40 year anniversary of "Beatlemania"

[Mike Blakesley]

Just a heads-up to Beatles fans: on Monday, Feb. 9, on the Late Show with Dave Letterman, they will be playing a clip of the Beatles doing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the Ed Sullivan Show. Supposedly the clip rarely airs in its entirety.

For non-Letterman junkies, it should be noted that he does his show from the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is where the Beatles made their US splash in '64.

I have never been a HUGE Beatles fan -- more of a casual fan -- but there's no denying they altered the course of history in more ways than one.

 

[seashorepiano]

Normally I protest the Beatles, but then I look over my CTi inventory and embarrasedly walk away... Tamba 4, Freddie Hubbard, SM & Brasil 66...

but I still take pride in the fact that I have no original Beatles recording!

 

[Dave]

Normally I protest the Beatles, but then I look over my CTi inventory and embarrasedly walk away... Tamba 4, Freddie Hubbard, SM & Brasil 66...

but I still take pride in the fact that I have no original Beatles recording!

Ummm...Someone Start a Seperate Thread Here...on FAVORITE Beatles Tunes on A&M!

I seem to favor REMAKES of their stuff, myself! To where I thought Roger Nichols And The Small Circle Of Friends' versions of "I'll Be Back" and "With A Little Help From My Friends" were superior to the originals.

And I like the way The Sandpipers did almost enough versions of Beatles' songs to fill at least an album side. The other album side could be filled with the "Brasilian-ized" remakes of The Beatles Catalog by Sergio Mendes.

And don't forget how highly Herb Alpert & Julius Wechter must have thought of The Fab Four to do their stuff. And Claudine? Chris Montez?

Dave

...now, what?

 

[W.B.]

Then there was Joe Cocker who first made a splash with his slowed-down, 6/8 time rendition of "With A Little Help From My Friends," and little over a year later had a minor hit with "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window." (Full disclosure: This poster had provided the label for the latter single -- from Columbia in Pitman, NJ, natch' -- as shown on page 171 of Bruce Spizer's book from last year, The Beatles on Apple Records. If I hadn't, someone might've sent a scan of a Monarch pressing thereof.)

And of course, who could forget the Carpenters' first A&M single? The one which I have yet to see a Columbia (as opposed to Monarch) pressing of? (And they also covered the Fab Four's follow-up single, "Help," on their Close To You LP.)

But as for Beatles' LP's and singles: I'm more preferential towards the original pressings from Capitol's Scranton, PA pressing plant (the one with the "IAM" in a triangle stamped onto the wax -- that stood for the International Association of Machinists whose employees worked at that plant), and/or those pressings with label copy artwork from Keystone Printed Specialties of Scranton (as opposed to Bert-Co of Los Angeles, who did label copy on the West Coast). Moreover, in many cases I prefer the mono single mixes of those released as singles (i.e. "Please Please Me," "Help," "Yellow Submarine," "Strawberry Fields Forever").

 

[Mr Bill]

WB, your mention of "IAM" stamped in the runoff wax reminds me the trend (especially in the punk/new wave era of the late 70s/early 80's) to etch silly statement or meaningless diatribes there.

So two things for this thread:

One: WB, do you know what it means when "A Porky Prime Cut" is etched in the runoff and...

Two: For everyone, what's your favorite slogan seen in the run off?

For me it's from The Cramps' Psychedelic Jungle (I.R.S. SP70016) where it is etched, "Elvis was murdered." I've heard that on some pressings the other side carries "Humpty Dumpty was pushed."

--Mr Bill
trying to figure a way to scan some of these...
and realizing he should split this off into its own topic thread...

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Just a heads-up to Beatles fans: on Monday, Feb. 9, on the Late Show with Dave Letterman, they will be playing a clip of the Beatles doing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the Ed Sullivan Show. Supposedly the clip rarely airs in its entirety

I believe there's a DVD set out that has all of the entire Sullivan shows that the Beatles appeared on. If I remember right, it's a 2-disc set with 4 total shows.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Yup, it is available at Amazon:

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

A couple of years ago I put a bunch of A&M (and related) Beatles tunes onto a CD for our "Breakfast With The Beatles" host. It included these tracks:

Claudine Longet
[1] Here There and Everywhere
[2] When I'm Sixty-Four
[3] Good Day Sunshine
[4] Something
[5] Golden Slumbers

Bossa Rio(on Blue Thumb Records)
[6] Eleanor Rigby
[7] Blackbird

Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66
[8] Daytripper
[9] With A Little Help From My Friends
[10] Fool On The Hill
[11] Norwegian Wood

Roger Nichols & The Small
Circle Of Friends
[12] With A Little Help From My Friends
[13] I'll Be Back

Sandpipers
[14] Yesterday (Ayer)
[15] Michelle
[16] And I Love Her (Y La Quiero)
[17] All My Loving

Carpenters
[18] Ticket To Ride
[19] Help!
[20] Nowhere Man

Chris Montez
[21] Yesterday

Julius Wechter & The Baja Marimba Band
[22] She's Leaving Home
[23] Here There And Everywhere
[24] Eleanor Rigby

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
[25] All My Loving
[26] With A Little Help From My Friends
[27] Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

I think there might be more, but this seemed like a good start.

Harry
NP: Corrs, "Long And Winding Road"

 

[W.B.]

WB, do you know what it means when "A Porky Prime Cut" is etched in the runoff?

Unfortunately, I don't have the record in question, so I couldn't tell you. However, I do have a copy of John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" single (Geffen GEF49604), in which the phrase 'One World, One People' was etched onto the runoff; and of course, on 1970-era Phil Spector-produced or co-produced Apple singles and albums mastered by Sam Feldman (sf) at New York's Bell Sound Studios, there was the etching of 'Phil + Ronnie.'

 

[Dave]

WB, your mention of "IAM" stamped in the runoff wax reminds me the trend (especially in the punk/new wave era of the late 70s/early 80's) to etch silly statement or meaningless diatribes there.

So two things for this thread:

One: WB, do you know what it means when "A Porky Prime Cut" is etched in the runoff and...

Two: For everyone, what's your favorite slogan seen in the run off?

For me it's from The Cramps' Psychedelic Jungle (I.R.S. SP70016) where it is etched, "Elvis was murdered." I've heard that on some pressings the other side carries "Humpty Dumpty was pushed."

--Mr Bill
trying to figure a way to scan some of these...
and realizing he should split this off into its own topic thread...

Yes, I've seen HE WHO HESITATES IS LUNCH and IS IT 6 O' CLOCK, YET? on The Eagles' HOTEL CALIFORNIA and LOVE FROM HANNA LEE on one side of a Heart Album--forgot which side it was on and which LP; I'm sure the other side said "something", too. An Emmitt Rhodes LP has fancy writing in CALIGRAPHY (on both sides) and even sort of a Logo for his "Homemade LP Productions"--forgot which one, but it was one of his Dunhill LP's.

Otherwise, I've only seen stamps where the LP's were mastered at, which occassionally appear on '45's--such as MASTERDISC, STERLING and KENDUN.

Dave

...who had no idea I'd be writing about Record Runoff Groove Etchings after years of looking at them and forgetting what most have said...

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
[25] All My Loving
[26] With A Little Help From My Friends
[27] Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

I think there might be more, but this seemed like a good start.

There's a couple of more TJB cuts of Beatles tunes: "I'll Be Back" and "Martha My Dear".


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
[25] All My Loving
[26] With A Little Help From My Friends
[27] Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

I think there might be more, but this seemed like a good start.

There's a couple of more TJB cuts of Beatles tunes: "I'll Be Back" and "Martha My Dear".


Capt. Bacardi

Of course! I wonder why I didn't include those? Maybe I ran out of room on the CD-R?

Harry
...who likes "I'll Be Back" in its many forms, online...

 

[Dave]

Oh...and WES MONTGOMERY!!!!! :cat:


Jeez, Oh, Peeezzz!!!! How can we forget about The Late Wes???!!! :cat:

He did

• YESTERDAY
  
  I'LL BE BACK
  
  ELENORE RIGBY
  
  and His "Signature Composition":
  
  A DAY IN THE LIFE

Small List, but certainly worth putting on a "Volume 2 Homemade CD"; you can add Blackbird by Billy Preston and by the obscure vocal group, Punch, who also did that Dynamite Version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps!

Dave

 

[TonyCurrie]

"Porky" was the nickname of a famous British cutting engineer by the name of George Peckham

Others were:

Bilbo - Dennis Blackman
Arun - Arun Chakraverty

 

[PJ]

Well aside from the well known Carpenters Beatles covers on first two albums :

Ticket To Ride
Help

Two other favourite Carpenters Beatles covers are :

Goodnight - 1991 From The Top Box Set - but sadly
deleted from 2002 Essential Collection reissue Box Set

Nowhere Man -2001 As Time Goes By album -due at last for USA
release April 2004....unbelievable vocal from 17 year old Karen
Carpenter

Peter

 

[W.B.]

"Porky" was the nickname of a famous British cutting engineer by the name of George Peckham

Others were:

Bilbo - Dennis Blackman
Arun - Arun Chakraverty

'Arun' - I recall seeing that name on lacquers on both U.S. and British pressings (fancy that!) of Elton John's 1975 single "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." How the U.S. ended up with U.K. lacquers here is anyone's guess, being as MCA's own studios (mostly in California, but some like the "Island Girl" 45 were mastered in New York) at that time cut lacquers for Mr. John's works -- but I once saw a British EMI-cut lacquer of a New World 45 on the RAK label that was pressed in the U.S. (Columbia in New York cut the lacquer on the other side, being as RAK was then distributed in America by CBS).

Capitol, for which The Beatles had recorded, had a few famous names (in the mastering world, that is) on their lacquers from 1973 onwards, to wit (a partial list):

Wly, Wally - Wally Traugott
KP - Ken Perry
JAY - Jay Maynard
Gene (in script) - Gene Thompson (signature reminiscent, I.M.H.O. of that of Joe Brescio of New York's Bell Sound and Master Cutting Room)

They also had an "ML" on their mastering staff whose initials unfortunately escape me. This individual worked at Capitol since at least the 1960's (his initials were typed on a label that was affixed to an acetate for one of The Beatles' LP's), and the ML initials were seen on the lacquers for "Weird Al" Yankovic's recording debut, "My Bologna" b/w "School Cafeteria" which was released on Capitol.

 

[ephemeral daisy]

I believe there's a DVD set out that has all of the entire Sullivan shows that the Beatles appeared on. If I remember right, it's a 2-disc set with 4 total shows.


Capt. Bacardi

That is such a great dvd set. It's even got all of the original commercials intact (minus the tobacco ads). What was really nifty for me was to see how much television has changed over the past 40 years. Ed Sullivan himself is a scream. He mutters, rambles, scowls at guests, wanders in and out of the camera shot, what have you. I don't think they'd ever put him on television today (lack of botox for one thing ) and that is a pity. He was a character all his own.

What's also nifty is to see how many of the other performers are still known today, for whatever reasons. Davy Jones from the Monkees was on that night with the cast of Oliver. And that's not all! There were not just one, but two different future Star Trek villains sharing the bill. The bad guy from The Trouble With Tribbles, Charlie Brill, was part of a comedy act and Frank Gorshin, future A&M recording star extraordinnaire (heh) did a bunch of impressions, too. The down side was that, as one of the performers admitted later, everybody was extremely distracted & their perfomances suffered a little. But still, what fun!