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Harrison’s Wistful Love Letter to the Apple Scruffs

December 4, 2016 · by solobeatles

In the early ’60s, girls used to stand in line for three hours before the Beatles’ daily Cavern Club shows, sometimes clawing Starr’s future wife, Maureen, out of jealousy. In the late ’60s, when the group no longer played live, therewas a clique of hardcore female fans who would permanently hang around outside Apple Records or Abbey Road Studios, regardless of the weather, in the hopes of getting to chat with the Fabs. They’d come by in the morning for a while, then go to their day jobs, then return in the evening. Collectively, they were known as the Apple Scruffs.

Since McCartney lived in town, they also loitered outside his gates. “She Came in through the Bathroom Window” from ABBEY ROAD talks about when they snuck into his house and swiped some pants, which they all traded off wearing. They also took a photo, but gave that back when McCartney asked.

The Beatles also invited two of them (Lizzie Bravo and Gayleen Pease) to sing backing vocals on the first version of “Across the Universe.” The song was given to the World WildlifeFund charity and is now on PAST MASTERS, VOL 2. One night, McCartney sang his new song “Blackbird” to them from his window.

During the early “Longest Cocktail Party” days of Apple, before all the Beatles grew to hate the legal turmoil brought on by their own label, Harrison and publicist Derek Taylor considered doing a musical about the place, at which point Harrison started composing Apple-related tunes. One of them, “Not Guilty,” would be rejected for THE WHITE ALBUM and resurface eleven years later on GEORGE HARRISON. Another was “Apple Scruffs,” which he finished for his first solo album.

While he was once sang “Don’t Bother Me” to his fans, in the early days of going solo he seemed to be trying to shore up his base with this wistful love letter. Perhaps he sensed that he’d never again experience such unwavering devotion.

Harrison’s evocative lyrics describe the Apple Scruffs waiting on the steps in the fog and the rain with flowers in their hands. His wavering voice momentarily veers toward good-natured exasperation, but the Dylanesque harmonica makes the overriding mood one of nostalgia for days already fading.

McCartney’s Coolest B-Side? “Oh Woman, Oh Why”

October 31, 2016 · by solobeatles

The rock snobs of 1971 were underwhelmed by the cute and seemingly non-tortured “Another Day,” but had they listened to the flipside they would have realized that the son of Little Richard was still in possession of his shredding rock-and roll vocal range. McCartney slips back into the mode of “I’m Down,” “Oh! Darling,” and the climax of “Hey Jude,” while the slide guitar sounds like he’s riffing off the country blues on the second side of LED ZEPPELIN III, released a month or two before McCartney recorded this song. Macca was always trying to keep pace with the guitar virtuosos; after seeing Jimi Hendrix, he wrote the guitar for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” “Helter Skelter” was his attempt to outdo The Who’s live sonic assault.

Basically, “Oh Woman” is “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” with lyrics and a full band backing him. McCartney would dig the song’s drummer, Denny Seiwell, enough to bring him into Wings later in 1971.

In the song, McCartney’s woman shows up with a gun to shoot him down. He pleads with her to tell him what he’s done wrong and it’s his cheating ways. Perhaps it’s a flashback to the time in 1968 his pre-Linda girlfriend Jane Asher came home to London earlier than expected. The fans who hung around outside McCartney’s house saw her arriving and tried to warn McCartney, who was inside with girlfriend number two, Francie Schwartz. He scoffed, “Ah, pull the other one” — but suddenly Jane was standing there glowering.

The main attraction of the song is McCartney’s voice, a freak of nature every bit as powerful and rough as Kurt Cobain’s or any who have come down the pike since. This song should be played for people who associate McCartney solely with soft pop like “The Girl Is Mine.”

For a long time it was unavailable but this May it was included on the deluxe version of RAM, along with another great non-album B-side “Little Woman Love.” Other Grade A ’70s flipsides are still not on iTunes, including “Sally G” and “Girls’ School,” but presumably this will be gradually rectified when McCartney releases the remastered versions of albums like VENUS AND MARS and LONDON TOWN.

Ringo realizes a dream by recording a country album with Nashville legends.

July 12, 2016 · by solobeatles

Today “Beaucoups of Blues” (1970) stands as one of his finest moments. Click the link below to check out the story:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/book-excerpt-ringo-starr-realizes-a-dream-with-his-1970-country-album-20120818

“End of the Line” — Homages to Orbison & Eras Gone By

July 10, 2016 · by solobeatles

Beatlemania ignited in March 1963 during the group’s second British package tour. The headliners were Chris Montez and Tommy Roe from the U.S., enjoying hits with “Let’s Dance” and “Sheila,” respectively. The Beatles were clearly surpassing them, but the American poor sports refused to give up the final spot of the show, saying they’d quit instead.

But in May and June, when the Beatles toured with one of their idols, Roy Orbison, he was cool with switching the order. Orbison was a founding father of rock from the Sun Records label, home to Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. The boys loved him for his operatic voice and because he wrote his own stuff, like fellow pioneers Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. The previous September, Lennon had penned their first British No. 1, “Please Please Me,” as homage to Orbison.

Twenty-five years later, the friendship led to Orbison’s membership in The Traveling Wilburys. That same year, Orbison released his Jeff Lynne-produced comeback album Mystery Girl and returned to the record charts with “You Got It,” his final hit before he died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988.

When it came time to make the video for the Wilburys’ second single from their album Volume 1, “End of the Line,” Orbison had already passed away, so the group plays the song on a train with a rocking chair reserved for him, empty save for his guitar. When his quavering, ghostly vocals come up, the lights flicker and the video cuts to his picture in a frame. The rest of the group listens meditatively, two icons from the ‘60s (Harrison and Dylan) and two worthy successors from the ‘70s (Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne) honoring a ‘50s master who blazed the trail for them all.

Harrison’s intro for the song recalls the extended intro of “I’m Looking Through You” on the American edition of Rubber Soul, and the video itself recalls the scene on the train in A Hard Day’s Night when the boys played “I Should Have Known Better” to Pattie Boyd and her friends.

The laid-back but persistent drums mirror the rhythm of a train that never stops even as one era’s innovations turn to the next era’s golden brown retro revival. The sepia tinge of the video underscores the passage of time and evokes the Western mythos that inspired the band’s name.

Perhaps even more than “Handle With Care,” “End of the Line” captures the friendship that infused the Wilburys project. Petty sings the verses and the others take turns on the chorus, except for Dylan. It’s a treat to see Dylan relaxed, happy to take the back seat and let his batteries recharge before his mid-‘90s career-reviving third act, just smiling at George like John and Paul did in their TV performances back in 1964-65.

Panthers and Politics

July 8, 2016 · by solobeatles

Between 1971 and 1972, Lennon, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan all released songs of solidarity with the Black Panthers. McCartney had already released his hymn to the civil rights movement on The White Album with “Blackbird.”

In November 1971, Dylan released his as a non-album single called “George Jackson.” In 1972, Lennon and Ono released “Angela,” their ode to Black Panther Angela Davis on their Some Time in New York City album, and the Rolling Stones sang their tribute to her, “Sweet Black Angel,” on Exile on Main Street.

(More text after the clips …)

George Jackson was a Black Panther leader imprisoned at San Quentin. His 17-year old brother Jonathan sometimes worked as a bodyguard for Angela Davis, a professor at UCLA who was fired by then-governor Ronald Reagan because she was a Black Panther and Communist.

On August 5, 1970, Davis bought three shotguns, registered in her name. Two days later Jonathan Jackson burst into a courtroom and took a judge, the Deputy D.A., and three jurors hostage in order to negotiate the release of his brother George. Jonathan was assisted by San Quentin prisoners who were about to stand trial or appear as witnesses.

The plan was to go to a radio station, demand the release of his brother and his two associates, and alert the public to the racist, deadly conditions of the prison. But the police opened fire on their getaway van. Jonathan Jackson, two of the prisoners, and the judge were killed. One of the prisoners and one of the jurors were injured, and the Deputy D.A. was shot in the back and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

On August 21, George Jackson was slipped a gun in prison. He took a number of guards hostages and told them to open the cells. Six guards were killed and found in his cell. Jackson escaped to the yard but was shot dead by corrections officers. On September 9, his death inspired 1,000 prisoners in the Attica Correctional Facility to riot and take 33 hostages. Eventually the authorities agreed to 28 of their demands.

Angela Davis was arrested and the “Free Angela Davis” campaign asked Lennon to contribute to her cause, so Lennon refashioned a song with which he’d been tinkering. It had started out orginally as “JJ,” about a lady who “couldn’t get laid at all,” then morphed into a peace song named “People.” With Yoko Ono he molded it to suit Black Panther Angela’s story, calling her a political prisoner in an era before Amnesty International would popularize the term.

They praise her as a teacher and try to comfort her with the idea that the love and hope of freedom fighters is a wind that never stops moving around the world, albeit slowly. Even though Davis is behind bars, her brothers and sisters are breathing together with her and soon she will be returned to them. (The themes of wind and breathing show this to be predominantly Ono-written lyrics.) When Lennon and Ono sing that the world watches her, they quote the famous phrase civil rights marchers would chant when Southern racists would attack them with clubs, hoses, or guard dogs. When TV cameramen captured the images of the racists’ assaults, their brutality was exposed to millions of viewers and turned the tide of public opinion against the Southern segregationists.

Phil Spector’s strings and Elephant’s Memory paint a suitably strong mid-tempo backdrop. The highlight is a sumptuous organ that sounds akin to Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work,” also from 1972. Ono’s voice duets nicely with Lennon. Her vibrato is a touch ostentatious but it is one of her nicest vocal performances on a Lennon album.

The Stones’ Angela Davis tribute, “Sweet Black Angel” from Exile on Main Street has the edge, however — assuming one isn’t offended by Jagger’s imitation of a stereotypical black sharecropper circa 1933. You have to read the lyrics on the internet to understand what he’s saying, which makes the song more accessible by making it basically meaningless to the 99% of the listeners who, 40 forty years later, have no idea who Angela Davis is. The fact that they released it as the b-side to “Tumbling Dice” also shows they were confident they’d captured a unique, earthy country-blues groove.

There is another poignant aspect to “Angela” for Lennon fans when he and Ono mourn with Davis that “They” shot down her man — never suspecting what the future would hold.

“Best of the Solo Beatles” Boxed Set

July 6, 2016 · by solobeatles

People have asked what an anthology of the Fabs’ greatest hits since 1970 would include so below is my proposed track listing. I tried to emulate the chart-topping 1973 Beatles collection 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, commonly referred to as The Red Album and The Blue Album, with 54 songs total.

The Solo Beatles had 56 Top 10 hits, and a four-record anthology could have been compiled with just those songs, but there were some classics that didn’t make it that high on the chart (Lennon’s “Mind Games” and “Stand By Me,” for example) so the overview was expanded to three volumes.

Some songs below were included in this list because they were hits but I did not profile them in the book because I didn’t think they were the artists’ best, and the book is about the “essential” songs. (Songs not in the book are indicated with an asterisk.) Still, realistically a solo Beatle retrospective would have to include Paul’s collaborations with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder … and probably even “Wonderful Christmastime.”

Looking over the list, it’s interesting to see how many of their finest songs are not included, as they were deep album cuts not released as singles … I guess that’s a compilation for another day!

1969-1974 (The Yellow Album)

Side One

1. Give Peace A Chance
2. Instant Karma
3. Maybe I’m Amazed
4. My Sweet Lord
5. What is Life
6. Another Day
7. Power To The People

Side Two

1. It Don’t Come Easy
2. Imagine
3. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
4. Hi Hi Hi
5. Back Off Boogaloo
6. My Love
7. Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Side Three

1. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
2. Live And Let Die
3. Mind Games
4. Helen Wheels
5. You’re Sixteen
6. Jet
7. Photograph

Side Four

1. Band On The Run
2. Whatever Gets You Thru the Night
3. Oh My My
4. Junior’s Farm
5. Dark Horse
6. Only You
7. #9 Dream

1975-1983 (The Green Album)

Side One

1. Listen to What the Man Said
2. The No No Song *
3. Venus And Mars/Rock Show *
4. Stand By Me
5. Silly Love Songs
6. You *
7. Snookeroo

Side Two

1. Let ‘Em In
2. Crackerbox Palace *
3. Mull Of Kintyre
4. With a Little Luck
5. Blow Away
6. Wonderful Christmastime *
7. Rockestra *

Side Three

1. Goodnight Tonight *
2. (Just Like) Starting Over
3. Coming Up
4. Woman
5. Waterfalls *
6. Beautiful Boy
7. Watching the Wheels

Side Four

1. All Those Years Ago
2. Take It Away
3. Ebony And Ivory *
4. The Girl Is Mine *
5. Say Say Say *
6. In My Car
7. Pipes Of Peace *

1984-2005 (“The Indigo Album”)

Side One

1. Nobody Told Me
2. No More Lonely Nights
3. Borrowed Time
4. We All Stand Together *
5. I’m Stepping Out
6. I Don’t Want to Do It
7. Once Upon a Long Ago *

Side Two

1. Got My Mind Set On You
2. My Brave Face
3. When We Was Fab
4. This One *
5. Handle With Care
6. Put It There
7. End of the Line

Side Three

1. Weight of the World
2. Hope of Deliverance
3. Free as a Bird
4. Real Love
5. Young Boy
6. Beautiful Night
7. Flaming Pie

Side Four

1. No Other Baby
2. From a Lover To a Friend
3. Any Road
4. Jenny Wren
5. Never Without You
6. Fine Line
7. Liverpool 8

* Not profiled in the book

John and Paul Reunion 1974

July 4, 2016 · by solobeatles

In 1974 Lennon produced Harry Nilsson’s album Pussy Cats in Los Angeles. With Nilsson’s gift for gorgeous melodies and his peerless voice, there was speculation that he could be a new McCartney for Lennon; probably Nilsson hoped so himself.

But McCartney had been a fan of Nilsson’s for years, as well, so he and Linda dropped by the Pussy Cats sessions at Burbank Studios the same night Stevie Wonder was there. Wonder was currently in the midst of a streak of chart-topping classics following his 1972 tour with the Rolling Stones.

One could have heard a pin drop when McCartney walked in, as the Beatles’ break up had been famously acrimonious. Finally, Lennon said, “Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?”

McCartney replied, “Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume?” referring to the roles they performed in a 1963 Christmas stage show. They shook hands and soon started jamming.

Lennon sang lead and played guitar, McCartney drummed and sang harmony, Wonder sang and played electric piano, Linda played the organ, Lennon’s girlfriend May Pang the tambourine, Nilsson sang, Jesse Ed Davis played guitar, producer Ed Freeman played bass and Bobby Keys played sax. They jammed some blues, then covered “Lucille,” “Sleep Walk,” “Stand By Me,” “Cupid,” “Chain Gang” and “Take This Hammer.”

It should have been a classic moment, but it was past midnight and everyone was coked out. On the famous bootleg, A Toot and a Snore, Lennon says to Wonder, “You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It’s goin’ round.” A couple tunes later Lennon is looking for some more coke while repeatedly complaining about the technical difficulties he’s having with his mike and headphones.

On one hand it’s sad that the last known recording of McCartney and Lennon should be so lackluster. But on the other hand, it’s nice to hear that they were friendly again. The “Lucille” cover is almost passable, on par with some of the more coherent “Get Back” outtakes.

The Mournful Glory of McCartney’s “Wanderlust”

April 14, 2016 · by solobeatles

The stately piano and Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble give “Wanderlust” perhaps the finest sense of grandeur of any McCartney composition, which is why it was one of the newer songs he performed in his 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street (with Ringo on drums). The weariness in his vocals seems to carry the tragedy of Lennon’s recent murder.

So it is first almost disappointing to learn that lyrically it recounts the story of his near bust for pot during the recording of 1978’s London Town on the yachts in the Virgin Islands. US customs raided them and gave them a stern warning about the consequences of holding weed. The captain of the yachts then told McCartney he was not going to stand for drugs on his boats and a bad argument ensued. Seriously irritated, McCartney wanted to find another boat, and some other people in the dock said he could use their catamaran, called “Wanderlust.” Since then, the name became associated with freedom in McCartney’s mind.

A much worse experience occurred in January 1980. When Wings landed in Tokyo, security quickly discovered a 219-gram/7.7 ounce bag of pot in McCartney’s luggage. They immediately escorted him to jail and cancelled the sold out shows. There has been some dispute over the years whether it was he or Linda who packed the suitcase so blatantly, either because they were stoned or because they assumed they were untouchable. The bust carried a mandatory sentence of 5 years, and it was a scary week for Macca in prison as Japanese politicians called for his trial. He was living the opening section of “Band on the Run” for real. After nine days, Japan wanted to avoid an international incident and allowed him to return to Scotland.

As McCartney laments being harassed for what to him seems a petty crime, one can feel the stress of all his cumulative pot busts and the emotional toll it must have taken on him. In the big picture, it reflects how the counterculture’s dependence on drugs became their Achilles’ heel. From The News of the World colluding with Scotland Yard to imprison the Stones for drugs in 1967, to the Beatles’ busts, to Abbie Hoffman hiding underground for years after a coke bust, governments used drugs as an excuse to jail anyone who didn’t get with their program.

The Beatles once planned to escape the Blue Meanie cops by buying their own Greek island, one of the fantasies of 1967’s Summer of Love that never came to fruition. But you can hear the same yearning to escape in McCartney’s sad “Wanderlust” refrain. Ten years later the Band on the Run is still running because they preferred to smoke instead of drink.

Lennon’s Most Underrated Love Song? Mind Games’ “Out the Blue”

August 9, 2015 · by solobeatles

In June 1973 Yoko Ono told Lennon she wanted a separation right before the sessions for the Mind Games album began began. Lennon didn’t want to believe they were through, and many Mind Games songs were tributes and apologies to Ono: “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry),” “You Are Here,” and the best of them, “Out the Blue.”

In one of his finest arranging jobs, he keeps the song continually interesting through the gradual introduction of each element: first just guitar, then piano/steel guitar/bass/and drums, then Beatles-esque backing harmonies. His impassioned vocal becomes a touch rawer, then leads into a fiery piano solo. With each piece making its own entrance, the listener can appreciate the new color it adds to the whole more clearly than if they had all been playing together right from the beginning.

Lennon fiercely pins his survival on Ono, singing that he was born just to get to her. A reformed chauvinist, he thanks both the Lord and Lady that he survived long enough to marry her. He sings that she came to him like a UFO out of the blue and cast out the blue that had been depressing him with the romance that rocked their world. A UFO is an apt metaphor, for it’s hard to think of any other woman who could have been more surprising to find on Lennon’s arm than Ono back in 1968. One has to give him points for originality. Lennon himself was an alien to much of the conventional world, so naturally he adored someone who had a similar power to confound the small-minded.

Lennon uses all his power to express how much Ono means to him to sway her to stay. The song comes close to being a standard that could serve as the traditional first dance in a wedding, though Lennon’s intensity and offbeat lyrics are too much for that context.

Ono still said it was over and thus Lennon headed out to Los Angeles for the epic bender that was his Lost Weekend. In the cover he designed for Mind Games, a very small Lennon walks away from a mountain that is Ono’s profile, as if she’s lying in a sarcophagus. But in 1975 Ono would take him back.

Ringo Rocks Out With Elton In “Snookeroo”

July 17, 2015 · by solobeatles

One of the 1970s stars who came closest to reaching Beatles heights was Elton John, and he worked with both Lennon and Starr in 1974. For Starr’s album Goodnight Vienna, Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin contributed “Snookeroo.”

John kicks things off with “Crocodile Rock”–style piano and Taupin sketches a song based on Starr’s upbringing in a working-class town in the North of England. It includes the same eye for detail that made John’s other working class portrait, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” stand out lyrically as well as musically. The Band’s Robbie Robertson delivers on guitar, tasty horns lean in, gospel-sounding ladies back the Ringed One at the mike, and it’s an anthem for poor Andy Capps-turned-millionaire-playboys everywhere. It made it to number three in the United States as a double Aside with “The No No Song.”

Snooker is a British version of pool with a bigger table and smaller pockets. Basically, Starr sings about being a lazy, no-good guy who hangs out playing pool and refuses to work normal hours while his dad gets drunk and his sister gets a reputation.

He sings that he needs a factory girl who will cook for him and turn him loose at night, which is what he had in Maureen, though she would be the last factory girl with whom he’d bunker down. Technically, she wasn’t a factory girl; rather, she left school at fourteen to become a hairdresser trainee. Before Starr knew this drummer thing was going to sustain, his plan had always been to get his own hair salon, so they must’ve bonded over hair. Maureen was born in 1946 and a regular at the Cavern Club at age fifteen. Starr married her in February 1965 after she became pregnant with the first of their three children.

The lyrics talk about how the family’s four-room house is condemned. In 2005, the Liverpool City Council decided they would knock down Starr’s birth home at 9 Madryn Street—but after an outcry, it announced the building would be taken apart brick by brick and preserved elsewhere.

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