Beatles Tapes Are a Trove, if Familiar
By ALLAN KOZINN/The New York Times
To read the statements made by British and Dutch officials after the arrest
of a group of bootleggers in suburbs of London and Amsterdam on Friday, one
would think that the police had apprehended a band of thieves who for the
last three decades had been sitting on a vast trove of long-lost master tapes
from Beatles recording sessions. There is an element of truth in what they
say, but also a good measure of exaggeration.Whether the seizure of these tapes should be regarded as good news – and for
that matter whether it will have any effect on the thriving trade in Beatles
bootlegs – is another matter.What the police seized was a collection of 500 to 550 reels of tape, each
running about 16 minutes. They were recorded during the sessions for the
Beatles‘ „Let It Be“ album – originally to be called „Get Back“ – from Jan.
2 to Jan. 31, 1969. But they are not the multitrack session masters from
which the album was made.Those are safely in EMI’s archives. Instead, they are monaural recordings
made on a pair of Nagra tape recorders for reference purposes by a film crew
that was documenting the sessions for a proposed television documentary. When
the television plan was scuttled, the film was released theatrically as „Let
It Be.“It is unquestionably an important collection. Unlike normal session tapes,
which usually include only performances, the Nagra reels, as these tapes are
known, run continuously and capture everything: rehearsals, discussions,
arguments, clowning and loose jams on Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry classics as
well as older Beatles tunes and oddities like the theme from „The Third Man,“
all in addition to the nose-to-the-grindstone work of making an album. No
other set of Beatles sessions is so thoroughly documented.These tapes are well known to collectors. Instantly recognizable because the
film crew is regularly heard announcing slate and roll numbers, the material
was the source for some of the first Beatles bootlegs in the early 1970’s.
Until the early 90’s the trend in Beatles bootlegging was to compile
collections of the most interesting performances and discussions. More
recently, bootleg labels began releasing these tapes more systematically:
unedited, in chronological order and with reel numbers and recording dates
fully documented.These tapes have also been the subject of two books: „Get Back: The
Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles‘ `Let It Be‘ Disaster,“ by Doug Sulpy
and Ray Schweighardt (St. Martin’s, 1994), and „The 910’s Guide to the
Beatles‘ Outtakes: The Complete `Get Back‘ Sessions,“ a comprehensive catalog
of the material by Mr. Sulpy (The 910, 2002).As originally proposed, the idea for „Let It Be“ was elegantly simple. Having
completed the White Album a few months earlier, the Beatles were to convene
at the Twickenham film studios in London to rehearse an album’s worth of new
songs. The rehearsals would be filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, an expatriate
American who had directed their promotional clips for „Paperback Writer“ and
„Rain“ in 1966, as would the highlight of the project, a concert at which the
Beatles would perform their new material.What the plan did not take into account were the increasingly fractious
relations among three of the four Beatles. John Lennon, more interested in
his collaborations with Yoko Ono than in the Beatles, wanted either to
involve her in the band or to distance himself from it. He brought a handful
of songs to the sessions, and is heard in a few hilarious monologues
(including one about how masturbation „doesn’t make you go blind, only very
shortsighted“) but is often passive and uninvolved.George Harrison, by then a prolific songwriter, was disgruntled about his
paltry representation on the Beatles‘ albums, which were always dominated by
the music of Lennon and Paul McCartney. He was also uninterested in
performing in concert, and irritated by what he regarded as Mr. McCartney’s
condescension in telling him what to play. At one point Harrison walked out,
effectively (if temporarily) quitting the band, leaving the others to pursue
a series of aggressive but fascinating jams with Ms. Ono vocalizing. Mr.
McCartney is at times almost despondent about his partners‘ lack of interest
and cooperation. Only Ringo Starr seems to be taking the sessions in stride.In the end Harrison returned, but only after being guaranteed that his songs
would receive greater consideration, and that there would be no more talk of
a concert. The project was completed with a series of performances filmed at
the group’s new Apple studios, and on the rooftop of their London offices.What makes these tapes crucial to Beatles biographers and musicians
interested in studying the band’s working process is that they capture it
all. The rehearsals often begin with one of the Beatles playing a new song
while calling out the chord progression to the others. The group joins in and
works through the changes, and ideas for arrangements slowly accrue. Some
songs – „Two of Us,“ „One After 909“ and „Get Back,“ for example – are tried
as everything from sizzling, fast-tempo rockers to country-influenced
ballads.The process of lyric writing unfolds before the listener’s ears as well. In
one session for „Get Back,“ Mr. McCartney stops during a run-through and
says, „I’ve got it – Jo Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona.“ Lennon asks,
„Is Tucson in Arizona?“ Mr. McCartney replies, „Yeah, it’s where they make
`High Chaparral.‘ “There is also a good deal of material that, even for the Beatles-obsessed,
can be hard slogging – hours and hours and hours of „The Long and Winding
Road,“ for example. And the discussions, which often last several reels at a
stretch, range from the amusingly loopy to the contentious. Several are about
the proposed concert. Among the plans suggested are playing in an
amphitheater in North Africa, or on a cruise ship on the Mediterranean. When
Harrison quits, Mr. Lindsay-Hogg suggests going on with the show and saying
that Harrison is ill, to which Lennon replies, „If he’s not back by Tuesday,
we’ll call Eric Clapton.“ One reel captures a lunch meeting at which the
group airs its problems in some detail.Had these illuminating tapes not already found their way onto the collectors‘
market, their seizure would be unfortunate, because it is unlikely that
Apple, the Beatles‘ company, will ever sanction their legitimate release.
Apple has even tried to stifle scholarly discussion of them. When Mr. Sulpy
and Mr. Schweighardt were at work on their first book, they naïvely sent
Apple a sample chapter and sought permission to hear the studio recordings.
Apple responded by threatening legal action.Copyright 2003 The New York Times
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