George Harrison was interviewed on March 4 on BBC Radio 1. The interview would be used on two different programs, “Scene and Heard” and “The Beatles Today.” The “Beatles Today” show was broadcast on March 30 and included selections of what was to be the first Get Back album.
Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in London on March 12. After their marriage was blessed at a church near Paul’s house in St. John’s Wood, a reception was held at the Ritz Hotel. None of the other Beatles attended any of the events of the day. On March 20, John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the island of Gibraltar.
On April 7, Glyn Johns, with Jerry Boys as second engineer, made another attempt at mixing “Get Back” at Olympic. They also mixed “Don’t Let Me Down.” Paul McCartney was in attendance at the session. Boys had worked at Abbey Road for years, but had moved on to Olympic. “They had already mixed it once for the single [release],” he remembered. “They were just having another go at seeing if they could better it. In the end they went with their original mix.” Boys had a portable turntable in his car that he had brought to Olympic. It belonged to someone else and was being repaired by one of the maintenance people at the studio. It was fortuitous that he brought it that day. “They wanted to check these two mixes,” he explained, “and they cut an acetate and played them both on this portable thing, and that was sort of when the final decision was made.”
The single of “Get Back,” with “Don’t Let Me Down” on the flip side, was released on April 11, 1969, in the U.K. and nearly a full month later, on May 5, in the U.S. It marked the first single released by the Beatles since August of 1968, as well as the first official release of material from the “Get Back” project. The label copy of the single also marked some firsts. There was no label credit for a producer and the names of the musicians read “The Beatles with Billy Preston.”
On April 25, mono mixing on “Two of Us,” at that stage entitled “On Our Way Home,” was done at Abbey Road. Peter Mew served as engineer and was assisted by Chris Blair. The mixing was done for the purpose of cutting acetates for a New York-based group called Mortimer, which had been signed to Apple by Peter Asher and which was scheduled to record the song. The song was unfortunately never issued. John Henry Smith, an engineer who has worked at both Abbey Road and Apple, said the track was fantastic and had a Simon and Garfunkel-type sound.
On April 30, for the first time in three months, new recording related to the “Get Back” project was to be done by only two members of the Beatles: John and Paul. In addition to mixing, further work was done on “Let It Be” (guitar overdub) and “You Know My Name (Look up the Number)” (additional vocals and overdubs). As had been the case throughout most of the project, George Martin was not involved. Chris Thomas was credited as producer of the session.
Back at Olympic on May 7, it seemed once more that the “Get Back” project might actually become an album, and this time George Martin was indeed there, along with Glyn Johns and assistant engineer Steve Vaughn. An unknown number of Beatles were at the session. The day was used to find suitable inserts, whether dialogue or music, to be part of a finished album. The “inserts” were mixed in stereo and were obviously intended to illustrate the audio-vérité nature of the project. The process continued on May 9, when playbacks occurred as well. Also on May 9, Allen Klein showed up at Olympic and an argument over the ongoing business machinations broke out. Apparently, as part of venting his anger over the argument, McCartney stayed behind in the evening and joined Johns, who was producing Steve Miller’s album Brave New World. McCartney added his distinctive bass sound and backing vocals, and unleashed his closet drummer-fantasy by also playing drums, on the recording of Miller’s “My Dark Hour.” His contribution was credited to Paul Ramon, a name he had used back in 1960 on a tour supporting Johnny Gentle.
May 13 was another date that seemed to indicate that a release of the “Get Back” material as an album was imminent. All four Beatles gathered in the stairwell at EMI House, at Manchester Square, for a photo shoot for the cover of an album that was still going to be called Get Back. The photo was taken by Angus McBean, who in February of 1963 had photographed the Beatles in the exact same pose and location for the cover of Please Please Me, which, of course, was only released in the U.K. As it turned out, the shot was not used for the released Let It Be album. Instead, it appeared on the cover of The Beatles 1967-1970, a double album released in the U.S. in 1973. The concept for the photo shoot obviously represented the mindset of the group at the time: it had come full circle and this album would be its last.
Once again at Olympic, on May 28, work continued on moving the “Get Back” project closer to becoming a finished album. The same team of Martin, Johns, and Vaughn worked on stereo mixes of the songs, master tape banding, and the compilation of the tracks.
July 1 marked the official beginning of the recording of the Abbey Road album. A detailed account of that album will not be given here. A couple of points, however, need to be mentioned.
For the time being, the “Get Back” project and the idea behind it were shelved. Changing course, the Beatles decided that what they wanted to make next was the kind of recording they had come to master: an album of polished studio-craft. The other key point is that the time spent at Twickenham and Apple would ultimately prove constructive in terms of the making of Abbey Road. Many of the songs—thirteen, in fact—that would appear on Abbey Road were first introduced and/or worked on considerably during that period. In fact, the only Abbey Road songs that did not surface during the “Get Back” sessions were “Come Together,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Because,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and “The End.”
It’s hard to figure out why the Beatles decided not to consider any of the aforementioned 13 songs for inclusion on the first, aborted Get Back album. John Kurlander, a recording engineer who worked extensively on Abbey Road, was able to shed some light on why some songs made it onto a Beatles album and others didn’t. “It was really a continual process,” he began. “You would go in and record songs, and some got left behind and didn’t get put on that [particular] album; and then later on, on the next album, the ones that had gotten left behind were never really forgotten.”
Kurlander remembered hearing some of the music that had been worked on during the “Get Back” project in July of 1969, in preparation for the group to begin recording Abbey Road. He explained the process:
It [Abbey Road] started off as a collection of playbacks of tapes. “Hey Jude” was one. “Come Together” was another. The thing would start off like, “Let’s listen to every single take we recorded of, for example ‘Come Together.’” There was a lot of playback and selection of stuff. Then, after one gathered all the tracks of pre-recorded stuff and selected what was usable, what would be up for a remake, and what would only need overdubbing, … Well, that’s kind of when Abbey Road actually started to get pulled together.
Peter Brown was surprised but pleased that the Beatles decided to do the Abbey Road album. He remarked, “A new beginning was a good idea. Let It Be had become too bogged down in this mess—Twickenham, Apple, the disagreements. They said, ‘Let’s just put it aside.’ The idea that they could actually make Abbey Road was quite amazing.”
On July 20, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. In was on that day, according to Michael Lindsay-Hogg, that all four Beatles were first shown a rough cut of the film, which was longer than the final cut would be by about 30 to 40 minutes. The next day, Lindsay-Hogg received a phone call from Peter Brown. Lindsay-Hogg indicated that Brown said, “I think we could lose about a half an hour of the picture, especially the bits with John and Yoko.” Lindsay-Hogg replied, “Gee, I think that’s really interesting stuff—John and Yoko and seeing how they got on.” To that Brown responded, “Let me put it this way: I’ve had three phone calls this morning. I think we should lose the stuff with John and Yoko.” Michael Lindsay-Hogg felt that the footage got dropped “partly because once John had se
en the rough cut, he didn’t care about the movie.”
Lindsay-Hogg said that in September of 1969 there was another screening of the film. It was a finished cut and he didn’t remember if all the Beatles were there or not. Allen Klein held a dinner afterwards at the White Elephant on the River, a fashionable London club, and shortly thereafter all four Beatles signed off on the finished cut.
August 15 marked the first day of Woodstock, the three-day music festival in upstate New York. As the concert got under way, the Beatles were at Abbey Road working on “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight,” “The End,” “Something,” and “Here Comes the Sun,” all of which would end up on Abbey Road. The session for “Something” would prove to be one of the most complicated and ambitious recording sessions the group would ever undertake. A 30-piece orchestra was enlisted, and George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Alan Parsons were on hand. Recording was done simultaneously in Studio One and Studio Two by linking the two studios via a closed-circuit television hookup.
On August 20, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were all at Abbey Road Studios for the mixing and the sequencing of the Abbey Road album. It was the last time they would all be together at the studios. Two days later at John Lennon’s home, all four Beatles were present for the final photo shoot of the group. Ethan Russell took the photos. The Beatles were dressed in black. Abbey Road was released on September 26, 1969.
Sometime in December, the “Get Back” project contractually became a movie when Allen Klein sold the film rights to United Artists. The sale fulfilled the contract the Beatles had with United Artists for the third film that they owed the company. Some have speculated that MGM was also considering buying the film rights to what became Let It Be.
Each year since 1963, the Beatles had issued Christmas music on a flexi-disc for the members of their fan club. In 1969 there was no new message recorded. Instead, a compilation of all the messages was issued.
January 3, 1970, marked a return to work related to the “Get Back” project. At a recording session at Abbey Road, Paul, George, and Ringo officially recorded “I Me Mine” for the first time. George Martin served as producer. John Lennon, on vacation in Denmark, did not attend.
On the next day, recording, overdubbing and mixing of “Let It Be” took place’back at Abbey Road. In addition to the cast from the day before, Glyn Johns was in attendance. It would be the last official recording date at Abbey Road by the Beatles (although only Paul, George, and Ringo attended) until the time of the Anthology sessions in the 90s.
On January 5, work continued at Olympic. Glyn Johns mixed “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine.” Once again, he attempted banding and compiling an album. This time, though, he was told that the album would be a soundtrack for a film to be entitled Let It Be. The new lineup would be the same as the previous one, except this time “Teddy Boy” would be dropped and “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine” would be added.
Of the many projects coming out of Apple, both Beatles-related and otherwise, one hit a slight snag on January 27, 1970. John Lennon had released two solo/Plastic Ono Band singles up until that point. The first was “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded during his second bed-in for peace, at the Hotel Reine-Elizabeth in Montreal, where John and Yoko were staying from May 26 through June 2, and released in July of 1969. The second single, “Cold Turkey,” produced by John on September 25, 1969, at Abbey Road, directly addressed his ongoing problems with heroin and was released in October of 1969. “Instant Karma,” the song that would become his third single, nearly wrote itself on that January morning. However, while at Abbey Road Studios that day, John was having problems getting the right take of it. The track, which would become one of his most anthemic songs, was classic John Lennon and embodied his love for the frisky three-minute single. John still loved the idea of making singles in the vein of the seminal American R&B records that so heavily influenced the early Beatles. John’s homage to those wonderful 45s is evident from the three minor-key piano chords that opened the song. They are the very same three notes that grace the opening of Richie Barrett’s “Some Other Guy,” which was released in 1962. Although John wrote the song quickly and it even had his unmistakable opening, he had no idea how to record the song. It was very much a follow-up to “Give Peace a Chance,” but was more empowering and hopeful. Like “Give Peace a Chance,” it was an electronic broadside whose meaning could best be conveyed with a simple, concise sound.
At the suggestion of George Harrison, who was playing on the song, Phil Spector was brought in to produce the track. Spector showed why he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest record producer in rock history that evening. The session began at around 7 p.m. in Studio Two at Abbey Road. The song, which featured John on acoustic guitar and piano, George on electric guitar and piano, Alan White on drums and piano, Klaus Voorman on bass and piano, and Billy Preston on piano, was recorded in ten takes between 7 p.m. and midnight.
Klaus Voorman, a German artist who designed the cover of Revolver and the Anthology releases, had played with John at the Plastic Ono Band’s two live shows in 1969 at the Lyceum Ballroom, on Wellington Street in London, on December 15 and at the University of Toronto on December 20. He would also go on to play in the studio with him, George, and Ringo. Voorman talked about the “Instant Karma” session, which was his introduction to Spector:
I didn’t even know who this little man was. He had PS on his cuff links and he started talking in this little voice and I didn’t quite know what this guy was doing, because John never told us. He just rushed in the studio and played this song and this little squeaky voice came from the control room and started telling us things that were very strange. We took a take and everything was arranged, and we went back in the control room and there was this guy sitting in the control room. It was filled with all the equipment from the whole of EMI Studios. Every tape machine was rolling and blinking and tapes were running left and right and center, and he said, “I’m going to play it to you now.” Then he played it to us and he turned the volume full up. Then this big sound came toward us and it was just mind-blowing. I said to myself, “This guy must be Phil Spector.” It’s the first time I met Phil Spector. So he really convinced me that he was a great master.
Overdubs commenced after midnight. The chorus was aided by, among others, Yoko, Mal Evans, and late-night revelers pressed into duty from Hatchetts, a London club. Starting at 3 a.m., Spector began the final mixing. The fourth stereo mix, completed at 4 a.m., became the one used for the U.K. single, which was released on February 6.
That would not be the end of work on the song, however. Returning to Los Angeles a few days later, Spector prepared a new stereo mix of the song. Spector had wanted to work on it further, but John didn’t want him to. Nonetheless, that is exactly what he did. The U.S version, released on February 20, was much cleaner. The master also featured “Phil & Ronnie,” hastily scribbled in Spector’s handwriting, in the run-out groove. Spector had a way of putting his inimitable stamp on everything he did, in new and imaginative ways. The song would prove to be a watershed moment for John, for the Let It Be album, for the Beatles, and ultimately for many of the Beatles’ future solo works.
Spector’s deft touch convinced John and George that he was just the man to take the languishing “Get Back” tapes and make them into an album. Spector would begin the process on March 23. He would also go on to produce John’s albums Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Walk and Bridges, and part of the Rock ‘n’ Roll album. His work on Let It Be, particularly on “The Long and Winding Road,” would also become one of the many reasons for the ultimate break-up of the Beatles.
Oddly enough, despite Spector’s last-minute mix of the U.S. single release of “Instant Karma” and his eventual rift with Lennon over the Rock ‘n’ Roll tapes, Lennon and Spector enjoyed a productive relationship. Klaus Voorman, one of the few people to witness that collaboration up close over a long period of time, talked about their mutual respect for each other. Rega
rding the Imagine album, Voorman said:
It was very calm. Phil was very respectful toward Yoko. He never made any trouble. He liked Yoko as far as I remember. He was always on top of things. He was making jokes and keeping things together, but he was not getting out of line, not through all the sessions. The man has got lots of sides. I think it’s fantastic to see someone go ahead and do a production which had nothing to do with his sound. He’s just the servant, like everybody else, and he was trying to get onto tape what John had written.
Voorman remembered many lighthearted moments when John and Phil worked together: “The great moments were when Phil went to the piano and he was playing, for example, ‘River Deep–Mountain High’ as a ballad, or when they would reminisce—and they had a great time, because they were great pals. I think they still would be if John were still alive, because those two really got on well.”
February 23 marked the U.S.-only release of the Beatles’ Hey Jude album. The album included songs worked on for the “Get Back” project. One of them, “Old Brown Shoe” had first been introduced at Apple on January 28, 1969, when it was run through five times. George had done a demo of the song on February 25, 1969 (his birthday), the same day he demoed “All Things Must Pass” and “Something.” “Old Brown Shoe” was properly recorded on April 16, 1969, and overdubs were added on the 18th. All the Beatles were on the song, but only John contributed backing vocals. Billy Preston played organ on it. The song originally appeared as the flip side to “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” which was released on May 30, 1969, in the U.K. and on June 4 in the U.S. “Don’t Let Me Down,” which also appeared on Hey Jude, was most likely written in the fall of 1968. It was worked on extensively during the “Get Back” project at Twickenham and Apple (even during the rooftop concert), yet had been relegated to the B-side of “Get Back.”
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