Infos and tracklist
"Prior to the early 1980's, it was pure hearsay amongst Beatles aficionados as to what was inside the EMI vaults pertaining to the group's residency at Abbey Road and other studios from 1962 until 1970. Also, very little was known about actual recording dates of their album and singles. Most of the information that was available to fans came from contemporary reports in UK music magazines such as "New Musical Express" or "Melody Maker", or fan mags like "Beatles Monthly". This info, some correct, some not, was then regurgitated in many of the earlier Beatles books, such as Roy Carr and Tony Tyler's "An Illustrated Record" or Harry Castleman and Wally Podrazik's "All Together Now".
All of this uncertainty was to change beginning in 1981. That year, an engineer at Abbey Road named John Barrett found he had cancer, and was looking for a way to occupy his time while undergoing treatment. Ken Townsend, the manager of the studios at the time, thought that finally going through the vaults and seeing exactly was and was not there with regards to the Beatles' many recording sessions would be an excellent task for the ailing engineer.
Throughout 1982, Barrett was also compiling audio material for a Beatles multi-media show that would take place in the famed Abbey Road Studio 2 while it was being refurbished in the summer of 1983. While this cataloging and assemblage for "The Beatles At Abbey Road" (as the show was to be imaginatively titled) was occurring, Barrett was running cassette dubs of some of the more interesting material for his own use. Some of the material was mixed as he was running his tapes, while some tracks where the original mixes done at the time of the recording sessions. Barrett knew what he was doing; he dubbed off lengendary tracks such as "Leave My Kitten Alone", which had never been issued, as well as the more interesting alternate takes in the vaults like "Norwegian Wood" take one. Also, many of the tracks he dubbed where stereo mixes of titles that at the time hadn't seen the light of day in stereo, or had seen limited release, such as "This Boy"."
Shown at Abbey Road Video Show between July 18, 1983-September 11, 1983
Part 1 Part 2
1 comment:
Good post.
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