A lyrical portrait of one of London’s most peculiar tourist attractions – a humble pedestrian crossing in St John’s Wood. But this isn’t any ordinary piece of street furniture, a 10 minute photo session back in the summer of 1969 saw to that. A couple of weeks after Neil Armstrong took his giant leap, the Beatles took a few short steps across Abbey Road and the rest is history. Roughly timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first recording session at Abbey Road Studios, this quirky short film explores a tiny part of London that is, in the words of narrator Roger McGough, suffused with a sort of magic.
‘Best Super Short’ – NYC Independent Film Festival… ‘Best Documentary’ – UK Film Festival
It’s undoubtedly one of the greatest guitar performances of all time: the late Allen Collins ripping through the monster-sized solo from Lynryrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’. And you thought it was hard to play on Guitar Hero…
2. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat It’
Here’s Eddie Van Halen solo-ing on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’. Steve Lukather of Toto playing the iconic riff, also available isolated on YouTube – just one reason why Gibson Guitar Corporation named him among the top 10 session guitarists of all time.
3. The Stone Roses – ‘Love Spreads’
If you were in any doubt that John Squire is up there with the greatest British guitarists, listen to this incredible isolated guitar part from ‘Love Spreads’. You can find the other instruments isolated on YouTube too, meaning if you’re incredibly bored you can open all of them at the same time and pretend you’re with them in the recording studio.
4. The Beatles – ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
It’s not as cleanly isolated as some of the others, but the sound of ol’ slow hands Eric Clapton guesting on George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ is that of a master at work. He really starts to make it wail at about two minutes in.
5. Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘Under The Bridge’
Stunningly intricate guitar-work from John Frusciante on this: more fragile than you might imagine.
James Taylor Sings James Taylor, a BBC broadcast from November 1970, appears above. Though the nearly 40-minute solo performance showcases a player who has developed and mastered his distinctive musical persona, it also showcases one who has only reached a mere 22 years of age. But don’t let his aw-shucks youthfulness fool you; by this point, Taylor had already endured a lifetime’s worth of formative troubles. He’d fallen into deep depression while still in high school, spent nine months in a psychiatric hospital, taken up and quit heroin, bottomed out and spent six months in recovery, underwent vocal cord surgery, taken up methedrine, gone into methadone treatment, had an album flop, and broken his hands and feet in a motorcycle wreck. Fire and rain indeed. But he’d also found favor with the Beatles, becoming the first American signed on their Apple label and recruiting Paul McCartney and George Harrison to play on his “Carolina in My Mind.” At the end of the sixties, the world at large didn’t know the name James Taylor, but his fellow musicians knew it soon would.
“I just heard his voice and his guitar,” said McCartney, “and I thought he was great.” Earlier in 1970, many listeners surely felt the same thing after dropping the needle onto Taylor’s breakthrough second album Sweet Baby James. By the time James Taylor Sings James Taylor went to air, he’d accrued enough of an international reputation to guarantee appreciation from even non-Beatles on the other side of the pond. Knowing his audience, Taylor opens with a rendition of Lennon and McCartney’s “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The Beatles connections don’t stop there: Songfacts reports that Taylor’s “Something in the Way She Moves,” the first single from his pre-Sweet Baby James Apple debut, may have inspired George Harrison to write “Something.” What’s more, Taylor had originally titled his song “I Feel Fine,” before realizing that the Beatles had recorded a song by that name. Though more troubled times lay ahead for the humble (if already well on his way to wealth and fame) young singer-songwriter, this production captures Taylor just before superstardom kicked in.
Electric Light Orchestra’s live cover of The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” is from a 1974 live album called The Night the Light Went On (In Long Beach) which though recorded in the U.S. was, somewhat ironically, only released in Europe. Thus even loyal fans in this country have never come across this performance.
Similarly to the band’s early covers of “Roll Over Beethoven” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” this is another early example of Jeff Lynne’s fusion of classical music with rock and roll, later achieved more seamlessly on hits like “Livin’ Thing” and “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”.
Note Lynne’s sly amendment to the lyric, changing “she’s a big teaser” into “she’s a prick teaser” (probably what McCartney wanted to say.)
This and lots more great ELO tunes appear on the YouTube Jeff Lynne tribute channel movejefflynnelo with upgraded audio, and painstakingly synched with vintage videos. It’s a treasure trove for fans of ELO and Lynne’s previous band, The Move.
(Reprinted from MSN Reverb Music Blog and The Smoking Gun)
The Beatles had modest demands when they toured the U.S. in 1965 (The group’s standard three-page rider and a one-page contract for the tour’s Portland stop contain) no requirement of bendy straws, Rough Rider condoms, or Cristal for the Fab Four. Instead, the most influential band ever just wanted adequate police protection, a “hi-fidelity sound system with adequate number of speakers,” and “a platform for Ringo Starr and his drums.”
The backstage dressing room accommodations were also spartan: “four cots, mirrors, an ice cooler, portable TV set and clean towels.” As for ground transportation, the performers were not above sharing a ride: “Two (2) seven-passenger Cadillac limousines (air-conditioned if possible), with chauffeurs.”
…The four-page list of demands (is) modest by today’s standards. Dressing rooms? A fence to keep fans from rushing the stage from behind? Cots? What primadonnas those four were!
The fascinating thing is demand #5.
Remember, this is 1965 — mere months after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and the band was demanding that all promoters extend racial equality to all the band’s fans. Say whatever you want about the way the ’60s are remembered through rose-colored glasses. Some people were walking the walk.
By the way, ticket prices for the Portland show: $6, $5 and $4.
Every Moment Has A Song 