FEATURE:
A Let It Be Holy Trinity
PROMOTIONAL PHOTO CREDITS: Apple Corps Ltd./The Beatles
Looking Ahead to a Very Special Documentary, Book and Album Reissue
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THERE were plans…
to mark the fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles’ final album, Let It Be, last year. The Peter Jackson documentary-film was announced for last year, though that has been pushed back. There will be this bonanza where fans get to experience that album and its recording/legacy in three different ways. I will end with a feature regarding the album reissue and the special editions. The documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, will be released as a three-part documentary series on Disney+ on 25th, 26th and 27th November 2021, with each episode being about two hours in length. The book of the same name will be released on 12th October. Three days later, the Let It Be reissues will be out. It is a big October and November for fans! I wonder why all three were not released on the same day. Maybe it was a chance to spread it out and not throw everything out there at once! I am going to bring in articles about all three releases. The documentary has been the longest in the works. We have known about it for quite a while. Of the three projects, I think this is the one that will reveal the most and provide the greatest exposition and revelation. This article from July tells us what we know about Peter Jackson’s documentary so far:
“It was made with the full co-operation of the band
Both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have sung the film’s praises, while John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, and George Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, have also offered their full support of the project.
It will be the ultimate fly-on-the-wall experience
“It’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together,” Peter Jackson has said. The footage used in Get Back was originally shot for Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary, Let It Be, which captured intimate moments in the studio while the band rehearsed and recorded the songs for what would be their final album. The footage, now revisited by Jackson in a new light, is the only material of note that documents The Beatles at work in the studio.
It will feature the famous rooftop performance in its entirety
On January 30, 1969, The Beatles played a surprise performance on the roof of their Savile Row studio. Though footage of the live set has been well documented over the years, it has never been shown in its entirety. Jackson’s film will include the entire 42-minute performance.
Ringo recently shared his recollections of that iconic performance with Variety: “We’d decided to play together, as a live band. And we did think of other venues, and then we thought, ‘Wait, let’s just go up on the roof.’ And Michael shot that stuff on the roof really great, with a lot of cameras.” While the original film showed roughly 20 minutes of the performance, Ringo shared that he was thrilled to see the set in its entirety, adding “it’s great.”
Jackson used digital technology in combination with archival footage
Jackson explained in the same interview that they adopted technology from the film They Shall Not Grow Old to balance the film’s color palette, but little else was changed. It left the director feeling envious of fashion during that era. “All we’ve done is use the technology we developed for the WW I film ‘They Shall Not Grow Old,’ taking all this old First World War footage and restoring it. We haven’t tried to push the primary colors of the clothing up or anything. We’ve done no tricks like that. We’ve just balanced the skin tones, and the colors that you see, I’m assuming, are the colors that were there on the day. I mean, it does make you jealous of the 1960s, because the clothing is so fantastic.”
‘Get Back’ is a celebration
In the introduction to his interview with Peter Jackson in GQ, journalist Dylan Jones outlined how the new film is less of a bummer than the original. “‘The Beatles: Get Back’ is another step on the long and winding road to enhanced immortality, as the films show The Beatles at the very top of their game and not deteriorating, as they appeared to be in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s ‘Let It Be.’ The Beatles’ very last film was a massive downer when it was released in 1970 and it has remained a downer ever since.” In short, Get Back is a celebration.
The band’s true relationship is revealed
While Lindsay-Hogg’s feature film offered an in-depth look at The Beatles’ sessions, it also revealed some of the tense moments in the studio. In many ways, it documents a band on the verge of a break-up. Get Back, in contrast, looks at the footage as a whole, and paints a very different picture of the band’s time together. In a recent interview on The Howard Stern Show, Paul McCartney said, “We’re obviously having fun together. You can see we respect each other and we’re making music together, and it’s a joy to see it unfold.”
Meanwhile, in a statement, Ringo recalled, “There was hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music… There was a lot of joy, and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were.”
Speaking to Variety, Ringo added that the original film, “focused only on the one down moment…Everybody knows my position. I thought the downer was much bigger than the rest of it (in Let It Be). I was there. There was lots of fun… I said, ‘I know there’s lots of humor there.’”
“The reality is very different to the myth,” Jackson confirmed in a press release. “After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it’s simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there’s moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been associated with”.
Although the publication date for The Beatles: Get Back has been pushed back from the date announced on The Beatles’ official website, it is available to pre-order now. This is something many fans will want to own on 12th October:
“Callaway Arts & Entertainment and Apple Corps Ltd. are pleased to announce plans for the global publication on August 31, 2021 of THE BEATLES: GET BACK, the first official standalone book to be released by The Beatles since international bestseller The Beatles Anthology. Beautifully designed and produced, the 240-page hardcover tells the story of The Beatles’ creation of their 1970 album, Let It Be, in their own words.
Presenting transcribed conversations drawn from over 120 recorded hours of the band’s studio sessions with hundreds of previously unpublished images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney, THE BEATLES: GET BACK also includes a foreword written by Peter Jackson and an introduction by Hanif Kureishi.
The book’s texts are edited by John Harris from original conversations between John, Paul, George and Ringo spanning three weeks of recording, culminating in The Beatles’ historic final rooftop concert. THE BEATLES: GET BACK will be a special and essential companion to director Peter Jackson’s “THE BEATLES: GET BACK” feature documentary film, set for theatrical release on August 27, 2021.
This intimate, riveting book invites us to travel back in time to January 1969, the beginning of The Beatles’ last year as a band. The BEATLES (‘The White Album’) is still at number one in the charts, but the ever-prolific foursome regroup in London for a new project, initially titled Get Back.
Over 21 days, first at Twickenham Film Studios and then at their own brand-new Apple Studios, with cameras and tape recorders documenting every day’s work, the band rehearse a huge number of songs, new and old, in preparation for what proves to be their final concert, which famously takes place on the rooftop of their own Apple Corps office building, bringing central London to a halt.
Legend now has it that these sessions were a grim time for a band falling apart, but, as acclaimed novelist Hanif Kureishi writes in his introduction to THE BEATLES: GET BACK, “In fact this was a productive time for them, when they created some of their best work. And it is here that we have the privilege of witnessing their early drafts, the mistakes, the drift and digressions, the boredom, the excitement, joyous jamming and sudden breakthroughs that led to the work we now know and admire.”
These sessions, which generated the Let It Be album and film released in May 1970, represent the only time in The Beatles’ career that they were filmed at such length while in the studio creating music. Simultaneously, they were exclusively photographed and their conversations recorded.
THE BEATLES: GET BACK is the band’s own definitive book documenting those sessions. It brings together enthralling transcripts of their candid conversations, edited by leading music writer John Harris, with hundreds of extraordinary images, most of them unpublished. The majority of the photographs are by two photographers who had special access to their sessions—Ethan A. Russell and Linda Eastman (who married Paul McCartney two months later).
Peter Jackson’s documentary film will reexamine the sessions using over 55 hours of unreleased original 16-millimetre footage filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969, now restored, and 120 hours of mostly unheard audio recordings. This sumptuous book also features many unseen high-resolution film frames from the same restored footage”.
A few weeks back, we heard about the reissues of Let It Be. So far, there have been anniversary reissues for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017), The Beatles (2018) and Abbey Road (2019), to mark fifty years of these classics. I was not sure whether there would be any for Let It Be. The Beatles’ website explains more:
“London – August 26, 2021 – This fall, The Beatles invite everyone everywhere to get back to the chart-topping 1970 album, Let It Be, with a range of beautifully presented Special Edition packages to be released worldwide on October 15 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe.
Three tracks from the newly remixed and expanded edition make their digital release debuts with today’s preorder launch: “Let It Be” (2021 Stereo Mix), “Don’t Let Me Down” (first rooftop performance), and “For You Blue” (Get Back LP Mix).
Pre-order / Pre-save The Beatles’ Let It Be Special Edition
Stream “Let It Be” (2021 Stereo Mix)
Stream “Don’t Let Me Down” (first rooftop performance)
Stream “For You Blue” (Get Back LP Mix)
The Let It Be album has been newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo, 5.1 surround DTS, and Dolby Atmos. The album’s sweeping new Special Edition follows the universally acclaimed remixed and expanded anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017), The BEATLES (‘White Album’) (2018), and Abbey Road (2019).
All the new Let It Be releases feature the new stereo mix of the album as guided by the original “reproduced for disc” version by Phil Spector and sourced directly from the original session and rooftop performance eight-track tapes. The physical and digital Super Deluxe collections also feature 27 previously unreleased session recordings, a four-track Let It Be EP, and the never before released 14-track Get Back stereo LP mix compiled by engineer Glyn Johns in May 1969.
On January 2, 1969, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr kickstarted the new year together on a cavernous soundstage at Twickenham Film Studios in London. The Beatles jumped into rehearsals for a project envisioned to get them back to where they once belonged: onstage. For 21 days, cameras and tape recorders documented almost every moment: first at Twickenham and then at The Beatles’ own Apple Studio, where Billy Preston joined them on keyboards. Together they rehearsed brand new originals and jammed on older songs, all captured live and unvarnished.
On January 30, the cameras and recorders were rolling as The Beatles, with Preston, staged what was to be their final concert on the chilly rooftop of their Savile Row Apple Corps headquarters before a small assembly of family and friends, and any others who were within wind-carried range of their amps. The midday performance brought London’s West End to a halt as necks craned skyward from the streets and the windows of neighboring buildings were flung open for better vantage. A flurry of noise complaints drew police officers to the rooftop, shutting the concert down after 42 minutes.
Work to compile an album to be called “Get Back” was carried out in April and May by Glyn Johns, who, for his version, included false starts, banter between songs, early takes rather than later, more polished performances, and even “I’ve Got A Feeling” falling apart with John explaining, “I cocked it up trying to get loud.” The Beatles, however, decided to shelve the project’s copious tapes, film reels, and photos, in order to record and release their LP masterpiece, Abbey Road. Drawn from the tapes made in January 1969, plus some sessions which preceded and followed those recordings, The Beatles’ final album, Let It Be, was eventually issued on May 8, 1970 (May 18 in the U.S.) to accompany the release of the Let It Be film.
The sessions that brought about the Let It Be album and film represent the only time in The Beatles’ career that they were documented at such great length while creating music in the studio. More than 60 hours of unreleased film footage, more than 150 hours of unreleased audio recordings, and hundreds of unpublished photographs have been newly explored and meticulously restored for three complementary and definitive Beatles releases this fall: a feast for the senses spanning the entire archival treasure. The new Let It Be Special Edition is joined by “The Beatles: Get Back”, the hotly-anticipated documentary series directed by three-time Oscar®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, and a beautiful new hardcover book also titled The Beatles: Get Back. The raw sources explored for the new projects have revealed that a more joyous, benevolent spirit imbued the sessions than was conveyed in the 1970 Let It Be film’s 80 minutes.
“I had always thought the original film Let It Be was pretty sad as it dealt with the break-up of our band, but the new film shows the camaraderie and love the four of us had between us,” writes Paul McCartney in his foreword for the Let It Be Special Edition book. “It also shows the wonderful times we had together, and combined with the newly remastered Let It Be album, stands as a powerful reminder of this time. It’s how I want to remember The Beatles.”
Let It Be Special Edition: Super Deluxe Editions
5CD + 1Blu-ray (album’s new stereo mix in hi-res 96kHz/24-bit; new 5.1 surround DTS and Dolby Atmos album mixes) with 105-page hardbound book in a 10” by 12” die-cut slipcase
180-gram, half-speed mastered vinyl 4LP + 45rpm 12-inch vinyl EP with 105-page hardbound book in a 12.5” by 12.5” die-cut slipcase
Digital Audio Collection (stereo + album mixes in hi res 96kHz/24-bit / Dolby Atmos)
• Let It Be (new stereo mix of original album): 12 tracks
• Previously unreleased outtakes, studio jams, rehearsals: 27 tracks
• Previously unreleased 1969 Get Back LP mix by Glyn Johns, newly mastered: 14 tracks
• Let It Be EP: 4 tracks
o Glyn Johns’ unreleased 1970 mixes: “Across The Universe” and “I Me Mine”
o Giles Martin & Sam Okell’s new stereo mixes: “Don’t Let Me Down” & “Let It Be” singles
The Super Deluxe CD and vinyl collections’ beautiful book features Paul McCartney’s foreword; an introduction by Giles Martin; a remembrance by Glyn Johns; insightful chapters and detailed track notes by Beatles historian, author, and radio producer Kevin Howlett; and an essay by journalist and author John Harris exploring the sessions’ myths vs. their reality. The book is illustrated, scrapbook style, with rare and previously unpublished photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney, as well as never before published images of handwritten lyrics, session notes, sketches, Beatles correspondence, tape boxes, film frames, and more.
Let It Be Special Edition: Deluxe Edition
2CD in digipak with a 40-page booklet abridged from the Super Deluxe book
• Let It Be (new stereo mix of original album): 12 tracks
• Previously unreleased outtakes, studio jams, rehearsals: 13 tracks
• Previously unreleased 1970 mix for “Across The Universe”
Let It Be Special Edition: Standard
1CD in digipak (new stereo mix of original album)
Digital (album’s new mixes in stereo + hi res 96kHz/24-bit / Dolby Atmos)
180-gram half-speed mastered 1LP vinyl (new stereo mix of original album)
Limited Edition picture disc 1LP vinyl illustrated with the album art (new stereo mix of original album)
Making The Album
When The Beatles arrived at Twickenham in January 1969, their self-titled album (AKA ‘The White Album’) was still topping charts around the world following its November 1968 release. They had an ambitious plan in mind for a project that would include a stage performance for a “TV spectacular” and a live album. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was hired to direct the concert and document the rehearsals with unfettered “fly-on-the-wall” filming and mono audio recording on two camera-linked Nagra reel-to-reel tape machines. Ethan A. Russell was brought in for exclusive all-access photography. Beatles producer George Martin and engineer Glyn Johns supervised the sound. Johns remembers, “Paul told me he had this idea to do a live concert and he wanted me to engineer it, because I had a reasonably good track record of making live albums.” Impressed by the band’s day-to-day progress with their slate of new songs, Martin later recalled, “It was a great idea, which I thought was well worth working on. A live album of new material. Most people who did a live album would be rehashing old stuff.” After 10 days on the soundstage, The Beatles and the film crew later moved to the band’s more intimate and cosy Apple Studio. There, Johns manned the controls of borrowed equipment from The Beatles’ old stomping ground, Abbey Road Studios, to record on eight-track tape. Billy Preston was invited to play keyboards with the band at Apple, lifting the sessions with his boundless talent and buoyant bonhomie.
In April 1969, The Beatles rush-released their worldwide number one single “Get Back”/“Don’t Let Me Down”. Promoted as “The Beatles as nature intended” and “as live as can be, in this electronic age,” both sides of the disc were credited to “The Beatles with Billy Preston”. “The greatest surprise was when the record came out,” Preston remembered in 2002. “They didn’t tell me they were going to put my name on it! The guys were really kind to me.” The “Let It Be” single produced by George Martin, released March 6, 1970, is different from the album version “reproduced” by Phil Spector. Exemplifying Spector’s signature Wall of Sound production style on the Let It Be album is his orchestral overdub on “The Long and Winding Road”, which became The Beatles’ 20th U.S. number one single.
Directed by Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “They Shall Not Grow Old”), “The Beatles: Get Back” takes audiences back in time to the band’s intimate recording sessions during a pivotal moment in music history. Because of the wealth of tremendous footage Jackson has reviewed, which he has spent the past three years restoring and editing, “The Beatles: Get Back” will be presented as three separate episodes. Each episode is approximately two hours in length, rolling out over three days, November 25, 26 and 27, 2021, exclusively on Disney+.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan A. Russell/Apple Corps Ltd.
The documentary series showcases the warmth, camaraderie and creative genius that defined the legacy of the iconic foursome, compiled from over 60 hours of unseen footage shot in January 1969 (by Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and more than 150 hours of unheard audio, all of which has been brilliantly restored. Jackson is the only person in 50 years to have been given access to these private film archives. “The Beatles: Get Back” is the story of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as they plan their first live show in over two years, capturing the writing and rehearsing of 14 new songs, originally intended for release on an accompanying live album. The documentary features – for the first time in its entirety – The Beatles’ last live performance as a group, the unforgettable rooftop concert on London’s Savile Row, as well as other songs and classic compositions featured on the band’s final two albums, Abbey Road and Let It Be. The music in the series is also newly mixed by Giles Martin (“Rocketman”) and Sam Okell (“Yesterday”).
Ahead of the series’ debut, Apple Corps Ltd./Callaway Arts & Entertainment will release The Beatles: Get Back book worldwide on October 12. Available in English and nine international language editions, The Beatles: Get Back is the first official standalone book to be released by The Beatles since international bestseller The Beatles Anthology.
IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1969/PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan Russell and Monte Fresco
Beautifully designed and produced, the 240-page hardcover complements the “Get Back” documentary series and Let It Be Special Edition with transcriptions of many of The Beatles’ recorded conversations from the three weeks of rehearsals and sessions and hundreds of exclusive, never-before-published images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney. The Beatles: Get Back begins with a foreword written by Peter Jackson and an introduction by Hanif Kureishi. The book’s texts are edited by John Harris”.
With the book and album reissue out very soon, that is then followed by the long-awaited documentary in November. I feel it will be a chance for people to learn more about an album that is misunderstood. The assumption that The Beatles were fighting and it was an unbearably tense atmosphere during Let It Be/Get Back. There was, in fact, laughter and plenty of good moments. The book will give us an insight into the recording - and we will get to see some great photos. The album reissues will provide some alternate takes and pieces of the puzzle. Let It Be is one of The Beatles’ worst-reviewed albums. Maybe the reissues will allow us to see the album in a new light. Then the documentary will go deep into the recording process and the reality of the band members’ relationships (and Yoko Ono’s role). One of the lesser-loved albums in the cannon of the greatest band ever, I am glad that we will get three exhaustive and passionate projects. It will be a treat for existing fans of The Beatles. Let us hope that it also…
BRINGS new fans in.