Live Beatles

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Even The Beatles said there would never be a live album because they couldn't play well among the 17-thousand screaming fans and abysmal stage monitors. Eventually the band learned to play both their instruments and the fans, knowing the slightest smile or rocking head could set off waves of shrieks throughout the crowds. Thanks to a clean up job by producer George Martin, Capitol Records finally believed it has something worth releasing and on May 4, 1977 The Beatles Live at The Hollywood Bowl hit record shops. One side is from The Beatles 1964 show. The other from the '65 show.

Interesting to note that by 1976 The Beatles no longer had any say in what could or could not be released by the record label. So in 1976 we got Rock n Roll Music ( featuring the hit "Got To Get You Into My Life"), this live album and a compilation called Love Songs, both in 1977.

 Robert Christgau ranked the album #12 on his list of 1977 favorites:

A tribute not only to the Beatles (which figured) but to George Martin and Capitol (which didn't necessarily figure at all). The sound rings clearly and powerfully through the shrieking: the segues are brisk and the punch-ins imperceptible; and the songs capture our heroes at their highest. Furthermore, though the musicianship is raw, the arrangements are tighter (faster, actually) than on record . 

The album has been remastered and re-released this year to coincide with the release of the Ron Howard documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week. 

More interesting from a historic perspective is the other live Beatles album, a double record set containing 26 tracks, 13 of which had never appeared before on a Beatles record. They were recorded by a Lancashire butcher named Ted "Kingsize" Taylor who had played with The Dominos,  at The Star Club in Hamburg around the same time The Beatles played. 

The Fab 4--with Pete Best still on drums-- knew about the recording and okayed it that night. Brian Epstein later offered Taylor twenty pounds for the tapes. Listening to the muddy, mono recordings, you can hear the Beatles energetically playing "Lend Me Your Comb", Your Feet's Too Big" and several Chuck Berry covers. It's the Fab Four at their rawest.

40 Year Itch: Beatles Reunion?

   On February 20, 1976 , The Beatles failed to meet a deadline to respond to promoter Bill Sargent's offer to pay them $50 million to reunite. Ringo Starr's lawyer Bruce Grakal told Rolling Stone Ringo didn't reply to the concert guarantee " and I'm sure no one else has. If the four of them ever get together it will be because they want to, not because of dollar offers." Grakal added: "In the three years I've represented Ringo, we've had at least 12 substantial offers. We've not responded to any of them."

  In April, producer Lorne Michaels made a tongue on cheek offer to pay the Beatles $3000 to reunite on Saturday Night Live."You divide it anyway you want. If you want to give Ringo less, that’s up to you. I’d rather not get involved.”

   Little did he know, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were watching the show in New York City that night. As Lennon would reveal in 1980"(we) almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired. … He and I were just sitting there watching the show, and we went, ‘Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if we went down? But we didn’t.”

40 Year Itch : The Dream is Over

    On December 19, 1974 George Harrison and Paul McCartney met in a Plaza Hotel suite in New York City to sign documents formally ending The Beatles. Ringo had already signed the papers in England. Watch below as Harrison chants "krishna krishna krishna" as he gives his signature. 

             


 So, let's see. Who's missing? John of course. Lennon told May Pang "the stars were not right" to attend the meeting. That pissed George off so much he cancelled Lennon's appearance on stage that night. Julian went to the concert though, and even got to go backstage where George sent him home with a message : "All's forgiven, George loves you and he wants you to come to his party tonight."

  After the concert John, Paul and George met at the Hippopotamus Club and "hugged it out".

On December 29, Lennon finally filled out his paperwork, seated inside the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World where he had taken Julian.

Odds and Sods: James Taylor - Knocking 'Round the Zoo (1968)

James Taylor with sister Kate in October 1968

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With the weekly "Odds and Sods" posts, we look at some of rock's oddest songs.


For such a sensitive and brooding singer-songwriter whose lyrics confess to all kinds of melancholy, James Taylor--to his credit-- never sounds like he's whining. Even when it came to his most personal songs.
Known as "Moose" at Milton Academy, a prestigious boarding school, the tall, rail thin 17-year old grew despondent and became suicidal so he checked himself into the McLean Hospital, a mental home in Belmont, MA.

                                                        McLean Hospital today


The brick buildings were the same as at Milton but there were screens (not bars) on the windows and hospital personnel counted up the silverware each night to make sure nobody was concealing a potential weapon.

Just knocking around the zoo on a Thursday afternoon
There's bars on all the windows and they're counting up the spoons
And if I'm feeling edgy there's a chick who's paid to be my slave
But she'll hit me with a needle if she thinks I'm trying to misbehave

Taylor praised his McLean experience in a Time Magazine article:
    "We didn't have that jive nothingness that pushes most kids through high school, " he said. "You can't tell a whole bunch of potential suicides that they must have a high school diploma."

  Nevertheless, Taylor earned his high school diploma at McLean which would become something of a very expensive ( at $30,000/year) tradition. Both brother Livingston and sister Kate also spent some time "knocking 'round the zoo."
The song appears on Taylor's first album, James Taylor,  which was recorded at Trident Studios at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album. In fact both Paul McCartney and George Harrison played on that album's version of "Carolina In My Mind". It was released on The Beatles' Apple Records label.