If you subscribe to The New World (formerly The New European) you'll know they've just ranked and reviewed (what they attest to be) the definitive Top 10 music bios. No surprise that 20% of the list comprises Beatles tomes (or maybe we should be surprised that it's not more).
Although not a bio as such, I've just read Man on the Run which is essentially the tale of what Macca got up to in the 70s - with Wings and various solo efforts (and, not least, sorting out the Beatles' legal shit that was he was still carrying around like a ball & chain; that's the other ball & chain btw, not the keyboard player in Wings). It made for compelling reading and confirmed why I still have conflicting views about this most unreadable of all the former Fabs; he gives away what he wants to give away and no more. I wouldn't want to play Poker with him, that's for sure.
My latest playlist, coincidentally, is Beatles related. It goes by the moniker Very Clean and therein you'll find all sorts of curios. I particularly like the Stan Kenton big band version of Live and Let Die; whilst at the same time I'm absolutely bowled over by Robin Nolan's tender and melancholic interpretation of All Things Must Pass. I met Robin in Amsterdam 25 years ago and have dipped in and out of his gypsy jazz career ever since. His latest album 'For The Love of George' is pretty self explanatory and I can't recommend it highly enough.
The Beatles could never be accused of letting the grass grow beneath their feet; their sixth album was recorded in a four week window during October and November 1965 (less than three years since Please Please Me - their 1st.) and was released on 3 December. Talk about In Like Flynn. Rubber Soul's cover photograph was shot by Robert Freeman on 23 October in Lennon's back garden in Weybridge. It was also, you may or may not know, their first long player not to bear the group's name on the front.
Some albums just shout colours at me and this is one of them. The colour swatch above not only picks out the colours in Freeman's candid photo but also, for me (in a primitive, almost synesthetic, kind of way) are also the colours I hear whenever I play the album. I think it's a very autumnal* sounding collection of songs, even the obligatory Ringo track, What Goes On. George, however, steals the show (not for the first time).
The Beatles - If I Needed someone (1965)
*Maybe the next time I listen to RS I should be sitting under a tree as the leaves are starting to fall.
It's London, it's 1968, and a very nervous eighteen year old musician from America is auditioning in front of one half of the Beatles. James Taylor recalls being clinically nervous playing Something in the Way She Moves to Paul McCartney and George Harrison. They must have liked him - they signed him up to Apple there and then. George in particular liked the song, using it as the template for what would become the standout track on Abbey Road. Taylor has always been sanguine when asked about the 'lift'. After all, he'd borrowed flourishes from I Feel Fine in his song. What goes around comes around.
James Taylor - Something in the Way She Moves (1968)
How many people can say they saw George Harrison play live last Saturday night? Yep, I dusted down the DeLorean and got her up to 88mph & was transported back to a time and a place where the Dark Horse played a rather fab greatest hits set - everything from Taxman to When We Was Fab via My Sweet Lord, All Things Must Pass and Something; to mention but a handful.(Though I was miffed Piggies didn't get an outing.)
However, he did play this - and he got his drummer to sing it; naturally. I'd forgotten completely that George had written it - despite the credit on the sleeve.
The way George pronounces care and beware ("take kurr, bewurr") is so enchanting I can't stop smiling every time I hear this. I've written countless times on this blog why young George was, and will always be, the fabbest of the Fabs. And when you watch Get Back and see how frantically John and Paul try and bring him back into the fold after his beautifully choreographed, but short-lived, flounce you realise how much more they needed him than he needed them.
George Harrison - Beware of Darkness (Demo) (1969)
Another day another rock and roll casualty. Olivia Newton John may have been too saccharine for some but, to boys of a certain age growing up in the early 70s, Neutron Bomb was as much a pinup as say Suzi Quatro, Susan Dey or even that model in the Flake commercial; poster girls all. And the fact that she scored her first hit with a George Harrison arrangement of a Bob Dylan tune meant that she could no wrong. I love this song. And you can tell from this clip* she loved singing it. Rest easy, Olivia.
* P.S. 11.8.22 - Apologies, since posting this, Youtube have taken down all the 1971 live footage of ONJ (incl. the one I originally put up) and the audio only versions. Bastards. So I've swapped it for a later versh. Soz.
Nothing lasts forever; I guess it's inevitable. George Harrison probably put it best (he often did) when in 1970 he said, quite simply, All Things Must Pass.
A couple of things this week have knocked me off my perch; although unrelated they both fall into the ATMP category. El Goodo (Lazy welsh psychedelic band - their strap line, not mine) announced on Twitter this week that they were breaking up: 'We're sorry to announce that El Goodo is no more, we're calling it a day. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the past twenty odd years. Adiois Amigos. Hyyl Fawr." To say I'm gutted is an understatement. Although I came to the party late, one of the albums that got me thru LD1 was their immaculate 'Zombie' from last year; chockablock full of glorious toe tapping tunes. As swansongs go it's perfect. Live fast, die hard and leave a good looking corpse; as somebody, not George Harrison, once said.
And then, as if this news wasn't bad enough, another Twitter announcement from the makers of one of my favourite podcasts. We Share These Streets (True tales of everyday folk in bygone Nottingham) dropped this bombshell yesterday: "A quick message to let you all know that episode 20 of We Share These Streets will be the final one one. As we all come out of lockdown and life returns to a sort of normality, we're finding it more challenging to make the time needed to research, write and tell the stories as a regular show. Thank you so much for listening and being part of the community." Again, gutted. These 20 minute vignettes of my hometown have been put together with such love, care and attention they are just perfect. But what can you do? All Things Must Pass. Whether it be Hillman Hunters or typewriters, Ceefax or Spangles, fax machines or white dog poo, honest politicians or Little Chefs - they don't make 'em anymore.
A bit like the threepenny bits I bought on a market stall last Saturday - one from 1938 and another, more shiny, from 1967. I asked the stall holder if he'd shined the later one up. He said no, explaining to me that the nickel content was much greater in '67 - it being the last year they were minted. You live and you learn, as somebody far wiser than me once said.
Did he? Or didn't he? We can talk till the cows come home about how George Harrison accidentally or otherwise plagiarised He's so Fine by the Chiffons, but it won't change the outcome. In 1976 the judge - after years of legal wrangling - found Harrison guilty as charged. Beatle George never saw a dime from his multi-million selling chart topper - ironic as he was the first of the post-Fab Four to land a Number One single on both sides of the Atlantic. So, whether I'm singing the George Harrison original (well, as original as a song with a nicked riff/motif can be), or the version George produced for his mate Billy Preston - before Harrison committed his to tape - My Sweet Lord is the 4h. selection of songs currently pin-balling round my skull 24/7.
Billy Preston: My Sweet Lord (1970)
John Lennon once famously said that whenever he heard My Sweet Lord he was convinced there was a God. Even as a non believer, I think I know where he was coming from.
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord (1970)
And, finally, the elephant in the room. It's hard to believe nobody (not even Phil Spector) told the ex-Beatle he was treading on very thin ice. But, hey, it made for a great rock and roll story.
It was the last album the Beatles recorded together, though not the last album they released (that would be Let it Be). And it's our next Sunday Vinyl Session. I went to see Mark Lewisohn's mesmerising talk last Sunday, so Abbey Road is sitting at the front of my cerebral cortex; where it's been for the last 50 years, pretty much.
It's common knowledge that George Harrison cribbed the lyrics from a Good News chocolate box he saw round at Eric Clapton's gaff one day. Clapton was still doing a lot of heroin at the time and, coming down, allegedly, he'd regularly eat an entire box of chocolates in one sitting. Even the SavoyTruffle.
Probably less well documented is how much of an influence on Harrison an EP put out by Lulu two years before the White Album was. The title track, Chocolate Ice (written by Mike Leander - Gary Glitter's scribe), bears more than a passing resemblance to Harrison's effort. Judge for yourself.
Lulu - Chocolate Ice (1966)
Instead of going with the Fabs, I've decided to play you the Analogues' version. The Analogues play Beatles tunes live. Nothing new there, I hear you say. True, but this bunch of Dutch musicians have taken the reproduction of Beatles music to a whole new level. Recreating every note of an alabum - in sequence - with period instruments (often with strings and horns) and with fastidious attention to detail, they really are the business. When they play Maxwell's Silver Hammer, for instance, they even bring an anvil up on stage. I particularly like the songs that not only the Beatles didn't play live (i.e. everything after '66), but also the ones Macca can't be arsed with when he tours; check out Your Mother Should Know from the Magical Mystery Tour EP. You'll be amazed. Truly amazed.
In 1968 when Walter Matthau paired up with Jack Lemmon in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's stage play The Odd Couple, he was reprising the role he'd played on Broadway in 1965. Matthau was Oscar Madison the upbeat but slovenly sports writer - sharing his apartment with Felix Unger, fellow divorcee, poker school friend, hygiene obsessive and, in today's speak, something of a snowflake. (In the play Felix was originally played by Art Carney.)
Matthau would later relinquish his role, giving way to Jack Klugman (later to star in Quincy), extending the play's run for another year. When the film of the play then transferred to television in 1970 Klugman kept the role of Oscar, with his comedy foil being played by Tony Randall. The show was syndicated coast to coast and pulled in huge viewing figures. It was four times Emmy nominated, ran until 1975 spanning five seasons and 114 episodes.
Here's the opening credits with the perfectly pitched theme (it worked beautifully in the film, so why change it) by Neal Hefti - jazz heavyweight and composer extraordinaire.
It's not generally known, but a vocal version was also recorded at the time of the TV show. The lyrics - by Hefti - are a little on the lame side; which is probably why it doesn't come out to play very often.
Over the years the play has seen a number of revivals both here and in America, not least an all women cast; again, written by Neil Simon. Other productions include a West End run where Victor Spinetti played opposite Klugman, and in 2005 Bill Bailey & Alan Davies played it to packed houses at the Edinburgh Festival. Tantalisingly, in 1997, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal talked about taking a production on the road, but, it never saw the light of day.
A revival that really did happen though was the one that came to London's Haymarket Theatre in 1996. A three month limited run saw Klugman and Randall return to their TV roles one last time, with a support cast that included a veritable Who's Who of British TV: Henry McGee (Benny Hill Show), Rodney Bewes (Likely Lads) and Trevor Bannister (Are You Being Served?) were all household names at the time. I also seem to recall Eric Sykes treading the boards for this one but he's not in the programme - maybe he stepped into an earlier production.
Before the cast take their final curtain call, I'd like to come back to the theme music. Martin Taylor is without doubt the world's greatest living jazz guitarist. What he can't do with six strings and a plank of wood isn't worth knowing. Back in 2000 Taylor included a rather chilled version of the theme on his Kiss and Tell album. I absolutely love it. See what you think...
Those who have served: Walter Matthau (1920-2000) Jack Lemmon (1925-2001) Jack Klugman (1922-2012) Tony Randall (1920-2004) Neil Simon (1927-2018) Neal Hefti (1922-2008) And not forgetting Rodney Bewes(1937-2017): one of the most underrated actors this country has ever produced.
Let there be no doubt: George Harrison was the funniest Beatle. The youngest Beatle. The Darkest Horse. And the Wilbury most travelled.
George was, as I said in my Neil Innes piece, a fervent supporter of, and friend to, the Rutles.
He was also, as this piece of film from 1975 quite clarly shows, the most self deprecating ex-Beatle of them all. Watch the young lad from Wavertree in this archive footage from Rutland Weekend Television as he lampoons not only himself, but his former global Number One single He's So My Lord.
In 1996 Blair’s Britain couldn’t get enough of Britpop. With TFI Friday regularly outgunning News at Ten's viewing figures1, saturation point had yet to be reached and so, what Oasis and Blur had unwittingly started less than two years earlier, was now operating with an open house policy to all and sundry.
But quite how a Fab Four parody troupe who hadn’t been seen since 1979 fitted into the scene was, at first, a little unclear. But fit they did, perfectly.
The Rutles were essentially a ragtag bunch of bewigged men old enough to know better. A post-fab guitar band (in the guise of Neil Innes2– or was it the other way round?) who had openly lifted3 more Beatles riffs, harmonies and melodies than a flock of thieving Noel Gallaghers. Maybe, just (definitely) maybe, this resurgence was down to their mighty Archaeology album in which Innes lovingly tipped his John Lennon cap to the Beatles’ recently released Anthology series. Innes had mined his huge pop sensibility songbook and came up with something far and away greater than a regular tribute to Four Lads From Liverpool Who Shook the World™.
Laid out before us were 16 tunes, each of them a stand alone classic, yet when listened to back to back in, shall we say, the context of a lost Beatles album, then the ensemble piece was staggering. Staggeringly good, staggeringly incisive. Although context is usually everything, Innes proved with Archaeology it isn't always.
At the back end of last year when Neil Innes, via his Twitter feed, agreed to answer a few quick-fire Rutle related questions I jumped at the chance. I kicked off our brief 140 character limited chit-chat with:
When I played them to George H - after 3 or 4 - he said "Hang on, these songs are yours! Don't be shy." So I went ahead...
He went on to tell me that "Questionnaire was the song that persuaded me to go ahead." And what a great song that is - dipping, as it does, in and out of Fool on the Hill, I am the Walrus and Imagine, but never giving up its own identity; unlike the first album where the line between Beatles/Rutles, real/parody was so blurred it all became one.
When I asked Neil if he could condense Archaeology into a 4 track EP4, along with Questionnaire he name-checked Major Happy, Rendezvous and Shangri-La.
Shangri-La is so clever (but not in a smart arse way) in that it turns pastiche on its head. Not long before Archaeology Noel Gallagher had ripped off Innes' How Sweet To Be An Idiot (when Oasis recorded Whatever). Innes couldn't resist dropping that motif straight in at the start. I guess all's fair in love and plagiarism.
It's an "homage". They're not supposed to be Beatle songs but songs about what the Beatles wrote songs about... Love and Life? [Barry is a child - 2 x children]
However, unlike George (a huge supporter of all things Rutle) and, to a lesser extent, John, Paul McCartney never liked the Rutles (no shit Sherlock). He hated them. Indeed because of Macca, Innes spent many an awkward day in the High Court defending both the band and his own songwriting.
He gave me a hug at the cleaned-up "Magical Mystery Tour" screening - not that long ago - but I know he's not happy with the Rutles. I don't think he blames me personally, but he ought to mellow a bit. There was no fat at the BFI...
So treasure Archaeology. And treasure the Rutles. They may not have troubled the charts, or indeed the tabloids, in quite the way that Damon Albarn or the Gallagher brothers did in those heady days of Britpop, but if it's songs you're after (and, at the end of the day, aren't we all?), former Bonzo and Python Neil Innes is definitely worth taking a detour for.
The Rutles are on tour next May/June - "Get Up and Go Again" - Ricky is always drumming with the excellent Bonnie Rait and "Sir Dirk" is flogging his memoirs. After 40 years I'm happy to say it's no longer about the "Trousers" - it's about the songs. One big happy family! x N
1 I may be playing fast and loose with the ratings here. 2 Eric Idle had left the band some years earlier. He couldn't get into his stage pants anymore. 3 Interestingly Innes was accused of stealing Cheese and Onions from the Beatles (it once appeared on a 1980 Fabs bootleg - credited to John Lennon!) It was, in fact, Innes' original demo of his own song. 4 I often condense great works of art into miniature.
...
Postscript 12.5.24
Imagine my horror upon learning that after Neil's death his Twiitter account had been hacked by an illegal crypto currency fuckwit; comedian Dave Gorman flagged it up and basically called it out for what it was. So, if you're wondering why my Twitter interview with Neil looks a bit 'gappy', that's the reason. (I'm kicking myself for not screen grabbing them instead of just leaving the Twitter links.) I may reach out to Mr. Gorman up and ask him to help come and fill the gaps...
Time was when social media consisted of nothing more than a can of spray paint. If you had something to say then all you needed was a wall; or any surface at all, really.
Long before trending and hashtags it was thought by some in London that Eric Clapton's ability to play guitar had transcended that of a mere mortal, and so he was awarded god like status. Seemingly overnight the sort of graffiti pictured above started to appear all over the capital.
Clapton played it down at the time, but it certainly didn't do record or ticket sales any harm.
Eric Clapton - Badge (co-written by George Harrison)
The Web is awash with lists. Some might say saturated. Music websites, and blogs in particular, crave the condensing; the diluting and editing of anything and everything (and anybody) into a Top 10 - usually an artist or band's entire output boiled down to a rag tag bunch of songs that then has the word 'definitive' accredited to them. As if.
And none more so than the Beatles. To be fair they had a couple of stabs at it themselves. Once (A Collection of Beatles Oldies) while they were still kicking a ball, and two more (the Red & Blue double albums) when Macca realised that the revenue from Wings was hardly likely to keep a roof (or roofs, to be more precise) over his head. Then we had Anthology, of course, followed a number of years later by the unimaginative 1, before the joyous Love (take a bow Giles Martin) became, for many, the last word in Greatest Hits: the ultimate Beatles list, the Top 26, if you will.
But what of the Beatles solo material? Sure, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr have all been victims of record company hastily prepared compilations - individually. But nobody has put out the combined Greatest Hit compilationwith all four of them sharing centre stage. Is such an eight-legged monster even capable of walking, let alone running into a record store and jumping up onto the counter?
And, to be fair, as big a Beatles fan as I am (have you seen just how many namechecks they get around here?), even I would doubt the validity of such a piece of nonsense.
Which is precisely why I am more than prepared to commit heresy and offer up before you not a Best Of album, but a Greatest Hits EP - four songs that capture the very being of the post-Beatles recorded output. And that was my only guiding principle - it had to have just four recordings on there; not even one of each. Any four. Any.
It's at this point that it dawns on me, not for the first time, that John Lennon didn't care much for being an ex-Beatle (George even less so). But John really struggled to achieve anywhere near the PB he set himself while he was with the Fab 4. He peaked creatively in 1966 and, with the exception of a couple of White Album pearls (you know the ones I'm talking about), Lennon was pretty much a spent force. And no, Imagine is not the Holy Grail everyone thinks it is: it's crass and it's insensitive. If I ever hear it again it'll be too soon. Lennon, for me, very nearly missed the cut altogether - George was going to have two on there, but thoughts of the subsequent hate mail, and the fact that Working Class Hero probably defines Lennon, means it kicks off proceedings on Side 1, Track 1.
Next up is the biggest slice of glam ever to come out of 1972. And it had some real competition too; Bowie, Sweet, Glitter. Not to mention Bolan whose fingerprints are all over Ringo's Back off Boogaloo. A great way to round Side 1 off with.
Flip our little EP over and you'll be met by George's greatest ever song. Better than Something. Better than that one about his weeping guitar; better, even, than Taxman. When George realised, quite early on, that the Beatles wouldn't even last until the seventies (let alone forever), he began stockpiling lyrics and melodies in his personal song bank. When he came to make a withdrawal in 1971 he had a perfectly formed triple album's worth. A real dark horse, wouldn't you agree? I so very nearly chose the title track, All Things Must Pass, but then came to my senses. I'd Have You Anytime is perfect. It knocks the other three songs on this fantasy project into an old brown shoe.
Macca will be furious he's been left till last. Good. I'd love to tell him that he's not all that. I'd love to tell him that every time I hear him sing Hey Jude I want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles. I'd also like to tell him that how he talks about John Lennon is mean spirited and churlish. Someone once asked 'Is it me, or are the Beatles dying in the wrong order?' I knew what he meant.
So, what's it to be then? What one song written and performed by James Paul McCartney will fade out into the run-off grooves?
Damn you Macca. How the hell did you come to write something so bloody perfect as Maybe I'm Amazed? I've gotta give it to you, it's genius.
So, there you go, four musicians' (well, three and a drummer) entire solo canon reduced to less than a quarter of an hour. Let's clap it in:
The bloke second from the right may well have a Knighthood, but that don't make him the Best
I may not always be the best person to come to for advice (blog posts passim), but I'll always give you a good soundbite; since moving back (just in time - a year later and I'd have ended up like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and finding myself in familiar surroundings and in the company of friends old and new, I can look back at the year just gone and say 'Yeah, I think we smashed it.'
As for resolutions to carry into 2018, anyone who knows me will testify that you've got more chance of kissing the Queen's tits than me coming up with any resolutions, let alone those of a New Year variety. That said, the Great Escape from Pickering and my relocation to Nottingham has been done to death (again, this blog is littered with reams of the stuff) so, after today, we won't speak of it again; the files have been shredded and the numbers deleted from my phone. Literally.
Right, I'm glad we've got that out of the way. So, in keeping with the unwritten Blogger's Code, here's 2017 all wound up and ready to play; no Top Tens of this, that and the other, just one list. Here you go:
Best Album: Pugwash - Silverlake
Best Single: Pugwash - What Are You Like
Best Gig: Ryan McMullan - Rescue Rooms
Best Choir: Sherwood Voices
Best Novel: My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
Best Magazine: Ferment - Adventures in the Global Craft Alcohol Movement
Best person to follow on Twitter: Neville Southall
Best film I went to see on my birthday: North By Northwest
Best TV Programme (Not just of 2017 by the way): Detectorists
Best TV soundtrack: Johnny Flynn (Detectorists)
Best Boxset/Netflix series I've watched this year: Mad Men. By a country mile
And finally, the Best thing I did in 2017: Move On
* Thank you to We Are Cult - always a riveting read - for reminding me earlier this year just how good McCartney II is. Whether or not 'it's the boldest statement a solo Beatle made during Lennon's lifetime' is another thing altogether. (But it makes for a great strap line.)
Macca - Waterfalls
*And that's where today's Blog Post title came from. It could even be your New Year's Resolution.
Despite the fact that his ashes have been floating down the Ganges for the last fifteen years, everyone's favourite Beatle, George Harrison, was on to Trump.
Trump's use of Here Comes the Sun for his political rallies was considered 'grossly offensive' by Harrison's estate, and a cease and desist order was slapped on him faster than you could say Ravi Shankar.
If only the living could stand up to him in the same way.
In January 1969, when George Harrison played Macca his demo of All Thing Must Pass (George was pitching songs for the next album), McCartney pretended he could hear the phone ringing in the next room and practically ran out of the room shouting 'I must get that.'
Suffice it to say that Macca and his group didn't get that; instead, George saved it for his own jaw-dropping triple album of the same name he brought out eighteen months later. Much to McCartney's chagrin.
People who have met Paul McCartney will tell you he's shrewd. Well, let me tell you, he ain't that shrewd.
Gardening in the Rain: an excerpt taken from The Daily Telegraph's website. Stay Dry - Get some wet weather kit. A waterproof hat with a rim allows more movement than a hood. Wellies are fine for most garden duties, but, for carrying heavy items or digging, walking boots offer more protection. For quick dashes it's worth keeping a pair of plastic clogs by the back door.
In her article Liz Dobbs makes no mention of gnome etiquette; we must assume, therefore, that leaving garden gnomes out in all weathers is discretional.
Brian Epstein realised right from the get go he wouldn't transform his boys by sharp suits alone; they needed matching accessories. So, goodbye Ford Anglia, hello E-Type Jag.
