The Beatles Thread

When I look at the quality of George's stuff on the "All Things Must Pass" album it is easy to understand his frustration at being locked out of the track list. Throwing Ringo a bone once in a while was justifiable, but George's work was so good once he got started. I guess you chalk it up to history and inter-band dynamics, but they really little brothered him horribly.

ATMP is a strong contender for Best Solo Album by an ex-Beatle. It's a triple album, and George had already written much of it before the split.

I already love this film so much, but for me there's nothing more important in it than that conversation between John and Paul about George walking out. Their sober agreement that he had good reason, that they had disrespected him and his work, and assessing their responsibility for his quitting the band completely re-writes the accepted history of the break up.

The other image from the film that sticks with me is one that is repeated over and over, George Martin leaning against the doorframe of the control room, patiently/impatiently waiting for the guys to quit goofing around and record something.

After seeing how they worked together there toward the end, Allen Klein and money/power (and perhaps to some degree drugs, as John and Yoko were using heroin by the end) seem to have been the real point of fracture. Add John/George putting Phil Spector in the producer's chair for the "Let It Be" album as released, Spector's usual overproduction (particularly grating on an album that was supposed to be recorded live without overdubs and tape splicing), and John's decision to credit Spector for producing the album, leaving out Glyn Johns and George Martin. This led to Martin's comment "I produced the original, and what you should do is have a credit saying 'Produced by George Martin, over-produced by Phil Spector'." I can see how all of that led to McCartney being bitter and turning his back.

It's such a pity that they didn't find a way to regroup and record again before John's murder made it impossible. “Probably when we’re very old, we’ll all agree with each other. And I think we’ll all sing together.”

 

Excellent take here.

https://variety.com/2021/music/opin...al-rock-documentary-peter-jackson-1235120784/

 

I was surprised at the the depth of the backstory we see about how really the breakup of the Beatles was about George, not John/Paul. And the taped conversation between John and Paul along with the views we see of George while John and Paul ignore (?)/dismiss his ideas is gold. I'm almost through Ep. 2 and can't wait to finish it.

 

There was a lot of John/Paul in it still, and no doubt more than a little Yoko whispering in John's ear as well. Egos, control struggles, power trips as well. What makes this register so hard is that we were fed the story for decades that the Let it Be sessions were angry and mean spirited, particularly between John and Paul, and the film blows that nonsense away.

Based on what's on film, most of the bitterness and bad breakup seems to come after Klein came into the picture and the movie and soundtrack was out.

edit: It's probably worthwhile to look at Klein's wikipedia page. It is easy to see how things flew apart. From there:

"Klein contacted John Lennon after reading his press comment that the Beatles would be "broke in six months" if things continued as they were.[82] On January 26, 1969, he met with Lennon, who retained Klein as his financial representative, and the next day met with the other Beatles. Paul McCartney preferred to be represented by Lee and John Eastman, the father and brother respectively of McCartney's girlfriend Linda, whom he married on March 12. Given a choice between Klein and the Eastmans, George Harrison and Ringo Starr preferred Klein. Following rancorous London meetings with both Eastmans, in April, Klein was appointed as the Beatles' manager on an interim basis, with the Eastmans being appointed as their attorneys. Continued conflict between Klein and the Eastmans made this arrangement unworkable. The Eastmans were dismissed as the Beatles' attorneys, and on May 8 Klein was given a three-year contract as business manager of the Beatles. McCartney refused to sign the contract but was outvoted by the other Beatles.[83][84]"

 

It's mentioned at one point Klein is coming to Apple to meet with the band members, a day or two before the rooftop concert. There's no video or audio tape of the meeting, and no discussion onscreen -- in fact, no more mention of Klein, at all.

I think there are two still pics of Klein in the film; no live footage.

 

Glyn Johns also says something to the effect of "beware of Allen Klein" and is basically ignored. Johns had a long history with the Stones, and they were convinced that Klein was stealing from them by that time.

 

For 50-some years I had considered Billy Preston's contributions to "Get Back"/"Let it Be" to be mainly just ornamental noodling, and his temporary "addition" to the band to be only a minor footnote, but in the new footage, he really takes an active role in song composition and in the studio banter; within a few days, he really seems to be functioning as a fifth band member.
Given the fact that Paul and John both were better than passable keyboardists themselves, George Martin could pitch i with brief semi-classical interludes, and of course they could bring in any session keyboard ace such as Nicky Hopkins any time they felt like it, it didn't seem like an additional keyboardist was really that pressing a need, but at one point Paul and John have a fairly lengthy discussion on the headaches of passing keyboard parts around between the existing members, and the addition of Preston made sense.
Whether it could or would have worked long term, I dunno. Preston was entering a stage of his career where he was writing songs too; adding another writer to the already overstuffed Lennon-McCartney-Harrison battle for space on record releases would have been tough to work out. And if they had returned to any kind of regular performances on stage, Billy stealing the stage show would have quickly become a real issue.
And for that matter, god only knows what the legal/financial aspects of adding another member to the Beatles would have been. Although John and Paul seem supportive in the film footage, it might have been a whole nother deal to see their ownership share of the band being cut from 25 to 20 percent.
I suppose any of these factors might have been the reason the Billy Preston experiment fell by the wayside after the Get Back sessions, and he was not invited back for the Abbey Road sessions which started in June. (My own gut suspicion is that Allen Klein probably kiboshed it -- another band member cutting into the pie would have cut into HIS take.)

 

The list of "fifth Beatles" is fairly lengthy and controversial, and I won't get into that here. But I will say that Billy Preston should have had a better solo chart career if not for his substance abuse.

 

Well, in the time frame of "Get Back," John was coming off heroin (famously detoxing in the spring months of 69), George was coking it up pretty heavy according to the accounts of Patti Boyd, Paul and Ringo were supposedly both toking up like chimneys and drinking like fish.

 

Paul's wife, Nancy, was previously married to my cousin.

SO WE'RE PRACTICALLY FAMILY.

 

Stephen Colbert interviews his friend Peter Jackson about the making of the film here. Some interesting stuff.

Peter Jackson Gives A Detailed Series Of Interviews On The Making Of 'Get Back' On Colbert

 

I saw Billy Preston in 1974 in the Pavillion at Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta. We're talking "Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing", "Outa Space", "I Wrote a Simple Song", that era. Fabulous show, very tight and funky band. Preston himself was a wild man in performance, dancing his ass off, playing and singing, moving like James Brown around his Fender Rhodes. Great, great show. It was also the first time I ever saw an artist do a show while absolutely coked out of his brain, although I didn't realize it at the time.

It was quite obvious to me a few years later what I had seen that night. It was still an absolutely amazing show.