The Current Music Blog: September 9, 2009 Archive

Meet the Beatles (Again) - Please Please Me

Posted at 2:01 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (1 Comments)
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Please Please Me
Originally released in 1963

By Jim McGuinn

1970 might have been the end for The Beatles, but for me it was the start of a lifelong love affair. Aged four, I clearly remember being plopped down in front of the 3:30 Movie (Channel 32, suburban Chicago) and catching an entire week of The Beatles' movies. An indelible image was set on my mind - that to be young, to make music, to have people chase you in the street, and most of all, to be able to do all this with your best mates - a world of possibility opened. From that point on, rock 'n' roll would be as big in my life as baseball and Sesame Street.

That was how it started for me, but for The Beatles it all started back in March 1963 with their first album, Please Please Me. With 10 of its tracks recorded in a single day's 10-hour session, the album was essentially a live recording of the Beatles club shows of the day - closing with John Lennon's throat shredding one-take version of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout."

Why the rush? After a relatively middling success of their first single "Love Me Do," Beatles producer George Martin pushed for the follow up 45-rpm to be a cover ("How Do You Do It?" - later a hit for Gerry and the Pacemakers), but the Beatles wanted to release their own songs.

After rearranging the title song from a slower blues to an up-tempo rave-up, Martin was convinced the group had their first hit and was proven right when the song zoomed to No. 2 in the UK Top Five in January 1963. With a full slate of touring and TV appearances, the time was now to cash in on the hit, and The Beatles had to get an album into shops in a hurry. Mixing eight originals with six cover versions, The Beatles, like hero Buddy Holly and few others before them, established themselves as a self-contained band, able to not only sing, but play on and write their own material - just the first of many music business norms The Beatles smashed through in their career.

Soon-to-be rock standards like "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Please Please Me" set a high bar for the coming British Invasion, and while the sentiments were pretty simple, moon-June romantic pleas, the music crackled with an energy, wit, and zest like nothing else before it.

With a live show honed from long nights in Hamburg and Liverpool, The Beatles were also able to deliver their own spin on covers like Arthur Alexander's "Anna," the Shirelles' "Baby It's You" and "Boys," and The Cookies' "Chains." Not unlike Elvis' famous merging of blues and country, this English take on American R&B would kick off the "'beat boom"' and influence the early releases of The Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks, Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, and nearly every major British band to follow in their path throughout the '60s.

I don't know what this record would sound like without a sense of history and what followed, but it's hard for me to hear it without flashing on how it changed music. The Beatles weren't more sophisticated than Cole Porter, they didn't rock as hard as Little Richard, they didn't croon as well as Sinatra or hip-shake like Elvis, but somehow their impact would dwarf all their influences and reshape the future of music. The sound of freedom, of joy, of youth - it's all here on Please Please Me.

Given that it has taken four years to digitally remaster the Beatles catalog, it's worth noting how quickly and cheaply their first album was made. With a total recording budget of around $1000, and each Beatle paid to scale, or about $62, it must be the greatest investment in rock history.

Jim McGuinn is the program director for The Current. Jim is pleased to meet you.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Revolver

Posted at 2:02 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (3 Comments)
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Revolver
Originally Released August 5th, 1966
By David Campbell

1966 seems like it was a pretty tough year for The Beatles, though it certainly didn't start out that way. December of 1965 saw the release of their sixth album, Rubber Soul. The album was another great leap forward sonically and stylistically and it was at the top of the charts by January, the same as its predecessor Help! had been only four months earlier. I can almost hear John saying, "Oh look, Paul, we've made another hit reh-cord" with complete indifference. And then things took a turn for the worse.

There was the show at the Budokan in Tokyo, which was protested for using the venue for rock 'n' roll and not martial arts. This kept the band confined to its hotel for the entire trip, though this was probably the case most of the places they went due to their insane popularity and the mobs that flocked to show them love. There was also a near punch-up and a full on shakedown at the airport in Manila after they unknowingly declined the breakfast invitation of first lady Imelda Marcos. And let's not forget about the extremely questionable judgment that gave us the original "Yesterday" ... and Today album cover for about 15 minutes. It featured the worst photo of the boys (after they had clearly spent some time with Dr. Robert) sitting in lab coats, covered in raw meat and doll parts. This, of course, was immediately recalled and repaired by pasting a few thousand new covers right over the old. In addition to that debacle, there was the band's ongoing frustration with touring in places too big for the meager sound systems of the day. This continued to leave the band wondering what the crowd had actually heard as they had heard next to nothing themselves. And last but not least, there was the massive explosion of the American anti-Beatles campaign after John mentioned that the band was "more popular than Jesus now." All told, it was so much more than most people in their mid-20s are meant to handle, even if they had spent the last three years getting used to being the biggest stars on the planet.

With all of the chaos surrounding their professional lives, it is astonishing that The Beatles were able to escape the eye of the storm and focus creatively. Their disappearance into the studio and subsequent emergence with pure gold was their greatest trick and it would soon be the only one all four band members were willing to perform. 1966 marked the beginning of a new era. The band would leave the road and all of its troubles behind and safely exist only in the studio, making music that wasn't necessarily ever meant to be performed live. In 1966, The Beatles would record Revolver.

Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver represent the adolescence of The Beatles recording career. The transition from a populist, proto-boy band (albeit a really awesome boy band), into the innovative, complex, and challenging mess-of-a-band took place during these three albums. And much like the physical results of human adolescence, sonic adolescence generally turns out one of two ways. It's the birth of breathtaking beauty and an independent voice or of something monstrous and completely awkward. For The Beatles, adolescence was extremely kind and they were gifted with the former. They made two of their finest albums and were deposited neatly on the adult side complete with mustachios; ready to turn the world upside down with another. Lucky bastards.

Revolver. Because it spins around as records tend to. This is a very simple title for an exceptionally complex pop album. Recorded and mixed between April 6 and June 22, the whole process would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 hours to complete. Their first album took 10. Why? Though they'd already learned to play their instruments, this time out they were learning how to play the studio. The Beatles were casting aside the traditional format for rock 'n' roll instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums in favor of piano, sitar, tabla, French horn and other brass instruments, and a double string quartet. Scored by producer George Martin, it is the only instrumentation on "Eleanor Rigby" - the first of many show stoppers on Revolver. Martin and principal engineer Geoff Emerick helped The Beatles realize that the sonic possibilities were becoming limitless. And that's exactly how it goes down. George is into the Indian stuff and layering up the leads. Everyone's doing acid. Paul's making tape loops at home and bringing them in for "Tomorrow Never Knows" while putting piles of soaring harmony vocals on anything that moved. Submarines. Singing Birds. John is writing about love and ego and death and the most beautiful nonsense. Backward guitar solos. A love letter to weed. Ringo rises to the occasion and delivers the goods. Everyone's digging everything. Everyone float upstream. Even Klaus Voormann's cover art was linked in perfect synthesis with the rest of it. The whole thing must have been - and still is - just like a dream.

By the end of those three-and-a-half months, the transformation was complete and the band had ceased to be entertainers. The Beatles had become artists. Their new medium was studio rock 'n' roll and they had just recorded a stone-cold psyche-pop classic; arguably the greatest rock record ever made.

Time allows us to reflect back and see some things differently or with perspective that might have been impossible in the thick of it all. Budokan IS clearly for rocking. Imelda Marcos IS a little bit crazy. First pressings of  "Yesterday" ... and Today aka the "butcher cover" now fetch upwards of $10,000 and bands continue to release albums with limited edition artwork all the time. And to be totally honest about it all, John, Paul, George and Ringo have actually given J.C. a pretty good run for his money. So I guess I question weather 1966 was so bad after all. What is unquestionable is the artistic merit of their seventh album Revolver. After 43 years, it still sounds amazing.

David Campbell is a host on The Current. David knows what it's like to be dead and what it is to be sad.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Abbey Road

Posted at 2:03 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (3 Comments)
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Abbey Road
Originally released in 1969
By Steve Seel

Abbey Road wasn't actually the first Beatles record I called my own- that would be The Beatles 1967-1970 (the "blue" greatest hits record, which obviously doesn't count as an "album")- but it was my first exposure to them, given its powerful prominence in my big sister's record collection that lived across the hall. It may seem like an ironic place to begin one's relationship with The Beatles, since it represents the end (Let It Be was released last, but Abbey Road contains the band's final recording sessions). In hindsight though, I can't imagine a better first window into the kaleidoscopic aural world of the greatest band in rock than this playful, elegant, eclectic masterpiece. At times meticulously composed, at others completely tossed-off, at others a combination of both ... careening from darkness and menace to shimmering, glowing warmth, Abbey Road is perhaps the most beautifully creative lark in popular music. And it's also one of those records that is responsible for the very foundations of my musical taste.

Abbey Road hardly sounds like the sputtering disintegration that the band was going through at the time - this even despite the fact that Side 2 is essentially a grab-bag of unfinished half-ideas, strung together as if the lads were clearing out the attic before selling the house. The Let It Be sessions had been openly hostile - Harrison even quit the band for a time after rehearsals had deteriorated into chaos- and the band seemed headed for a breakup. When Paul suggested a subsequent reunion with the band's longtime producer George Martin, however, a light seemed to appear on the horizon- ironically, because of the very inevitability of a breakup that the band members were sensing. It was as if everyone understood this was it- and it might be nice to go out on a high note. If history is any judge, a high note is exactly what The Beatles achieved.

While Abbey Road still contains its share of what had become a pattern on the band's records- clear distinctions between many of McCartney's and Lennon's songs- there is an interesting cross-pollination that had felt missing with the pair's increasing estrangement. Part of this feels due to the ineffable good-naturedness of some of the tunes: multi-tracked ensemble vocals on "Sun King," "Because" and "The End" (the complex chords on all of these possessing a languid 60's peace-and-love glow the band rarely equaled anywhere else in their catalog); the genial traded-off guitar solos between John, George and even Paul during "The End;" the humor in tunes like "You Never Give Me Your Money" and "Mean Mr. Mustard" from the Side 2 medley. But there's another element to the geniality - or at least illusion of it. George Harrison finally, gloriously emerges as the equal of John and Paul, with not one but two songs: the radiant, joyous "Here Comes the Sun," and the song chosen as the album's first single (and Lennon's professed favorite track on the record), "Something." Heck, Ringo even gets in a reprise of the childlike charm of "Yellow Submarine" in the form of "Octopus' Garden."

As a kid, the affable novelties of "Octopus" and even McCartney's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" were my first easy transitions to rock from the likes of my Sesame Street records ("Maxwell's macabre lyrics notwithstanding). From there, it was the garden-of-Eden, multi-tracked harmonies of "Because" and the dew-on-the-branches optimistic renewal of "Here Comes the Sun" that seduced me down a more emotionally complex path. But that was just the beginning. I began to pick up on subtler things: the mysterious "shump"-and-telephone-dial sound that begins "Come Together" (and the song's menacing, coded-language lyrics), the dark, proto-hard rock of "I Want You (She's So Heavy);" the fact that those cool guitar arpeggios that end "You Never Give Me Your Money" come back at the end of "Carry That Weight"- shoot, that might have been the very moment I discovered the album as a conceptual work, as opposed to the song.

Before long, I would go on to discover the rest of the Beatles repertoire- and from there, a world and a lifetime of rock 'n' roll awaited. But Abbey Road set me up with a musical language that, perhaps unwittingly, I would use to interpret almost everything I'd come across in music from then afterward. I would expect high melodic craft, mystery, humor, thoughtful arrangements, attention to detail, balance, and especially, evidence of a band working together toward a noble end. I am forever grateful to The Beatles for making a record as luminous as Abbey Road; for showing me the Technicolor horizons of music, its simple joys and compositional possibilities; and finally, that something lovely can arise out of a notion, a moment, a desire to say "The End" with a smile and a gracious bow, despite it all.

Steve Seel is the co-host of mornings on The Current from 6-10 a.m. When he was seven and his big sister told him the Beatles had broken up years ago, he cried for a week.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Beatles For Sale

Posted at 2:04 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (4 Comments)
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Beatles For Sale
Originally released 1964
By Jim McGuinn

One of the most amazing things about having kids is seeing the world through their eyes.  When my son was about six months old, I woke up one day with The Beatles song "No Reply" in my mind, figured it out on guitar, and started singing it to him.  Now three years later, we've listened to Beatles For Sale more than anything.  He doesn't know it's not as "important" as Revolver, it's enough that "Eight Days A Week" and "Rock and Roll Music" are great songs performed by the best band either of us have ever heard. 

I've long been a fan of the under-rated album.  While many love The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, Rolling Stone's Exile on Main Street or The Who's Tommy, some of my favorites are Between The Buttons, The Who Sell Out, or Beatles For Sale.  These are all transitional albums as each artist moved away from their original sound towards what would become The Great Leap Forward in their careers.

In The Beatles case, the tremendous well of material had run dry.  With the pace of a blitzkrieg, over the course of just 21 months they had audaciously released three full-length albums, non-LP singles like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," and "I Feel Fine," conquered Britain, America, and the world, made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night, and generally revolutionized pop.  They'd also met Bob Dylan and tried marijuana for the first time, two events that would play a role in shaping the rest of their career.

Given the three or four years it takes U2 or Coldplay to record, release, and tour behind a new album today, what the Beatles did seems unbelievable.  As road manager Neil Aspinall said, "No band today would come off a long US tour at the end of September, go into the studio and start a new album still writing songs, go on a UK tour, finish the album in five weeks, still touring, and have the album out in time for Christmas. But that's what The Beatles did at the end of 1964."

While this would have been a disaster for most artists, The Beatles were blessed with both incredible talent and great record collections.  Digging into their Hamburg / Cavern Club bag for material, they came up with covers from Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and two Carl Perkins songs, which was the first time The Beatles showed how much country music impacted their sound. 

But the breakthroughs on Beatles For Sale were in the production and quality of the original songs.  Tympani drums, 12-string guitars, bongos, and organs are added to the mix on sonically adventurous tracks like "Every Little Thing," while at the same time John Lennon wrote "I'm a Loser" at the exact moment when he should have felt like anything but.  Weary from living in the bubble of fame, it's the precursor to "Help" and shows the first clear influence of Dylan, who met the band a few months before in New York.     

The cover photo shows the boys in need of some rest and haircuts - we're not to the Sgt. Pepper mustaches yet, but it's clear that something is in the air and easy to see how this album is a bridge between the early Beatles sound and the psychedelia that is to emerge by the next summer's Rubber Soul.  The liner notes inside the cover seem strangely prophetic, considering they were written just two years into the birth of the Beatles' career (and 45 years ago), "When, in a generation or so, a radioactive, cigar-smoking child, picnicking on Saturn asks you what The Beatles affair was all about, don't try to explain all about the long hair and the screams! Just play them a few tracks from this album and he'll probably understand. The kids of AD2000 will draw from the music much the same sense of well being and warmth as we do today."  Or as my non-radioactive son said to me when I asked him about "No Reply" - "This is a cool song."

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Let It Be

Posted at 2:05 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (1 Comments)
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Let It Be
Originally released 1970
By Bill DeVille

When I was young, I bought the 45rpm Let it Be, and the final single released in the U.S., "The Long and Winding Road," at a neighborhood drugstore. Many of the album's songs were also featured on the Beatles collection, 1967-1970, which was standard issue in that era. At eighth-grade graduation parties, the Beatles and the black light set the mood. In a nutshell, these are the Beatles songs I grew up with.

Let It Be was the Beatles' final studio album and probably their most flawed album of all.  Paul seemed to be running the show and was alone in wanting the band to tour again, which they hadn't done for several years.  When most of these songs were recorded, the Beatles were barely a band. Yoko was in the picture (yes, it's true, she did set up a bed in the studio to give John guidance), and there was a lot of infighting. The quiet Beatle, George Harrison, even quit for a few days during the sessions. The tapes were eventually simply turned over to formerly well-respected producer, Phil Spector, to make something out of the mess, and on May 8, 1970, Let It Be was released.

In 2003, to make the already flawed album even more confusing, the surviving Beatles and Beatles' wives decided to call a "mulligan" on the original album, releasing Let It Be ... NAKED. To make a long story short ... Paul hated that Phil Spector had added orchestral arrangements to his classics "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road." NAKED erased the Spector production in favor of more "stripped down" versions. The album is actually quite good, and it's interesting to hear what McCartney originally had in mind. But the problem here lies with the huge changes made in song sequencing. The original album leads with the gorgeous McCartney ballad, "Two of Us," and it's fifth on NAKED. And "Maggie Mae," the Irish drinking song, and "Dig It" don't even appear.

Ultimately, what I love most about Let It Be, as with most everything the Beatles did, are the songs, and this album is loaded. NAKED or otherwise, the Beatles sound like a real rock'n'roll band. They came out of their experimental phase simply wanting to rock.  Dysfunctional as the band was, they still liked making music together. McCartney's "Get Back" is as rock'n'roll as Chuck Berry, with a rollicking organ solo from the almost 5th Beatle, Billy Preston. "One After 909" sounds more rockin' than the 1963 Beatles, where they've figured out its little nuances, and Preston adds some nifty electric piano. A personal highlight is George's "For You Blue," where he calls out to his pal, "Go, Johnny, go," and it sounds like a loose jam session. "Elmore James has got nothin' on this, baby," rants George.

But besides the rock, strings or otherwise, the album's title song is a top five Beatles (or even overall) song on almost anyone's list, and John Lennon's "Across the Universe" is one his most beautiful songs ever. I still close my eyes when this one plays. Maybe the album's most moving moments are in the powerful, "I've Got a Feeling." When Paul sings, "I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside/Yeah oh yeah," you believe him. Later, John chimes in and speaks to the people: "Everybody had a hard year/Everybody had a good time/Everybody had a wet dream/Everybody saw the sunshine," like a reminiscence about all that happened in 1969. Everything was always cool when the Beatles were making music. It's when they weren't that things got complicated.

The newly released Let it Be is almost like listening to the original album on brand new vinyl, on a "kick-ass" turntable and soundsystem. I'm not an audiophile, but it sounds pretty great to me. The first thing I heard were Ringo's drums, which sound real, warts and all. For the most part, it sounds like they headed into the studio, bashed out the tunes live, and had a lot of fun doing it.  Flawed as it is, there are plenty of great songs on the last album issued by those four lads from Liverpool. Welcome to the 21st Century John, Paul George and Ringo. These guys are gonna be big someday!

Bill DeVille hosts weekends on The Current 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and Mon.-Wed. 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Bill is speaking words of wisdom most days.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Meet the Beatles!/With the Beatles

Posted at 2:06 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (1 Comments)
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Meet the Beatles!/With the Beatles
Originally released in 1963/64
By Mary Lucia
8th Grade

With the Beatles is the second U.K. album recorded just four months after their first, released November 22, 1963 - the same day as President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The album features eight original tunes, including the first by George Harrison,"Don't Bother Me" and six covers of Motown and R&B hits. (which was pretty commonplace for the time). Most of the songs from the album were released in the U.S. as Meet the Beatles! in January of 1964.

I had to re-read this stat three times to make sure this number was correct, the record had an unheard of half million advance orders and sold another half million by September 1965.

Making it only the second album to sell a million copies in the U.K .(The first being the South Pacific Soundtrack.) Bali Hai your hand.

Actually, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was the first of 19 #1 singles in the U.S and the Beatles best-selling single world wide. The bands extreme popularity in Germany found them reluctantly agreeing to re-record "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in German. The band felt it didn't translate well and vowed never to do any more.

At the risk of being run out of town by torch-wielding Fab Four lovers, I should state up front that The Beatles were always someone else's favorite band. I believe I have grown to appreciate their place in music, ideas, hair, social relevance, sound, impact, style and legacy more and more.

Everyone's parents or older siblings owned Beatles albums. My first experience with the Beatles, I'm told, was that when I was barely four years old my oldest sister was babysitting me with her friends. Like a performing chimp, they thought it funny as stoned teenagers to ask me to tottle over to the stereo to pick a record and put it on the turntable. Which I might add I did flawlessly. (Future foreshadowing?)

I remember the album cover with four brunette dudes' heads close together. Some 45 years later it's one of the most parodied album covers in music history. One of my favorites being The Simpsons episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," the album cover of "Meet the Be Sharps."

I always thought it funny growing up in the '70s when older girls would talk about who was the cutest Beatle... it always seemed like asking "Which of your dad's friends do you think is the hottest? Uhhh." Let's just say that if my dad would've had a golf buddy who resembled Harrison, I'd say "George."

When trying to review an early Beatles album it feels a bit futile. For one thing essentially in this stage of their career one would be judging them as a cover band. Let the records show they were a pretty spectacular cover band.

Of course not without controversy, the argument has been made that the effect of the British Invasion actually ended up hindering early '60s pop music by American black artists. As so many British acts at the time, the Beatles had a deep respect for the soul of American Motown and R&B. With the Beatles nodded in homage to the best of the best with covers of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got a Hold On Me" and Berry Gordy's "Money," to name a few. Served up without too much deviation in arrangement or feel, but given that it was The Beatles, they were able to make even show tunes their own i.e. "Til There Was You" from Music Man.

With the Beatles features one of my all time favorite Beatles tunes - "the rocking "It Won't Be Long." John Lennon's voice always had an edge of sandpaper grit even when he sang pretty, which is a quality I most love in all of my favorite singers today.

Mary Lucia hosts weekday afternoons on The Current from 2-6 p.m. Mary is NOT a performing chimp.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Posted at 2:07 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Originally released in 1967
By Jill Riley

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band transformed The Beatles from touring band to studio band. They had grown tired and frustrated with playing to screaming crowds, where no one could even hear their music anyway. The Beatles' last show was August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. From there they were free to experiment in the studio, even more so than they did when they made their previous record, Revolver. In a lot of ways, Revolver opened up their eyes to what they were capable of doing in a studio and how far they could take creativity, especially when they didn't have to worry about arranging the music to be played live. The Beatles knew they needed a new direction, a fresh start. But how would they shed their old identities? How could they possibly leave the past behind and start new? By creating alter egos of course! Not only was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a concept band, but one of the first concept albums.

Recording began in November of 1966 and would wrap in April of 1967. The creativity that flowed in those 129 days, not only in the material but also in the recording techniques, has left a permanent stamp on rock music. The engineers were extremely innovative. They had developed automatic double tracking and also experimented with tape speed. A four-track recorder was still being used, so they had to bounce down mixes onto tracks so more overdubs could be made. Studio effects were heavily used (reverb, flang, echo, reverse). The Beatles, along with producer George Martin and the team of engineers, were able to maximize on technology to aid in their vision.

During the sessions for Sgt. Pepper, 16 songs were recorded. "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane" and "It's Only a Northern Song" were left off the album. The first two were released as a double A side single (and on the US release of Magical Mystery Tour), and "It's Only a Northern Song" showed up later on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. It blows my mind to think about how different this record might have sounded if those songs had made it on to the final track listing, in place of something else. Where would they be placed in the order? What songs could have possibly been cut in their place? What if track four was "Strawberry Fields Forever", following "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", instead of "Getting Better"? Decisions are made for a reason I suppose, but either way, for the first time in Beatles history the track listing was identical for the U.K. and U.S. versions. The only difference was the crazy audio loop in the run out groove of the U.K. version.

What's a great album without an amazing album cover? The Beatles are dressed as their alter egos, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (led by Ringo as Billy Shears). They're surrounded by random objects and cardboard cutouts of people they admired.

I own this album on four different formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassette and CD (I haven't been able to track down a reel-to-reel copy). The version I am most intrigued with is my stereo vinyl copy. From what I can tell, it's part of the fourth pressing batch, with the UK Parlaphone "'70s label." Early pressings had a psychedelic flame design on the inner sleeve. A page of cardboard cut-outs was tucked in the gatefold sleeve, which included a mustache, picture card, badge, stripes and a stand up.

The 2009 digital remastering of The Beatles catalog has inspired me to spend some time with both the stereo and mono mixes of Sgt. Pepper. George Martin and The Beatles would probably prefer that we all just stick with the mono version, since that was the original intention for the album. Some things to notice about the mono mix include the flang effect on John's voice during "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," the chicken clucks of "Good Morning, Good Morning" are just a little different, and Paul's voice can be heard at the end of the "Sgt. Pepper Reprise." After listening to both remastered versions back to back, it's my opinion that I still prefer the listening experience of the stereo version. It's more challenging for my senses. I appreciate how the mono and stereo mixes are just two different listening experiences.

I've been a Beatles freak since I was a kid. It's sort of a testament to how The Beatles catalog is timeless. I was born in 1982. That means 12 years had all ready passed since The Beatles broke up. That means John Lennon had all ready been dead two years. After studying audio production in college, I started to really understand how innovative Sgt. Pepper was, and how it's been influencing the recording process ever since. It's safe to say The Beatles changed rock 'n' roll forever. It's even safer to say The Beatles changed my life forever.

Jill Riley is the morning co-host on The Current 6-10 a.m. weekdays. Good morning, good morning ...

Meet the Beatles (Again) - The Beatles [aka The White Album]

Posted at 2:08 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (3 Comments)
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The Beatles [aka The White Album]
Originally released in 1968
By Mac Wilson

It is August, 2000.  My knowledge of the Beatles is gradually expanding beyond the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 compilations (colloquially known as the Red and Blue Albums) as my sister and I amuse ourselves by perusing the trippy booklet accompanying my father's Magical Mystery Tour vinyl.  But I've been holding back in my thirst for exploring the Beatles' music, and my dad knows it.  He comes upstairs, nods knowingly for a moment, and asks, "Are you ready for the White Album?"

It August, 2009.  I am standing at the Minnesota State Fair with my month-old son, Theo, having just finished watching Jeremy Messersmith perform a handful of his Beatlesque songs at the MPR booth.  As the sun begins to dip behind the trees in the late afternoon sky, I strike up a conversation with my boss, Jim McGuinn, about Theo's musical tastes.  Jim is about to leave, when he casually mentions, almost as an afterthought, "Oh yeah, your copy of the White Album is in your mailbox at work."

In 2000, I lift the first record from its sleeve (wait, the Beatles made a double album?) and carefully set it onto the turntable.  As I drop the needle, I hear a familiar jet plane noise, but also feel like I'm being transported somewhere altogether new and unfamiliar...

In 2009, Theo has just gone down for a nap.  As I remove the shrinkwrap from the brand new, remastered edition of the Beatles' self-titled record, I slip on my headphones and press play, fully knowing every note of what is to come, yet feeling excited for the rush of re-discovery...

By 1968, the tensions within the Beatles had reached heretofore unforseen levels.  The sessions for what would become band's eponymous double record, also known as the White Album, were fraught with all sorts of quarrels and disputes, leading to several instances of band members and producers quitting the band, albeit for temporary periods.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who once scored single after hit single by way of their songwriting partnership, had abandoned all but the vaguest pretensions of true collaboration (the famous 'Lennon/McCartney' credit) as each man pursued his own ideas and sound.  Only one song on the White Album features Lennon and McCartney singing together, and yet that song feels like as good a starting point as any: "Birthday."  Written and recorded in a single day, McCartney and Lennon swap vocal lines while Yoko Ono (Lennon's controversial muse) and Pattie Boyd (George Harrison's wife) add backing vocals.  Why?  Because they happened to be in the studio that day.  It appears, for just a moment, that the tension has drained away, but look closer: that's Paul McCartney on drums.  Ringo Starr had quit the band a few days earlier and would not return until the band had recorded a handful of songs without him.  Even on the album's loosest, most carefree and communal moment, there was a band member too peeved to participate.  Such is one of the White Album's core paradoxes.

Even for a longtime fan of the album, one of the record's delights is identifying the ways particular songs play off of one another, sometimes back-to-back, sometimes separated by 25 songs.  The album's eclecticism has laid the template for virtually every double album since: any artist who wishes to make a "sprawling" album with many diverse songs usually references the White Album.  While many have tried, very few have even come close to capturing the Beatles' spirit.

The White Album is a continual game of one-upmanship: Lennon and McCartney present similar songs, as if to invite subconscious comparisons.  Both men present their own versions of 12-bar blues, acoustic love songs, sharp rockers, odes to animals, and demented children's songs.  For as agonizing as it must have been to properly sequence the album (McCartney has said that the sequencing was done in a single, 36-hour session along with Lennon and producer George Martin), the band is able to keep the listener engaged and interested at all turns.  Sometimes things veer into the pretty, sometimes into the bizarre, but even after a hundred listens, the element of (pleasant) surprise allows the record to flow perfectly: the White Album is the ultimate display of the maxim "an album where you don't skip a track."  By six songs into Side 1, the band has already thrown everything onto the table: a sterling opening pair of songs with the "classic" Beatles sound, Lennon's brief yet messy trip through the band's past on "Glass Onion," before veering into the silly with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Wild Honey Pie" and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill."  A reggae experiment, a minute-long joke song, and a jaunty, Vietnam-by-way-of-Kipling fable may lead the listener to roll their eyes a bit: oh, those silly Beatles are having a joke.  Which makes it all the more jarring (and satisfying) that we are then pummeled with one of the most artistically serious songs of the album, hell, the history of rock: George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."  The song feels both like a harbinger of wonderful things to come in Harrison's career and the capstone of his life's work.  "Guitar" feels more monumental to me every time I hear it, maybe because Harrison was my age (25) when he wrote and recorded it; even more startling, Eric Clapton was just 23 when he added the famous guitar solo.  George Harrison adds a much-needed dose of sanity to the record, also adding "Piggies," "Savoy Truffle," and the terminally underrated "Long, Long, Long."  Even Ringo adds spice to the record with "Don't Pass Me By," delivering the funniest line on the album ("you were in a car crash/and you lost your hair!") as well as the closing lullaby, "Good Night."

The most notorious song on the White Album may very well be Lennon's nine-minute sound collage, "Revolution 9."  It is every bit as strange as its reputation would imply; in the CD/digital era, it could very well be the most-skipped song of all time.  There is a certain beauty to its disjointed bizarreness, with its own distinctive series of nooks and crannies ("El Dorado," the baby's gurgle, "block that kick!"); after 28 disparate songs, it feels like the last imaginable avenue for the band to traverse on the record.  In Alan W. Pollack's indispensable Notes on the Beatles series, he writes, "You can derive, as if by corollary, the notion that the "White Album" would not be improved by the omission of "Revolution #9" but rather would be somehow lacking something essential in that case."  It's an infinitely strange piece that could be pored over until doomsday, but I was struck recently how the Beatles effectively prime their audience as the album progresses for the colossal mess towards the end.  Lennon's own "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" patches together several discrete pieces into one two-and-a-half minute song; Side 2 whirrs by in a blur of many brief (two minute or so) songs; and Side 3 slowly ratchets up the tension to the crash at the close of "Helter Skelter."  The record's last side, Side 4, begins with the stripped-down "Revolution 1" and gradually allows each of the three principal songwriters to exit one by one.  McCartney leaves us by journeying back to the 1920s in "Honey Pie," Harrison supplies the inexplicably intense "Savoy Truffle," and Lennon the creepy fairytale "Cry Baby Cry."  There's a ghostly, unbilled McCartney interlude, and before you know it, "Revolution 9" is in full swing.  By the time Ringo shows up to end the show with "Good Night," we realize we've been had: Side 4 has been an extended curtain call, and we didn't even realize it until it was over.  Even 40 years later, the Beatles haven't lost the ability to surprise us.

I haven't fully delved into Charles Manson, Yoko Ono, the Maharishi, or whether or not "Hey Jude" should have appeared on the album.  You'll find plenty of books written about the White Album and the circumstances surrounding its recording, but what makes the White Album so endearing to me is its distinctiveness.  Each listen is a journey anew through its many twists and turns; anticipation of particular songs often makes the surrounding songs even better.  In a nutshell, the White Album is the quintessential example of the old cliche, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."  Rock music doesn't get any bigger, stranger, or more wonderful than the White Album.

2000.  My father comes into our living room when the album is over.  I am sitting on the couch, completely drained and stunned by what I've just listened to.  "What the hell was THAT??...."

2009.  I am finishing my review of the Beatles' self-titled double album, a draining experience that has nonetheless allowed me to view the album in a new light.  I look forward to many such instances of re-discovery when the remastered Beatles' catalog is issued in September, but my time with the White Album remaster has come to a close.  There is only one place for it now: I shall present it to my dad, as my own personal way of repaying him for that wonderful day a decade ago when I borrowed his double-gatefold vinyl and embarked on the journey of a lifetime.

Mac Wilson is a weekend host for The Current. He looks forward to one day sharing the Beatles' music with his son.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Magical Mystery Tour

Posted at 2:09 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Magical Mystery Tour
Originally released in 1967

By Jacquie Fuller

The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour is just what the name says - a druggy pilgrimage, a fever dream, a band finding its voice within the chaos they'd created. For me, it was a rug pulled out - the first time I was confronted with the complexity of the world outside my pink bedroom. Rock 'n' roll was no longer just about boys and girls and sex.

I was seven, and I knew what chaos looked like. I'd seen a retrospective of Dada art at the museum (think urinals on walls and mannequin parts glued together funny). Dada was, in some ways, a response to the absurdity of war. But at seven, I didn't know that - I just knew it was weird. It inspired a mix of fascination and fear that I just couldn't shake.

I'd soon learn what chaos sounded like when I discovered Magical Mystery Tour while snooping through my big sister's record collection. This was what threw me the most: These were not my mother's Beatles. Where was Help! and A Hard Day's Night? What happened to those clean cut boys who made young girls lose their heads with songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand"? It was like finding naughty Polaroids of your dependable parents, or when your big e brother gets facial hair and becomes a total stranger. Gone were the mod haircuts and cute suits; these Beatles had shaggy hair. They dressed in weird costumes and sung about "sitting on a cornflake." (And I'd seen enough after-school specials by this point to know that, clearly, they got high.) Like Dada art, The Beatles of Magical Mystery Tour didn't fit into the neat box of what I knew and understood. And they thrilled me.

Released in 1967, Magical Mystery Tour was intended as the soundtrack to a movie of the same name (the third in the Beatles' cinematic repertoire). The movie was a mess and a flop (and downright nightmare-inducing for kids like me) but the soundtrack was a success. At the same time that the Beach Boys were experimenting with a full orchestral sound (Pet Sounds), the Beatles, too, were creating songs that swelled with strings, horns, and flutes (as well as that trippy, huffing orchestra-in-a-box, the Mellotron). Into this orchestral ocean, they dropped exotic elements - Indian instruments from George Harrison's sitar studies in India, vocals played backwards - that gave the songs a psychedelic feel.

The album was released in the UK as an EP, but stateside as an LP with bonus tracks that hadn't found a home on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - big hits like "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." These songs, with their sweetness and nostalgia, both temper the weirdness of the album, and intensify its dream-like quality.

Magical Mystery Tour and Dada might have more in common than their impact on the young me. It seems too easy, and unfair, to credit Magical Mystery Tour's psychedelia with the band's drug use. There were a lot of factors involved, including Harrison's travels to India. But when I place this album in the context of the era - the escalation of the Vietnam War - I find a new layer of understanding. The Beatles, as a band and as individuals, were seeking answers about what to believe in. They were in the process of figuring out who they were, who they wanted to be. They were siding with the peace movement, and struggling to find words to speak about the unspeakable.

In this context, I get why nonsense songs like "I am the Walrus" scared the crap out of me. I needed, at that age, for the world to make sense. Magical Mystery Tour taught me that it didn't, and never would. And I get why songs like "All You Need is Love" were like a sweet salve on this new knowledge. Magical Mystery Tour was a flop as a movie, and incohesive as a soundtrack, but it was a band questioning the world that was, and presenting a better, Technicolored world in its place.

Jacquie Fuller hosts Saturday mornings on The Current, and is still fascinated by things she can't comprehend, like childbirth, physics, and Lady Gaga.

Meet the Beatles (Again) - A Hard Days Night

Posted at 2:10 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (2 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

A Hard Days Night
Originally released in 1964
By Melanie Walker

When I hear The Beatles, the first thing I always think of is my father. He's a huge music fan and the Beatles are by far his favorite music act of all time. I wasn't sure if I would remember more than the hits from The Beatles third release, A Hard Days Night. But after reviewing the newly re-mastered disc, I was surprised to find that I knew almost every song word for word. Because of my father, The Beatles are permanently imprinted upon my brain. When I chose to review A Hard Days Night it wasn't for any particular reason. It's a fantastic soundtrack to an entertaining rock film. But, what I've discovered is that A Hard Days Night has a lot more in common with my family's history than I ever anticipated.

My father was born in Romford in the Essex region of England at the tail end of World War II. He was a mod, worked as a machinist for The Ford Motor Company and spent most of his hard earned cash on suits and records. The Beatles had just started to break in the U.K. in the early '60s and my dad was there.

He remembers watching some of their first performances in small theatres in Romford and West Ham as close as 20 feet from the stage. Dad listened religiously to their live weekend sessions on the BBC called "The Saturday Club." The Beatles weren't just gaining popularity all over the U.K. but were also steadily becoming well known in other countries as well. When a friend asked my dad if he thought they'd ever be popular in America he said, "I don't think so. There will be too much competition in the States." Well, dad's eating his words now.

A Hard Days Night was released in the fall of 1964 coincidentally around the same time my Father and most his family emigrated to the U.S. on The Queen Mary. The Beatles' had just made their first television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, which not only launched Beatlemania in America but also the entire British Music Invasion.

At the same time my father soon took his skills from Ford Motor Company to Hollywood, CA and took a position as a machinist at Universal Studios. He soon began working on the actual shoots as a camera assistant. As America continued to fall madly in love with The Beatles, my Dad fell head over heels for life in Hollywood.

It's really a difficult concept to grasp nowadays, but at this stage of their career The Beatles were often dismissed as nothing more than a fad that would eventually vanish. To ensure this would not be the case, The Beatles made a cinéma vérité-style motion picture comedy/musical called A Hard Days Night in early 1964, directed by Richard Lester. It was an entertaining mock documentary of two days in the life of The Beatles. The soundtrack was a triumph written entirely by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and included Beatles standards such as the title track, "Can't Buy Me Love," "And I Love Her" and "Things We Said Today." A Hard Days Night was an early testament to the Lennon / McCartney song writing partnership. They never really ended up writing together so easily, eventually choosing to follow their own songwriting routes. The film has been rated by Time magazine as one of the all-time great 100 films. Leslie Halliwell, a British film critic, has described it as a "comic fantasia with music; an enormous commercial success with the director trying every cinematic gag in the book." The film is credited as single handedly influencing 1960s spy films, The Monkees' television show and pop music videos.

In 1978 I was just a toddler, The Beatles had long ago broken up, Lennon was busy being a father and husband, McCartney was knee deep in Wings, Ringo was wrapped up in his solo release Bad Boy , George was gearing up to release his next self-titled album when my father was hired to work on a film called Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a "prequel" of sorts to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was directed by well-known Beatles film maker Richard Lester. Not surprisingly, my father was ecstatic to be working with "the" Richard Lester! Richard fondly reminisced about those days, saying that one of the most enjoyable things about The Beatles was their natural playfulness and comedic talents. Working with the Fab Four was a whirlwind adventure, having to shoot the entire film with two cameras (which is very unconventional) so as not to miss anything. None of the guys ever did anything twice and their main goal was to shoot "whatever looked good."

Fourteen years after Hard Days Night, Richard successfully built a career upon that very aesthetic with the Superman and Musketeers films, The Beatles had become the greatest and most influential band of the rock era and the entire time my father was there to witness it all as it happened. From working class Romford, England to Hollywood, California, A Hard Days Night is more than just another Beatles record to me and my family. It's evolved to become a cornerstone of my family's musical heritage. Listening to it reminds me fondly of my father, my childhood and the reasons why I fell in love with music in the first place.

Melanie Walker is the music director for The Current. She puts in many Hard Days Nights to create the sound of the station.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Help!

Posted at 2:11 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (2 Comments)
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Help!
Originally released in 1965
By Christina Schmitt

The Beatles were fresh off the success of A Hard Day's Night when they took on their second film, Help! It was a transition period - the boys were still looking hot in their mod suits but were smoking bales of Mary Jane by this point. Money was pouring in, the band's popularity was out of control, so the film is what you might expect: a silly, self-indulgent movie shot in sexy places like the Austrian Alps and the Bahamas. The "plot" has something to do with a cult and a ruby ring on Ringo Starr, but it's a little too boring to get into. The parts showing the band on ski slopes while hits like "Ticket to Ride" played, however, are classic.

Help! the record is only half soundtrack to its companion film. Side A features the title track, plus "Ticket to Ride" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"-hits so omnipresent in our culture that they might as well be Silent Night at Christmas. It also features "The Night Before," a song I wish I heard more often, and George Harrison's excellent "I Need You."

Side B has songs that were never in the movie: "Yesterday" is the second to last track on this side. If they knew how many times that song would be heard at weddings and funerals throughout the intervening years, they might have given it a more respectable placement. As a whole, then, the record is a bit of a head scratcher. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be-movie soundtrack or convenient home for the hits that just kept coming. The cover photo was supposed to show the Fab Four recreating a flag "semaphore," spelling out the letters H-E-L-P. They don't do that, either. But they sure look cute in their matching blue coats.

The remastered edition of Help! is both a chance to hear clearly some of the details of the hits I never really appreciated before-the lovely tambourine and flutes on "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," for instance--but also to hear the lesser known little jewels like Ringo Starr's country spoof, "Act Naturally."

But the most interesting thing to me about revisiting Help! the movie and record is for once I think I get why people were so upset when the Beatles disbanded in 1970. I always thought of their fans as a bunch of busy bodies who had nothing better to do than obsess about a band breaking up, a band that had clearly run its course (that Jesus look John Lennon was sporting toward the end should have been a huge sign to anyone they had to call it quits).

But when you watch the Beatles in the movie Help!, all opening doors to what looks like separate apartments but is really one big pad on the inside, and all the fun and cool music that ensued, who wants that to end? The Beatles couldn't stop before we were done with them, could they? Can't we watch Paul McCartney on a beach, strumming a woman in a bikini like a guitar? Who is going to take care of Ringo? Can't you treat me like you did the night before?

Christina Schmitt is the public relations manager for The Current. She can't hide her love away.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Past Masters

Posted at 2:12 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Past Masters
Originally released 1988
By Ali Lozoff

The Beatle's Past Masters collection is a wonderful overview of their career, with songs ranging from some of their biggest and best-known hits ("I Want To Hold Your Hand") to lesser-known gems ("The Inner Light"). The two-volume set features 33 non-album tracks recorded between 1962 and 1969. Unlike the full-length albums, Past Masters offers the opportunity to really see the extraordinary evolution of the band in a remarkably short period of time. Starting with the sunny skiffle-influenced sounds of "From Me To You" to the more sophisticated sounds of "Paperback Writer" to the experimental intricacy of "Across The Universe," Past Masters is a perfect intro to anyone just getting to know The Beatles, as well as an essential part of any true fan's collection. In my amateur opinion, the re-mastering most benefits the songs on the second disc, when the band began really experimenting with orchestration and studio effects.

The first disc covers the band's early years, opening with their first single "Love Me Do" (1962) and closing with "I'm Down," (1965), the flip side of the "Help!" release. Two of these 18 tracks, 1963's "This Boy," (my pick of the disc), and 1965's "Yes It Is" showcase the delicacy and nuance of the three-part harmonies created by John, Paul and George. While a good snapshot of what propelled the band to a level of fame most people can't even imagine, I don't connect much with Volume 1 emotionally, though I do marvel at the fresh and innocent exuberance of the Fab Four at this stage, and how quickly their world - and ours - would change.

In addition to the singles included on Volume 2, the four-year period represented here also brought the recording and release of Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be - a mind-boggling amount of output and a massive range of musical styles. The shift in direction is apparent with the first track on Volume 2, "Day Tripper," from 1965; then comes "We Can Work It Out," "Paperback Writer" and my personal favorite, "Rain," a deceptively simple song with a crisp snare opening roll and minimal bass line accompanying the sustained vocal chorus. Then comes the piano and horn-heavy "Lady Madonna," next to the Indian-tinged "The Inner Light," which gives the first hint on the disc of band's introduction to Eastern influences. "Hey Jude," "Revolution" and "Get Back" follow in quick succession - three songs that vividly display the breadth of the band's range of sound.

By now we are have reached 1969, and the staggering array of hits and varied musical stylings continues with the driving, pleading urgency of "Don't Let Me Down," and the sweetly surprising "Across The Universe," featuring the nasal crooning of Lennon backed by a haunting, high-pitched chorus of voices, guitars and birds. Another long-time favorite of mine, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" features the band's explorations of Americana sounds-- with a rolling drum beat and languid guitar plucking--accompanied by a travelogue of the couple's global exploits. It's a highly personal yet witty travelogue recounting the tabloid frenzy they experienced, being both beloved and reviled for their beliefs and actions.

The penultimate song on the disc, "Let It Be" was released in early 1970 and is the last official single released by the band. One part lullaby, one part plea, one part promise, it is their most well-known ballad. The final song of the collection, "You Know My Name, (Look Up the Number)" is not a song that will win over non-fans; frankly I wish the disc ended with the final strains of "Let It Be" hanging in the air, rather than a hokey, inside joke. But that is the beauty of the Beatles: They never took themselves too seriously, and were able to poke a little fun at the earnestness with which they were reviewed and perceived.

I had this conversation with someone recently about context. The time and place when we come into contact with something absolutely shapes our reaction to that thing. Many of the songs here have and will continue to stand the test of time, and when looked at in the context of what was popular music at the time, it's shocking how far ahead of the curve the band was. But intellectualizing music and attempting to win over others through analysis and argument is futile: Our gut either gets something or it doesn't, and while we can understand the history or importance of an artist, that is not the same as emotionally connecting with something. Trying to explain why I love these songs is meaningless, not to mention redundant since no band has ever been more praised, pilloried, studied, critiqued or analyzed.

Enjoying music is a very personal endeavor, and writing about it really is like dancing about architecture. For millions of people the Beatles are part of the air, the water, their very DNA - it's hard to imagine a world without them. Past Masters provides a map of the remarkable journey that took them from Liverpool to the "toppermost of the poppermost."

Ali Lozoff is marketing manager for The Current. She can't stand being redundant.

Meet the Beatles (Again) - Yellow Submarine

Posted at 2:13 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (7 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Yellow Submarine
Originally released in 1969
By Barb Abney

I have never personally owned a Beatles record, yet I felt that reviewing Yellow Submarine would be easy. After all, it is the soundtrack to a movie I watched several times as a child. So it seemed like the best way to begin this project would be to watch Yellow Submarine again.
As a child I knew this was a Beatles movie. I knew some of the songs in the movie and could sing along as I watched the film. What I didn't know then was that the voices of The Fab Four in the movie were NOT the voices of The Beatles. They were the voices of a handful of British actors. All of these gents went on to careers in television and movies with the notable exception of Peter Batten. The legend states that Batten was discovered in a pub and hired on the spot when the film's director overheard his Liverpudlian accent. He had been acting as the voice of George Harrison in the movie when he was arrested for deserting the British army. To add further intrigue to the story, Batten hasn't been publicly seen or heard from since.

While watching the movie again, a couple of things really stood out. First, during "All Together Now," I noted the most accurate illustrated depiction of what my migraines look like as the flashy multi-colored fish swim by. A little later in the film, as time is being corrected, the years fly by, stopping at "2009." Quite the coincidence, eh?

Which came first, the movie or the music? Apparently, The Beatles were under contract to make another film and lending their talent and likeness to an animated film would satisfy that obligation. The original Yellow Submarine soundtrack was The Beatles' 10th record. It came out in January 1969, several months after the release of the movie. So, the movie came first, right?

The soundtrack featured 13 songs. Side One consisted of six tunes that were all written and performed by The Beatles. A handful of these songs were recorded during sessions for another movie. ("Only A Northern Song" and "It's All Too Much" were recorded during or around the time of the Sgt. Pepper's sessions.) The songs "Yellow Submarine" and "All You Need Is Love" were on previous albums. The only newly recorded songs for the original soundtrack were, "Hey Bulldog," "All Together Now" and "Baby, You're A Rich Man." (Although, "Baby, You're A Rich Man" wound up as a B-side to another single instead of as a part of this soundtrack.) Side Two was the instrumental score of the movie. So, while the movie was released in 1968, much of the music used in the movie had been around for a year or more. So, the music came first, right?

Thirty years later, the film was re-released and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack was as well. This featured re-mixed versions of the tunes found on the original soundtrack, plus all of the tunes that were featured in the movie that weren't on the original recording minus the instrumental score.

Now that the re-mastered version of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack is coming out, I feel that YOU should make it a part of your personal collection. If you're like me, and you have never owned a Beatles record before or you don't understand what all the fuss is about; begin by setting aside time to pop it in your CD player and "spend some time" with it. Enjoy the uplifting feeling of these simple lyrics and harmonies that people of any age can appreciate. Then watch the mini-documentary on your computer. You'll hear enlightening quotes from the band members like. "I thought this would be the greatest Disney cartoon ever," and "'All You Need Is Love' is basically the message of the movie." You'll see incredible snippets of live recording sessions of "Hey Bulldog" and "All You Need Is Love."

And just maybe, like me, you will understand what all the fuss is about. Their music ALWAYS came first!

It should be noted that on the day that I sat down to write this, it was announced that Robert Zemeckis was in discussions with Disney to remake Yellow Submarine in 3-D.

Barb Abney is host on The Current 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. weekdays. Barb knows all you need is love, even if it gives you a migraine sometimes.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Rubber Soul

Posted at 2:14 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (2 Comments)
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Rubber Soul
Originally released in 1965
By Mark Wheat

America, this is your Beatles album. Recorded in the months following their first trip here, which ended with the massive Shea Stadium gig, it reflects the effect this country had on the loveable mop tops...you blew their minds!

As a Brit born in a small town in the '60s I can appreciate the seismic shift that occurred just before these tunes were trapped on vinyl. In those days, it would be beyond the wildest dreams of any young working class Scouser (Liverpudlian) to even travel as far as America ever in their life. When the trip included screaming receptions at airports and the Ed Sullivan Show, it was obviously far above anything these young boys could have fabricated in their own very fertile imaginations.

The album title is a direct reference to the trip. In those days soul music only came from America. Rubber or plastic soul was a way that the English musicians used to describe their own attempts at reaching the high of their heroes. Even though they had always been influenced by the music coming from the US, seeing the faces of the real soul and folk musicians and better understanding where that soul came from was a sobering experience for this young band. And the soul they could achieve in their own work was drowned out by the screaming adulation of the audience they had created. Forced to internalize these lessons, to decide how to foster a unique version of their own soul exploration, they would retreat to the studio for the rest of their career, making the albums that are usually thought to be their best. So this is a cusp record, the end of an era and the early beginnings of a new one,

So what are the American influences? Well, Ringo sounds like he was born in Nashville on "What Goes On" and George is wearing a cowboy hat on the new CD sleave. When they came here they famously held up a copy of a Koerner, Ray & Glover album and said that this is who they had come to find. Hobofolk musicians in Minneapolis' West Bank? They left having been hugely inspired by another, Bob Dylan. Maybe the long intake of breath at the start of "Girl" was the residue of this? When you hear the first sitar they used on "Norweigen Wood" you know for sure that they had definitely had their minds expanded if not completely blown...yet!

"Michelle" was one of those songs that my dad used to sing around the house. My parents weren't big fans. Rubber Soul is the only one we owned. But growing up in '60s England meant being soaked in The Beatles all the time, from everywhere. It was muzak. Our parent€™s muzak. Stamped on my musical DNA. Later I would mildly rebel against it with my own glam pop faves, but the first album I bought with my own money was Wings' Band on the Run. The Beatles were done by the time I was pickin' faves, but they have influenced me in ways I can't even understand for my entire life. As a young lad I experienced this, their third Christmas No. 1 album in a row. They'd made six albums and 11 singles in three years. Just think of how much new music that was to consume from ONE band!? Even when I came here for the first time 25 years ago, a American shop cashier asked me where I was from and when I said England she said right back: "Oh, do you know Paul McCartney?"

As a music fan from that Little Continent, it is always assumed that I love and respect them as much as my Yankee peers do. I don't. But I cannot dislodge them either. They're ingrained. As much a national institution as the Royal Family. Perhaps loved by more folks because of their working class credentials. They are the English epitome of the American Dream come true before we even knew what that meant. It's a very special relationship for artists to have with the public of an entire country. It is interesting to re-hear this album with the new perspective of my own American experience of the last 25 years. It's the musical mirror of what their American trip, which stamped them upon the minds of this nation, did to their young minds. Appropriate then that it ends with Beach Boy harmonies and Monkees' tambourines on "Run For Your Life" and the lyric, "That's the end little girl."

It was the end of one era, when all they wanted was to be in a buddy band that played live and had a few laughs. They started here to ask the question of what does a band do if it doesn't keep going on tour? The answer was: create some classic art through pop music. The question was asked by you, America. This is your Beatles album. Enjoy.

Mark Wheat is The Current's Evening Host and no, he doesn't know Macca!

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Beatles on film

Posted at 2:16 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Beatles on film
By Euan Kerr

I had an unusual childhood growing up in Edinburgh, Scotland. Yet one moment which really sticks out for me was some time in 1964. One of my classmates in kindergarten came to tell me he had a lollipop with beetles in it.

At the time I didn't see the attraction or benefit of such a delicacy, but he insisted for several days in a row that it was a huge deal, and he was the envy of his entire street. Eventually I told him I didn't believe he had such a thing. He swore he would bring it in to school to show me, despite a tragic drop suffered by the lollipop, resulting in cracks and a possible ban on future confectionary travel from his mother.

Imagine my surprise (and frankly disappointment) when the lad pulled out the now plastic-wrapped sweet and I saw the images of four mop-topped men rather than bugs. Apparently these four fellows were a big deal and about to get much bigger, but as a five year old I had somehow missed The Beatles.

I bring this up because aside from a very lucky few who saw the Fab Four play live all those decades ago, most of us only experienced The Beatles through either listening to their music or seeing their images displayed in one way or another.

I had my first exposure through a lollipop, but while there were all those TV appearances and interviews, the majority of us saw The Beatles on film.

And what we saw was wondrous strange, (and usually fun.)

Films such as A Hard Day's Night, (which The Village Voice called "The Citizen Kane of Jukebox musicals"), Help Yellow Submarine and Let it Be were opportunities to fill in the blanks as to who these four musical magicians might actually be.

Of course with the exception of that last one, they were all fantasies. But what fantasies! Imagine a world where four laid-back guys chase around the world having adventures while providing their own soundtrack.

We get to spend time with the acerbic John, the nice guy Paul, the quiet yet strong George, and the goofy Ringo, all as lovable as can be. The movies are not great art, but they are a whole lot of fun and designed to be memorable.

The scene in Help where the Fab Four each walk into a separate row house front door to enter the massive Beatle House is pure genius. It's both a visual spectacle, and the commentary on post-war life and aspiration in Britain. Then John launches into "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," which is one of the great moments in musical film.

While musicians had made movies before, the combination with Beatlemania, huge record sales, the huge concerts, and TV appearances created something newâ€"a media saturation focused on a single band. It was unlike anything seen before and perhaps since.

The early Beatles films were also important because they focused attention on the British film industry, featuring a host of comedic talent and providing the funds for a ton of other films at a time when a host of talented young directors, actors, and writers were coming to the fore.

They also spawned a host of imitations. There were a lot more bands in Liverpool and elsewhere, and so a lot of film companies jumped on the bandwagon. The Gerry and the Pacemakers film "Ferry Cross the Mersey" is fun if you can see it (and is actually a portrait of Merseybeat.) The Freddie and the Dreamers films What a Crazy World with singer Joe Brown, Seaside Swingers, Just for You and The Cuckoo Patrol are more confections than anything else. You can see the influences all the way through the Monkees (including the awful 'Head' to the Spice Girls in Spice World, which was basically a Beatles movie with longer legs and a drum machine.

The Beatles other two films as a group broke other ground.

Yellow Submarine took animation for adults to a whole new audience. There was genuine confusion about the film when it came out as audiences who were stuck on the idea that cartoons were for kids tried to get their heads around the psychedelic terrors of the Blue Meanies. But there were many converts. While their music provides the vehicle literally and metaphorically for the movie, the Beatles actually had very little to do with the film other than the final scene where they appear in person.

Let it Be was the film that actually let the public in, but chronicled the break-up of the band. The documentary captured the attempt to save the band by recording a back-to-basics album, but things were too far gone. The doc allowed fans to share one of the great moments in modern music when the band gave its final live performance on a rooftop in London.

Of course there was much more of individual film making by the Beatles over the years (How I Won the War with John Lennon is worth a look if you have never seen it), but none of it captures the excitement fun and just plain silliness of the early films.

We all have our favorite scenes from the Beatles films. Let us know what yours are and why in the comments section below. We'll all get by with a little help from our friends

Euan Kerr is senior editor for MPR News and is a contributor to the x`"State of the Arts" blog on MPR NewsQ.

Meet the Beatles (Again) - The Beatles' Impact on Art

Posted at 2:17 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (1 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

The Beatles' Impact on Art
By Jay Gabler

When asked to write about the Beatles' impact on art, my first thought was of the iconic images associated with the group. The Beatles were so hugely popular that their album covers were bound to become some of the most recognizable in the history of pop music. There's the spare semaphore of Help!, there's the Sgt. Pepper collage, and of course there's the Abbey Road cover that's caused thousands of barefoot tourists to block traffic as they attempt to recreate the cross-street saunter in front of the London studio where the album was recorded. All of those images have been republished, repurposed, and reimagined ad infinitum.

The Beatles also had a direct impact on visual culture through their films and posters. A Hard Day's Night is one of the definitive music videos, and Yellow Submarine taught a generation of aspiring animators that doing things on the cheap can be made to look like a deliberate effect. Posters made from that film and from Richard Avedon's color-washed photographic portraits helped land psychedelic pop art in suburban rec rooms around the world.

But Avedon probably didn't need the Beatles' help, and neither did seminal psychedelic artist Peter Max - who had nothing to do with Yellow Submarine, though it ripped off his style. John Lennon's drawings are telling glimpses into his inner life, but they didn't much influence art history; nor have Paul McCartney's competent paintings. The Beatles' most important effect on contemporary art wasn't something you could see, it was an idea: the breaking down of barriers between art-as-object and art-as-performance.

Consider the progression of their recordings. At the beginning of the Beatles' career, recordings were more or less documents of live performances. Studio wizards like Phil Spector had already begun to change that, but the Beatles took the recording-as-recording to unprecedented new heights of artistic accomplishment and mass popularity. After their 1966 retreat from public performance, the Beatles created exquisitely crafted albums that could never have been replicated live. Though individual parts were recorded, sometimes simultaneously, at no point even in the studio were the sounds captured on the record ever played live exactly as heard on the album - they couldn't have been. Other musicians - notably the Beach Boys in pop music and Glenn Gould in classical music - were headed down the same road, but Sgt. Pepper was the single most important turning point in the split between recordings and live performance.

Meanwhile, art was moving in the opposite direction. In the early 1960s, art was still defined almost exclusively as objects: paintings, drawings, sculptures. But at almost exactly the same time that the Beatles were popularizing the idea of the album as a standalone object only distantly derived from live performance, artists were arguing for the importance of actions as works of art detached from objects. Conceptual art was in its glory days, with artists like Bruce Nauman creating artworks that took permanent form only as instructions for actions. (A 1969 Nauman work on "display" in the current Walker Art Center exhibit The Quick and the Dead instructs enactors to curl themselves up in a ball and imagine themselves pressing down into the gallery floor; visitor services staff have been taking shifts trying their damnedest at it.)

Yoko Ono, John Lennon's wife-to-be, was at the center of this movement. Her stature as an artist has grown over the decades as the inventiveness and influence of her conceptual work has become increasingly apparent. Ono was heavily influenced by the avant-garde composer John Cage, who increasingly sought to separate the performance of a composition from its score on the page. Besides creating high-concept objects (such as the glass hammer in the Walker's permanent collection), Ono was a pioneering performance artist; in her Cut Piece, for example, audience members were invited to cut scraps of clothing off the immobile artist.

Ono's professional and personal relationship with Lennon seemed to fray the ever-thinning ties among the Beatles, and many have blamed Ono for the group's demise. Why did Lennon have to be holed up in an attic with Ono filming flies crawling over a naked body when he could have been writing another "A Day in the Life"? In retrospect, though, the marriage of Lennon and Ono looks like the symbolic marriage of art and music, of object and performance, of the thing and the thought. This is one reason why, from today's perspective, John Lennon seems the forward-thinking Beatle, the cool Beatle. (Which is not to say that McCartney should be painted as clueless just because he didn't marry a conceptual artist: by all accounts, the sweeping ambition of Sgt. Pepper and the second side of Abbey Road came from him.)

The Walker Art Center prides itself on maintaining a top-notch lineup of films, performers, and activities along with the objects in its collections - but in 2009, it has to. No self-respecting contemporary art museum can stop at collecting objects, any more than a music group with aspirations to be taken seriously can stop at live performance. In art today as in music, the line between object and performance is frequently and freely crossed - and for that we can thank, among others, the Beatles.

Jay Gabler is arts editor at the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

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Meet the Beatles (Again) - The Beatles' and Fashion

Posted at 2:18 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (3 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

The Beatles and Fashion
By Jahna Peloquin

This week, the world will finally hear the way the Beatles were meant to be heard. Over the past four years, the entire back catalog of the princes of pop has been painstakingly remastered, including all 12 original UK studio albums, the Magical Mystery Tour and a combined two-CD set of Past Masters on CD, plus stereo and mono box set collections, for the first time since 1987. If that wasn't enough, a version of the popular game "Rock Band" is being released based on the Beatles catalog. It's all happening, fittingly, on 9/9/09. (Number 9, anyone?)

So on the eve of the re-release of the Beatles entire catalog, it seems fitting to take a look back at the hugely influential look and style of the Beatles over their ten years of existence.

Let's start with the early years:

(Image by Albert Marrion)

Check out those leather pants! Replete with their classic Beatle boots, the young men are barely recognizable here. They look more like a gang of good-looking roughs than the classic mop-topped, bespoke quartet they would soon become.

(Uncredited promotional photo, circa 1963)

By 1963, The group has come into its best-known look: Vidal Sassoon-esque bowl-cut haircuts and narrow-cut mod suits.

(Photo by Robert Whitaker, 1964)

By 1964, Beatlemania had officially hit. The gang of roughs are now a gang of well-dressed, dapper gents.

(Image courtesy Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum)

Check out the Beatles' "English countryside" look they're sporting in 1965. With the coming of the mid-'60s, the mod look is starting to loose favor to the coming hippie vibe.

(Image from the Yellow Submarine/Elenor Rigby split 45)

On the cover of 1966's "Eleanor Rigby," the boys in the band are sporting decidedly shaggier haircuts and an overall more relaxed look. Gone are the narrow lapels of their early '60s suits - in are open-collared shirts.

(Image by Michael Cooper at Chelsea Manor Photographic Studios, taken March 30, 1967)

A definite shift happened in late 1966 (psychedelics, perhaps?) to the Beatles' style, musical and sartorially. Their "Sgt. Pepper" phase included a much-brighter palette, inspired by traditional Indian garb. Oh, and the boys grew facial hair, thus becoming men and setting a trend that lived on into the '80s - the mustache. They even gave away mustaches with copies of the record.

(Photo by Ethan Russell/Monte Fresco/Mal Evans at John Lennon's home in 1969)

In 1968-1969, the band donned various combinations of facial hair. During this time, John Lennon's signature eyeglasses became more apparent, and Ringo Starr really started rocking his classic mutton-chops-and-mustache look. Meanwhile, their flower child style was tempered with flared, crisp pant suits.

There you have it - ten years of style from a band that influenced the trends possibly more than any other group at the time.

Jahna Peloquin is the Fashion Stylist for eclecticoiffeur and a freelance writer and stylist for Vita.mn

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