Welcome to the BROW. It’s pretty common knowledge that by the late summer of 1966, touring had become such a strain on The Beatles and they simply were not interested in doing it anymore – at least not in the near future. For examples of why, check out here, or here. Their careers had been non-stop up to this point, and they all needed a break for a few months. In November, John Lennon occupied himself with the filming of How I Won The War, in Almeria Spain and Paul McCartney went on a Kenyan safari.

It was during Paul’s flight back from Africa to London, when he formed the idea of “the act you’ve known for all these years”. Soon afterward, the idea came together of how this famous sergeant’s band would actually become an alter-ego of The Beatles themselves. The Anthology documentary reveals how long-time Beatles assistant Neil Aspinal came up with the idea of this Sgt. Pepper figure coming on at the beginning of the album and introducing the band and then toward the end of the album have him return to announce their final number and say goodbye. This is just as The Beatles themselves had done in their previous stage acts where Paul would tell the audience they had one more song, thank them for coming, do the final number and split. In the case of the album, the title song could open the album and introduce the band and the farewell before the last song is, of course, the purpose of the Sgt. Pepper reprise before the A Day In The Life finale. The idea here was to send the album on tour instead of the band itself. Of course, the applause and audience sound effects used were also there to add to the fantasy of this live show. The Beatles further reasoned that since Elvis Presley had just sent his gold-plated Cadillac on tour, instead of himself, for people to actually pay to see, then certainly they could send Sgt. Pepper and his band on tour, on their behalf.

On February 1, 1967 The Beatles recorded the initial takes of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band opening. It took 9 takes to perfect a backing track and the following day Paul added some bass overdubs and lead vocals while John and George added their harmonies. A mono mix of this finalized take 9 was cut onto an acetate for producer George Martin to use in scoring the section for the French horns. A slightly degraded copy of this acetate is what is featured for this week’s BROW. The audience/atmosphere sound effects and other overdubs are yet to be added, and the connected entrance of Ringo Starr’s character Billy Shears doing With A Little Help From My Friends was still being thought out. The ending here has the band vamping on a C major chord long enough for the recording to be faded. With the addition of these further improvements, the final mix took it’s place in the sequence of their other groundbreaking music that would soon be introduced.

It’s interesting to note that just before the release of the Sgt. Pepper album, the media was hinting at how The Beatles had “dried up”. There were articles pointing out that they had not only stopped touring, but their last single was held out of the #1 spot in the UK by Engelbert Humperdinck’s Release Me, and it had been nearly a year since they had put out an album. Almost a whole year…imagine that! History was then made in the first few days of June 1967, when Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band magically put the world in a state of amazement, by coming to your town and all the others, and from there, completely redefining where rock music stood, and where it could go, and in the process, creating a whole new level on which to enjoy it in a fresh new way. And the world followed…..

Happy 43rd, SPLHCB!!!

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (alternate cover shot), 1967

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Your Mother Should Know (early acetate) In celebration of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band...
2. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends (mono mix) Welcome to this week’s BROW. Many of the mono versions...
3. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on Beatles Rockband The word in the news is that Harmonix and MTV...

A new Facebook Fan page has been set up for The Beatles Rarity so if you are a Facebook user be sure to have a look and add it to you favorite pages. The page is still very much in it’s infancy at this point, and you can have a look at it here if you like.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Recorded at London’s Granville Studios for the new American television show Shindig. Producer Jack Good was thrilled with the reaction to the Around The Beatles special a few months before and was able to secure The Beatles for Shindig’s fourth episode which aired on ABC-TV October 7, 1964. Take it away, Ringo…

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While on a safari, The Beatles meet up with a medicine man that turns a worm into a giant snake that falls in love with Ringo.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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President Obama and the First Lady will host a concert in the East Room of The White House honoring Paul who will be awarded the 3rd Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress, this June 2nd. The show will be broadcast on PBS at 8pm on July 28th EDT. Check out more details on PaulMcCartney.com.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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The BROW presses forward this week with a follow-up to another posted back on March 1, 2010. This is a track off of Paul McCartney’s aborted Return To Pepperland (20 Years Later…) album originally slated for release back in 1987. At the last minute, Paul backed out of releasing it for reasons unknown. The first time around, I selected the album’s title track and you can check that out here, if you like. In the comments of that post, you can see a request for another tune from this near-release and so I give you Lindiana. Written and recorded by Paul back in December 1984, this song has never appeared officially anywhere in his catalog. Paul was working with Phil Ramone on the Pepperland project, who produced the entire album along with Paul’s UK single Once Upon A Long Ago. Phil had previously produced a few Billy Joel albums and even wrote the award-winning score for the early 1980′a film Flashdance. Am I stirring up some 80′s memories here? There were a handful of other tracks on the album that did show up on subsequent releases by Paul, including a re-worked Beautiful Night (with Ringo Starr on drums) on 1997′s Flaming Pie, as well as a few single b-sides from the Flowers In The Dirt era (1989-1990). A few others (including an instrumental called Squid) were featured on Paul’s 1995 radio show Oobu Joobu.

When I posted this album’s title track back in March, a few commented that the song had too much of an “eighties” vibe. Let me just say that if you are thinking that about this one too, then I can only agree, and say that this is likely because it was recorded in the “eighties” when everyone sounded like that. The Pepperland tunes in my mind are a good missing link between Press To Play and Flowers In The Dirt. Predating Paul’s Flower’s/90′s band, the musicians on this session include Paul on vocals, bass and piano along with one of my favorite guitarists, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Dave Mattacks on drums.

A big thank you goes out to dermarhk this week for suggesting this track for BROW. Thank’s Mark!

Paul McCartney

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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As you can see, if you’ve been here before, things have really changed. There is a lot more going on here than there was yesterday. The site is sporting a whole new and cleaner look. But that isn’t all. Now you can, not only check out BROWs (Beatles Rarity of the Week), VOWs (Videos of the Week) and Beatles cartoons – you can also listen to Beatles-a-rama radio. There is also a more user-friendly interface to browse my collection and make requests for future BROWs. I’m not going to spend any time giving details about where everything is, because if you look around, chances are you’ll figure it out yourself better than I could explain it here. Just click on things. Everything that was here before, is still here, and a good bit more. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer you the best I can. Additionally, since there is almost always bugs when things are new, let me know if you see anything screwy. Of course, if you feel so inclined, drop me a comment to tell me what you think too. I’m really hoping it will be well received. So look around, enjoy the music and be happy while you’re here because while you’re here you’re around Beatles music, Beatles history and Beatles fans!

Happy Nat
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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On June 5-6, 1987 George Harrison and Ringo Starr performed onstage with Elton John, Jeff Lynne, Ray Cooper and Phil Collins at The Prince’s Trust Concert. This track appeared later on the Prince’s Trust Concert 1987 double album showcasing the historic occasion. This was the second show with a Beatles-blessing as Paul McCartney appeared for the annual charity event the year before.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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The Beatles visit the Chamber of Horrors in a wax museum and have a run-in with Count Dracula.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to this week’s Beatles Rarity Of The Week.

Not a whole lot is known about this acoustic home demo of John Lennon’s that I’m throwing on for the BROW this week. It’s called Say It Again and for those of you familiar with John’s 1973 Mind Games album, you may recognize elements of the song You Are Here in this recording. In 1971, John produced an album called The Pope Smokes Dope for Apple artist and early New York punker David Peel (with the Lower East Side Band). I bring this up because this demo was supposedly found on a cassette tape labeled ‘rehearsal with David Peel’ and even though this is only John, it is possible that John jammed with David during the sessions for his album. After all, David had played with the Plastic Ono Band on a couple of other occasions. It’d be nice to confirm the rumor of this tape’s existence and investigate the possibility of other gems, yet to be discovered. In any event, based on what info I was able to gather, this obscurity was likely taped in the fall of 1971.

Extra-special thanks go out to Lennonista this week for suggesting this track for BROW. It was a fab request in my book, and, of course, I hope you agree. For the rest of you that have sent me requests, I haven’t forgotten them and will do my best to get them out soon.

John Lennon, circa 1971

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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