This week on #askNat, I’m addressing a couple of questions I received last month concerning concerts and concerning bootleg recordings.

First off, Joe D. from North Providence, R.I. asks:

Between late 1963-1966, why did The Beatles live performances last only 30 minutes? Was it their “Being seen/not heard” theory or was it a showbiz criteria of the time? For a band who loved performing in Hamburg and The Cavern, I’ve never heard/read and definitive explanation.

In the early pre-fame days of the group, The Beatles played longer sets, wore jeans and leather jackets on stage while eating, drinking and clowning around. They often would stop songs before they were complete and change their mind on what to play, etc. When Brian Epstein took over as their manager in late 1961, he cleaned up their image and had them wear suits on stage, have a more polished stage presence including a bow after the set was over and, yes, he had them play shorter set lists that were more in line with the “professional” performers of the time.

Typically high profile rock bands of the early sixties had between 8 and 15 songs in their set lists and in those days rock songs lasted usually between 2 and three minutes. After adding in the stage banter and breaks between performances, the shows usually lasted around a half hour. This was the norm between 1963-1966.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium, August 15, 1965

The Beatles Shea Stadium, NY setlist of August 15, 1965: “Twist And Shout,” “She’s A Woman,” “I Feel Fine,” “”Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” “Ticket To Ride,” “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Baby’s In Black,” “Act Naturally,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help!,” “I’m Down.”

The Rolling Stones on stage, 1965

A Rolling Stones set list from October 31, 1964 in San Bernardino, CA: “Not Fade Away,” “Time Is On My Side,” “I’m All Right,” “It’s All Over Now,” “If You Need Me,” “Carol,” “(I’m A) King Bee,” “Tell Me,” “Confessin’ The Blues,” “Around And Around.”

The Who on stage, 1965

A typical set list from The Who in 1964: “I Gotta Dance To Keep From Crying,” “You Really Got Me,” “Young Man Blues,” “Green Onions,” “Long Tall Shorty,” “Pretty Thing,” “Smokestack Lightning,” “Here ‘Tis.”

Next, Joe Garrity in Washington, D.C. asks:

Nat, why don’t you give more background info on some of the stranger Beatles releases – like bootlegs? I think the fans would love it!

I have considered covering information about bootlegs in a more specific way. I have brought certain bootlegs up in the comments following certain posts. The reasons I keep bootleg information to a minimum are (1) there are other sites already covering this quite well out there and (2), descriptions of bootlegs can get complicated due to all of the duplication. For example if I refer to a bootleg having a certain recording, there is always going to be another two or three or more with the same recording that someone may think I should have mentioned instead. I concentrate mostly on the historical aspect of where the material on the bootleg came from rather than the specific bootleg release itself, which often has inaccurate liner notes and other misinformation. Finally, avoiding a detailed focus on illegitimate releases helps keep the site out of any undesirable scrutiny from certain publishing companies and other facets of the music industry.

Having said all of this, I should also add that while I don’t write posts that provide info on bootlegs, they are still represented on the site in the way of a listing. I purposely keep this in the background but if interested in photos or track listings or information on specific tracks included in a bootleg release, anyone can look it up on the site. Of course, it is not a complete listing but only bootlegs that are in the Happy Nat collection. You can click Search Nat’s Collection in the top navigation bar of the site and arrive at a Search The Collection search engine. Un-check the “Song” box at the top and choose CDs or Vinyl (there are only a few vinyl bootlegs listed). At the bottom there is a “Release status” pop list where you would choose “Bootleg.” Click the Search The Collection button and a list of bootlegs comes up that you can click on individual titles for more info.

Special thanks go out to “both Joes” for two great questions!

To keep #askNat alive, I’m hoping you submit your own questions! To do so follow these guidelines:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

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. 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!

No related posts.

Welcome to the third episode of Record Roundup! This time around the focus turns to John Lennon’s first single apart from The Beatles. Just as before I’ve put together a “mini-movie” of sorts where I will discuss some details and the historical impact of this song and it’s message. Afterwards I’ll drop it on the turntable and give it a spin just like some of used to do back in 1842. Enjoy!

Click the image above to play the video.

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

1) Power To The People: The Hits
– 2010 remastered hits collection including “Give Peace A Chance.”

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!

No related posts.

Welcome to another go-round of #AskNat, a new series on TheBeatlesRarity where I chose one or more Beatle-related questions sent in by site-readers to give it my best answer. Feel free to join in with any added information by commenting to the post. Information on submitting your own questions is given below. Thanks are also in order here for those who have already sent in questions – so THANK YOU very much!

This week’s first question comes from one of our long time email subscribers Elliott Marx of Chatsworth California, who makes a quick point and writes:

I always found the story about rejecting Mitch Murray’s “How Do You Do It” to be suspicious. I love the premise of the band putting their foot down and purposely doing a lackluster version of the song as a protest against using outside writers. But multinational record corporations don’t listen to unproven 20 year old artists.

After famously being denied by multiple labels, it seems mind-bogglingly courageous to not just do what your told to do.

On top of that, how did Murray write a song that was so incredibly early-Beatles-esque before the Beatles had even made a recorded impact? I think HDYDI is a great, light weight pop tune. But it really does have many Beatles trademarks within it. Perhaps they arranged the known version to suit their style. Otherwise, it seems that elements of their sound preexisted.

This is a lot of language to simply ask – what is the true story behind that song?

Well, Elliott, the true story goes like this.

The Beatles first EMI recording session on June 6, 1962 convinced producer George Martin two things. First drummer Pete Best was unsuitable for studio purposes (the group took care of this by replacing him with Ringo). Second, none of the material offered by the group, original compositions or covers, was strong enough for a debut single. Martin took this problem into his own hands by searching for a promising new song from London’s talent pool of songwriters. Meanwhile, across town, composer Mitch Murray watched as his new song “How Do You Do It” was demoed by Barry Mason (with instrumental accompaniment by the Dave Clark Five), offered to singer Adam Faith, and turned down. Murray and Mason next brought the demo acetate to EMI’s resident rock producer Ron Richards, who convinced publisher Dick James to purchase the rights to the tune. The acetate sat in Richards’ office until sometime after The Beatles June 6 session, which Richards and Martin co-produced. Both producers agreed that the song might be suitable for the Beatles’ style and mailed a copy to Liverpool so the band could learn the song in time for a session planned for September 4, 1962.

So The Beatles were put in the ironic position of having to rearrange a song performed by future chart rivals, The Dave Clark Five, and there is evidence that they tried out their new arrangement during July and August performances at The Cavern. The response must not have been good enough to give them confidence in the song (based on their recorded performance). They clearly wanted to make it on their own terms rather than become known for parroting the corniness of “professional” song writers. But with no original songs to draw from and cautious at the possibility of upsetting the big-time producers who presumably knew what made a big hit (what they wanted more than anything), The Beatles finalized an arrangement of the song with their new drummer Ringo in the last weeks of August. At the September 4 session, after some rehearsals and Ringo proving his drumming skills, they nailed a recording of “How Do You Do It” in one take. Handclaps were added as the only overdub. Satisfying Martin and Richards, they moved on to recording their own “Love Me Do,” which took 15 takes and although recognized as being superior to Pete Best’s efforts, caused George Martin to have second thoughts on Ringo’s drumming. Holding off on a final decision as to which song was the most worthy to be the debut single, Martin mixed both songs and had a mono acetate made. By the following session on September 11, Martin had declared “Love Me Do” more suitable for The Beatles style and “How Do You Do It” was placed in the vault and forgotten until long after the session tapes had been destroyed. Gerry and The Pacemakers, however, ended up recording the song and taking it to #1 in the U.K. for 3 weeks. For the Beatles September 11 session, professional drummer Andy White was brought in to try a recording of “Love Me Do” with him. For more on that see last week’s #askNat article here. Additional information about “How Do You Do It” was featured in this BROW post.

George Martin's original 1962 acetate for "How Do You Do It"

Stacia in Minneapolis, Minnesota asks:

What’s a couple of your favorite bootleg discs?

Well, Stacia, that one is a bit tough for me to answer in terms of any “specific” titles. A look through the inventory section of my site here will show that I do have a lot in my personal collection but I guess it all is too dependent on what I happen to be in the mood to listen to at any given time to make a list of certain ones. I will say though that I am quite fond of many of the CDs out on the “Purple Chick” label, because they are very complete series-type sets that are as complete as possible for a specific period, tour or session instead of being a confusing “hodgepodge” of various recordings. For example there is even an 80+ disc set of the entire Get Back sessions of January 1969 (the set is called A/B Road). All the good and all the bad in one set. It’s quite exhaustive for a casual fan, but for a completeist, such as myself, it is a good thing. Of course I invite anyone reading to list their favorite Beatle bootlegs (and why) in the comments section below.

Thank you Elliott and Stacia for two very good questions!

References used in this post include John C. Winn’s Way Beyond Compare and Bill Harry’s Beatles Encyclopedia.

To submit your own questions to #askNat follow these guidelines:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

To read more or purchase music related to this post check out these Amazon links below:

1) Anthology 1 – 1995 2 CD set of Beatles out-takes and live recordings from the earliest years up to 1964. Includes “How Do You Do It” from September 4, 1962 EMI session.

2) Past Masters (Remastered) – 2-CD 2010 remastered set of Beatles non-album tracks including “Love Me Do” single version with Ringo Starr on drums at the same session that “How Do You Do It” was recorded.

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. 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.

For those of you who are fans of the Beatles Rarity Of The Week (i.e. BROW), I wanted to point out that an audio podcast version of the BROW is now readily available for you to listen to whenever you like. This podcast version of BROW is called BROWcast and is the same BROWcast that has been featured on Fab4Radio. If you would like to check these out and haven’t heard them on Fab4Radio yet, or simply would like to listen to them again, or on your own preferred time, then read on.

Currently, the first four BROWcast episodes are streaming at thebeatlesrarity.podomatic.com and a new one will be added each week (usually on Tuesday mornings).

Listening to BROWcast on Fab4Radio

The Fab4Radio player is in the lower right sidebar of any page on this site. Of course it is also at Fab4Radio.com. Just click that play button to listen. The BROWcast is heard on Saturdays and Sundays immediately following Dennis Mitchell’s Breakfast With The Beatles program (in the U.S. usually between 11:35 and 11:45 am ET/8:35 and 8:45 am PT). Episodes are also placed in light rotation at random times throughout the week.

Subscribing to BROWcast

Using iTunes:

itpc://thebeatlesrarity.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

Click the above feed link and Itunes should immediately take over and begin downloading an episode. To get the others, right-click or click a drop-down menu (depending on which version of Itunes you have) and choose “show all available episodes” or similar verbiage.

Other readers:

If you want to set up a subscription to have the podcast automatically download to your own reader that is not Itunes (Winamp, Juice, etc.), then you will need to consult the instructions for your specific player and use the RSS feed:

http://thebeatlesrarity.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

More information about listening and subscribing to podcasts can be found here.

Finally, I would like to give a great big THANK YOU to my friend Mike Myers for his artistry on the “Nat-man theme” used in the BROWcast. Those “Savoy Truffle” horns make my day!

Happy Nat
thebeatlesrarity.com

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

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1. Fab4Radio Fab4Radio is now the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com....
2. The BROWCAST on Fab4Radio.com I wanted to let everyone know that there is now...
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Welcome to the first installment of #AskNat, a new series on TheBeatlesRarity where I chose one or more Beatle-related questions sent in by site-readers to give it my best answer. Feel free to join in with any added information by commenting to the post. Information on submitting your own questions is given below.

This week’s first question comes from one of our Twitter readers with the name Kostya221. His question is:

It is fairly common knowledge that the single version of “Love Me Do” by The Beatles has Ringo Starr on drums and the Please Please Me album version of “Love Me Do” has George Martin-appointed session man Andy White on drums and Ringo playing a tambourine. Are there any other Beatles recordings that Andy White plays on?

The Beatles first recordings at EMI Studios occurred on June 6, 1962 while Pete Best was still the drummer. The band recorded both “Besame Mucho” and “Love Me Do.” Both of these songs are featured on Beatles Anthology 1.

After this session producer George Martin told the Beatles manager Brian Epstein that he would be replacing Pete Best on the drums with someone else for any future studio recordings. Ringo Starr became the new Beatles drummer on August 18th and his first studio session at EMI with The Beatles came on September 4th, 1962 when The Beatles recorded “How Do You Do It” written by Mitch Murray and their own “Love Me Do. ” The version of “Love Me Do” recorded here was used on the British single released on October 5, 1962. Ringo played on both of these tracks.

By the next EMI session which came the following week on September 11, 1962, George Martin, although recognizing Ringo as a big improvement over Pete Best, was having second thoughts on his drumming and replaced him with session drummer Andy White. The Beatles recorded “P.S. I Love You’ first (the version that is on the B-side to the “Love Me Do” single and mono copies of the Please Please Me LP). Ringo, wanting to be sure he was on the record, played maracas. Next they did a re-recording of “Love Me Do” still using Andy White as drummer. Ringo plays a tambourine on this recording which was selected for use on the Please Please Me LP. Thirdly The Beatles recorded an earlier and harmonica-less version of “Please Please Me”. This version is available on The Beatles Anthology 1 and has a much tamer drum pattern, again delivered by Andy White. George Martin instructed them to pep the song up and add some harmonies, which they did and when it was recorded again on November 26th of that year. Ringo played drums on this recording and it became The Beatles first number one single.

Andy White, session drummer for EMI, circa 1962

Secondly, Craig from Santa Ana, California asks:

Why do both The Beatles’ Vee Jay and Capitol records in America have identical rainbow colorbands on the record labels when they were not affiliated with each other?

While the colorband design is similar for both Vee Jay and Capitol, they are not identical, as the colors are positioned in different positions around the circular labels (e.g. green is around the 3 o’clock position on a Capitol label and around the 7 o’clock position on a Vee Jay label).

The rainbow label was introduced by Capitol in 1958 with the advent of stereophonic records. Vee Jay apparently liked the design and adapted their own version of the rainbow labels by 1960. Many Vee Jay records did not include the rainbow label design however as it was dependent on which factory pressed the records (Vee Jay used more than one) and other factors. Capitol did not use rainbow labels on the Beatles singles but did on both mono and stereo Beatles albums. Vee Jay used their rainbow labels on both albums, singles and EPs.

Capitol LP rainbow label

Vee Jay single rainbow label, 1963

Thank you Kostya221 and Craig for your questions!

To submit your own questions to #askNat follow these guidelines:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

To read more or purchase music related to this post check out these Amazon links below:

1) Please Please Me (Remastered) – 2010 remaster of original 1963 stereo album featuring “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” w/Andy White on drums.

2) Past Masters (Remastered) – 2-CD 2010 remastered set of Beatles non-album tracks including “Love Me Do” single version with Ringo Starr on drums.

3) Anthology 1 – 1995 2 CD set of Beatles out-takes and live recordings from the earliest years up to 1964. Includes early version of “Please Please Me” with Andy White on drums and early version of “Love Me Do” with Pete Best on drums.

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!

Related posts:

1. Collector’s Corner – The “Love Me Do” single on Parlophone – The Beatles begin an incredible recording career Excluding the January 5, 1962, Polydor “My Bonnie” single release...

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Gerard Pallares, President of art publisher Dark Hall Mansion concerning their recent project, in development over a year, of a beautiful 5 screen prints folio for The Beatles 1968 masterpiece film Yellow Submarine. For the first time ever, The Beatles own Apple Corps has authorized Dark Hall Mansion’s reinterpretation of Yellow Submarine‘s imagery by artist Tom Whalen who delivers stunning artwork that remains faithful to the originality of this legendary film’s legacy.

Tom has done work in the past on legendary Peanuts cartoon properties such as “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as well as a very popular Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie poster viewable here. In this exclusive interview, I ask Gerard how Tom and Dark Hall Mansion were able to get involved in the project and more about the artwork itself.

The screen prints go on sale this May 29 (2012) in conjunction with the re-release of the Yellow Submarine DVD/Blu-Ray. A couple of examples of screen prints are included here, but to see them all and get detailed information on the three packages offered (Standard, Variant and Elite ’68), I encourage you to view the samples of the other images, and read the full details and press release by visiting this Dark Hall Mansion web page dedicated to the project. This will be the only place to purchase this captivating artwork collection, which is destined to become quite a collector’s item, given its beauty and also because of the extremely limited quantities produced.

Blue Meanies DHM Yellow Submarine Folio Sample

Yellow Submarine DHM Folio Sample #2

Dark Hall Mansion Store

Yellow Submarine [Blu-ray] – DVD/Blu-Ray 2012 remaster of Yellow Submarine (available by June 5, 2012)

Yellow Submarine Songtrack – 1999 remastered Yellow Submarine Songtrack CD, stunning remixes by Peter Cobbin

Yellow Submarine – 2009 stereo remaster CD of original 1969 LP.

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

Related posts:

1. Yellow Submarine Blu-Ray/DVD re-release in the works If you have been looking for a new video release...
2. Yellow Submarine Remake to start filming in April 2011 For all of the hubbub that surrounded Robert Zemeckis’ remake...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – It’s All Too Much (w/restored verse) 0savesSave At the ending of the Yellow Submarine movie we...

After reading a story to some children, John naps and dreams he is with some of the characters in the story including Merlin of King Arthur’s Court and a vicious dragon.

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, 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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