The Beatles

[Grm]

Another fascinating fact, Love me do was not released until April 1964 in the USA and was a number one hit (two years before it reached 17 in the UK chart), Ringo Star was not the drummer in the US release.

[Grm]

While looking for another song, I stumbled on this video... I had to post!

I will do a full Rutles post soon! 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDWDM0V7Nxo

That looks like Eric Idle ( Monty Python) on the left.

[Gina Marie]

That looks like Eric Idle ( Monty Python) on the left.

Probably because it IS him...

http://www.rutles.org/

[Gina Marie]

HAPPY 72nd BIRTHDAY
JOHN WINSTON LENNON!!

[MissBarbara]

[Gina Marie]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdMUbhUf7I

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

The Beatles' acclaimed original studio album remasters, released on CD in 2009 and in 2010 for digital download exclusively on iTunes, will make their long-awaited stereo vinyl debut on 12th November (13th November in North America).

Each album will be available individually, and accompanied by a stunning, elegantly designed 252-page hardbound book in a lavish boxed limited edition.

For the full story visit: http://www.thebeatles.com/#/news/Vinyl

[MissBarbara]

The Beatles' Surprising Contribution To Brain Science
by Jon Hamilton
November 08, 2012


The same brain system that controls our muscles also helps us remember music, scientists say.

When we listen to a new musical phrase, it is the brain's motor system — not areas involved in hearing — that helps us remember what we've heard, researchers reported at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans last month.

The finding suggests that the brain has a highly specialized system for storing sequences of information, whether those sequences contain musical notes, words or even events.

But the discovery might never have happened without The Beatles, says Josef Rauschecker of Georgetown University. As a teenager in Europe, Rauschecker says, he was obsessed with the group.

"They were kind of the hot band at the time and I would listen to music while I was studying," he says. "My mother would say, 'Don't do that, you can't concentrate.' "

But Rauschecker ignored her. He says The White Album, Revolver and Rubber Soul seemed to become a part of his teenage brain, and the memory of which songs came in which order never faded.

"Years later I would put on one of these old LPs and then you know at the end of one track you immediately start singing the next one," he says, "as if it was all stored in your brain as a continuous sort of story."

That intrigued Rauschecker, who by this time was a brain scientist at Georgetown. He kept wondering which part of his brain knew the order of all those sequences of Beatles songs.

"The funny thing is that if you ask me now what comes after 'Michelle' or whatever I wouldn't know," he says. "It's not explicit knowledge. But if you hear it, then you can immediately continue singing it."

So a couple of years ago Rauschecker's lab did an experiment. It had volunteers bring in a favorite CD and lie in a brain scanner. Then the scientists watched what happened as the volunteers listened.

Sure enough, there was distinctive brain activity after each track ended. But Rauschecker says the brain activity wasn't where he thought it would be.

"You would think the brain part that is relevant for hearing would be the one that is mostly activated," he says. "But no, it was the motor areas. So that was quite surprising and puzzling."

So why had the part of the brain that works muscles been hijacked to remember music?

To find out, Rauschecker and a graduate student named Brannon Green did another experiment to see precisely what was happening as the brain learned a new musical sequence. This time, they put volunteers in a scanner and had them listen to atonal music generated by a computer.

At first the volunteers heard a single musical phrase made up of several notes, Green says. Then they heard that phrase again, followed by a new phrase.

"So what happens is by the time the entire sequence is played, the parts at the beginning have been repeated something like 30 times whereas the parts at the end have repeated once or twice," he says.

Brain scans showed that motor areas became active when people were hearing something new. But these motor areas were relatively quiet when people heard familiar notes.

"As you progressed to a familiar sequence, those areas became less and less important," Green says.

During familiar sequences, meanwhile, activity increased in areas involved in hearing.

All this suggests that areas involved in hearing can remember small chunks of notes, but it takes the motor system to put these chunks in the right order, Rauschecker says. And he says it makes sense that the motor system would be responsible for this sequencing function.

"Because that's what the motor system has to do when you do a dance sequence or you ski down the slope," he says. "You have to program your muscles to work in particular sequence, especially when you learn something."

Rauschecker has also found evidence that the motor system can step in to help retrieve a chunk of forgotten musical notes.

"When as a musician you get stuck in playing a piece on the piano you don't just continue," he says. "Usually you go back to a certain point and start over again because the sequence has to be somehow played out."

And that's possible with a little help from the brain system that moves our muscles.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/08/164101652/the-beatles-surprising-contribution-to-brain-science?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20121108

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (17 YEARS AGO)
November 20, 1995 - The Beatles: "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" b/w "If I Needed Someone" (Capitol Cema Special Markets S7-18888) green vinyl 45 single is released.

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (44 YEARS AGO)
November 22, 1968 – The Beatles: The Beatles (White Album) is released.

NOTE: the image is of an original UK mono (PMC 7067-8). Top-Load. Low number#0000295)

The Beatles is the ninth album by The Beatles, a double album released on this date in November 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed (and, on the early LP and CD releases, a serial number) on its plain white sleeve. It reached #1 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart in its third week, spending a total of nine weeks at the top. In all, The Beatles spent 155 weeks on the Billboard 200. It debuted at #1 on the UK album chart and totalled eight weeks at that position. It spent a total 24 weeks on the UK chart.

Most of the songs were conceived during a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India in the spring of 1968. The retreat had required long periods of meditation, initially conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavors—a chance, in John Lennon's words, to "get away from everything." Both Lennon and Paul McCartney had quickly found themselves in songwriting mode, however, often meeting "clandestinely in the afternoons in each other's rooms" to review the new work. "Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing," Lennon would later recall, "I did write some of my best songs there." Close to forty new compositions had emerged in Rishikesh, twenty-three of which would be recorded in very rough form at Kinfauns, George Harrison’s home in Esher, in May 1968.

The Beatles had left Rishikesh before the end of the course, with Ringo Starr and then McCartney departing, and Lennon and Harrison departing together later. According to some reports, Lennon left Rishikesh because he felt personally betrayed by rumours that Maharishi had made sexual advances toward Mia Farrow's sister Prudence, who had accompanied The Beatles on their trip. Shortly after he decided to leave, Lennon wrote a song called "Maharishi" which included the lyrics, "Maharishi/You little twat"; the song became "Sexy Sadie". According to several authors, Alexis Mardas (aka "Magic Alex") deliberately engineered these rumors because he was bent on undermining the Maharishi's influence over each Beatle. In a 1980 interview, Lennon acknowledged that the Maharishi was the inspiration for the song: "I just called him 'Sexy Sadie'."

The group returned to the studio for recording from May to October 1968, only to have conflict and dissent drive the group members apart. Ringo Starr quit the band for a brief time, leaving Paul McCartney to perform drums on some of the album's songs. Many of the songs were "solo" recordings, or at least by less than the full group, as each individual member began to explore his own talent.

The album was the first that The Beatles undertook following the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, and the first released by their own record label, Apple.

The Beatles was recorded between 30 May 1968 and 14 October 1968, largely at Abbey Road Studios, with some sessions at Trident Studios. Although productive, the sessions were reportedly undisciplined and sometimes fractious, and they took place at a time when tensions were growing within the group. Concurrent with the recording of this album, The Beatles were launching their new multimedia business corporation Apple Corps, an enterprise that proved to be a source of significant stress for the band.

The sessions for The Beatles marked the first appearance in the studio of Lennon's new girlfriend and artistic partner, Yoko Ono, who would thereafter be a more or less constant presence at all Beatles sessions. Prior to Ono's appearance on the scene, the individual Beatles had been very insular during recording sessions, with influence from outsiders strictly limited. McCartney's girlfriend at the time, Francie Schwartz, was also present at some of the recording sessions.

Author Mark Lewisohn reports that The Beatles held their first and only 24-hour recording/producing session near the end of the creation of The Beatles, which occurred during the final mixing and sequencing for the album. The session was attended by Lennon, McCartney, and producer George Martin.

Despite the album's official title, which emphasized group identity, studio efforts on The Beatles captured the work of four increasingly individualized artists who frequently found themselves at odds. The band's work pattern changed dramatically with this project, and by most accounts the extraordinary synergy of The Beatles' previous studio sessions was harder to come by during this period. Sometimes McCartney would record in one studio for prolonged periods of time, while Lennon would record in another, each man using different engineers. At one point in the sessions, George Martin, whose authority over the band in the studio had waned, spontaneously left to go on holiday, leaving Chris Thomas in charge of producing. During one of these sessions, while recording "Helter Skelter", Harrison reportedly ran around the studio while holding a flaming ashtray above his head.

Long after the recording of The Beatles was complete, Martin mentioned in interviews that his working relationship with The Beatles changed during this period, and that many of the band's efforts seemed unfocused, often yielding prolonged jam sessions that sounded uninspired. On 16 July recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with the group since Revolver, announced that he was no longer willing to work with the group.

The sudden departures were not limited to EMI personnel. On 22 August, Starr abruptly left the studio, explaining later that he felt that his role was minimized compared to that of the other members, and that he was tired of waiting through the long and contentious recording sessions. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison pleaded with Starr to return, and after two weeks he did. Upon Starr's return, he found his drum kit decorated with red, white, and blue flowers, a welcome-back gesture from Harrison. The reconciliation was, however, only temporary, and Starr's exit served as a precursor of future "months and years of misery", in Starr's words. Indeed, after The Beatles was completed, both Harrison and Lennon would stage similar unpublicized departures from the band. McCartney's public departure in 1970 would mark the formal end of the band's ensemble. He described the sessions for The Beatles as a turning point for the group. Up to this point, he observed, "The world was a problem, but we weren't. You know, that was the best thing about The Beatles, until we started to break up, like during the White Album and stuff. Even the studio got a bit tense then."

The album's working title, A Doll's House, was changed when the English progressive rock band Family released the similarly titled Music in a Doll's House earlier that year.

ROLLING STONE ALBUM GUIDE

The Beatles wrote most of the White Album on acoustic guitars while on retreat in Rishikesh, India, a place where they had no drug connections, which probably explains why they came up with their sturdiest tunes since Revolver. As John recalled, "We sat in the mountains eating lousy vegetarian food and writing all these songs." Even Ringo: a big hand, please, for the man who wrote "Don't Pass Me By." The double-disc White Album, officially entitled The Beatles, has loads of self-indulgent filler—even the justly maligned "Revolution #9" is more fun than "Honey Pie" or "Yer Blues." Before CDs, most people just made a 45-minute tape of highlights for actual listening; now you can program "Sexy Sadie" and "Long, Long, Long" without having to lift the needle to skip over "Helter Skelter." But nobody would pick the same highlights, which is part of the fun, and besides, if the Beatles had edited it down to one disc, "Rocky Raccoon" would have been the first to go, which would have been tragic. "Martha My Dear," "Blackbird," "Dear Prudence," "Julia," "Cry, Baby, Cry," "Savoy Truffle," and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" are all among the Beatles' finest songs, even if nobody will ever understand how they talked George Martin into permitting that godawful bass feedback at the end of the otherwise perfect "Julia."

As a strange footnote, the White Album acquired permanent notoriety during Charles Manson's 1969 trial, when an L.A. district attorney floated the theory that the album had inspired an alleged hippie murder cult. Silly stuff, but the accusation stuck, even though there's never been any evidence behind it; as Charlie himself admitted, he was more of a Bing Crosby man.

~ Dave Marsh

TRACKS:
*All songs written and composed by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

Side one
1 Back in the U.S.S.R. - 2:43
2 Dear Prudence - 3:56
3 Glass Onion - 2:17
4 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - 3:08
5 Wild Honey Pie - 0:52
6 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill - 3:14
7 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Harrison) - 4:45
8 Happiness Is a Warm Gun - 2:43

Side two
1 Martha My Dear - 2:28
2 I'm So Tired - 2:03
3 Blackbird - 2:18
4 Piggies (Harrison) - 2:04
5 Rocky Raccoon - 3:33
6 Don't Pass Me By (Richard Starkey) - 3:51
7 Why Don't We Do It in the Road? - 1:41
8 I Will - 1:46
9 Julia - 2:54

Side three
1 Birthday - 2:42
2 Yer Blues - 4:01
3 Mother Nature's Son - 2:48
4 Everybody's Got Something to Hide... - 2:24
5 Sexy Sadie - 3:15
6 Helter Skelter - 4:29
7 Long, Long, Long (Harrison) - 3:04

Side four
1 Revolution 1 - 4:15
2 Honey Pie - 2:41
3 Savoy Truffle (Harrison) - 2:54
4 Cry Baby Cry - 3:02
5 Revolution 9 - 8:22
6 Good Night - 3:11

[Gina Marie]

Macca in the Xmas spirit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLO38Hc9cBw

Paul McCartney new recording of the holiday classic “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)” appears on the brand new holiday music album Holidays Rule. McCartney’s beautiful rendition is just one of the 17 stellar tracks comprising this album that Associated Press just called “the perfect soundtrack for your holiday party.” Holidays Rule also features such artists as Fun, The Civil Wars, The Shins, Punch Brothers, Rufus Wainwright & more. And RIGHT NOW… you can get the CD for only $9.99 at BEST BUY; it’s available at all locations OR order online with the following link. Happy Holidays… and don’t forgot… Holidays Rule!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Holidays+Rule+%5BDigipak%5D+-+Various+-+CD/6918056.p?id=2602524&skuId=6918056&st=holidays

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (49 YEARS AGO)
November 29, 1963 - The Beatles: "I Want to Hold Your Hand" b/w "This Boy" 45 single (Parlophone R 5084) is released in the UK.

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a song by The Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded in October 1963, it was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment.

With advance orders exceeding one million copies in the United Kingdom, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" would ordinarily have gone straight to the top of the British record charts on its day of release (29 November 1963) had it not been blocked by the group's first million seller "She Loves You", the Beatles' previous UK single, which was having a resurgent spell in the top position following intense media coverage of the group. Taking two weeks to dislodge its predecessor, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stayed at #1 for five weeks and remained in the UK top fifty for twenty-one weeks in total. It was also the group's first American #1, entering the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 18 January 1964 at #45 and starting the British invasion of the American music industry. By 1 February it held the #1 spot — for seven weeks — before being replaced by "She Loves You", a reverse scenario of what had occurred in Britain, and remained in the US charts for a total of fifteen weeks. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became the Beatles' best-selling single worldwide.

Although it is said that Brian Epstein had encouraged Lennon and McCartney to write a song to appeal to American listeners this has been denied by George Martin. McCartney had recently moved into 57 Wimpole Street, London, where he was living as a guest of Dr Richard and Margaret Asher, whose daughter, actress Jane Asher, had become McCartney’s girlfriend after meeting him earlier in the year. This location briefly became Lennon and McCartney’s new writing base, taking over from McCartney’s Forthlin Road home in Liverpool. Margaret Asher taught the oboe in the "small, rather stuffy music room" in the basement where Lennon and McCartney sat at the piano and composed 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'. In September 1980, Lennon told Playboy magazine:

"We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, 'Oh you-u-u/ got that something...' And Paul hits this chord [E minor] and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that — both playing into each other's noses.”

In 1994, McCartney agreed with Lennon's description of the circumstances surrounding the composition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" saying:

"'Eyeball to eyeball' is a very good description of it. That's exactly how it was. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was very co-written. It was our big number one; the one that would eventually break us in America.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbHcqqvzWt0

[Gina Marie]

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (48 YEARS AGO)
December 4, 1964 – The Beatles: Beatles For Sale is released in the UK.

Beatles for Sale is the fourth studio album by The Beatles, released in the UK on this date in December 1964. It went to #1 in the UK number one spot and retained that position for eleven of the 46 weeks that it spent in the Top Twenty. Beatles for Sale did not surface as a regular album in the US until 1987. In its place was Beatles '65 which featured eight songs from Beatles for Sale, plus the A and B-side of "I Feel Fine" and "I’ll Be Back" from the UK's A Hard Day’s Night album. Beatles '65 enjoyed a nine week run at the top of the US charts beginning in January 1965.

The album marked a minor turning point in the evolution of Lennon and McCartney as lyricists, John Lennon particularly now showing interest in composing songs of a more autobiographical nature. "I'm a Loser" shows Lennon for the first time seemingly coming under the influence of Bob Dylan, whom he met for the first time in New York while on tour, on 28 August 1964.

Only six days separated the last full band session for A Hard Day's Night (2 June) and the first for Beatles for Sale. Recording took place at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London. The Beatles had to share the studio with classical musicians, as McCartney would relate in 1988: "These days you go to a recording studio and you tend to see other groups, other musicians... you'd see classical sessions going on in 'number one.' We were always asked to turn down because a classical piano was being recorded in 'number one' and they could hear us." George Harrison recalled that the band was becoming more sophisticated about recording techniques: "Our records were progressing. We'd started out like anyone spending their first time in a studio—nervous and naive and looking for success. By this time we'd had loads of hits and were becoming more relaxed with ourselves, and more comfortable in the studio... we were beginning to do a little overdubbing, too, probably to a four-track."

Recording was completed on 18 October. The band participated in several mixing and editing sessions before completing the project on 4 November; the album was rushed into production and released exactly a month later. The Beatles' road manager, Neil Aspinall, later reflected: "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, and then 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. A lot of it was down to naivety, thinking that this was the way things were done. If the record company needs another album, you go and make one."

REVIEW
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic
It was inevitable that the constant grind of touring, writing, promoting, and recording would grate on the Beatles, but the weariness of Beatles for Sale comes as something of a shock. Only five months before, the group released the joyous A Hard Day's Night. Now, they sound beaten, worn, and, in Lennon's case, bitter and self-loathing. His opening trilogy ("No Reply," "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black") is the darkest sequence on any Beatles record, setting the tone for the album. Moments of joy pop up now and again, mainly in the forms of covers and the dynamic "Eight Days a Week," but the very presence of six covers after the triumphant all-original A Hard Day's Night feels like an admission of defeat or at least a regression. (It doesn't help that Lennon's cover of his beloved obscurity "Mr. Moonlight" winds up as arguably the worst thing the group ever recorded.) Beneath those surface suspicions, however, there are some important changes on Beatles for Sale, most notably Lennon's discovery of Bob Dylan and folk-rock. The opening three songs, along with "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," are implicitly confessional and all quite bleak, which is a new development. This spirit winds up overshadowing McCartney's cheery "I'll Follow the Sun" or the thundering covers of "Rock & Roll Music," "Honey Don't," and "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!," and the weariness creeps up in unexpected places -- "Every Little Thing," "What You're Doing," even George's cover of Carl Perkins' "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" -- leaving the impression that Beatlemania may have been fun but now the group is exhausted. That exhaustion results in the group's most uneven album, but its best moments find them moving from Merseybeat to the sophisticated pop/rock they developed in mid-career.

TRACKS:
All songs written and composed by Lennon–McCartney, *except where noted.
Side one
1 No Reply - 2:15
2 I'm a Loser - 2:31
3 Baby's in Black - 2:02
4 Rock and Roll Music (*Chuck Berry) - 2:32
5 I'll Follow the Sun - 1:46
6 Mr. Moonlight (Roy Lee Johnson) - 2:33
7 Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! (*Leiber/Stoller/Penniman) 2:33

Side two
1 Eight Days a Week - 2:44
2 Words of Love (*Buddy Holly) - 2:12
3 Honey Don't (*Carl Perkins) - 2:55
4 Every Little Thing - 2:01
5 I Don't Want to Spoil the Party - 2:33
6 What You're Doing - 2:30
7 Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby (*Perkins) - 2:23

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (39 YEARS AGO)
December 5, 1973 – Paul McCartney & Wings: Band on the Run is released in the US (December 7, 1973 in the UK).

Band on the Run is an album by Paul McCartney & Wings, released in the US on this date in December 1973. It has reached the Billboard 200 Albums chart two times, in 1974 (#1) and 2010 (#29). Three singles charted on the Billboard Hot 100 - "Band On The Run" (#1), "Helen Wheels" (#10) and "Jet" (#7). In early 1975, Paul McCartney & Wings won the Grammy award for "Best Pop Vocal Performance By a Duo, Group or Chorus" for Band on the Run. In 2003, the album was ranked #418 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Band on the Run became Wings' most successful album and remains the most celebrated of McCartney's post-Beatles albums. It was the last McCartney album issued on the Apple Records label. After the success of Red Rose Speedway and "Live and Let Die" - the featured song for the James Bond movie of the same name - Wings began contemplating its next album. Paul and Linda McCartney began writing new songs at their Scottish retreat soon after concluding their 1973 tour.

Bored with recording in the United Kingdom, they wanted to go to an exotic locale. After asking EMI to send him a listing of all their international recording studios, Paul happened upon Lagos in Nigeria and was instantly taken with the idea of recording in Africa. Alongside the McCartneys, guitarist and pianist Denny Laine, lead guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Denny Seiwell also were set to go. However, a few weeks before departing in late August, McCullough quit Wings in Scotland; Seiwell followed suit the night before the August 8, 1973 departure for Nigeria. This left just the core of the band - Paul, Linda and Denny Laine - to venture to Lagos, along with former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick.

Upon arriving in Lagos, the band discovered a country in stark contrast from their visions of paradise. The country was run by a military government, with corruption and disease running rampant. The studio, located on Wharf Road in the suburb of Apapa, was ramshackle and underequipped. The control desk was faulty and there was only one tape machine, a Studer 8-track. The band rented houses near the airport in Ikeja, an hour away from the studio. Paul, Linda and their three children stayed in one while Denny Laine, Geoff Emerick and Wings' two roadies stayed in another.

The band established a routine of recording during the week and playing tourist on the weekends. Paul temporarily joined a country club where he would spend most mornings. The band would be driven to the studio in the early afternoon where recording would last into the late evening and sometimes early morning. To make up for the departed band members, Paul would play drums and lead guitar parts with Denny playing rhythm guitar and Linda adding keyboards.

More incidents would plague Wings' Lagos stay. While out walking one night against advice, Paul and Linda were robbed at knifepoint. The assailants made away with all of their valuables and even stole a bag containing a notebook full of handwritten lyrics and songs, and cassettes containing demos for songs to be recorded. On another occasion, Paul was laying down a vocal track when he began gasping for air. According to Geoff Emerick, Sound Engineer for the album: "Within seconds, [Paul] turned as white as a sheet, explaining to us in a croaking voice that he couldn't catch his breath. We decided to take him outside for some fresh air...[but] once he was exposed to the blazing heat he felt even worse and began keeling over, finally fainting dead away at our feet. Linda began screaming hysterically; she was convinced that he was having a heart attack...The official diagnosis was that he had suffered a bronchial spasm brought on by too much smoking. "

Another incident was the confrontation with local Afrobeat star and political activist Fela Ransome-Kuti who publicly accused the band of being in Africa to exploit and steal African music after their visit to his club. Ransome-Kuti even went to the studio to confront McCartney who played their songs for him proving that they contained no local influence whatsoever. Later on drummer and former Cream member Ginger Baker invited the band to record their entire album at his place, ARC Studio in Ikeja. Though not wanting the invitation, Paul agreed to go there for one day. The song "Picasso's Last Words" was recorded at ARC with Baker contributing a percussive tin of gravel.

Recording of the album was completed by the third week of September and the McCartneys hosted a beach barbecue to celebrate the end of recording. They flew back to England on 23 September 1973 where they were met by fans and journalists. In October, two weeks after the band's return to London, final overdubs and orchestral tracks were added and the album was finished at George Martin's AIR Studios (George Martin was not present).

THE COVER
The cover photo was taken on 28 October 1973 by photographer Clive Arrowsmith against the gable end wall of the stable block in Osterley Park, Hounslow. It depicts the now iconic view of Paul, Linda and Denny plus six other well-known people dressed as convicts caught in the spotlight of a prison searchlight.

They are:

Michael Parkinson (chat-show host and journalist)

Kenny Lynch (actor, comedian and singer)

James Coburn (actor)

Clement Freud (columnist, gourmet, raconteur, Member of Parliament, Just a Minute panellist and grandson of Sigmund)

Christopher Lee (actor)

John Conteh (Liverpool boxer who later became World Light-Heavyweight champion)

ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW
Band on the Run finds Paul McCartney walking a middle ground between autobiographical songwriting and subtle attempts to mythologize his own experience through the creation of a fantasy world of adventure -- perhaps remotely inspired by his having recently written "Live and Let Die." He does it by uniting the myth of the rock star and the outlaw, the original legendary figure on the run.

Up until now, the critical assumption has been that McCartney's lyrics mean little if anything, that he is a mere stylist, playing games with words and sounds. And it is of course possible that the words on Band on the Run don't mean (or weren't intended to mean) as much as I think they do. But I'll take a chance, and say that Band on the Run is an album about the search for freedom and the flight from restrictions on his and Linda's personal happiness. It is about the pursuit of freedom from his past as a Beatle, freedom from the consequences of the drug busts that have kept him from the United States and forced him into thinking of himself as an outlaw (witness the album cover, as well as the title). It is also about two people becoming what they want to be, trying to decide what they want to do, and asking to be accepted for what they are now rather than what they were then.

If the listener were to ignore the music and the skill with which McCartney has developed his theme, the entire enterprise might seem banal. But he holds the record together through the continual intimation that he enjoys the search for freedom more than he might enjoy freedom himself. In the best tradition of outlaw mythology, he makes being on the run sound so damned exciting.

I'm surprised I like Band on the Run so much more than McCartney's other solo albums because, superficially, it doesn't seem so different from them. It's superiority derives from a subtle shifting and rearrangement of elements running through all of his post-Beatles music, a rounding out of ideas that had previously been allowed to stand half-baked, often embarrassingly so. Band on the Run is no collection of song fragments (McCartney, Ram), nor a collection of mediocre and directionless songs (Wild Life, Red Rose Speedway). Band on the Run is a carefully composed, intricately designed personal statement that will make it impossible for anyone to classify Paul McCartney as a mere stylist again.

A lesser talent would have taken the escape concept and perhaps woven a simple story around it. But, consistent with his own past, the songs overlap both in their content and sentiments (some are even reprised), the album forming a unit without ever becoming too schematic, literal, overbearing or overtly accessible.

On Band on the Run, there are two separate searches going on: McCartney's for himself and the listener's for McCartney. The title song begins soberly, its narrator in jail, his music depressed. Both he and the album explode at the moment of his escape, the new found exhilaration suggesting that there could have been no such pleasure without the preceding pain and that while McCartney prefers the former to the latter, he has learned how to cope with both.

From the moment of escape, everything on the album eventually evokes the notion of flight. "Jet," a superb piece of music with an obscure lyric about the McCartneys' dog, suggests an overwhelming desire not only to get away but to get away to someone. It ends up a love song, a tribute to both a person and a state of mind, propelled forward by a grand performance.

"Helen Wheels" (which wasn't supposed to be on the album) is about the McCartneys' Land Rover and is another travel song, more upbeat, and feeding the fantasy of a rock band looking for action. Even on a simple love song, "Bluebird," we find the narrator "...flying through your door" to take his lover away, "...as we head across the sea/And at last we will be free."

"Mrs. Vandebilt," which evidences some of Paul's healthy propensity for playfulness and nonsense, is vaguely about the outlaw's need for a haven, in this case the fantasy world of carefree jungle life (presumably inspired by their recording the LP in Lagos, Nigeria). In an album that contains a number of subtle and sometimes (perhaps) unintended comments on the Beatles, his innocent questions, "What's the use of worrying?/What's the use of hurrying?/What's the use of anything?" might be construed as a comment on Harrison and Lennon's continued high-mindedness and overbearing seriousness.

In point of fact, Band on the Run is closer to the Beatles' style than Ringo, which, though it utilized all the members of the group, is more Richard Perry than Ringo Starr. McCartney's emphasis on amplified acoustic guitars, double-tracked vocals, and a generally thin sound in the middle range, places much of the LP in the Hard Days' Night-Beatles VI mold. Despite the presence of pure McCartney elements (the lovely strings, so well done by Tony Visconti, the elaborate percussion so superior to Ram's) references to the Beatles make an important contribution to the album's mythic undercurrents.

"Mrs. Vandebilt" fools with McCartney's own excesses of style from Ram, sounding vaguely like (although far superior to) my least favorite of his records, "Monkberry Moon Delight." "Mamunia," a lovely song about accepting nature as unalterable, begins with a guitar intro suspiciously like Harrison's on "Give Me Love," though all similarity ends when the vocal begins.

But there is no mistaking McCartney's intention on "Let Me Roll It." A parody of and tribute to John Lennon's Plastic Ono style, he re-creates it with such precision, inspiration, enthusiasm and good humor that I am hard pressed to remember whether Lennon has recorded even a handful of songs that better it, McCartney goes all the way: a perfect vocal imitation, duplication of the Lennon-Spector production style, use of Lennon's lead guitar punctuations and the simple arrangement (complete with tacky Farfisa organ). "Let Me Roll It" is McCartney joyfully asserting that he can play his former partner's music as well as Lennon can, at the same time that it stands on its own as a perfectly satisfying piece of work.

"Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" is the album's most personally revealing and one of its most moving songs. Dylan mythologizes cowboys; McCartney idealizes artists. But his celebration of Picasso's life at the moment of his death quickly turns into a fantasy about his own death. He asks only that his woman sing the same words to him that he sings for Picasso: "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more." His approach to death is remarkably good humored and a segue into "Jet" now suggests an even more grandiose escape than the one from jail.

Perhaps McCartney can face death with humor because, as the hilarious rock & roll of "1985" suggests, he plans to stick around for some time. It would have been easy to end Band on the Run with the cut's happy projection of the future, but McCartney doesn't take the easy way out this time around. At the exciting conclusion of "1985," he segues into a short reprise of the title cut, a move suggesting once again that he isn't really sure that he wants to give up the search and the fight. They have become ends in themselves, part of his life, part of the mythology he has built up around himself, part of the fantasy he helped to create about the life of rock stars.

The album's abrupt and surprising ending suggests that the McCartneys are afraid they may find what they are looking for only to discover that it, too, fails to satisfy them. Thus they end with only one commitment: to remain a band on the run. That decision has resulted in (with the possible exception of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band) the finest record yet released by any of the four musicians who were once called the Beatles.
~ Jon Landau (January 31, 1974)

TRACKS:
All songs written and composed by Paul and Linda McCartney, except "No Words" by Paul McCartney and Denny Laine.
Side one
1. "Band on the Run" - 5:10
2. "Jet" - 4:06
3. "Bluebird" - 3:22
4. "Mrs Vandebilt" - 4:38
5. "Let Me Roll It" - 4:47

Side two
1. "Mamunia" - 4:50
2. "No Words" - 2:33
3. "Helen Wheels" (US and international only; not UK) - 3:34
4. "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" - 5:50
5. "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" - 5:27

25th Anniversary Edition (1999 re-release)
Band on the Run: 25th Anniversary Edition is a special extended edition of the album, which was released in 1999.

Released to coincide exactly twenty-five years after the album began to take off in March 1974 after a slow start, the package includes an extra disc of live renditions of songs throughout the years, as well as brief new renditions by McCartney. Spoken testimonials are also included from such luminaries as McCartney himself, late wife Linda (to whom this retrospective release is dedicated), Denny Laine, Dustin Hoffman (the inspiration behind "Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)"), and some of the celebrity faces on the cover, namely Christopher Lee and James Coburn who was in Britain at the time filming The Internecine Project.

For this one occasion, McCartney released the package according to the original US release, with "Helen Wheels" in the line-up. It was left out of most editions of Band on the Run.

2010 Re-release
The album was re-released by Hear Music/Concord Music Group on 2 November 2010 as the first release in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. It was released in multiple formats:

A single CD featuring the original UK version of the album

A 2-CD/1-DVD Special Edition which includes a CD and a DVD of bonus material in addition to the original album

A 2-CD/2-DVD Special Edition sold only at Best Buy which includes a CD and two DVDs of bonus material in addition to the original album

A 3-CD/1-DVD Deluxe Edition which has the aforementioned material as well as an audio documentary originally produced for the album's 25th Anniversary release. It comes with a 120-page hardbound containing photos by Linda McCartney and Clive Arrowsmith, a history of the album and additional material

A 2-Disc Vinyl Edition containing the same audio material as the Special Edition

High Resolution 24bit 96 kHz with no dynamic range compression limited and unlimited audio versions of all 18 songs on the remastered album and bonus audio disc.

[Gina Marie]

12-12-12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07dRmnYjK9Q

[Gina Marie]

HOME! WATCHING MACCA ON SNL!!!!

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/13765/20121217/paul-mccartney-snl-wonderful-christmas-time-video.htm

Video:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/435942

[Gina Marie]

[Gina Marie]

[Gina Marie]

Christmas Flexi Message - 1964

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EROEbW5TDlw

Christmas Time is Here Again - 1967 (1994 CD Single Remix)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt7O2s4I5yM

[Gina Marie]

ON THIS DATE (42 YEARS AGO)
December 18, 1970 – The Beatles: From Then to You/The Beatles Christmas Record 1970 is released in the UK.

On this date in December 1970, in the wake of the band's break-up, the UK fan-club sent out a compilation LP of all seven recordings (from 1963 – 1969), entitled From Then To You. The master tapes having been mislaid, the LP was mastered from copies of the original flexi discs. In the US, the LP was repackaged as The Beatles' Christmas Album and sent out by the fan-club around springtime 1971. With no new recording, the LP served to remind that the Beatles were no more, but had the advantage of durability over the original flexi discs, and, for the US, it was the first time the 1964 and 1965 messages had been made available.

Each year from 1963 to 1969, the Beatles had recorded a short Christmas message for their fans, composed of carols, skits, jokes, and thanks to the loyal "Beatle People".

Each recording was pressed onto a 7" flexi disc and mailed free to the British members of the Fan Club.

Side 1
1 The Beatles Christmas Record (1963 Flexi)
2 Another Beatles Christmas Record (1964 Flexi)
3 The Beatles Third Christmas Record (1965 Flexi)
4 The Beatles Fourth Christmas Record (1966 Flexi)

Side 2
1 Christmas Time Is Here Again (1967 Flexi)
2 The Beatles 1968 Christmas Record (1968 Flexi)
3 The Beatles Seventh Christmas Record (1969 Flexi)