Of Beatles and Hobbit Part 3

Two postings about 'Let It Be', and we've not even gotten to the music yet.  After all, all this other stuff,  Apple Corp and the business side, the movies and old contracts being fulfilled, was just supposed to be vehicles for which the songs, the single most important part of the Beatles output, could be presented to the public. The band was changing recording methods, mostly clearly seen when examining the two box sets that were recently released. 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' was fundamentally the culmination of five years of studio methodology, building perfect layer upon perfect layer, with one exception, 'Strawberry Fields Forever.'

'The White Album' is done in a radically different manner, For one thing, there was a six week sabbatical in the foothills of the Himalayans that let the three songwriters woodshed. There are also the Esher demos, the only time that the group ever sat down and worked out their songs beforehand on acoustic to such a finished degree and quantity. For all the diversity and seeming randomness of the double album, 19 of the 30 songs were demoed, as well as eight alternates. On that album, the Beatles actually did their homework for once, particularly John Lennon.

By contrast, there are no demos of the material for 'Let It Be' that I know of, not that I've heard every Beatleg ever released. In fact, there are only two demos that I have heard post-'White Album', both by George Harrison, of 'Something' and 'Old Brown Shoe'. Having to work harder to get his material included, George needed to present his material to the band to get approval. In fact, on the last album recorded, 'Abbey Road', it is the dark horse Harrison whose two compositions dominate the album. For once, George has the best two songs, his high water mark in the group.

Lennon came into the January sessions distracted by his new life with Yoko, with little new material. There were only two and a half new songs. 'Don't Let Me Down' is a great piece, but in the end didn't even make it on to the Spector version of the album. 'Dig a Pony' is thick and heavy, perhaps the most stereotypical of where John's sound was going, at least on the rockers. 'I've Got a Feeling' is nice, a last ditch effort from Lennon and McCartney to combine song fragments. There is a short film of John playing 'Everybody Had a Hard Year' on acoustic guitar in the fingerpicking style he learned in India from Donovan floating around on the web.

McCartney came in to the sessions loaded for bear. He had at least seven songs ready to go, and by now he had the arrangements in his head. George Martin wasn't around much anymore to do that, and Glyn Johns tended to let bands figure it out themselves, more intent on capturing the outcome. Paul seemed pushy because he was, prodding the band to pay attention. During this period, he was dominating the band, both commercially and musically.

The session were a mess. The original idea was to take 'The White Album' theme of getting back to being a real band and going even further by putting a time limit on producing an album. This go round, they would include little snippets of between-take jams and a few oldies into the mix. When the band told George Martin, their long-time producer, that they wanted a new producer, Martin gladly stepped aside. He even took Glyn Johns out to lunch in a gesture of friendship. Martin wanted nothing to do with the hours of writing songs in the studio, then days spent trying to get an arrangement together.

The Beatles had been a rusty band in 1968, as proven on the three CDs of sessions on the 'White Album'  box set. By 1969, after three months apart, they were in worse shape. Nobody wanted to deal with the hours of meandering jams. Glyn Johns did the job that he was hired for, producing both the singles 'Get Back' and 'Let It Be' (for which he did not get credit) and at least three versions of the 'Let It Be' album following the band's original wished. His material is tough and more immediate than Martin's work, devoid of studio ornamentation.

Glyn Johns' first version was actually done before the sessions were even finished, on January 30, 1969. Nobody did anything with it, so he took another crack at the material in March, cutting out two improvised songs and including some of the rooftop concert. Again, he was met by complete apathy. By this time, the band had started on 'Abbey Road', having abandoned the idea of being seen in such a raw state. George Martin was back in control, and the Beatles were back doing what they did better than anyone else; presenting the world with finished, polished masters.

If you want to hear a close proximity to what the original mix sounded like, listen to the 'Let It Be... Naked' album from 2003. Not getting credit as the producer wasn't too unusual or any great slight to Glyn Johns at the time. He was one of the best engineers in England, having worked with the Kinks, the Who, and in particular the Rolling Stones, as well as Traffic and early Steve Miller Band albums. His greatest achievement up to that point may have been the first Led Zeppelin album, a sonic masterpiece.

In the British recording industry, it took a long time to move up from engineer to producer. After all, he was being asked to work with the biggest group on the planet at that time, a great honor. He got a great sound, either in Twickingham film studio, in the basement of Apple, where Magic Alex's studio was found to be a complete fraud and mobile equipment needed to be brought in, or on the rooftop. For all its faults, the sessions do sound exactly like the Beatles as a band playing together, and they worked hard to get about a dozen new songs into shape.

Even after the 'Abbey Roads' sessions were finished, George Martin went in and tried to get an album out of the material. His attempt wasn't that different from Glyn John's, just a little more polished. It too was rejected. By now Allen Klein was on board, and Phil Spector was waiting in the wings. When Lennon and Ono met Spector in an English studio, they suggested that he polish the tapes. 'Let It Be', with new overdubs in January 1970 oversaw by Glyn Johns, had just been released as a single.

On the surface, this seems like a stroke of genius. The 'Tycoon of Teen', as dubbed by Tom Wolfe in a famous article, had been the first superstar producer in rock & roll history. His work, primarily with girl groups, was famous for his 'Wall of Sound'. 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' was positively symphonic. There were only two problems; Phil had become a hermit for the last three years after the failure of 'River Deep, Mountain High' by Ike & Tina Turner, and his production techniques were completely wrong for this type of fly-on-the-wall sound.

Spector's last appearance anywhere had been as a coke dealer in the opening sequence of 'Easy Rider', done as a favor to Dennis Hopper. That should give you a good idea of what state he was in. The last three years had been lived in self-imposed isolation, paranoid and increasing erratic. Read Ronnie Spector's harrowing account of these years in 'Be My Baby'. It's not a pleasant read.

The material of the 'Get Back session was a mixed bag, and there was a big steaming pile of it. McCartney came up with the majority, including three guaranteed number one hits, 'Get Back', 'Let It Be' and 'The Long & Winding Road'. John was deep into heroin addiction and his infatuation with Yoko, who had just miscarried their first baby six weeks before the sessions. Spector dug up an old outtake and sprinkled fairy dust on it, 'Across the Universe', as well as including a jam dominated by Lennon, 'Dig It'. The band even dug up an old outtake from 1963, One After 909', to get John more involved in the project.

Harrison had every reason to be pissed. Writing material every bit their equal, there was an unwritten rule that he only got one song per side. At least Paul was interested in trying out both 'Isn't It a Pity' and 'All Things Must Pass'. Lennon couldn't be bothered. The two George songs that did make the album were both relative throwaways, pleasant enough but minor. Had he been allowed more room, John's shortcomings wouldn't have been an issue.

George also had a real problem with Yoko being in the studio all the time, as well as the ever-present cameras recording everything. His actual quitting the band was done at lunch, away from the rehearsal space, a rare private moment with no film cameras present. The other three tried to carry on for a few days, with John even suggesting Eric Clapton as a replacement. To their credit both Ringo and Paul immediately vetoed the idea.

George had been an excellent guitarist in 1962, but by 1969 players like Clapton, Hendrix and Jeff Beck could jam way beyond his skill level. Harrison constructed his parts carefully, not as good at pulling it out of his ass on the spot and improvising. That what was required, especially in the early sessions, made worse by the cameras capturing his every fumbling mistake. Three weeks of rehearsals was a great idea, had they been in private. But Apple needed product to fulfill obligations.

When cobbling together his version of the album, Spector also used a good deal of the material from the Glyn Johns version, only really exerting his influence on three songs. What he did to McCartney's 'The Long & Winding Road' was so hated by Paul that he has gone out of his way to mention it every time the subject comes up. Spector did a relatively better job on 'Across the Universe', a song left over from early 1968 that had already been released on a charity album that fell way under the radar. It's a pretty good song but it never got a decent arrangement by the Beatles, despite three attempts. Spector's version might be the best, according to how much you like the heavy orchestration.

Allen Klein did help the Beatles crank out a lot of material for the market during 1969 and 1970. Combine that with the deluge of solo material over the next two years, this was in retrospect the golden age of the band. But it was also the golden age of lawsuits, with McCartney swimming against the tide to keep Klein from taking control of the band's assets. Eventually, the other members came to the same conclusion by 1973. While the Beatles as a legal entity was officially dissolved on the last day of 1974, it took another three years to completely get rid of ABKCO.

It seems obvious that the Beatles as a band were spinning down. Harrison was finally allowed to emerge from the shadows and have the obvious singles on 'Abbey Road' because McCartney didn't really present any new tunes to the band for that album. In fact, over half of the songs that album had been tried out on either 'The White Album' and 'Let It Be'. For once, Paul didn't show up with a ton of material. He largely receded into the background, adding great supporting instrumentation and vocals.

I'm confident that, if the box set of  'Abbey Road' does come out, it will show that there was nothing left for that hypothetical next Beatles album. When John started going solo, both Paul and George naturally started hording material for their own careers. In fact, all three writing members used leftover Beatles songs extensively over their first few albums. Even Ringo, after doing an album of oldies with lush George Martin production, produced his best single at this time with help from George Harrision, even if he didn't release it for a year.

What broke up the Beatles was business, Apple Corp to be more specific. Brian Epstein created it, but he wasn't around long enough to turn it into a sensibly profitable business. The lunatics wound up owning the asylum, running it right into the grown. John Lennon might have sung about being a 'working class hero', but he behaved like the upper class twit of the year, running around with Yoko trying to make every moment a work of art and a statement. While he did come up with some of his greatest material for 'The White Album', on both 'Let It Be and 'Abbey Road', he was running on creative fumes. Even his hit 'Come Together' was later subject of a lawsuit by Chuck Berry.

It was inevitable that someone like Allen Klein would come along, promising to straighten things out for the band. To a large degree he did; Apple still exists, one of the most powerful entities in the music world. But it was Neil Aspinall who wound up running it for 35 years after Klein was removed. None of the Beatles, not even Paul McCartney, were emotionally mature and ready to assume the corporate mantle, nor would the other let that happen. The weight was too heavy. The friendships, along with the band, had to go.

Other acts like the Rolling Stones continued after the close bonds between creative partnerships dissolved. The Beatles had been too utopian in their dream to be like that. 'Let It Be' is such a grim document because we can see the outside pressures invading the one sacred place the band had, the recording studio. Money issues, interpersonal relationships, new lives and interests, and trying a new approach to recording did not mix well with constant surveillance by film crews. It went up in flames right before our eyes, even if the rooftop concert seemed to provide closure.

In actual fact, the band had to go back the next day to preserve for film three songs that they couldn't perform on the roof. All were McCartney compositions; 'Let It Be', 'The Long & Winding Road' and 'Two of Us'. On all three someone else had to play the bass part. That was seen as too much by John and George, made even worse by the fact that two were obviously hits. McCartney had taken over control of the band, at least it's commercial direction. Lennon, instead of competing to gain back control, found it easier to destroy the Beatle legacy in search of his own creative path.

In short, John Lennon started believing his own press clippings. He wanted to be a spokesperson for his generation. While bringing Yoko in as a full partner was an important step towards woman's equality, most of their activities today appear as a futile crusade, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza charging at windmills. His own ego was not only bigger than Jesus now, it was bigger than the Beatles. That spelled the end of the greatest group of the 1960s.