Welcome to The Beatles Rarity of The Week. On November 20, 1976 Paul Simon hosted the Thanksgiving week episode of Saturday Night Live and recorded a few performances along with musical guest George Harrison.

With his new album Thirty Three and 1/3 due to be released in four days, George was eager to make the appearance as part of his efforts to promote it. A promo video clip was shown of George’s lead single “This Song” which had just been released on November 15th and also of “Crackerbox Palace” which would be the follow up single out in January 1977.

Not missing a great opportunity, Paul Simon and George performed a charming selection of Beatles/Simon & Garfunkel/fifties covers together. Both sat with acoustic guitars “unplugged style” before a highly responsive audience and performed these specific songs: “Here Comes The Sun,” “Homeward Bound,” “Rock Island Line” (a la Lonnie Donegan) and the Everly’s “Bye Bye Love.”

From this set, only “Here Comes The Sun” and “Homeward Bound” were televised on the show. This recording of “Homeward Bound” was included on the charity CD Nobody’s Child Romanian Angel Appeal released in 1990. In honor of a recent request, I am featuring the unreleased and untelevised performance of “Rock Island Line” for this week’s BROW. George begins with a few borrowed lines from The Beatles “Yesterday” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and the audience joins in with handclaps when he begins “Rock Island Line.” Since the recording originates from an unrestored 36 year old film source, the fidelity isn’t up to par with what most of us are used to, but nevertheless, I hope you find it an enjoyable listen.

George Harrison/Paul Simon - Rock Island Line

George Harrison and Paul Simon on SNL, 1976

Special thanks go out to Carl Quatraro for requesting a performance from this union of two great artists.

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

1) Nobody’s Child – Romanian Angel Appeal – Various – 1990 charity CD featuring Ringo Starr and the All-Starr Band, Traveling Wilburys and George Harrisons performance of “Homeward Bound” with Paul Simon from SNL.

2) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. John Lennon’s White Album track “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is the subject of this week’s offering.

John referred to the song as a pastiche, consisting of several different song fragments he had going around in his head in 1968, as identified below:

1. The first section includes a fingerpicking style of guitar he had recently picked up in Rishikesh India with the help of Donovan, played with a lilting pattern and including the line “She’s not a girl who misses much…”
2. The second section includes some lyrics supplied by Beatles press officer Derek Taylor which he came up with during an acid trip that he experienced with John (“She’s well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane…”).
3. The third section came from a song fragment called “I Need A Fix” built around a nice and mean sounding guitar riff.
4. John follows this up with the fourth “Mother Superior Jumped The Gun” section.
5. The fifth and final section sends off the song with a doo-wop approach of singing the title with full backing vocal accompaniment from John, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. This inspiration for this section came from the title of an American firearms magazine title of Happiness Is A Warm Gun In Your Hand that John was shown by producer George Martin.

With each section comes a change in the time signature, yet despite it’s schizophrenic nature, it came together quite well and was much admired by the other Beatles. In fact, Paul McCartney mentioned in an interview that it was his favorite White Album song.

Forty-five takes of the song were recorded on September 23, 1968 and twenty-five more the following day. Take 53 was chosen as the best of these except for the final section which was edited to it from take 65. Overdubs were added from this version to create the master. If listening to the album or CD of the White Album, the edit between the takes occurs at 1:34.

For this week’s BROW, I am sharing one of the rough mix tapes that isolates one of the overdub tracks. It contains organ for the first two sections, distorted electric guitar for the third section, hi-hat and tambourine for the fourth section, and piano for the final section. These can be heard in the released stereo and mono mixes (centered in stereo) but since the organ and piano are quite buried there, I thought you may appreciate hearing these parts of the mix a bit clearer in this isolation account. As an added bonus, I’ve prefaced this with John’s acoustic guitar demo of the song recorded on May 25, 1969 while at his and Yoko Ono’s Canadian Bed-In at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. On this same day John was recording demos for his anthem “Give Peace A Chance” just one week before recording the final version in Montreal, Quebec.

A very special thanks goes out to Spike who requested this week’s BROW and waited patiently for me to get to it.

The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun

John Lennon & Paul McCartney, 1968

Extra info: The Beatles Anthology 3 includes an acoustic demo of John playing sections 3 and 4 sometime around the third week of May 1968 at his Weybridge home, Kenwood.

Credits for finalized version of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun:”
John Lennon: double tracked vocal, backing vocals, guitar
Paul McCartney: bass, backing vocals
George Harrison: fuzzed lead guitar, backing vocals
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine

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

1) The White Album (Remastered) 2009 2-CD remaster of original 1968 stereo LP, including “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”

2) Anthology 3 2-CD compilation of alternate and out-take Beatles recordings between 1968-1969, including early acoustic demo of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. The Beatles spent much of their day on January 25, 1969 recording George’s Harrison’s fun little twelve bar blues ditty “For You Blue.” Along with a lot of practice rehearsals in between takes, they recorded twelve proper takes on that day and it was the only day they worked on the song throughout the rest of the their time working as a complete band. George plays acoustic guitar while singing the vocal in a corner of the room while Ringo Starr steadily delivers the drumbeat. Paul McCartney played piano on the track with paper laid across the inside of the piano to give it a less dominating sound. John Lennon brings the track to life with the lap steel guitar accompaniment which he plays using a shotgun shell as a bottleneck.

The version of “For You Blue” that we hear on the Let It Be album is take 7, however George rerecorded his vocal track nearly a year later on January 8th, 1970. A cleaner sounding mix of this same take and newer vocal was also used on 2003′s Let It Be…Naked.

This week’s BROW treats us to an alternate version prepared for use in the Let It Be film. This is actually an edit created from three other takes recorded on Jan. 25, 1969, including the main part of the song coming from one take previous to the one on the album (i.e. take 6). Although a verse was trimmed off of the end, an extended instrumental intro is created by editing in part of the instrumental break from take 9.

The Beatles - For You Blue

George Harrison recording "For You Blue", Jan. 25, 1969

Extra info: “For You Blue” had a working title of “George’s Blues (Because You’re Sweet And Lovely).” When Phil Spector remixed the song for inclusion on the Let It Be album, he added a spoken introduction by John Lennon taken from dialog recorded at Twickenham Studios in early January where John says “Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members.”

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

1) Let It Be (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1970 LP, featuring “For You Blue”

2) Let It Be… Naked 2003 CD with special “stripped down” versions of the Let It Be album without the Phil Spector mix on the original 1970 release, and featuring “For You Blue”.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. A short while back I had a BROW request for a live Beatles performance of “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You.” I love to get requests for a number of reasons. It lets me know that people are actually out there that are tuning in with an interest and it also helps me come up with what to put out there next. I was a little disappointed in this case though because The Beatles never performed “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You” before a live audience. Aiming to please, I gave it some thought and came up with what I feel like is the next best thing.

“I’m Happy Just To Dance With You” was one of the seven songs The Beatles performed in their first movie A Hard Day’s Night, and in mid-1964, the band was keeping very busy plugging the film. That is why on July 17, 1964 when the Beatles were recording songs to be aired on their fourth and final From Us To You program on BBC radio, they recorded four songs from the film. “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You” was one of those songs and while it was not recorded “live”, the BBC studio where they recorded did not have the capability for multi-tracking, so any overdubs were performed live during tape-to-tape copies. Therefore I considered this the closest suitable alternative for the request. George Harrison sings the lead vocal on this Lennon-McCartney composition and makes a couple mistakes with the lyrics in this version, in case you want to try and spot them. The other film songs recorded in this session were “A Hard Day’s Night”, “If I Fell” and “I Should Have Known Better.” The show aired on BBC’s Light Program on August 3, 1964.

Thanks go out to Edward Mehl for making this request. Thanks for waiting, Ed! Enjoy!

The Beatles - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

The Beatles on the BBC

Extra info: The official 2-CD set Live At The BBC released by Apple in 1994 does not include this performance or any others The Beatles recorded at this session.

Some Amazon links to read up on or purchase related items to this post:

1) A Hard Day’s Night (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1964 U.K. LP, including the stereo master of “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You.”

2) Live at the BBC 1994 2-CD collection of great BBC recordings by The Beatles (does not include the performance featured here).

3) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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This week BROW looks back at the early days of Paul McCartney & Wings. Paul chose to limit his band’s live performances to his home continent during these years and play smaller venues such as universities and town halls, allowing time to “build up” Wings and make a name for themselves by getting at least a couple hit albums under their belts before attempting anything on a larger scale. He certainly did not want to rely on his clout as a former Beatle to sell Wings to the world and refused to include any Beatles music in any of the concert setlists of 1972-1973. It wasn’t until after the highly successful fourth Wings album Venus And Mars that Wings toured outside of Europe with a short Australian tour that included 7 shows over the first two weeks of November 1975. It wasn’t until 1976 when Wings peppered the setlist with songs from their newest Wings At The Speed Of Sound album and did a full fledged North American/European world tour, which yielded the only live Wings album. This was actually a triple album set titled Wings Over America which gave us a good 2-hour sampling of the live performances from the 1976 shows, however they were somewhat “doctored up” after the fact.

For the period before Wings Over America, the only officially released live Wings performances would be two songs:

(1) a song called “The Mess” which was never released as a studio recording. The live performance was recorded at The Hague in Holland on August 21, 1972 and was issued as the b-side for the Wings single “My Love” in March 1973.

(2) a 1973 live Wings recording of the song “Wild Life” which appears over credits on the DVD set The McCartney Years.

Because of the deficit of commercially accessible early live recordings by Wings, I have occasionally put up something on TheBeatlesRarity to give us a taste of how they sounded back when they were playing the smaller shows and were still a new band (such as this one). This week’s BROW is another of those times. “Soily” is an all out rocker that was first heard on record as the last song on the Wings Over America LP set or the b-side to the “Maybe I’m Amazed” single taken from this set. It was part of Wings’ stage repertoire all the way back in 1972, however the only official account of it from the studio is from an unreleased film by Paul called One Hand Clapping and issued as bonus material on a DVD packaged with Paul’s recent deluxe edition of his Band On The Run album. The recording presented here dates from July 10, 1973, when Wings were performing at City Hall in Newcastle, U.K. Unlike in 1976, when “Soily” was the concluding encore performance, here it was the show opener. The Wings line up at the time included Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell.

Paul McCartney & Wings - Soily

Paul McCartney onstage

Extra info: In 1980 a VHS tape called Rockshow was released officially containing much of the same concert footage covered on the “Wings Over America” triple album. Although, it was never officially released to DVD, a portion of it is included on the DVD set The McCartney Years (Amazon link listed below).

Some Amazon links to read up on or purchase related items to this post:

1) Wings Over America – 2-CD set of Wings live in 1976, includes “Soily.”

2) The McCartney Years – 2007 3-DVD set compiling promo videos and live performances by Paul McCartney, including the years with Wings.

3) Band On The Run (2CD/2DVD) – 2010 Band On The Run 2 CD/2-DVD Archive Collection set. One of the bonus DVDs includes a studio version of “Soily” used in Paul’s unreleased film One Hand Clapping.

4) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
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. One of the artists that was introduced in 1968 when The Beatles formed Apple Records was Mary Hopkin. Paul McCartney took an enthusiastic interest in the Welsh folk singer and her first single “Those Were The Days” was one of four that were among the first releases on the Apple label. Produced by Paul McCartney, 18-year old Mary had a #1 hit in the U.K (#2 on the Billboard chart in the U.S) with the record for five straight weeks during October and November of 1968. Paul went on to produce her debut album Post Card and write her follow up single “Goodbye”. When it came time for her to record it the following year, Paul acted as producer and also plays on the record as detailed below.

“Goodbye” was written by Paul and credited to Lennon-McCartney. On March 1-2, 1969, Paul accompanied Mary at London’s Morgan Studios for the recording session. Mary sang and played acoustic guitar, changing a few words in Paul’s final verse (from “sound of lonely drums” to “song of lonely love”). She also raised the key from ‘C’ to ‘E’ to better fit her vocal range. Paul added an acoustic guitar intro, bass, and slapped his lap as a percussion technique learned from Buddy Holly). He also put some drums on the record. Additional strings, horns and backing vocals were also overdubbed in. Mary’s recording of “Goodbye” is most easily found on the compilation CD Come And Get It – The Best Of Apple Records (Amazon link provided below).

For this week’s BROW I am featuring Paul’s original demo of the song recorded in December 1968. It was this recording that Paul gave to Mary so that she could learn the song and prepare her own rendition of it. Paul is playing all instruments in the demo.

Paul McCartney - Goodbye

Paul McCartney and Mary Hopkin in the studio together, 1968

Extra info: “Goodbye”, like it’s predecessor, would have also been a #1 single in the U.K. but was held out of the top spot for two weeks by another of Paul McCartney’s songs – The Beatles recording of “Get Back,” which held firm to the #1 spot during the entire month of May 1969. In the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, “Goodbye” peaked at #13.

Special thanks go out to Andy Trundle for requesting this week’s BROW. Thanks also for waiting for me to get to it, Andy.

Some Amazon links to read up on or purchase related items to this post:

1) Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records – Compilation of many of the early Apple Records classics, including Mary Hopkin’s version of “Those Were The Days” and “Goodbye” produced by Paul McCartney, who also plays guitar, bass, drums and percussion.

2) Postcard 2010 expanded remaster of original 1969 Apple Records release that was the debut hit album by Mary Hopkin. Includes her first hit “Those Were The Days” and, as a bonus track, “Goodbye”. All songs are produced by Paul McCartney, who also plays on the album.

3) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
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. I’m responding to a request this week for George Harrison’s recording of “I Don’t Want To Do It, ” but since this is BROW, don’t expect to hear the most familiar account of the song.

“I Don’t Want To Do It” was a track penned by Bob Dylan in early 1970 and was very little known until George Harrison covered it in 1985 for inclusion on the March 1985 Porky’s Revenge soundtrack. It was also released on a single the following month, which is similar but not the same as the soundtrack version. The single mix has additional guitar in the instrumental break to accompany the organ solo and also has a different lead vocal track. The song was certainly not new to George in 1985 as is shown by a widely bootlegged demo of him performing it (on acoustic guitar only) much earlier during the sessions for All Things Must Pass in 1970.

All three of the aforementioned accounts of this track are interesting in there own way but for this week’s BROW I am offering up a 4th account which is also a demo, but one that was recorded near the the time of the late 1984 recording of the soundtrack version. At this point George is just getting the band warmed up, so it is not as polished as either of the officially released versions and actually has a completely different feel. The final version of this song would be George’s only commercial release between 1982 and his October 1987 single which was also a cover – Rudy Clark’s “Got My Mind Set on You”.

George Harrison - I Don't Want To Do It

George Harrison, circa mid-1980's

Extra info: Since the soundtrack version of “I Don’t Want To Do It” was chosen for the 2009 George Harrison hits compilation Let It Roll – Songs By George Harrison, the single version may also be selected as a future BROW, as it has not been released officially since the 1985 vinyl single.

Some Amazon links to read up on or purchase related items to this post:

1) Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison – a great 2009 hits compilation of George Harrison’s best, including the soundtrack version of “I Don’t Want To Do It”.

2) Porky’s Revenge – 2004 remastered expanded version of soundtrack, now somewhat rare, with used copies available here and including the soundtrack version of “I Don’t Want To Do It” along with other songs by various artists.

3) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

Welcome to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. There isn’t much to say about this week’s offering other than it is another of many Paul McCartney demos that never saw the light of day. This home recording of “Indeed, I Do” was most likely taped sometime between the Ram album (May 1971) and the first Wings album, Wild Life (Dec. 1971). Paul duets with his wife Linda while strumming an acoustic guitar. Linda announces take 1 at the start of the tape but after a minute and thirteen seconds this breaks down, followed by a second attempt which also falls short due to Paul not having the words to the verses worked out yet. Since they are apparently having a lot of fun with it (judging by the laughter), instead of letting this stop them, they cheerfully continue on for a few more minutes before shutting the recorder off. This is the only known recording of this particular track and it was probably soon forgotten over the years. Admittedly, if you asked me if I thought it might’ve been a hit, I would have to say “no”, but if you ask me if I think it’s interesting enough to spin up for this week’s BROW, I’d say “Indeed, I Do.”

Paul & Linda McCartney - Indeed, I Do

Paul & Linda McCartney

Some Amazon links to read up on or purchase related items to this post:

1) Ram 2012 Remastered Archive Collection Sets – 2012 Remastered versions of original 1971 Ram Lp, with plenty of bonus material – pre-order only until May 22, 2012

2) Ram 1999 CD remaster of original 1971 LP by Paul & Linda McCartney.

3) Wide Prairie – 2002 remastered collection of songs by Linda McCartney released posthumously.

4) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. In early April 1969 after John Lennon had put his wedding and honeymoon exploits to verse, he was very eager to get his “Ballad Of John And Yoko” recorded. The Beatles had not had a full recording session in six months and currently George Harrison was busy shopping for his new home (he ended up moving from his Kinfauns bungalow into Friar Park 11 months later). Ringo Starr was also occupied on the set of the movie The Magic Christian where he was co-starring with Peter Sellers. On April 18th, the band were planning to meet in the studio to record George’s “Old Brown Shoe” but John did not want to wait until then. On Monday April 14th, he met with Paul McCartney in EMI Studio 3 for what would otherwise have been just a mixing session with producer George Martin, and the two of them completed the song in a six and a half hour session on their own.

“The Ballad Of John And Yoko” is a ballad in the traditional sense of a narrative poem put to song and not in the sense used in modern pop and rock music where the term usually refers to a slow and sentimental love song. The lyrics cover the events of March 16th through April 1st, 1969, to include John’s marriage to Yoko Ono in Gibraltar on March 20th. It was unusual to record without George and Ringo present but John did not want to wait and he and Paul had planned to attend the mixing session that day anyway.

The backing track was completed after 11 takes with take 10 being marked best. John’s acoustic guitar on track 2, Paul’s drumming on track 3 and John’s lead vocal on track 4 were all recorded simultaneously. During the session while Paul was drumming, John can be heard on the session tape saying to him “Go a bit faster, Ringo!” to which Paul replies “OK, George!”. Overdubs began with Paul’s bass on track 1, followed up by John’s lead guitar on track 5. On track 6, John added additional guitar to include the call-and-response licks that effectively give the song an extra edge. Paul’s backing vocals were added on track 7, and on track 8 John added the percussion effect of hitting the back of his guitar. Paul shook maracas in the second half of the song. With some help from returning sound engineer Geoff Emerick the session was completed in about 8 hours. Geoff had quit working with The Beatles nine months earlier due to the tensions that had mounted during the White Album sessions and John and Paul were happy to be working with him again.

This week’s BROW let’s us hear how the recording sounded before any of the overdubs were added. As detailed above, tracks 2, 3 and 4 included the “live in the studio” account of John’s lead vocal and acoustic guitar with Paul’s drums and that is only what we hear at this stage. The drums have been mixed low to give emphasis to the lead vocal and John’s extraneous vocalizations at the end of the song have yet to be removed.

The Beatles - The Ballad Of John & Yoko

U.S. Apple picture sleeve for The Ballad Of John And Yoko/Old Brown Shoe single

Extra info:

1) “The Ballad Of John and Yoko” was released on a single on May 30th in the U.K. (June 4th in the U.S.) and was the last #1 U.K. single for the band. In the U.S. it peaked at #8 on the Billboard singles chart. The b-side of the single was George Harrison’s “Old Brown Shoe” recorded by all 4 Beatles later in the week.

2) The original title of “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” included the parenthetical subtitle “They’re Gonna Crucify Me”, but John agreed to drop it, aware that it would not help the commercial appeal of the record to use the “crucify” word.

3) The final drumbeat in “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” was at an equal volume level with the rest of the recording on the original single. On subsequent compilations however such as the U.S. Hey Jude album or the first issuance of The Beatles 1967-1970 (aka “Blue”) album, the final drumbeat is faded down noticeably low. On the recent remasters of the Past Masters CD set, One or The Beatles 1967-1970, the final drumbeat has once again been presented in full volume.

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

1) Past Masters (Remastered) 2009 remastered 2-CD collection of Beatles singles and other non-album tracks. Contains both “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” and it’s B-side “Old Brown Shoe”.

2) The Beatles 1 2011 remaster of original 2000 CD collection of Beatles #1′s, including “The Ballad Of John And Yoko”.

3) 1967-1970 (Blue) Remastered – 2-CD 2010 remaster of original double album late Beatles hits compilation from 1973. Contains both “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” and it’s B-side “Old Brown Shoe”.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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For those of us that were around in the late sixties and first half of the seventies, if you have the right kind of funny bone, then you may have fond memories of the Smothers Brothers. Tom and Dick Smothers were not only comedians, but were also musicians whose act included arguing with each other between folk songs. Dick played a string bass and Tom an acoustic guitar. Between 1967-1969, they hosted their own Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on the CBS network. It soon become one of the most controversial American television programs of the Vietnam War era. This was mainly because their material was critical of the political mainstream and sympathetic to the anti-war movement that was gaining momentum with the younger generation at the time. This actually led to the program being discontinued by CBS with one show left un-aired. In 1968, while still a member of The Beatles, George Harrison made a surprise appearance on the show but did not perform any music.

In 1975 the show returned to television for a short run as The Smothers Brothers Show, and it was during this time that Ringo Starr made an appearance on the program to promote his latest Goodnight Vienna LP. The show aired on April 28, 1975 and also included actress/comedian Lily Tomlin, John Stewart (of the Kingston Trio) and comedian Pat Paulsen. This week’s BROW is an audio excerpt from that broadcast where Ringo is joined by the brothers singing his recent hit single “The No No Song”.

The “No No Song” was a cover originally performed by the late Hoyt Axton who had co-written the song with David Jackson (although the record label only credits Hoyt Axton as composer). It was the second of three singles released from Ringo’s 1974 Goodnight Vienna album and after it’s January 27, 1975 U.S. release date, it made it to #3 on the U.S. Billboard singles charts for two consecutive weeks in April 1975, just previous to Ringo’s appearance with the Smothers Brothers. It was actually a #1 in Canada. On the studio recording Harry Nilsson and John Lennon can be heard on backing vocals. As a 37 year old recording from a television set, the sound quality here is not up to today’s standards but is hopefully good enough for you to appreciate with a little bit of your own mental equalization.

Tom and Dick Smothers on The Smothers Brothers Show, 1975 (can you spot Ringo?)

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

1) Goodnight Vienna 1993 CD remaster of original 1974 LP, featuring “The No No Song”.

2) Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo
– 2007 2-CD Ringo Starr hits collection, including “The No No Song”.

3) Ringo 2012 [Amazon.com Exclusive CD+DVD Version] – Ringo’s latest CD with bonus DVD of commentary and performance footage.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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