Yesterday’s blog featured a snarky reviewer who said this of the production of the Beatles’ "Let It Be" album:
"Except in extreme cases, like Phil Spector saccharine-coating The Beatles’ Let it Be, most music fans can’t tell one producer’s work from another’s"
-- Ira Brooker
1. It was never in the cards for George Martin to do the production and studio work for this album by himself. McCartney was also interested in retaining Glyn Johns; this duplication of management was never settled in any sense. By the middle of 1969, a draft of this album was completed by Glyn Johns (entitled "Get Back"), but the Beatles disliked it. They came up with a better idea. Capture the spirit of creativity itself by doing all the album sessions over on a soundstage with everything in the sessions, everything, filmed. The group began rehearsals filmed (and taped in monophonic sound) at Twickenham Studios on January 2, 1969. Hundreds of songs were played at these recorded sessions, including oldies and works-in-progress which would ultimately appear in albums by individual band members.
2. Glyn Johns produced an acetate version of the suggested Get Back album in March of 1969. But the Beatles were no longer interested in the project. Lennon and McCartney called Johns back to produce another version, which was drafted in May of 1969. The album was scheduled for release in July of 1969, but this conflicted with the release of Abbey Road , so the release was forwarded to September to coincide with a television special and the release of a film about the making of the album. By December, the Get Back project was shelved, including more than a mile and a half of audio tape.
3. Although John Lennon and George Harrison had walked off the soundstage at Wickenham only to return, the Beatles were broken as a band – but that breakup was not released to the public as a fact – as 1970 began. The idea hit the Beatles to give the extensive audio tape to retired American master producer Phil Spector. Spector was exactly the right man to handle this, and with dubbing of orchestral instrumentation and chorus work, achieved the Let it Be album that was actually released on May 8, 1970. John Lennon himself had this to say about Spector ten years later in a famous interview with Playboy before he was murdered: "He was given the shittiest load of badly-recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something of it."
4. Paul McCartney never liked the choral work and harp dubbing that was added to "The Long and Winding Road," but it survived his complaints. McCartney wanted a piano ballad as played by Billy Preston. And the song is a chilling, hypnotic ballad of sorrow when so performed, as was shown in the mid-90’s Beatles Anthology television special.
5. Rolling Stone gave the album a mixed review, specifically critical of Phil Spector as "the most notorious of all over-producers." But this is wrong. The album was engineered and mixed by Glyn Johns, produced by George Martin, Alan Parsons served as assistant engineer, and the product was re-produced by Phil Spector with final dubbing and final mixing.
CONCLUSION
The snotty remarks made in yesterday’s blog about Let It Be, though they are shared by a number of other 60’s rockers, are out of line. Spector saved the album. Lennon himself came to realize this. But there’s more. Much more. Astonishingly more.
Phil Spector was the bad boy of early 1960s rock and roll music production. He picked a lot of fights with a lot of music executives, and he won because his songs sold. Tom Wolfe even wrote a feature article about him. They were "little symphonies for the kiddies," as Spector said of his work. He was criticized, at the mixing board of the wall of sound, for his work on the Righteous Brothers’ version of "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling." It was too slow. Too sad. It would never sell. "No!" snapped Spector. "This is a number one song."
Spector was right. Along with the Beatles and the Motown sound, he saved rock and roll, which was in a tailspin in 1963-4 because of beach music, early bubble gum, and dweeby, shallow romance music. What came out of this revolution was a sexier, gutsier and yet much more adult emphasis (example: hear also the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964). The newer, harder sound wasn’t just for ‘tweens and couples necking after the high school prom. It was also for young women afraid of pregnancy and young men about to be drafted (which was universal in those days).
All of this has everything to do with Let It Be. Spector was tired of fighting. He had the resources to retire at a stupifyingly early age. But he was lured back, and I’m going to dare to speculate why. Because the messy tapes of the never-finished Get Back album were almost what he wanted to say, close enough to be pushed through editing and redubbing into an astonishing message: We’re adults now, and we never get all that we want."Oh, incidentally: The Beatles won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song Score in 1970 for the songs in the film. The Long and Winding Road was the Beatles’ 21st, and last, number one U.S. hit.
So I suggest that Let it Be is a brilliant, perhaps even prophetic album. It tells us that there is something cool – and perhaps cold -- about growing up. It’s a message heard in Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel (released in January, 1970) and again in Hotel California by the Eagles.
Let It Be was the first adult rock and roll album. It provided a sound and a message for those 21 through 35. It’s targeted toward 21-year-old women who haven’t found a man they can trust, and for young men who were college seniors facing a trip to Vietnam. It’s about the difficulties of young adulthood, as presented by an historically unmatchable band itself breaking up as the members got into their late 20s. It states that youth has an end and middle age may be the beginning of genuine life. "Here Comes the Sun."
And it’s a hard message. The filmed arguments among the band members are painful to watch. The album tells us that many of us don’t make it "Across the Universe." Some of us die, perhaps even murdered as John Lennon was. Some of us never attain the love we try to produce and refine in dubbing a soundboard; we
may snap from such lovelessness (as Spector himself did; he’s serving time for murder). And it warns us that the inspiraton of the Muses is too powerful yet too fickle to be filmed – those Muses have the power to withdraw their gifts of inspiration, as they may have done at Twickenham.
Yes, there are sentimentalists who like Abbey Road as the best of the Beatles. The White Album and Revolver have fans, also. But Let It Be effortlessly jumps across the age barrier – it profoundly affected children aged 12 as well as adults in their mid-thirties – today it haunts many who weren't born yet at the time it was made. Such multi-generational impact may make it the best rock album ever released.
-- by the blog author
-- significant supporting information availabe at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be
-- Ira Brooker
1. It was never in the cards for George Martin to do the production and studio work for this album by himself. McCartney was also interested in retaining Glyn Johns; this duplication of management was never settled in any sense. By the middle of 1969, a draft of this album was completed by Glyn Johns (entitled "Get Back"), but the Beatles disliked it. They came up with a better idea. Capture the spirit of creativity itself by doing all the album sessions over on a soundstage with everything in the sessions, everything, filmed. The group began rehearsals filmed (and taped in monophonic sound) at Twickenham Studios on January 2, 1969. Hundreds of songs were played at these recorded sessions, including oldies and works-in-progress which would ultimately appear in albums by individual band members.
2. Glyn Johns produced an acetate version of the suggested Get Back album in March of 1969. But the Beatles were no longer interested in the project. Lennon and McCartney called Johns back to produce another version, which was drafted in May of 1969. The album was scheduled for release in July of 1969, but this conflicted with the release of Abbey Road , so the release was forwarded to September to coincide with a television special and the release of a film about the making of the album. By December, the Get Back project was shelved, including more than a mile and a half of audio tape.
3. Although John Lennon and George Harrison had walked off the soundstage at Wickenham only to return, the Beatles were broken as a band – but that breakup was not released to the public as a fact – as 1970 began. The idea hit the Beatles to give the extensive audio tape to retired American master producer Phil Spector. Spector was exactly the right man to handle this, and with dubbing of orchestral instrumentation and chorus work, achieved the Let it Be album that was actually released on May 8, 1970. John Lennon himself had this to say about Spector ten years later in a famous interview with Playboy before he was murdered: "He was given the shittiest load of badly-recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something of it."
4. Paul McCartney never liked the choral work and harp dubbing that was added to "The Long and Winding Road," but it survived his complaints. McCartney wanted a piano ballad as played by Billy Preston. And the song is a chilling, hypnotic ballad of sorrow when so performed, as was shown in the mid-90’s Beatles Anthology television special.
5. Rolling Stone gave the album a mixed review, specifically critical of Phil Spector as "the most notorious of all over-producers." But this is wrong. The album was engineered and mixed by Glyn Johns, produced by George Martin, Alan Parsons served as assistant engineer, and the product was re-produced by Phil Spector with final dubbing and final mixing.
CONCLUSION
The snotty remarks made in yesterday’s blog about Let It Be, though they are shared by a number of other 60’s rockers, are out of line. Spector saved the album. Lennon himself came to realize this. But there’s more. Much more. Astonishingly more.
Phil Spector was the bad boy of early 1960s rock and roll music production. He picked a lot of fights with a lot of music executives, and he won because his songs sold. Tom Wolfe even wrote a feature article about him. They were "little symphonies for the kiddies," as Spector said of his work. He was criticized, at the mixing board of the wall of sound, for his work on the Righteous Brothers’ version of "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling." It was too slow. Too sad. It would never sell. "No!" snapped Spector. "This is a number one song."
Spector was right. Along with the Beatles and the Motown sound, he saved rock and roll, which was in a tailspin in 1963-4 because of beach music, early bubble gum, and dweeby, shallow romance music. What came out of this revolution was a sexier, gutsier and yet much more adult emphasis (example: hear also the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964). The newer, harder sound wasn’t just for ‘tweens and couples necking after the high school prom. It was also for young women afraid of pregnancy and young men about to be drafted (which was universal in those days).
All of this has everything to do with Let It Be. Spector was tired of fighting. He had the resources to retire at a stupifyingly early age. But he was lured back, and I’m going to dare to speculate why. Because the messy tapes of the never-finished Get Back album were almost what he wanted to say, close enough to be pushed through editing and redubbing into an astonishing message: We’re adults now, and we never get all that we want."Oh, incidentally: The Beatles won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song Score in 1970 for the songs in the film. The Long and Winding Road was the Beatles’ 21st, and last, number one U.S. hit.
So I suggest that Let it Be is a brilliant, perhaps even prophetic album. It tells us that there is something cool – and perhaps cold -- about growing up. It’s a message heard in Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel (released in January, 1970) and again in Hotel California by the Eagles.
Let It Be was the first adult rock and roll album. It provided a sound and a message for those 21 through 35. It’s targeted toward 21-year-old women who haven’t found a man they can trust, and for young men who were college seniors facing a trip to Vietnam. It’s about the difficulties of young adulthood, as presented by an historically unmatchable band itself breaking up as the members got into their late 20s. It states that youth has an end and middle age may be the beginning of genuine life. "Here Comes the Sun."
And it’s a hard message. The filmed arguments among the band members are painful to watch. The album tells us that many of us don’t make it "Across the Universe." Some of us die, perhaps even murdered as John Lennon was. Some of us never attain the love we try to produce and refine in dubbing a soundboard; we
may snap from such lovelessness (as Spector himself did; he’s serving time for murder). And it warns us that the inspiraton of the Muses is too powerful yet too fickle to be filmed – those Muses have the power to withdraw their gifts of inspiration, as they may have done at Twickenham.
Yes, there are sentimentalists who like Abbey Road as the best of the Beatles. The White Album and Revolver have fans, also. But Let It Be effortlessly jumps across the age barrier – it profoundly affected children aged 12 as well as adults in their mid-thirties – today it haunts many who weren't born yet at the time it was made. Such multi-generational impact may make it the best rock album ever released.
-- by the blog author
-- significant supporting information availabe at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be
This is one of your best blog posts ever.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I didn't really intend that comment as a criticism, at least not entirely. Although it's probably my least favorite of the post-1965 Beatles albums, I like 'Let It Be' a lot, and I like Spector's version much better than the lifeless 'Naked' reissue. My main point was that it's a noticeably different, considerably more sweetened sound than previous Beatles albums, and thus one instance where casual listeners might pick up on the presence of a different producer. In hindsight I probably should've gone with "sugar-coating" rather than the more loaded "saccharine," but then we might not have gotten this excellent, thought-provoking post. So all things considered, I guess I'm glad to have offended. Thanks for writing this.
ReplyDeleteIra, there's something I didn't in include in my review of "Let It Be" because I can't prove it logically. It has to do with the Greek Muses, those spirits of inspiration who gather around us (especially when we are practicing our art) and inspire us. They can also withdraw their inspiration when they are offended.
ReplyDeleteLet us suppose, just to get to the bottom of this, that the model of the Greek Muses is FIGURATIVELY TRUE for artists. Then these sources of inspiration would have been furious at being filmed -- and the 1969 soundstage retakes for what would become "Let It Be" were indeed filmed (I think we see some of this footage in the 1995 Anthology biography).
Filming it made them fight each other -- and THAT was what was caught on film rather than inspiration itself. This finished the job Lennon wanted to do in breaking up the Beatles (as he said to a journalist in 1968).
It took an outsider, Spector, to put this all together. Yes, Spector made it sweeter, but it is a bittersweet, adult sweetness, not a "Love Me Do" or "I Want To Hold Your Hand" sweetness.
Spector himself paid a terrible price for snatching art out of the mess made by the Muses. He never found love for himself, though he produced that sound for others. In the very long run,he murdered a call girl!