May
20
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
Get the whole story »
8 people think this is FAB!
May
13
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
Get the whole story »
13 people think this is FAB!
May
06
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
Get the whole story »
14 people think this is FAB!
Apr
29
Welcome to The Beatles Rarity of the Week. It was in the afternoon on January 28th, 1969 when this weeks feature was recorded and only one more full day left before The Beatles would culminate the Get Back Sessions with their legendary unexpected lunch hour performance on the roof of Apple Headquarters in downtown London.
In the past half hour the band had successfully recorded the take of “Don’t Let Me Down” that would ultimately be out on a single in two and a half months as the b-side to “Get Back.” Now some wine was being passed around and the band was in high spirits and trying to figure out what to rehearse next.
John Lennon at the Get Back sessions, January 1969
Get the whole story »
16 people think this is FAB!
Apr
22
Welcome to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. The rarity featured this week might be something you own if you happened to buy a copy of the New York Daily News back on February 3rd or 10th, 2008. EMI and the metro-New York based newspaper struck up a deal allowing readers the opportunity to download three free songs of their choice from a selection of over 120,000 tracks. Each copy of the paper issued on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 3rd) or Grammy Sunday (Feb. 10th) came with an insert that gave a website and a unique printed access code allowing readers to search and download the music.
One of the songs offered was Ringo Starr’s “It’s Love,” a good little mid-tempo tune with a nice reference to The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” in the chorus. Although this song was recorded way back in 2002 during the mixing of Ringo’s Ringo Rama album, it was considered later as a contender for his Liverpool 8 album, released in January 2008. In the end it was held back in case any future promotional exclusives were needed such as this download offer I’m referring to.
Ringo Starr
Get the whole story »
17 people think this is FAB!
Apr
15
Welcome back! This week on the BROW I’m offering up another of the Kinfauns demos named as such after the name of George Harrison’s bungalow where he resided in 1968 and where this little demo was recorded sometime in late May of that year.
The story-telling song of Paul McCartney’s was originally titled “Rocky Sassoon” when he first penned it during his stay in Rishikesh, India with the other Beatles a couple of months earlier. The Beatles assistant Mal Evans is on tape as suggesting the song be titled “Rocky Checked Out” but George Harrison disagreed stating that “Rocky Raccoon” would be the most sensible title.
Paul McCartney, 1968
Get the whole story »
25 people think this is FAB!
I'm Happy Nat and I'm glad you dropped in! Feel free to listen to the latest BROW (Beatles Rarity Of The Week), read the latest #askNat (answers to reader-submitted Beatles-related questions) or catch one of the other numerous items of interest. Join the discussion by leaving comments or 
