepper and White album not have the running order of tracks as recorded instead of mirroring the released order?

    The way it is: Boring!
     
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  7. Billo

    Billo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern England
    Re the Decca audition - remember not only were The Beatles rather nervous and probably hung over plus had Pete Best on drums thus not quite the group as we all know them...

    but the far more local Tremeloes were actually a decent band - they had done a radio spot and that first line up of Rick Westwood (k/a Ricky West) on lead guitar, Mick Clarke bass guitar, Alan Blakeley (guitar also could play keyboards) drummer/vocalist Dave Munden and Brian Poole lead vocals scored a number of UK hits including a 1963 chart topper 'Do You Love Me', 'Twist and Shout', ' I Can Dance', 'I Want Candy' and a UK no.2 with 'Someone Someone' in 1964 plus a few chart albums on Decca

    Appearing on BBC TV's children's show 'Blue Peter' in 1964 they played live - featuring Alan Blakeley on electric organ - while many top chart groups including The Searchers, Freddie and The Dreamers, Dave Dee and co mimed to their records on the show which was normally the case (even The Beatles also mimed on 'Ready Steady Go !' - watch John miss his lines on 'It Won't Be Long' and just laugh - and on some other TV shows)

    In 1966 after splitting with Poole, Mick Clarke left and Len 'Chip' Hawkes on bass/lead vocals took over - Westwood had the very high falsetto voice and with the two strong guitarists/bass/drums line up and three lead vocalists plus mega tight four part vocal harmonies CBS UK branch signed them and they scored further big UK hits with Cat Stevens 'Here Comes My Baby' The Four Seasons 'Silence is Golden' (UK no.1 in 1967) 'Even The Bad Times Are Good' and more hits up to 1970

    - Blakeley-Hawkes were decent songwriters too penning 'Call Me Number One' (UK no.2 in 1969) and 'Hello Buddy' their country flavoured last UK hit they recorded some fine albums too such as 'Master' and later 'Shiner' on DJM records in 1974 and had a few further hits in Europe

    so Mike Smith - who WANTED to sign both Beatles and Tremeloes but apparently was told he could only take the one band opted for the more local band in those days of pre-motorway Britain when Liverpool was hours away from London by many smaller roads !

    The Tremeloes probably were more confident on the day of their Decca audition fresh from doing radio work too

    so Mike Smith who continued to produce The Tremeloes at CBS got a strong regular UK chart band from 1963 to 1970 and his judgement can't really be criticised AT THE TIME as no one knew at that point just how Lennon-McCartney would suddenly develop as songwriters and The Beatles take off after Ringo joined them

    here is a live version of 'Silence is Golden' from the mid sixties

     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2019
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  8. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Were any of the Beatles disappointed/upset/angry when Capitol withdrew the Butcher cover?
     
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  9. Joel1963

    Joel1963 Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal
    What did the Beatles think of Duophonic? Probably not much.
     
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  10. Lord Hawthorne

    Lord Hawthorne Currently Untitled

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Well, there we have it.
     
  11. tug_of_war

    tug_of_war Unable to tolerate bass solos

    Were they at least aware that there was an album with the butcher picture on the cover?
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2019
  12. It was originally called “Your Will” and an answer song to “When I’m 64” ;)
     
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  13. I know John was because he helped perpetuate the myth that it was in response to their albums being chopped up by their label.
     
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  14. Funny but their press releases listed John, Paul and George as being six feet tall (never met John or a George but Paul looked like he about 5 10 at the tallest to me but more likely 5 9. Maybe they were all 6 ft with their Beatle boots on ;) )Was Ringo the only one truthful about his height?
     
  15. maxwell2323

    maxwell2323 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis
    Of the "songs that the Beatles gave away"...were there any that were totally rejected?
     
  16. buzzzx

    buzzzx Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cal.
    I think Helen Shapiro rejected "Misery".
     
  17. MGSeveral

    MGSeveral Augm

    And Billy J Kramer rejected "One and one is two", and judging by the band that eventually did it, I'd guess a few other acts rejected it too.
     
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  18. If I would McCartney I’d be embarrassed to admit I wrote it.
     
  19. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    In this photo it dawns on Paul that he is much taller than the other three...[​IMG]
     
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  20. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    The demo has a charm that the official (Strangers) recording completely fails to capture. Something to do with the way McCartney uses E major/ E sixth chords to play what would normally be a standard twelve-bar blues riff.

     
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  21. revolution_vanderbilt

    revolution_vanderbilt Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Gerry And The Pacemakers recorded Hello Little Girl first but it wasn't released until 1991

    Her manager rejected it before she ever got a chance to hear it.
     
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  22. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Lennon didn't intentionally perpetuate that myth. Rather, the myth was likely created due to the poor reading comprehension on the part of someone who misunderstood Lennon's comments below:

    "We took the pictures in London at one of those photo sessions. By then we were really beginning to hate it - a photo session was a big ordeal, and you had to try and look normal and you didn't feel it. The photographer was a bit of a surrealist and he brought along all these babies and pieces of meat and doctors' coats, so we really got into it, and that's how we felt - 'Yeah!' I don't like being locked in to one game all the time, and there we were supposed to be sort of angels. I wanted to show that we were aware of life, and I really was pushing for that album cover. I would say I was a lot of the force behind it going out and trying to keep it out.

    I especially pushed for it to be an album cover, just to break the image. And it got out in America: they printed it and about 60,000 got out, and then there was some kind of fuss, as usual, and they were all sent back in or withdrawn, and they stuck that awful-go-lucky foursome. We tried to do something different. We would design a cover or have control of more of our own covers in England, but America always had more albums so they always needed another picture, another cover. We used to say, 'Why can't we put fourteen [tracks] out in America?' Because we would sequence the albums - how we thought they should sound - and we put a lot of work into the sequencing too. They wouldn't let us put fourteen out; they said there was some rule or something. And so we almost didn't care what happened to the albums in America until we started coming over more, and noticing [for instance that] on the eight tracks they'd have out-takes and mumbling on the beginning - which is interesting now, but it used to drive us crackers. We'd make an album and they'd keep two from two from every album."


    Lennon talks about two separate things here: the Y&T album cover and his unhappiness over the Capitol compilation albums in the US. Someone who doesn't read carefully might mistakenly think the two things are connected, but they clearly are not. I'm not sure where the myth arose (maybe Shaffner's book?) but someone misunderstanding these comments is probably what created the myth.
     
  23. PhoffiFozz

    PhoffiFozz Forum Resident

    They are demos though. They're "demonstration recordings", which were recorded initially for Decca and what Brian was using to pitch to other labels. Although we tend to think of demos as something else, really the whole Decca session is one big early Beatles studio demo.
     
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  24. Billo

    Billo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern England
    The Searchers said Paul offered them 'Things We Said Today' which they turned down...then later regretted doing it !
     
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  25. bewareofchairs

    bewareofchairs Forum Resident

    In the book about Handmade Films, Very Naughty Boys, someone -- I think Ray Cooper -- said George was trying to quit smoking in the mid-80s, but Shanghai Surprise was so stressful that he started again. Then he tried it again in the early 90s when he did the Live In Japan tour. I'm not sure if he stuck to it that time. I can't recall any pictures of him in the 90s where he's holding a cigarette.

    He said this in Goldmine magazine in 1992:

    "Off and on, over all the years, I kept trying to stop smoking -- but I found it very difficult. So I used the tour as a motive, some goal in life, and that’s what I did. I thought, 'I’ll tour, because if I don’t I’ll just be at home smoking my brains out for the rest of my life -- and dying.'

    So I just jacked it all in, and I did it really successfully because normally you smoke more when you get into the situation like a rehearsal or on a tour. You ask any smoker: that’s the occasion when you’ll light up more. And I just tried to do it back-to-front, and I just didn’t smoke another cigarette.

    It really did me good. I got very strong in my voice now. That’s been since last June now, and I just feel so happy to have got free of that horrible curse! It’s one of the most disgusting things man has ever invented.

    I got myself kinda fit - I mean, not too fit, but more fit than I would’ve been if I’d just been hanging out not doing anything."

    :(
     
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