Forgotten Beatles Week: "The Beatles' Story"

What was it?
A two-disc spoken word documentary about The Beatles. It contained no real music (some snippets) or meaningful interviews, just 1964-style announcers reading from a prepared script as seriously as if they were covering the moon landing.

Capitol Records always insisted The Beatles' Story was an official Beatles album, and listed it as such in their promotional material.

It continued to be widely available right up until the end of the vinyl era. And being a double-album with a gate-fold cover meant that it usually cost the same as The Beatles (White Album).


Why is it forgotten?
Always a bitter pill to swallow for the vinyl completist - Beatles' Story was only ever a "Beatles" album because Capitol Records said so. The Beatles themselves are hardly on it.

The company wisely skipped it when re-issuing the early albums on CD.

Fun Facts:
Clocking in at just under 50 minutes in length, the album’s contents could easily have fit on a single disc.

A certified Gold album, Beatles' Story peaked at #7 on the Billboard charts.

Update: Listen to Side One here.

Tomorrow: The Beatles' best and most controversial American album.

The Zombies - "Walking in the Sun"

You are forgiven if you were starting to think this had become an all-Beatles fan site. I like other music, but 90% of it just happens to have been released before 1979.

Currently, I am really enjoying The Zombies. Although they weren't phenomenally successful like other Invasion acts, they were remarkably good at crafting short-and-sweet pop songs ("She's Not There", "Tell Her No"), and released one classic album ("Odessey and Oracle" - and yes, that's spelled correctly).

I don't know what record this song - "Walking in the Sun" is from (I downloaded it as part of the Complete Studio Recordings" series on iTunes) - but it's another really beautiful, catchy tune. (And if you don't see it embedded below, click here.)

	The Zombies - Walking in the Sun [Overdubbed] [Version]
	Found at skreemr.com

Forgotten Beatles Week: "A Hard Day's Night"

What was it?
A Hard Day’s Night: the soundtrack album - featuring eight Beatles songs and four instrumentals.

As a result of a deal between EMI and United Artists before the Beatles signed with Capitol Records (and therefore before they were phenomenally popular in America), UA secured the rights to release a soundtrack album for the band’s first film. This was it.

It contains eight songs used in (or intended for) the film A Hard Day's Night, including the title track - which, interestingly, never appeared on a Capitol album during the band's active years.

The album spent an unprecedented fourteen weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts in 1964, prompting Capitol to rush the release of their own album (1964’s Something New) based on this material.

Why is it forgotten?
The worldwide release of the Beatles’ original UK catalog to CD (in 1987) relegated many unique American records - including this one - to "forgotten" status. When Capitol released its Beatles albums on CD (in 2004) - A Hard Day’s Night was skipped, despite Capitol owning the rights to release it (see below).

All of the Beatles songs on this record can be heard on the now-official A Hard Day’s Night (UK version) CD.

Fun Facts
After EMI acquired United Artists, this album started appearing (in 1980) on the Capitol label.

The Beatles’s tracks on this record were all mono mixes. The instrumentals, however, were in stereo.

The vinyl label of many pressings misspells the tracks “I’ll Cry Instead” and “Tell Me Why” as “I Cry Instead” and “Tell Me Who”

Personally, I’ve always preferred the album cover (and back cover) design of this record to the original British version. I think its one of the all-time great Beatles album covers.

Tomorrow: The top-selling double-album that featured almost no Beatles content whatsoever!

Lady Gaga

I bet you never thought you'd see the day when I would recommend a Lady Gaga performance.

Well, that day has arrived, my friend!

Tip: Watch it quickly before NBC pulls it!

Monty Python's 40th Anniversary

Today is the real fortieth anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus (not to be confused with the fake anniversary we mentioned back in May).

Not much left to say about this show, except that it changed the face of television comedy, it hasn't aged too badly, and every episode is available for free with a Netflix subscription.

I used to think this was their funniest sketch - especially John Cleese's performance. Nowadays, I'd probably pick this one instead. They're both quite good, but the latter is one of the most intelligent sketches ever written. (Too bad the TV version doesn't have an ending!)

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - "Spanish Flea"

We've looked at some famous instrumentals lately - so here's another one.

I grew up listening to "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass every weekday on The Dating Game. But the song was a Billboard hit in its own right (#1 in 1965).

The video is appropriately bat-shit - the band plays the song in a Mexican bullfighting ring while bullfight action goes on around them.

Forgotten Beatles Week: "Introducing... The Beatles"

What was it?
The first Beatles album released in the United States - a slightly-truncated version of the Beatles' first British album Please Please Me.

Vee-Jay Records (the most successful black-owned record company prior to Motown) won the American rights to distribute the Beatles catalog from EMI after Capitol initially turned them down. The story of how they lost the rights is complicated, but it has something to do with mounting debts and the company not properly reporting its record sales.

Eventually, Capitol gained the American rights to the Beatles, but Vee-Jay released this album anyway (ten days before Capitol released Meet the Beatles - which was now erroneously billed as "the first album by England’s phenomenal pop combo"). There was litigation, but a settlement with Capitol allowed Vee-Jay distribution rights to the songs it owned for a limited time.

Introducing... The Beatles sold over 1.3 million copies.

Why is it forgotten?
The settlement with Capitol Records put the kibosh on Vee-Jay from selling it after the Fall of ‘64. It stayed on the charts well into 1965, however, even after Capitol released their own version of this material as The Early Beatles.

Now here’s where things get a little confusing - it was widely available when I started collecting Beatles records in 1977. In retrospect, these were almost definitely bootleg copies.

The eventual worldwide release of the Please Please Me CD (in 1987) made Introducing... the Beatles especially irrelevant. At one time, this was the only American album which contained the tracks "Misery" and "There’s a Place".

Fun Facts:
Vee-Jay originally considered releasing Please Please Me intact - exactly as it was released in Britain on Parlophone. Since it contained fourteen tracks, and the American standard was twelve - they decided to repackage the record - minus two songs and with different cover art - as Introducing... the Beatles. (Capitol continued this policy with their subsequent releases).

The record snips the "1-2-3" portion of Paul McCartney’s famous "1-2-3-4" count-in at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There".

Tomorrow: A Hard Day's Night - the forgotten edition.