The Beatles US Capitol Albums Volume 3 On CD

Spizer didn't think Apple would sign off on releasing "Capitol versions" of Revolver, Sgt Pepper, or MMT, but he did think there was a viable chance of a set containing the following:
Yesterday & Today
A Hard Day's Night
Hey Jude
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

As I said above, I really think the firing of Andy Slater was the primary reason this did not happen. It's hard to make something happen if there isn't a big executive advocating for it. And conversely, when an exec is fired it's common for the person who takes over to cancel projects that had been pushed by their predecessor, to start with a clean slate.

 

The other problem with that set is inexplicably they used the George Martin stereo remixes of the UK Help and Rubber Soul material that wasn't a unique version rather than the original 1965 stereo mixes which wasn't authentic to anything.

 

I do seem to remember seeing a (very) brief mention of a Volume 3 in a trade paper sometime after the release of Volume 2 (although IIRC no track listing was given).

 

I wonder why Andy Slater was fired? And did it have anything to do with him driving the production of Vol 1 & 2?

 

Nah. I'm sure they could have cared less about that (if they even knew about it). According to this article, it was part of a reorganization/cutback brought about by EMI doing poorly overall in sales and talent development. It had more to do with how EMI was doing in general worldwide than with anything specific to the Capitol label. They basically merged operations of the Capitol and Virgin labels and got rid of the Capitol execs, including Slater.

 

*4 By The Beatles EP - the tracks were 'sweetened' by Dave Dexter with reverb and EQ. No mix differences but they sound quite different (and better IMO) compared to the mono Beatles '65 tracks
* Rubber Soul 'wet mix' is also sweetened with noticeable reverb (many threads on this forum about it), It came out in the US and Canada in the 70's but no one seems to know the origin and who was behind it.
* Beatles '65 original stereo pressings contain the heavy reverb mix of 'I'll Be Back'. In addition many tracks like No Reply, Baby's In Black and Honey Don't have slightly wider stereo and some slight reverb sweetening added compared to Beatles For Sale and later pressings of '65. Many on this forum disagree with me and say it's just EQ but I compared and original Beatles '65 lp to the CD from Capitol Years Vol. 1 and can hear subtle differences between the two.
* You are correct that US Revolver is identical to the mixes on the UK
* The Y&T cd (Capitol 80019708) substituted UK Revolver mixes for Sleeping, Bird and Robert. I have no idea about the Y&T CD on the Capitol box set whether the correct mixes are restored there

 

They could issue a re-vamped Rarities. A few new tracks could be, the 1963 wide stereo version of I Want To Hold Your Hand, The remix 11 version of Tomorrow Never Knows from Revolver mono UK 1st pressing, The cleaned up I Should Have Known Better from the US only Reel Music LP & the different version of Yellow Submarine that was on the Real Love CD single. I'm sure that there are others.

Yesterday....And Today with the US mixes & Revolver with the missing 3 tracks plus Paperback Writer & Rain, in mono & Stereo.

Then, issue the whole lot, Vol's 1 2 & 3 on vinyl with the Rainbow label. I'd be in for that one.

 

IIRC, Bruce Spizer was involved as well with Andy...

 

as long as we got CD first that would be cool for the vinyl hounds! useless for me. : )

 

I hate it when they leave a series or collection unfinished, so I would totally support the release of a vol. 3, although I also think it's very unlikely after so many years and once the US albums box has been released.
In a hypothetical release, I would include:

-Yesterday & Today
-Magical Mystery Tour
-A Hard Day's Night (Capitol acquired the rights to re-release it in the 70s, right?)
-Rarities

Not exactly. It also used the unique US stereo mixes of Day Tripper and WCWIO. The stereo unique mixes missing are I'm Only Sleeping, AYBCS and Dr. Robert, probably because in the first edition of the album those tracks were duophonic, so they substituted UK stereo for them. A little research would have helped avoid the mistake.

In fact, MOST of the unique US mixes are present. Apart from the three in Y&T (one of which is almost identical to the UK mix anyway), the only ones missing are the stereo I Call Your Name and Long Tall Sally in Second Album.

I agree, I can understand substituting real stereo for duophonic, but in cases where there is no real stereo, what's the point in repeating the mono mix?

Well, they eventually released the US version of Revolver. It would have made more sense to release MMT, at least it contained a couple of unique mixes.

 

Make your own.

 

The only problem with making your own accurate representations of the USA Capitol albums is that for many of the recordings you would need the original vinyl release. I do not have all the 60s Capitol Beatles albums on vinyl.

 

Once again, same mixes in all cases. There is one unique version of Revolver, an early UK pressing that used the wrong stamper, with an alternate mix of "Tomorrow Never Knows" included by mistake. But that's nothing to do with Capitol, they issued the same mixes as EMI on their Revolver and the Apple LP Hey Jude is just all the same stereo mixes you can find on the UK stereo A Hard Day's Night album, and Past Masters (though I have read that "Paperback Writer" apparently has the stereo channels reversed and balanced differently)

I bought that CD, it's the same one as in the 2014 U.S. Albums box set. The mono mixes of those songs are included, the genuine Capitol alternate mixes. For "Bird", there is no only genuine alternate stereo mix — only fake stereo made by Capitol from the mono mix. The other two songs are also fake stereo on first edition LPs, so "correct" mix is never going to be satisfactory because the true alternates were only swapped in on later editions

 

That's correct, I forgot about DT and WCWIO, I was thinking about the three displaced Revolver tracks.

 

"Day Tripper" is the correct Capitol mix, both stereo and mono, on the 2014 CD

 

Is there maybe a Beatles anniversary of some sort coming up? That would be the only reason I could think of for them to do something new.
Otherwise, I think we are more likely to get a “Love - Naked” type release before anything else. I myself would love to see anything unreleased put out for the Beatles completists. I also would love to see the compilations “Rock And Roll Music” & “Love Songs” released. I bought a couple of the “US Albums” CD’s & I didn’t like how they made the covers larger. My opinion.

 

Judging from the past couple of years, I think the next thing we'll see is probably a 50th anniversary expanded remix of Abbey Road. After that, we know that Peter Jackson is working with the raw footage from Get Back/Let It Be, so an accompanying soundtrack album seems very likely, possibly coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the release of the film or album (which didn't come out at quite the same time).

 

These are the only genuine (not re-channeled or sweetened) alternate Capitol mixes still missing from official Beatles CDs:

• Don't Bother Me (Canada stereo Meet the Beatles LP version with vocal miscue, circa 1976)
• I Should Have Known Better (Reel Music stereo LP version with re-edited/repaired harmonica)
• And I Love Her (German stereo Something New LP version with extended ending, also included in Rarities)
• Norwegian Wood & Girl (Love Songs stereo LP versions with centered vocal)
• Doctor Robert & I'm Only Sleeping (Yesterday & Today later stereo LP reissues and tape editions)
• Strawberry Fields Forever (Magical Mystery Tour stereo LP mix with centered swarmandal)
• I Am the Walrus (untrimmed mono from Capitol single, also edited into fake stereo on Rarities)

Plus the original LP mix of Hollywood Bowl. George Martin did some sweetening of his own for Capitol's Rock and Roll Music LP, but he was just working from the 2-track UK mixes, like Dave Dexter Jr. did

 

If “Let It Be” what is their last studio album & released in 1970, could something special be coming in 2020? I Wonder.

 

I also would like to see the “Reel Music” compilation released with the “Beatles Movie Medley” included.

 

That would make sense for Vol. 3.

Y&T
Revolver
Pepper
MMT

I'd like to see a Vol. 4 and 5 if they're going to get this far out.

Vol. 4 would be the 1976 second-pressings of:

1962-1966
1967-1970

Vol. 5:

Rock And Roll Music
Hollywood Bowl
Love Songs
Rarities

 

The Beatles haven't done that many anniversary-related projects, and I don't see them doing "something special" to commemorate the anniversary of the group's sad and angry demise. They'll do something specifically related to Let It Be - Jackson's film has already been formally announced - but I wouldn't expect anything broader. Then again, they've surprised us before....

 

Maybe a complete DECCA collection?

 

If I’m not mistaken isn’t there also a unique mix of I’m down on the Rock and Roll music LP?

 

Thanks for the link. This shed a lot of light on the situation. Vol. 3 and beyond won't be happening (unless someone like Sean goes nuts with the idea one day, I'm guessing).

Basically it was a minor miracle that Apple let the Vol. 1 and 2 of the Cap sets out in the first place. Slater and Spizer (through Slater?, or was Spizer also dealing directly with Apple?) had to lobby hard and 'fight' to get them out, have them be the mono and stereo albums, and even had to 'fight' to have the US Rubber Soul on the set (with a similar title to the UK, that meant it was considered 'redundant'? Ha).

Sounds like we have Spizer to thank for there being the reissue of the Stereo US Rubber Soul on the Cap V.2 set at all - without which we'd be stuck with those 1987 RS/Help! Stereo remixes on every CD reissue of the 'Rubber Soul' title, let alone a US RS one. Thanks, Bruce.

Oddly, or appropriately, the way things go, there is no mention of Yesterday And Today.

Selected quotes from Spizer's statement:

Getting Apple to agree to the release of any of the
U.S. albums was a major accomplishment on the part of Capitol, led by
its president, Andy Slater. I lobbied very hard for stereo and mono
versions of the albums. I also lobbied very hard to have Volume 1
contain the four albums from 1964 and Volume 2 have the four albums from
1965. These were major and important victories.

As for Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper, don't expect
to see them in The Capitol Albums series. The purpose of the series is
to present uniquely configured U.S. albums that otherwise would not be
released on CD. It is not the purpose of the series to present stereo
and mono versions of every Beatles album issued in the U.S. Apple would
never have approved such a concept.

I fought for the Capitol version of Rubber Soul to be included because it has a
totally different feel than the U.K. version. But I will not fight a
losing battle to get the U.S. version of Revolver on CD.

- Spizer