This week’s question on #askNat comes from Mike Ray of Fargo, North Dakota who asks this:
Who actually gets the credit for playing guitar on the James Bond Theme that precedes the song “Help!” on the U.S. Soundtrack album? Obviously NOT The Beatles.
Very true Mike, it isn’t The Beatles at all.
Help! US LP art, 1965
Welcome to The Beatles Rarity of the Week. As someone who makes a wholehearted effort to collect every single bit of released music by each of the four Beatles, I can tell you that there is no bigger challenge than to keep up with one Sir Paul McCartney. This week’s BROW is one that I almost missed.
Back in January 1997, some four months before the release of Paul’s Flaming Pie CD, Capitol Records put out a 6-track sampler CD distributed only to a small number of Capitol executives. The sampler contained the following tracks that were to see a commercial release on Flaming Pie the following May 5th: “The World Tonight,” “Flaming Pie,” “Used To Be Bad,” “Beautiful Night,” “Young Boy” and “Somedays.”
Paul McCartney performing in the studio, 1997
This week on #askNat I’m addressing a few questions that arrived together from Lucio in Mexico. Lucio’s first goes like this:
Is there an authentic version on any bootleg of the “Threetles” backing track for the “Now and Then” demo”?
The “Now And Then” demo by John Lennon was supposedly one of four demos of John Lennon’s given by Yoko Ono to the three surviving Beatles in the nineties for use on The Beatles Anthology project. The two of these completed by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Jeff Lynne and released on singles and The Beatles Anthology 1 & 2 CD sets were “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” (more details here). The fourth was likely “Grow Old With Me,” which is included in it’s rawest form on John and Yoko’s 1984-released Milk And Honey album. Of course “Threetles” is a nineties term referring to Paul, George and Ringo when they reunited to work on the Anthology project.
John Lennon, 1979
Welcome to The Beatles Rarity of the Week. The Beatles had a very busy day on March 31st, 1964. The first order of the day was to get over to the Scala Theatre in London to record the footage of the band performing the concert that was to be the culmination of their upcoming movie A Hard Day’s Night. The Beatles performed “If I Fell,” “Tell Me Why,” “I Should Have Known Better” and “She Loves You” – all four of which were used in the film. “You Can’t Do That” was also lip-synced but that didn’t make the film. This performance of “You Can’t Do That” ended up given to the Ed Sullivan Show for the May 24th, 1964 broadcast in America and it is also seen at the conclusion of a home video called The Making of A Hard Day’s Night (but with some minor visual editing changes from the original broadcast). The audience of 350 fans were actually paid to react hysterically, not that most wouldn’t have done that for free. A 13-year old future drummer for Genesis named Phil Collins was among the crowd of screaming kids.
After a quick dinner, The Beatles headed immediately over to the Playhouse Theatre to rehearse and record their ninth appearance on the BBC radio program Saturday Club. If this wasn’t enough to keep them busy, John Lennon was also nabbed during a couple session breaks to give interviews. Both were for usage with the BBC Home Service radio network and the second was given by the Saturday Club host himself, Brian Matthew for a series called A Slice Of Life. John was to talk about his hobbies but he also used the interviews as a grand opportunity to do some plugging for his upcoming book of hilariously ridiculous poems and wordplay called In His Own Write which was to be released in just under four weeks.
The Beatles with Saturday Club host Brian Matthew in 1964
This time around on #askNat it looks like I have a couple questions from Brian Cornish. Brian did not give me his location but I don’t think that will keep me from getting his two questions answered. Brian’s first message goes like this:
Nat,
I’m curious about the back cover of the Abbey Road album. Is there any background you can share about why the shot includes a ‘walk-by’ and where exactly is this block lettering located?
Thanks
Okay Brian – fair enough. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were fishing for a discussion concerning the Paul McCartney “death clues.” I can almost smell these things ahead of time. I’ve heard and read of hundreds of these and many are quite a stretch. In fact it seems to me that nine times out of ten – if it is a discussion about the Abbey Road cover, this “death clue” topic is going to come out. In any event, I’ll start out here by just telling you what I know about the photo session, including a few details about the front cover.
Abbey Road front cover, 1969
Welcome back to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. For our first BROW in the merry month of May I’m turning my attention to MTV’s Unplugged series which began in the 1989/90 television season. The idea, of course, was to feature performances by musical guests that would give acoustic versions of what would normally be done with amplified instruments. Microphones were okay, but electronic backing or amplification was discouraged. This kind of thing was right up Paul McCartney’s alley and he agreed to do a show early in it’s heyday. To be more specific, the show was filmed on January 25th, 1991 in the Wembley district of London’s Limehouse Studios, which was a place Paul had actually recorded television shows with The Beatles. The show premiered on MTV on April 3rd, 1991.
Paul was one of the first big names to appear on the show and was intrigued at the challenge of performing completely “unplugged.” While the rules were bent slightly for many of the guests as far as the use of electronic pick-ups or occasional amplified instruments, Robbie McIntosh, who played in Paul’s band at the time stated that “Paul decided this was cheating and we would do it absolutely ‘straight,’ which was very challenging. There were no pick-ups – meaning everything was done simply with microphones.”
Paul McCartney at Unplugged concert of Jan. 25, 1991
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