Re: Spector's "Let It Be" - a bad rap

Will wrote:

>But to get back to the Glyn John's issue.  Yes, his mixes were the most 
>real.  But I hated his various versions.  The only thing I enjoyed when 
>I got those bootlegs in the early 90s, was the fact that I got to hear 
>different takes of the major songs.  But anyone who sticks things like 
>'Rocker' and a woeful 'Save the Last Dance For Me' segment onto such an 
>album...well, I think he was barking up the wrong tree.  

I think you've touched on something here -- See, my first exposure to the
GB/LIB material _was_ the Glyn Johns mix. Yours was the finished released
product; unless I'm reading you incorrectly, you hadn't heard the GJ mixes
until at least 20 years later (perhaps I'm overinterpreting here -- you said
you didn't get the bootlegs until the early '90s; it's not clear to me whether
you had actually heard them before that).

At any rate, our respective impressions of the material seems to be based on
what we first heard. When I heard the GJ mix the Fall of 1969 (it was the 3/69
mix, I learned years later), I remember thinking how rough the performances
were and how they had matched the descriptions I'd read about the sessions
throughout that year. So it wasn't that much of a shock. Also, Abbey Road had
already come out months earlier, and I was aware that this material had been
recorded _before_ AR, and that it was not polished stuff.

So my expectations on what it was gonna sound like weren't that far off. "Get
Back" and "Don't Let Me Down" had already been released as a single the
previous spring, so the different take of DLMD was seen as it was -- a
different take.

Also, what I loved about "Save the Last Dance For Me" was the utter spontaneity
and fun of it, and how the band magically segued into a chorus of DLMD. That
was and remains great to hear, how tuned in these guys were to each other. (I
recall, though, that this might have been the editing handiwork of Johns; there
are no available Nagra reels of this particular moment, so we've never heard
the raw material.)

And, truthfully, I've never cared all that much for Long and Winding Road. For
me, it's too artificially "deep." It drags. At any speed, from any production.
But that's just a matter of musical taste.

>Johns didn't even have the ability to determine what the best *takes* 
were, nevermind mix them properly.

Again, we'll have to disagree; I'll continue to love the take he chose for
"I've Got a Feeling," and, re DLMD, I liked John's request to Ringo to strike
the cymbal with such a force to give John the "courage to come screaming in."
It was a revealing moment of which I don't tire. John's depending on Ringo's
playing to help his own performance.

But, again, I think it might boil down to our initial exposure to this
material. Since I heard the GJ mixes first, they gave me a lasting impression
of the material. Perhaps because you heard the Spector mixes first, they gave
_you_ a lasting impression of _that_ material. So it's all a matter of initial
psychological impact.

>But the question is - do we have to stay true to their initial 
>intentions IF the Beatles themselves had by a later point realised that 
>their initial notion was flawed?

That's a very fair question. I could try to spin it by wondering just how
committed they were to putting out a more polished product a year later,
considering their state of affairs with each other at that point, but I can't
honestly offer a convincing answer without a lot of speculating.

>I am extrapolating a wee bit, and suggesting that the fab four 
>themselves  realised during those January sessions, and to an even 
>greater extent during the months that followed, that the whole undubbed 
>notion was flawed.  And that is why they sporadically spent the final 
>weeks and months of their time together, trying to make the best of a 
>bad job.

Certainly sound reasoning; 1/69 was just a bad idea gone south from the
beginning. But I feel that was mostly at Twickenham. At Apple, with Preston and
actual recording equipment, there's a palpable mood change, I think. There's
more of a focus that was lacking at the film studio.

>And here is something else to ponder.  If Spector had not been brought 
>in, and the Beatles had not shown any motivation to look near those old 
>session recordings again (doing overdubs).....then we may not have seen 
>any release of these tracks under the Beatles name.

That I doubt -- there was a film and album coming out, with or without
Spector's involvement.

>The Beatles were 
>quickly falling apart after Abbey Road was recorded inthe summer of 
>1969.  They were going their own ways and it was even difficult to just 
>get them all together in a studio.  The real bitching had started by the 
>autumn of that year. From memory, wasn't August the last time the four 
>were ever together as a group in Abbey Road.  So with the two main 
>players increasingly bitching at each other via the media, it would have 
>beenvery easy to envisage the Get Back project being forever parked (and 
>not released) 

>And if that had happened, then the likes of Let it Be and Get Back may 
>well have been put out on McCartney's first solo album.  And Lennon may 
>have used Across the Universe as a first solo single.

Again, doubtful, since, for one thing, Get Back had already been released as a
single in the Spring of 1969 (as was DLMD). By the late Fall, when Paul
recorded the basic tracks of all of his solo LP material at his home, no one at
that time knew the fate of the LIB LP (then still called GB), other than it
kept getting pulled back from release date after release date. All that was
known was that the film was likely finished, and that since "I Me Mine" was in
the film, a proper recording session was necessary, thus the 1/3/70 session.
Spector didn't enter the picture until late March 1970. By that time, Paul had
finished his recordings, and "Let It Be" wasn't among them.

Also, George Martin had produced his own mix of "Let It Be" the day after the
"I Me Mine" sessions, pre-Spector. Had Spector not been there later, the LP
would probably have included Martin's mix instead. (The single did incorporate
his mix.)

Same re John: he recorded "Instant Karma" in mid-January 1970, months before
Spector was hired (in fact, John considered Spector's production of IK an
audition of sorts for taking on LIB), before anyone had decided how to polish
the LIB tracks. So that was already his first solo single.

In other words, there was already activity taking place and decisions being
made about the LIB album before Spector was there. So I'm not so certain that
Spector's hypothetical absense would have necessarily changed any momentum or
history about LIB's LP release.

>I think that Spector did a great job with a lot of crappy recordings.  
>He made the best of a bad job.  And on a wider scale, he polished these 
>recordings and made them releasable.  And for that, I am thankful. 

I don't entirely agree, but I understand your reasoning.

>PS - Forgive me rambling away here.

Get in line. :)

--

All follow-ups are directed to the newsgroup rec.music.beatles.moderated.    
If your follow-up more properly belongs in the unmoderated newsgroup, please 
change your headers appropriately.   -- the moderators