For this week’s BROW, I first want to talk about a guy who was a Capitol Records A&R executive in the 1960′s named Dave Dexter. Capitol Records was actually owned by the U.K.-based company, EMI, that were handling the distribution of Beatles records in Britain through their Parlophone subsidiary. When EMI sent “Please Please Me” to Capitol for consideration as a U.S. single release, it was Dave who turned it down, citing he didn’t think it had what it took to be a marketable piece of music for the American audience. Dave, being in his forties at the time, had grown up with jazz and big band music, and apparently was not totally tuned in to picking out the best in rock and roll. Dave also declined the next couple of Beatle-offerings from EMI too: “From Me To You” and “She Loves You”. At this point, Beatles producer George Martin was infuriated. The singles did get a U.S. release anyway through either Vee Jay Records or Swan Records, but with very little promotional efforts and no backing from a major label, there was no interest generated for The Beatles in America. Fortunately Beatles manager Brian Epstein was able to persuade Capitol Records president, Alan Livingston, to play a few sample Beatles singles himself, including the new “I Want To Hold Your Hand” record, and that was all it took. Capitol agreed to begin distributing The Beatles with major promotional backing by the end of 1963.

Although, he initially passed on The Beatles, Dave Dexter soon came around to the idea, once he saw how the power of “Beatlemania” was taking hold in the U.S. He became the man in charge of compiling the American versions of the Beatles albums, which were arranged quite differently than the LPs released in England. U.S. albums typically contained 11-12 songs, whereas the norm was 14 tracks in the U.K. Dave held some songs back from the British LPs and added singles tracks, so that 2 English LPs meant 3 LPs in America, and thus more sales. The cover art and album titles were also different, such as the U.K. LP “With The Beatles” shortened and becoming “Meet The Beatles!” in the U.S. The mixes of the songs were also changed for the American market. Dave would add lots of echo to the “cleaner” sounding British mixes, because he felt that this added ‘ambiance effect’ was preferred in the U.S. This was okay on some of the music, but was overdone on a few occasions too. “I Feel Fine” and “She’s A Woman” are two tracks that suffer the most from this overabundance of ‘reverb’. These tracks appear on an American single and the Beatles ’65 album. Most listeners today seem to prefer the crisp British mix over the murky sounding American mixes of these two songs, but to each his own.

By late 1965, some of the differences between the U.S. and U.K. catalogs were starting to diminish. The Rubber Soul album was released in December of that year with the same cover art and title on both sides of the Atlantic. This was a first. The track listing was still slightly modified as the U.S. album had a couple of leftover tracks from the U.K. Help! album and also a few U.K. Rubber Soul tracks were left off the U.S. version (such as “Nowhere Man”) to appear later on the U.S.-only LP, “Yesterday”…And Today. Dave Dexter continued with his practice of adding an additional layer of echo on the stereo version of the album, but not all first pressings of the record contain these “Dexterized” versions of the songs. For pressings released in the sixties, it seems that most, if not all, of the east coast pressings have the added echo effects, while other pressings can have either the cleaner sounding mixes heard on the U.K. versions, or the echo enhanced versions. Later pressings, from the 70′s and beyond, have the cleaner sounding mixes, as do the CDs, to include the Rubber Soul disc packaged with the Capitol Albums Vol. 2 box set.

If you have an American Rubber Soul vinyl LP, you may be curious about whether of not yours contains the “clean” or “Dexterized” mixes. Rather than go into details about discerning what vinyl pressing you may have, I thought it might be more effective to suggest a good audio-test instead. The details are forthcoming, so read on…

This week’s BROW, in honor of this Saturday’s anniversary of the birth of George Harrison, is a track he penned for the Rubber Soul album in 1965, about someone, unrevealed, that George had parted ways with. This was an interesting time in Beatle history and one of the key reasons was that George was coming into his own and honing his skills, not only as a guitarist and vocalist, but also as a composer. The song is called “Think For Yourself”. A fuzzbox was added to Paul McCartney’s bass in the recording to pepper the sound with a bit of distortion. Since the “Dexterized” version of the song is no longer readily available, I have chosen to share it with you here, allowing you to hear how much more echo-laden it actually sounded on many of the U.S. stereo albums in the 60′s. The audio comparison test I mentioned earlier is to focus on the song’s ending, because the chords terminate cold and dry on any of the Rubber Soul CD issuances, but echo away with an unmistakeable bit of delay on the mix heard here. Take it away George…

The Beatles, circa 1965

Extra info:

1) Although George prepared two songs for Rubber Soul, “Think For Yourself” was his only track on the U.S. Rubber Soul album. The other track, “If I Needed Someone” appeared in the U.S. on the album “Yesterday”…And Today, released in June 1966.

2) Alternate audio-test: Since the initial stereo issuances of Rubber Soul had the vocals primarily on the right channel, you may be able to play the stereo vinyl (US) LP and adjust your amplifier’s balance control to the right. If it seems like you have more echo in the isolated vocal track than what appears on a Rubber Soul CD or digital file, then you may have an album with the “Dexterized” mix. A good song to try this on is “Girl”.

I would like to thank Fab 4 Radio’s “Beatle Ed” for inspiring me to do the research necessary for this post.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Rubber Soul (Remastered) 2009 remastered stereo CD with original stereo U.K. LP from Dec. 1965. Includes stereo mix of “Think For Yourself” (not the “Dexterized” mix).

2) Capitol Albums Vol. 2 Box Set – 2006 remastered 4-CD box set of U.S. Capitol Beatles albums Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul. The set contains both mono and stereo versions of the original four U.S. LPs from 1965. Features mono and stereo mixes of “Think For Yourself”. Note: The Rubber Soul disc does not include the “Dexterized” mixes discussed in this post.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

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